Well, good morning, good evening. I mean, not good morning. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
I'm sure glad you were willing to come out on a nice, bright, sunny day
like this. We appreciate your attendance. It's really important in the process to be able
to get some public input, but there's a public hearing on the Issaquah studio lofts
and the Issaquah Middle School sports field lighting revision is just gonna be a discussion,
so... With that, we have some administrative things that we need to do and
then we'll get started. The first thing we have to do is approve some minutes
of the September 20, 2017 meeting, our last meeting. So
anybody have any comments on that or a motion? Mr. Chair, I move we
approve the minutes of the September 20, 2017 meeting. Second.
Great. We have a motion made and seconded. Any comments? All
those in favor of accepting the minutes as offered, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay.
Ms. Lohman, any? No, I'm ready.
Lucy Sloman Land Development Manager. I'm just going to do our quasi-judicial
discussion before we begin. As you probably know, site development
permits in central Issaquah are triggered by buildings
over a certain size. Dan will speak to this more, but at this point, this
permit is now a site development permit. which because you are the decision maker is
a quasi-judicial proceeding and so I'm going to go through a little description
and the questions just to set the framework for a quasi-judicial proceeding. So
quasi-judicial means that it will be like a court, that the
proceedings have to both be fair and a peer fair. And to do that we
consider both procedural due process and substantive due process. Procedural due
process means that the process we use, such as notices, where we can have
communication, how we communicate, has to all take place out in the open. And
substantive due process means that we, the substance that we use to make a decision
upon is based on adopted regulations.
So I'd ask that you read through the questions up on the screen and then
I'll ask you some questions after you've read them.
So how many commissioners answer no to all the questions? Any
commissioners answer yes? Okay. And then, so
as I mentioned, all the communications have to take place here and out in the
open. And so ex parte conversations are ones about this permit that may have taken
place at some other time or location. Have any ex parte communications occurred
related to this permit? Okay. Does anyone want to challenge any
of the members of the commission who are participating this evening? Great, thank
you, all done. Oh, excuse me, Dan?
Yes. Before we get started, I forgot to mention that if anybody would like to
make public comments, we would like you to sign in in advance of that. There's
a sign-in clipboard right on the table here, so please step up to the plate
and sign your name, and we'd love to hear from you. So excuse me, sorry.
That's all right. And the one thing I would say is if you're signing it,
the top sheet would be for the Gilman Lofts project. Super.
Thank you so much, sir. If you would just use the second one then if
you're here to speak about the middle school.
Okay, thank you so much. I didn't label them, apologies.
Great, well my name is Dan Martinez. I'm an assistant planner with the development
services department and going to be discussing the site development permit for
the Issaquah Lofts proposal. The property is located
at 160 Northwest Gilman Boulevard.
Interstate 90 is located to the north. The Pogacha Restaurant is located
east. And the East Lakes and Mammonish Trail is located just
directly west of the property.
The applicant seeking to create studio lofts
that would serve as business incubators to help contribute to our community and with the
hopes of encouraging new Issaquah-based businesses.
The applicant will be providing both short-term and long-term leases to
vendors, small businesses, and startups. The building
itself is going to be four stories, measuring 47,043
square feet. The first floor would be 2,500 square
feet of construction. ground level retail, and then the three stories above that
would be the workspace lofts.
There is some background to this project. It was originally approved under an
administrative site development permit. The administrative site development permit is ASDP 15.
dash 0002 and it was issued on August 27th of 2015.
That ASDP accounted for a currently under construction 88,000
square foot self storage building, one 12,000 square foot Les Schwab
tire center and associated site improvements. Now
the reason that we're here in front of the Development Commission today
is that the Central Issaquah Development Design Standards
require that anything within 45,000 and 100,000 square feet
of a building be approved administratively. Anything over 100,000 square feet
would be approved under a site development permit and would require the Development Commission's approval.
The Les Schwab Tire Center was eliminated from the proposal
and the Issaquah Loft was put in its place. So that bumps us up
in the square footage to approximately 135,000 and necessitated
a development commission approval. The one
item that I think is important to discuss now is that
the self-storage facility is
near completion. That is already, it's
close to TC of O and its associated improvements
have already been constructed as well. So we're really gonna be looking at
the Ezequiel Law's proposal.
As far as procedures go, we issued a new MDNS
to account for the increased parking.
That was issued on February 23rd, 2018. and then we also have sent out
all the required public notices. Now,
there's still a moratorium in place for the central Issaquah
planning area. One of the unique things about this project is that it
is, the applicant entered into a development agreement with the city,
in May of 2017. And development agreements are exempt
from the city's moratorium by ordinance and by
a stipulation in the development agreement itself.
The review of this project is being phased, so please don't close the meeting at
the end. The primary focus of this meeting is to discuss
the architecture of the building and get feedback and
questions from the commissioners and the public. We would be addressing those
questions at our next meeting scheduled for Wednesday, April 18th.
And at that time, we will also be discussing some of the
exterior components of the building, primarily related to the pedestrian experience,
so the circulation and the public plazas that are part of this project.
So again, those will be discussed at the next meeting.
I do want to start out by discussing the development agreement
It was created as a transportation partnership between the city and the
applicant. The applicant wanted to move forward with this
lofts project, but there was a moratorium in place and the city
had identified this Gilman Boulevard and
Northwest Juniper Street intersection as a
So the components of the development agreement would be
that not only would the applicant be responsible for constructing his
building, but that he would be responsible for providing a traffic signal at this
intersection. There would also be some pedestrian
improvements provided. I was just out at the site earlier this
week and crossings here currently cannot
happen. So now there would be pedestrian crossings here and
there would be a four-way signal here.
The development agreement was included in the packet. It's included as
Exhibit B. And it designates
review to the Development Commission for urban design, architectural fit,
trail engagement, and a bus stop.
One thing that I'm going to be seeking your guidance on
this evening is related to the bus stop.
As of today, we haven't received much information
from the applicant with regards to their conversations with Metro,
I believe that at this point they have reached out to Metro. The
development agreement requires that the bus stop be discussed during the
land use permit phase. So what I've done here is, conditioned
the project to move forward beyond the land use permit and to continue those
conversations with Metro through the construction permit phases. And that's a choice you would get
to make with that condition.
As far as trail engagement, that's another area in which we have felt that
we would like to see more information. And that's one of the reasons that
that portion of the conversation is being deferred to the
April 18th hearing, because at that time the applicant has indicated that he's going to
be prepared to provide more information.
So again, since the project is located within the Central Issaquah Plan area,
it is subject to review against the Central Issaquah Development and Design Standards, or the
CIDDS. There is a more complete analysis of the
project's compliance provided in a checklist. That checklist has been included
in the packet as Exhibit D. And the
CIDDS was compared against the plan set provided by the applicant.
Plans were dated March 9th, 2018. And those are also included in your package as
Exhibit G. Before I
get further along, I do wanna note that that,
Development and design standards that cover the same subjects such as circulation,
landscaping, those are going to be included in one discussion.
So I wanna start with chapter four, zoning districts uses and standards.
And the reason that I want to call your attention to this is because the
proposal currently exceeds the base floor area ratio of 1.25.
It's approximately 1.33, which triggers a density
bonus. The proposal also
exceeds the base, which also triggers a density bonus.
And then lastly, the the Bill 2
line has not been clearly identified on the plans, but there was a deviation permitted
under the ASDP. And that ASDP runs with the land, so
it continues on to this project as well.
As for the density bonus program,
the purpose of the density Bonus program is to allow additional building square footage in
exchange for public benefits, both mandatory and elective.
The process to increase the base floor area ratio, or FAR,
is through a fee for open space or affordable housing. There is a
calculation done, gross floor area, divided by the developable site area,
and that gives us our FAR, 1.33. So the
project has been conditioned. The applicant would be
required to provide density bonus program fees at building permit
issuance. The base height may be increased to 54
feet to accommodate additional first floor height of at least 15 feet.
Currently, the project plans demonstrate a 15-foot tall first floor and therefore
complies.
So on the matter of existing and new circulation facilities, I want to first talk
about one of the
components of the development agreement, which is King County participation. This,
if you follow my mouse cursor here, the East Lakes and Mammon's Trail
is a county-owned trail, and the
proposed signal improvements would require an access easement
from the county. So
as part of that, it's important to recognize that what's being proposed today is still
pending with the county. So the staff has met with the county
and the intent moving forward is that the city would enter into an
agreement with the county to gain that access easement. The county did seem
supportive of the project, but that process still needs to move forward and that goes
to the City Council.
As far as existing facilities, the non-motorized
facilities are highlighted in blue here. It's an existing sidewalk
along Gilman Boulevard and then the existing trail here.
The existing motorized facilities are depicted in red. Currently,
the access is taken through the Pagacha site.
It's a ride in and ride out only
currently. This image here
depicts four different things since it's in Currently under construction, we
have existing motorized. This drive entry has already been constructed as
part of the storage lofts building. Proposed motorized would be the signal
improvement, which would allow access by both left turn and right turn.
Existing non-motorized is this light blue depicted here, and that's the trail. And
then proposed non-motorized is a connection here between the trail
and the project site, which will include a plaza. There's also a plaza
being proposed next to the trail here, so the two plazas total.
As far as one of the elements of circulation is block length
and through passages, the requirement is that
blocks not exceed 300 feet. In this particular instance, the block does exceed 300
feet. However, in consideration of the I-90 located just
north of the site, there would be no through
to, there's nothing to get to.
Touching again on the development agreement, both the city, the
trafficked, the city through its own plans,
The traffic impact study provided by the applicant and the SEPA MDNS
all identified that a signal improvement in this area here would be
superior to what was originally being proposed, which would be a C-curb.
Access would still be taken, I believe here.
Is that right, Doug? with the C-curb?
Yes. So you would still be restricted by accessing the site through a write-in,
write-out only. The traffic signal was then
approved by the City Council under the development agreement because it was a superior design.
So I did mention that Trail connectivity and pedestrian circulation would be
discussed further at the next meeting. One of the reasons I want
to discuss it here now is because a lot of the public
comments that we have received have been in relation to the
shared use routes, particularly as it pertains to trail connectivity. Currently, the, our,
Internal GIS demonstrates the East Lakes and Mammish Trail,
the Rainier Trail, and the Juniper Trail as shared use routes.
This is the trail as the East Lakes and Mammish Trail as it exists today.
This is some of the amenities provided along the trail. We have two
benches and a kiosk. So again, with the development agreement, the
applicant would be constructing additional amenities.
And I'm gonna move into community space.
So here what the applicant is showing is that
plaza area or those amenities that would be provided along the East Lake Sammamish Trail.
We're currently depicting three trellises and three benches
and some bicycle parking.
Beyond that, there would be a link here, a pedestrian path
and a crosswalk connecting to the plazas directly in front of
the building. These buildings will have primary
entrances facing Gilman. So immediately crossing
into the project site, there would be the plaza as well as the
primary entrances of the building.
In this aerial image here, the applicant is proposing
several of the elements required for plazas, including some
landscaping, a water feature, bicycle parking, and again, the
primary entrances face both the plaza and Gilman Boulevard.
As conditions, One of the things that we
are conditioning is pedestrian-scale lighting and special paving across this
crosswalk here to identify the pedestrian priority.
Another element that we've discussed internally
and would want your feedback on, how you feel about it, would be
raising this crosswalk as well. it would be approximately 10 feet
wide and raising it would provide even a greater
level of pedestrian prominence.
For parking, I want to call your attention to the to the blue line
here, which depicts the roof of the building, which means
that you'd have the majority of the parking for the building underneath.
This would be considered
structured parking, which is one of the goals of the Central Issaquah Plan.
applicant would also be providing bicycle parking.
This image here is a view from the Pogaccia site to some of the
under building parking that would be located
here.
Another unique thing about this project is that because We don't have a news like
this in the city. It's not identified in the table of permitted uses. So the
applicant did provide a parking analysis by Transportation Solutions, Inc.
That traffic analysis did a study of two existing
work loft sites within the region and they came up with with these
figures here, now the city has accepted their analysis.
They determined that the commercial retail, this is identified in our
parking standards, would require two spaces per thousand square feet and the
studio lofts at 200 units, which is not what they're proposing. I believe that it's
150.
But that 200 units would require approximately 50 spaces.
With a 15% buffer, you would need nine additional
spaces. And then the total would
be 64 spaces. However, the applicant is proposing 71
spaces, which is supplementary to what's required.
Based on some of the other identified parking issues with the site,
I don't believe that all 71 spaces for vehicles will be constructed.
Bicycle parking, there are two elements to the bicycle
parking here. Under the ASDP, a reduction of bicycle parking
was permitted based on the use of a Les Schwab Tire Center.
However, with this new application, if we have work lofts and retail spaces, we
expect that those uses would have more bicycle traffic.
So we are eliminating that reduction with this proposal and
asking the applicant to comply with our bicycle parking standards.
In addition to that, the original plans for the development agreement did demonstrate a 317
square foot bicycle locker. The bicycle locker was eliminated with
this proposal. We are conditioning the project to have that locker
put back in. In addition to that,
All non-residential uses containing 20 or more parking spaces are required to
provide motorcycle parking. This has not been demonstrated, so it has also been conditioned that
that will need to be included with the construction permits. Loading
spaces were also not identified on the plans, and we've
already expressed this concern to the applicant. I believe he has drawn up plans to
demonstrate that loading spaces will be provided. The site requires a minimum of
two. I believe they intend to construct one, and we are still in
discussions about the use of
loading spaces at the self-storage facility.
So with landscaping, this includes tree density, tree retention,
and tree replacement. Under the ASDP, tree retention was reduced
and many of the trees on the site have already been removed.
The ASDP includes condition 15, which is being carried over and slightly modified.
here, and I do want to read it here even though it's available because I
think it's important to be clear about what the applicant is gonna be required to
do. In order to mitigate for the reduction in tree retention as approved under ASTP
15-0002 and to meet the minimum tree density for the lot,
replacement trees must be provided at a rate of five trees per 5,000 square feet
of developable site area per section 10.13 and 10.14 of the
CIDDS. Tree retention, tree density, and tree replacement
will be reviewed as part of the site work and landscape permits. Further, the exact
number and location of all trees and landscaping shall be determined with the site work
and landscape permits. The applicant is required to provide trees on or off-site
or pay a fee in lieu of the City Tree Fund per Section 10.14 of
the CIDDS. One of the
elements that gets a little tricky with this is that the
landscape permit for the storage facility is currently being reviewed.
as part of getting their TCO and final certificate of
occupancy. Through that process, we've
identified the number of trees required for the
self-storage building and the number of trees that would then be required for
the lofts building. They are moving forward, I believe, that they've come
to an understanding of how trees are going to be addressed
on the self-storage building site. A lot of the trees were planted in as part
of mitigation for a wetland buffer that's located
just behind the storage facility. There are several
constraints with regards to planting trees on the self-storage site.
One of those constraints is that there is a proposed water
line easement of 10 feet wide located at the back
of the site or the north of the site so that no trees would be
allowed to be planted there. And I believe that this was an
area in which they had proposed to originally have several trees that
the waterline easement eliminated all of that. There's
also some constraints with planting along the East Lakes and Mammonish Trail. When we met
with the county parks department, they indicated
that no trees may be planted within 15 feet of the edge of the pavement.
So that eliminated another area for the applicant to plant trees.
Currently there are trees being proposed near
the entrance of the project as well as in the plaza area.
And we have had discussions about potential offsite locations for tree planting.
Okay, so chapter 18 is actually a new chapter of the
CIDDS.
It was the, oh, I'm sorry.
Here we go. So the The design manual was adopted by
the city council in December of 2017. The applicant and the city entered
into the development agreement in May 2017, which meant
that the applicant used a draft version of
the design manual when they started implementing the design manual.
the design of their project. This was allowed by the development agreement was that they
would use what was available to them at the time. So even though the final
was adopted in December, we are using a
draft dated July
20th, 2017. So the The design manual identifies
traditional Issaquah, urban core, and traditional Issaquah as well.
With these designations in mind, the applicant chose to go
with the arts and crafts style as provided in the design manual.
This is characterized by moderate to steep pitched gables and hip roofs,
multiple gables, asymmetrical composition, boxy bases,
combinations of rustic brick, stucco stone or shingle cladding,
prominent stone chimneys, although none are proposed, and arched entryways
and decorative window, I don't know how to
say that word. Mollion? Okay, thank you.
So an analysis is provided in the staff report
and to a great extent the project does comply with both the architectural standards for
the arts and crafts style and the urban design guidelines. Nonetheless, some of the details
which do not comply have been conditioned and I will also discuss those in subsequent
slides. The objective of
massing, and these are some images that are provided with the design manual.
The objective is to integrate simple block-like or bar shapes with multiple pointed
roof forms. We've determined that the project complies.
The objective for scale is that building should not exceed five floors or span longer
than 200 feet. At its longest point, the building
measures approximately 174 feet and it would be four
stories, so we've determined that it complies.
for the use of materials. I'm getting a little
happy with the mouse, I'm sorry.
We've determined here that the project complies
with a condition, so the objective is to use durable and natural materials to portray
a sense of weight and strong connection to the earth. These are examples provided in
the design manual of something that would be appropriate. This is an example
of something that would be considered inappropriate given the use of more
than three materials. So the condition 17 requires that the building
be revised to only include three materials or styles by
eliminating one of the simulated wood styles. Doors and
windows inserted into the brick ground floor shall have contrasting stone surrounds
or lintels.
And this is where the windows and doors come in.
Again, condition 17 would apply. And these are all examples of things that would
be appropriate.
Continuing with materials, roof and color, the objective for a roof is
materials must not be dominating characteristic of the buildings, selected materials that complement
facade colors. For color, it's used colors and material palettes that complement and fit
in with Issaquah's natural environment of hillsides and creeks. We've determined that both
comply. These are photos
included in the design manuals of things. Do you have the color board? I do
have the color board. Can we hand that to them to look at it this
time?
Thank you.
Again, these are images provided in the design manual of elements that would be
appropriate. And this is the material sample that the applicant
has provided. And then our material and color board is also making its
rounds through the commission.
For urban design, natural context and compatibility, here we determined
that natural context does not apply
because the criteria for natural context standards were not
determined until later drafts of the manual
and were not established with this draft here that we're using.
With regards to compatibility, buildings must be good neighbors. Each building shall blend
in rather than stand out. The overall composition of each district is more important than
the design of an individual building. We believe that it complies. There's
the colors and the materials chosen blended well with the environment. They're not
looking to stand out in any particular way.
Contrast, buildings of importance may be more distinguished and set apart from other less significant
buildings. We've also determined that this complies.
Lastly, with regards to urban design, one condition that
we've added is that the building shall be revised to have 70%
transparency on the retail portion of the buildings and 75%
weather protection on the required facades. The plans
that we've received didn't, I don't believe that we were able to really make
a determination with regards to transparency and weather protection, so we've
included those as conditions. And then I want
to, and that's it for my presentation, but what I do
wanna do before I hand it over is first
ask how the commission would like to ask to have
the design manual addressed in the future? Do you feel that it lends
itself to being part of the discussion the way that we've presented it, meaning that
it just kind of blends in with the CIDDS review, or is there something else
that you'd be looking for? Commissioners?
I did like the way that you had the different I mean the conditions up
there and then said it complies or doesn't comply that helps us kind of understand
that. I'm not sure how else we could do other than seeing the checklist and
going through it one by one, which would be tedious.
Okay. Yeah, I think in My objective was
to try and make it easy and for those elements that didn't comply, I wanted
to be clear that there were conditions added to ensure compliance
at the construction permit phase. I'm not worried about it being easy, I'm worried
about it being relevant and the city and the developed commission has spent a lot
of time coming up with that new design manual so I'd like it to be,
continue to be, matter of fact, perhaps even more connected in the
presentations. I mean, it's really, in my opinion, it's extremely relevant. And the more
involvement of that document in our proceedings, as far as I'm concerned, the better.
This is fine. The format's fine. But more information for the future.
I'm not going to get a percentage of more information. And I just think that
we need to, if we're going to make the decision, as far as I'm concerned,
the more we refer to the design manual, the better. Okay. Yeah, I
would agree with Commissioner Harrison. I think that the value of the time that we
spend on the design manual is really being redeemed and being able to show what
what is consistent and what isn't consistent, especially the inconsistencies. Those are the ones that
we struggled with before, and so having a clear text idea of what we're looking
for was really valuable. I appreciate it. Okay, great, thank you.
At some point I'd like to be able to pull up the entire manual if
you can. I don't know if this is appropriate time or not, but I think
we, all the commissioners should have that in front of them every time we do
this, but I think it would also be helpful for the public to have each
of those pages pulled up showing the whole page with all the photos, with all
the information, and going through that so that everybody can see, yes, this does or
doesn't. So I would agree that we, it's a critical part of what we're doing.
It's the toolbox we've built and instead of just a one-by-one a few
bullet points, I would rather look at the whole document and go through it completely.
OK. Would it be helpful to just incorporate that document
into the presentation, meaning just everything is spelled out? Or would
you think it'd be more helpful to just have the document itself open?
I mostly think that it could be helpful. Would you be able, if we have
time, if you can pull it up? Sure. At this point, just to take a
look at one page for an example? Absolutely. So what I'm kind of envisioning from
what you're saying, Mel, it's good timing because we're in the process of hiring a
consultant to create the manual. And I'm also interested in them working with us
on a form. So, you know, I think that the checklist as an overview, the
one that's included in the manual, is a great... as an overview, but there's obviously
a lot of detail that's included on each page that you somehow want to
capture how you've gone through that. And what I'm hearing is,
because as I looked at it, as we were working on it, there's maybe
six pages for an architectural style, and then it's a transparency
page and an entries. you maybe have 10, 12 pages out of the manual
that are the specific ones that would have applied to this project, for instance. And
so I'm almost seeing you, your suggestion being going down through each appropriate, you know,
each one that's appropriate and each one that's not appropriate and maybe having a,
complies, sort of, you know, it's got issues, you got to do a condition or
doesn't apply. And so that you can actually see the whole page at the same
time. Is that kind of what you're suggesting? That's exactly thinking, like right here where
we have now so that you could just go through that page. Just what you
said, Lucy, when I was going through this, I was reading each one of those
bullet points to say, I feel what they've done fits appropriate and
what they've done is not any of the inappropriate. Right. So what we had done
was put all the language in there. But I take your point, which is that
having the images there is really an important part of explaining that. And if you
separate the two, then you're missing part of the total package of what you're
evaluating. Yeah, because those images were a big important part of it too. Yeah, absolutely.
And I agree with you that the chart that they came up with, the checklist,
really is just a submarine. Okay. And this would be the detailed checklist. Okay. I
have a question. Would it be, will it be
possible, is it part of the plan now? And if not, could it be possible
for there to be a summary like this of every decision that the Development
Commission makes that basically shows whatever we use in
the process, that if a member of the public wants to go in and say,
I'd like to know what that final decision was based on, for example.
To just have the relevant parts of the design manual on a public
document that they could go in and say the lofts and pull it up and
say the decision was made on April 18th to approve and here's
how they base their decision against the new design manual.
I'd love to be able to tell people that ask me about stuff, go on
the website and you can see how we made our decision. So I'm just
throwing stuff out. I didn't mean to sidetrack this. Well, you know, when you go
to the homepage of the city, we have actually
added a banner on the left that says new development, which takes you straight to
the active projects page map, so that, and then you can just click on a
property and an information thing opens and then you click one more time and you
can see, well, not every land use document that's associated with, but a lot of
the key ones, and I'm pretty sure the notice of decision is part of that.
So it seems like what you're asking is that either as part of the notice
of decision or as a separate document just to make it easy to
access it, that you would be able to see that document that kind of
evaluation that Mr. Morgan and I were discussing. Okay. So like the document would have
just the relevant portions of the design manual that. Right, because there's a lot of
repetition between each of the styles, and so unless they're using multiple styles,
we may need some backup pages to explain the conditions or how we're
understanding the evaluation, but I think that's a great suggestion. And then,
go ahead. I said, then I think it makes it better for the applicant, the
developer too, if like this was just a checkbox, yes, no, condition, breach of these
items, appropriate, inappropriate, they can go through as they're planning something out and say, yes,
we've hit all these bullet points. Go to staff, if staff says, no, I don't
think you have, then that discussion can go back and forth. Right. Even before we
get it, and hopefully by the time it comes here. they're all yeses or conditions.
Right, or doesn't apply. Or doesn't apply, right. So just thinking out loud, and we're
kind of going on a tangent here, but hopefully we'll get back on track. But
trying to integrate what Commissioner Harrison is saying and what Commissioner Morgan is saying is,
I mean, the basis for the decisions that we make is the information that we're
provided in the staff report and the attachments and exhibits. So I'm wondering
if there's a way, and I know before the meeting started, we were talking about
paper versus electronic, but it seems like there may be a way to integrate in
links into the appropriate elements of the design manual to the staff
report on that particular section. So you're not linking the whole thing, but if you
could link in the appropriate pieces, so then while you're reviewing it, you can
link and look at the appropriate pages or standards. And the public would have quick
access to instead of having to go back to the whole document and find what
you're looking for to match it up with that particular project. So I mean, there's
some ways to make this a little bit more efficient for everybody. Reproducing paper makes
it a little more challenging when you have links in your documents. But that being
said, it seems like there may be some ways to really integrate in these new
design requirements into the documents that we're looking at in front of us at the
meeting. Well,
thanks. Yeah, thank you. So this is the first project that's come to the Development
Commission using the design manual. So any way that we can, your suggestions on how
we can improve on our presentation of it, it's all appreciated.
Before I wrap up, I do want to
provide some information responses to some comments that we've
received since the issuance of the staff report.
This is something that I, did I just lose my present?
Okay, here we go. This is something that I
discussed with Lucy earlier today. We have received comments. I personally find it,
beneficial to everybody, to the commission and to the
public to try and address some of these comments now. And then that way, if
the public has any follow-up questions with my responses
in mind, then I think it makes for a more efficient conversation. First, I
one of the concerns raised was access to the design manual.
So this was linked in the staff report.
I recognize now that if you're not looking at an electronic version,
then you don't know where the link goes, right? So I
apologize for that. The
document is provided both on the city's website, so I have it
pulled up here. If you go to issaquahwa.gov backslash
urban design, the final, the adopted document
is provided here.
A slow loader. Yeah, it's a slow loader, but it is there. And we are
currently working with a consultant to kind of
clean it up. And the text isn't changing, but the presentation of the document
will change. And that's why it's not provided under the Document Center for now.
There was a question about the parking analysis and comparable uses.
Generally, technical reports are not included as exhibits, but I have
made that document available to the commissioners,
and I'm happy to provide it to any member of the public who would like
to take a look at that. The material and color board.
has been presented the design manual color wheel. It wasn't
included in this draft report,
but I believe that hopefully we've addressed your questions on that with
regards to. It would be helpful to have the one that Lucy sent in the
email. So not just the general color wheel, but the one that shows the allowed
colors. So go back to the thing you just opened online. Okay.
The slow loader? Oh, here we go. You just passed it right there. Yeah. So
just, Dan, the thing that it's added that outer ring that shows earth tones? Yes.
That's the difference between the one you had. Okay. That was a very last minute
thing. Okay. And as I understand it, the only colors allowed are the
earth tones and not the hue. Right, I think
tints and tones, so I think that,
brain's very full, I gotta get back there. I believe that tints and
tones and the out, so the inner ring, the sort of inner middle ring and
the outer ring are the ones that are allowed. Right. of that segment of the
wheel. Right. Right. Thank you. In general, and
then the point that we had made in the email was that certain
colors are associated with certain styles. So not everything that's an earth
tone or a tint. Accent colors. Well, like some styles are, you know,
olive, it doesn't say earth tones, it says, white creams and olives
or something like that. So that would be from the color page. Does that make
sense? Yes. Okay. And then lastly,
comments that we received from the public, again, was access to the design manual and
the DA. The design manual, the final version of it, is available on the city's
website. The DA was not included on the city's website. I've worked
with the clerk's office to make sure that that got included on the city's document
center. And I just wanted to mention that I, in digging through my
box from working on the design manual, I mean, as I mentioned, all of you
you save your old copies, would have paper. I had several copies, so if anyone
is interested, I have some paper copies of the July 20th version that you are
welcome to take home this evening. Okay. The use of
not applicable, I believe
the context of this comment was that
I think there's some concern that staff would use not applicable as a way to
dismiss the issue. So I think some feedback from you on how to approach
that in the future would be helpful. In
this case, there was the issue of natural context. Again, natural context was not
included in the July design manual, so that's
why it did not apply. Trees,
again, this has been included as a condition.
Whether DC has jurisdiction over technical issues, this
has been brought up and the development agreement identifies
the extent of the applicant's responsibility with regards to the construction
of the traffic signal.
Again, critical area plantings. Please require that the site to
appropriately integrate with the natural surroundings described in the staff report. The
critical area plantings were again located on the northwest
corner of the site behind the storage building.
It is unclear how the plaza is a place of arrival and celebration. Again, this
is something that staff is excited to talk to you about for the next time.
The applicant has committed to providing more information to us on that.
come back on the 18th and provide both the briefing response memo and a discussion
about the plazas and the trail connections. But that's it for me. If you have
any questions, I'm happy to answer them now. Otherwise, I'll hand it over to the
applicant. Okay, I'd like to hear from the commissioners first and then we'll open it
up for some public input. Do you want to get the applicant presentation? Does the
applicant have a presentation to make? Let's go for it. Sorry. Is there a particular
slide that you... No, I just have a few comments to make.
Okay. Yes, please, and state your name, and for the record, we'd help.
Thank you. My name is Bob Power, and I represent ISL, excuse me, and also
am a employee at Seacon, located here in Isquah. And this is not
our first project in Esquire, and our offices are here. And I really do appreciate
Lucy and Dan putting up with us trying to get this project through. It's been
an uphill battle for all of us. But I think at the end of the
day, the improvements that are going to go into Gilman and the connections to the
trail are a benefit to all of us in the community. The development agreement eventually
did pass City Council 7-0. I think it shows the support that, and really I
don't think we had any negative feedback as it related to getting the development done
and agreement done and to go through the change from a
tire store to the work loft. Just a couple points, and I think Dan did
a great job in presenting, and I don't have these in any necessary order. They
were just things I wrote down as Dan made the presentation. One of them, you
guys talked a little bit about color. For the record,
the approved colors under the ASDP for the self-storage were completely different than the
colors you see on the finished product today. And that came about, we were involved
in, per the development agreement, if the development standards were not in place, we were
required to meet with the architects, if I have it correctly, the architects'
guidelines. I'm not sure exactly the terms in the development agreement. We met with the
architect who was responsible for crafting the guidelines. And when those new guidelines came
out, we had a different design for the exterior appearance of the
building that changed dramatically under the new guidelines. Really didn't change the footprint, parking, any
of those sort of things, but it did change the look. And we were literally
days away from ordering the materials for the exterior of the self-storage and worked, and
staff was very cooperative. We were able to come up with a color palette for
the self-storage, we were able to convince the owner of that project that it would
be better to have this project work in concert with the self-storage. And so
the colors that you see on the self-storage today, which we can't change now, are
compatible, I hope, with what your outcome is relative to this building.
An important thing on the development agreement, the requirement under the original ASDP was right
in, right out, out of Pogaccia's. And if you guys have ever experienced going in
and out of Pogaccia's, it's dangerous as it is today. We actually work closely with
all the businesses in the area to make sure that when we came up with
a solution and the traffic signal and the right in, right out will stay in
front of Pogaccia's and it will be supplemented by the intersection that, and the
four-way intersection that we're putting in. And I'm bouncing around a bit. One of the
big issues and why we qualify under this project of using our non-motorized fees towards
the construction of this is it solves a regional problem with the trail. Right
now, you would, at that intersection, you are supposed to go further to the west,
take the traffic signal, and loop back. And there's been a serious safety issue with
people trying to just cut across the road right in front of Gilman. And so
this has been supported by the trails people that we've reached out to in terms
of the final design, and that it helps link all the trails and the pedestrian
crossing into a safe intersection. The agreement, and I appreciate Dan pointing out
the limit of our responsibility under the development agreement, there remains a
logistical issue, I think would be a fair way to put it, at the intersection
of Juniper and Rainier on the south side of Gilman. And while we've coordinated that
with a signal that provides safe access onto Gilman, nobody yet has
prioritized whether Juniper or Rainier should get a priority, and we said, not our
battle. So that's kind of why our work ends with a signal on Gilman, and
that was all something that was negotiated as part of the development agreement. The bus
stop, we have reached out to King County, excuse me, Metro,
and we have a meeting scheduled, I believe, for next week to go through it
with them. There are two bus stops within a proximity where
they're not comfortable adding a third, but we're going to have dialogue with them about
whether it's appropriate to relocate some of the current current bus stops so that
they coordinate with the signal. And all I can tell you is that we will
cooperate fully with the city and metro on where's the best location for the bus
stop to function for the people. Trees and trails. Dan pointed out
there's a number of places where we can't put trees. We do have some other
properties. One actually located on Isquad Creek that we'd be happy to put more trees
on if it makes sense there. We will find a solution to the tree problem.
As a side note, I think a number of the conditions that Dan has pointed
out today, we do have the architect here today and we believe we have a
solution to almost all of them, if not all of them. We haven't provided them
formally. Have you provided them formally? No. We haven't provided them to formally yet. You'll
see them probably by the end of the week. So I think that we've been
able to identify those conditions.
Traffic and parking is a big one for us. You'll see that we are
slightly over parked on what the minimum is that our consultant came back with.
This is not a product type that we as a developer are candidly very familiar
with. It is a new concept. Our company is involved in a lot of self-storage
projects and this business model actually evolved from the self-storage industry where they had
people who are starting to use the self-storage as business locations. And so they have
predominately prominently or historically come out in more intense urban areas. And where that applies,
the parking counts are significantly lower. There are, I think, four of them in the
Ballard-Fremont area right now that are that are well under-parked beyond what
we have and still have tremendous vacancy. The two that we looked at outside that
we were requested by staff to look at, one was in Linwood and one was
in Renton. And the numbers that TSI generated were based upon those.
We're just a little conservative. We actually cut down the square footage of the building
a little bit to make sure that we felt confident that we were going to
be able to satisfy a suburban environment for the parking. Tree
bus stop. Colors. Unless you got anything for me,
those were the points I just wanted to bring out. And thank you for your
time. Thank you. Commissioners, comments? Mr. Chairman, a couple of
questions related to the parking since that was just mentioned. I thought we'd hear the
commissioners first. Do you want to or do you should? We can. You want to
go with the public first? Public first and then questions? Mr. Sanford, I'm going to
hold you off and we'll go with the public first. So if you sign in
to speak, would you please let me have the list and we'll call names and.
So you may want to check which ones are lighting and which ones are this
project.
Thanks, Doug. All right, this is the loft, and if you think you signed up
for the loft and I don't read your name, let me know and we'll get
you signed up, but Connie Marsh, you're first on the list.
I kind of had a hint. You had an inkling. Hi, my name's Connie Marsh.
As you all know, I live up on Squawk. So I did an
excruciating amount of reading with this, So
I'm gonna start with the DA and what the DA says
is appropriate. And so I followed the DA language which basically says that
Any draft or completed materials available from the city's consultant working on the
architectural review will be incorporated into the city's staff report and will be included in
the review by the development commission. So to me, because
we have our newest draft, that is the draft we should be using. We should
not be using something in March because this sort of clearly states
that you're supposed, if it's available, you're supposed to use the latest thing and that
is the latest thing. So under that assumption, then I read the architectural
manual again and I read the SIDS chapters that were appropriate
and then I dug out the county trail design and looked at the
city right of way and I started thinking,
dang, this is a missed opportunity. We have city right of way
in a blob right adjacent to the trail. And then we have the trail
and then we have the opportunity of a new development and access to the trail.
And I thought, okay, well that That's gonna be next week. We're gonna talk about
that next week, so I'm trusting we're gonna talk about that next week. And then
I went, but you know what? The whole thing in the SIDS is how reconnecting.
I just went through this excruciating visioning exercise again and it reiterated, all the lots
need to be connected. And I read the design manual again and it said, You're
supposed to connect, and these are the guidelines of the footage. And I'm going fore
and aft, which I'm going I-90 to Gilman is fore and aft to me. Doesn't
make sense because unless we're gonna get over under I-90 there, but Pogaccia
and the line of trees where the side of Pogaccia is basically looking at
your standard suburban cutoff, right? It is a parking garage with a line of
trees with no connection whatsoever. So fast forward 20 years and Pogaccia's going,
holy mother, I can retire, I can get $5.5 million for my parcel,
and now we've got something, something going on in the Pogaccia lot. And they're looking
at this. And to me that is the antithesis of what
we're trying to do with Central Issaquah. We are trying to create these shorter blocks
so people have easy access so that they can conveniently walk to where they want
to go and hopefully pleasurably. And I don't see that here. I see the
standard bonk, right, with no crosswise connection, especially pleasant.
And then I started saying, Man, the cars, the circulation, it's making
me crazy. So, it's a very small amount of retail in the bottom, so
why don't you scoochie the retail over to the side toward the trail, which is
really gonna be closer and more occupied than the pedestrians going down Gilman Boulevard, and
have a loop going through the parking garage that goes in on the right, So,
and then goes in through the parking garage and loops around the other way. So
any of the pedestrians that you have going through the parking lot are only gonna
be dealing with one-way traffic coming out of a parking garage, not oh my God,
I made the right turn off of Gilman and I'm going. And that's right where
you're gonna see pedestrians. So to me, the entire circulation, and this is not regional
circulation, this is just circulation within the unit, didn't make a whole lot of sense
to me. And then we got to the tree issue and I read the criteria
for when you should not have to keep trees on your parcel. And the
criteria don't say because you know we want our building that big. So,
I don't think you can just put your trees off site when you have opportunities
on site to put the trees. So then, because you can see I'm getting all
wired up right now and it's two o'clock in the morning, I look and I
see, oh my gosh, there's a ditch. The I-90 ditch. is right behind you and
I say what is the classification for the I-90 ditch? So then of course I
read the SEPA checklist and there is no consideration of the offsite water feature
of the I-90 ditch in the SEPA checklist which is a lack of information. They
don't say it's a ditch, they don't say it's a water body so of course
I called Fish and Wildlife because anymore, any flat land water body that you have
has the tendency to need to be classified and this ditch has not been classified
and this is the one that runs behind the post office that you all know
and then goes to Issaquah Creek. So we need to pop back and we need
to get the creek classified. because we don't know if that is a critical area
buffer at the back of the lot. I'm not saying it is, I'm just saying
you cannot go through without doing your diligence there. Now
fast forwarding to natural context. With the new version,
We have the map with 150 foot natural context area in the architectural and
review manual, which is on that exact cool corner where we're trying to create that
scrumptious interface of pedestrians and the front of a
building to activate our town and do what we wanna do. And so right now,
what I read was lawn and some trellises. And that is not the
verdant, multi-dimensional thing that I expect when you're looking at a regional trail in the
city of Issaquah that is surrounded by green. I expect something so
much better. So
I said all of that very quickly. And so I'm gonna end because I'll have
my opportunity for more next time on the whole pedestrian interface.
I guess we have two things. Next week, because of the piece of right of
way that I think the city could use and our parks department, who is an
integral part of this, and the conversation not just about one side of a road,
because Intersections don't work on one side of the road. You have to understand how
the whole intersection is gonna work to understand if this will be successful. I think
Public Works Engineering and the Parks Department and King County should all be in the
room so you all can ask questions and have them answered and they can hear
what people have to say. So far staff has really
not supported that idea but I am gonna push because I don't want Gateway and
Gateway Senior to happen ever again where we don't have the right parties in the
room and then we waste a lot of time. So that was only one, but
I spent a very long time on my one. So I'll save my next one
for next week, thanks. Thank you Connie. Mary Lynch.
My name is Mary Lynch and I'm recited at 2690 Northwest Oak Crest. I just
want to build on what Connie said and support what she had to say. The
other issue I'm really concerned is the whole intersection and how they're talking about moving
the trail crossing down to the intersection and my concern is right turns on red
and traffic honoring the pedestrians and we're gonna have, that's gonna be a high usage
trail and we need to make sure that it is a safe intersection. To support
what Connie said, I really think we need the city community, the developer, the
transportation, and public works all in a meeting sitting down, the community
included, checking on how that intersection is going to work. That may be downstream, but
I think that needs to happen. Thank you. David Kaplan.
Thank you, David Kappler, 255 Southeast Andrew Street. Welcome to the city, Dan.
And you've got an interesting project. I followed this a lot through the Land and
Shore Committee of the Council working on the development agreement with a lot of concern
about how we are interfacing bicycles, walkers, hikers, and
all the vehicles at that screwball five corner essentially intersection. And I think
good progress was made. The city's got some problems still to figure out on the
south side, but this development agreement and getting that signaled
is really good. To some... The trail comments, I guess, as Issaquah
Alps Vice President for Advocacy would be, let's make sure we're working with the City
Park Department and the county people and really getting a good consensus on how this
interface should happen with the trails, the three trails that come together at that point.
That trail is going to be a trail that people will be traveling for miles
and miles and miles, making huge big loops on the county series of
trails that are here and to the north. And they're gonna be coming to Gilman.
And how those high speed bicyclists have been on trails for a long time,
interface there, and then we're gonna have families with a couple or two or three
kids on little bikes going slow, they gotta interface correctly there, and then the walkers
and all. And needs to be really a great intersection visually
and safety-wise, so let's keep working on that. We better do better than
my favorite, unfavorite, is that tunnel under the
They're proposing our building under the buildup roundabout at Southeast
62nd, just north of this project. More as a citizen, a few comments.
There's a box shown between the two buildings on the Gilman side. I don't understand
what that box is. Looks like I don't know. It just
looks funny, but anyway. Bike lockers, if this were one company having the whole thing,
you might not need bike lockers so much, but we're gonna be talking about lots
of different companies, lots of different people coming through this building. That's the whole idea
of it. I think the actual having lockers for people's bikes to protect would be
worth it. There's a lot of money invested in a good quality bike, and I
think they're worthy of the lockers. Trees.
I've spoken before in lots of times against cottonwood trees. That's the main tree to
the north and we cannot count on those trees to be there forever. We don't
want them over cars. We don't want them over where people are. They are a
problem tree. Let's make sure we get the trees figured out. It's frustrating to me
about the 10 foot of no trees at the back there for a water line
and I assume that water line's not gonna get torn up very often.
It wouldn't want to tear up landscaping. If that water line easement could be moved
a little bit south so we could still have trees to the north of the
water line would be my preference. Connie mentioned the ditch.
It's an interesting, through there, a lot of it is in bad shape, but then
you get over at the northwest corner of the storage building, where the county,
next to the county trail, and they got spruce trees growing in the water. They
got a lot of willow trees, and it's really quite nice. So there's a possibility
of having appropriate trees and taking advantage of some of those wet areas.
and having something that's more permanent for the long term than cottonwood trees.
One thing that we're using the draft manual, now Connie quoted, I heard some different
language, but if they were allowed to use the draft manual, and then we're gonna
say, you use the draft manual, but now we're gonna condition you to bring you
up to the final manual, it sounds, I hope they will
accept those conditions, but if they had an agreement to do the draft
manual and now using then the city trying to use conditions to bring them up
to the latest version, let's make sure we have full
agreement there and they go along with those conditions. I guess it'd be, I think
when somebody has one agreement, this development agreement took for a long time, it was
a lot of work, a lot of council time, a lot of citizen time, Let's
make it work, thank you. Thank you, George McGrath.
Honorable commissioners, my name is George McGrath. I reside at 5657
229th Avenue Southeast. And I'm here not to comment on the lofts directly, I'm here
to comment that I'm a new citizen in the city of Issaquah, and I've been
here approximately a year, and I wanted to attend this meeting to understand the process.
And coming from California here, I've noticed a similar, a lot of remarkable
things that have mirrored what, I was in the private sector in California.
I was subject to CEQA on all of my projects. The CEQA process in California
is extremely intense. And as a consequence, in listening to the direction that
the commission is going in and the strategy to develop a checklist,
as a citizen of Issaquah, I support that. The CEQA process in California is strictly
driven by a checklist and you either pass or fail. And so there are parameters
and there are conditions without no doubt. But I support the checklist. I think
based on Connie's comments, I think that checklist has the ability to be expanded
on a limited basis to cover like the ditch next to I-90 because those would
be other conditions that may or may not be following the draft document or the
final document for design. So those are a few comments I just wanted to make
and I appreciate the opportunity to be a citizen here and also to communicate to
the commission. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other members of the public that
wish to comment? Okay, how about commissioners?
Comments? Mr. Commissioner, I have a few. I understand that we're going to, next week,
we're going to get more into a specific area of it, but I just have
a couple things that I'd like to mention that may be related to what we're
gonna do next week so we can consider it. First is, the light at the
intersection is the current state light traffic light
system on Gilman Boulevard at least theoretically synchronized?
So we have an intelligent traffic system. I don't know.
It's somebody else's label. I'm repeating it. So Why
don't let me ask, I know that there are many of them are sequenced. I
don't know whether the how the ones on Gilman. It just seems to me, Lucy,
that the question is going to be asked by members of the public about another
light. Is it at least theoretically synced so that if you can maintain a speed?
The bus stop And in the
past, specifically with Gilman Boulevard projects and where bus stops were mentioned, new bus
stops were mentioned, as I recall it, I know I specifically really wanted to
see, and I think the commission, if not all the commissioners agreed, that if we're
going to put up new bus stops to try to encourage people to use public
transit, they have to be covered. You just can't expect people to stand out and
wait for a bus in this area unless you're immune to water. So
I would just like to say to see that being an area of emphasis. And
if they have to move one, I understand that they've got two there now and
so on. But I think a new bus stop ought to be covered. Okay?
I understand that there is a water feature that's being talked about. I have used
the trail. I don't believe that there is anything resembling a
water fountain between here and Redmond. So, and I'm really serious about this. Why not
put a water fountain there and have a dog accessible
part of the water fountain? You can turn it off in the winter. We've got
them right over in the Confluence Park now. We've got some really great systems that,
you know, don't work in the winter. But if you want to draw people into
a agree with the comments about the plaza needing to be
enhanced and more attractive. A water fountain. In addition to the water feature,
but if you've got a choice, I vote fountain. Okay?
This is, so some of the other questions I know we're going to talk about
next week, so I won't get them into now, but I also had a question
along with what Mr. Kapler just mentioned about the the part that looked like a
box, it looks like a box. It just struck me kind of like, what is
that? So I'll leave it with his question about what is it? What's
the architectural purpose? What's the functional purpose of that?
Do you want Dan to tell you what it is? Sure, if you know. I
mean, we had the question asked. And I would actually, I know you said that
we you have questions that might be pertinent to our next discussion,
which I want to clarify is not next week. I'm not ready for that. But
I would encourage you to ask those questions now so that we can come back
with hopefully some answers to that. Okay, so that's one. What is that?
I also agree that the ditch I'm sorry, can we just go ahead and get
that answered now? Everyone's dying. Can I tell you what the box is?
I have an answer to the box. Dan, can you pull up the graphic image
that you have? Yes.
What a concept. There it is. So I have to admit that I'm much
more comfortable just riffing like this than I am reading a
presentation. So the box is, I have actually two answers to your questions.
The first, and I'm going to leave you in suspense with the box, is that
the bus stop stop is required to be covered, and that's a requirement of the
development agreement. So when we have that conversation with Metro, it will include a
covered bus stop. Second, as for the box, I believe that the intention behind this
is, and the applicant I would have to correct me if I'm wrong, is that
this would serve as a community space and provide cork boards
for postings within the studio lofts.
And it might be accessible for the retail businesses as well. But would you like
to comment more on kind of the purpose? You need to come to the microphone.
I wish I had something to hand you. Oh, well, go ahead. What it is,
it's a community board, essentially. It'll be a place you can post things. It starts
as a screen wall for the parking behind it. But in doing so, it's a
community board. It puts both up. It hasn't been fully developed as we're moving into
the plaza area. Excuse me, sir. Would you please introduce yourself first? Oh, I'm sorry.
I'm Greg Persich with Jackson Maine Architecture. We're the architect for the project. I apologize
for that. So, does that answer your, it is being developed further, but. I actually,
when I was looking through the packet, I thought it was gonna be a coffee
thing, you know, like a Starbucks. No. People can come and get coffee. So it's.
It's actually a screen wall. It's inside of it, I mean, it's a hollow box?
Well, it's a screen wall, actually, behind it is parking. Okay, so it's meant to
screen the parking. And be used for a community board. Okay.
Thank you. Now Mr. Sanford, are you done?
Commissioner Harrison. I think he's got the ditch question. Do you have?
I do not have any. I think you. Oh.
Also, you brought up too about the stoplights on Gilman. In part of the agreement
for the stoplight, the stoplight by the Mexican restaurant up the street aways will be
removed and that crossing will be taken away. So we're getting, so it's not adding
another light. We're actually making things safer in the area for that.
We were also the developer of the Isqua Medical Building, if you're familiar with the
one that's behind the post office. And as part of that agreement, we had to
address the ditch in question. And that ditch is actually on WSDOT property, and WSDOT
has had it classified as a drainage ditch. So that was something that was
resolved as part of the medical building project in, say, 013, somewhere
there. What's that?
I did fail to discuss the WSDOT property in terms of
tree plantings. Again, we've been working with the developer
on tree planting locations and we did reach out to WSDOT to
ask if we could plant right next to the property, on their property,
and they said no thank you. So again, just one of the
limitations on planning on site or near the site.
Commissioner Harrison, anything else?
Commissioner Sanford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A couple of clarifications on the parking. There are
various numbers of parking spaces mentioned in the documents. On page 37, it refers
to 71 parking spaces, which I think is also shown on A2.00.
Page 83 refers to 50 spaces and another 44. And page 94 refers to 82
parking spaces. I understand that the study suggests 50 parking spaces
based on 200 suites, but I understand that's been reduced to about 150 suites, correct?
So I'd just like a little clarification on how many total spaces are being proposed
here, and are they all covered, are they all structured? And second part of the
question is, what kind of screening is provided around the parking area? I see in
one of the diagrams that there's six-foot screening there, but I was wondering how that
might be implemented. I'm gonna hand this over to the
applicant.
I'd ask that you unfortunately introduce yourself once again, just for the record. Bob Power,
ISL and Seacon. So our current parking count
is 71 to address some of the conditions of the we expect that
we will probably be losing two, one for a loading area, one for the motorcycle
parking. So I think our final count will be down at 69. All of it
is covered. We have a parking agreement with the self-storage because we developed
those together where there is two rows of parking that are located underneath the self-storage
building that are dedicated to the studio loft. The last row of parking that would
be facing the washed out area is not covered. That's where we reduce the square
footage of the building. It was originally all covered, but we made the building a
little smaller. And Greg, I'll let you address any of the screening issues.
Sorry, before we go on, can I ask, when I look at the plans, I
count 48 stalls. Not, I can address that. They're also the parking that's located underneath
the self-storage. Okay, so there's nothing.
So on site, on this property, there's 48. But
I didn't see anything in the documents about a cross parking easement or shared parking
or. It's a recorded document. But the plan all talks about 71
parking stalls on the property. So right now it's one piece of property.
And so... It's a property line. We're actually
doing...
The property currently exists as one parcel. It's been condominiumized between the two ownerships. And
we're currently doing a plat. help clarify that property line and I think if you
look on sheet a 2.04 it will show you the parking
that's located underneath the self-storage that is included with the parking so this this other
portion correct yes yes get you up to that count because that's yeah
because that same one shows the property line correct so that will be on the
self-storage and have a cross parking, an easement for it? There's
a recorded easement for the parking on the self storage, yes. Okay. And that would
be part of the agreement then that that's... Yeah, I think that already
exists. Is that part of the conditions? So right now, it's a
single piece of property. And we're looking at it in terms of the parking that
was required for the storage building. and the parking that's required for the lofts. And
because it's a single piece of property and all the parking that's needed is there.
When the short plat comes in to segregate it into two properties, then we
would be looking to make sure that each use has access to the parking they
need, which might mean then that cross property easement or
shared parking agreement if the property is not all the parking was located on the
lot associated with the use. Is what. So these stalls here
in that center section, those are not required for the storage facility? Exactly.
Okay. It's a fairly low parking demand for storage.
Greg Persich again. The side next to Pogaccia, we've got a six-foot-high
wall with lattice, essentially, and the shrubberies that are being planted in there will actually
climb up. So over the years, those will get filled in with, it'll be more
of a hedge. To start the process, we're starting with these. The pilaster,
these through here with lattice between, and it's gonna be planted with growing plants. So
that's how we're screening the parking lot. Does that answer the question? Is that screening
up against the parking area itself? I understand there was a six-foot screening there, is
that correct? It's a six-foot screening wall right against the parking stalls.
I see. And the parking that's on the storage side is unscreened, is that correct?
Correct. Okay. I'm sorry, I'm not oriented here. This is
the back of the building right here. If you're standing on the exit ramp on
I-90, this is what you see. Greg, could you use the site plan and just
pretend like you were where you're standing? No, probably off screen, but right here, looking
this way. In the ditch or?
Could you show the front of the building, please? How do you get through? Don't
ask me. Help me there, Dan.
The front of the building, there is, I mean, we've got the screen wall that
was the box that we talked about early in the building screen, all the parking.
And do you have a view from, like, the entry at Pogaccio? Probably not.
But we can generate one if we need to. That's gonna be the key one
where people are coming into the Pogaccio site and to your site, right? Well, this
is pretty close to where you're pulling in right here. This is right next to
the entry. Those would be people on the trail. I'm thinking people that come in
north on Gilman, west on Gilman and turn in that view there from Gilman. Okay,
we can generate that view for the next meeting.
Thank you.
If you look on sheet A301 of your drawing set, you can see
the east elevation. It's not as good as a perspective, but it does give you
some idea.
I have it up on the screen as well.
Sorry. Did I go ahead? So one is more of a
procedural question that I think is more for staff. So tonight when we review the
packet, the checklist arrives already completed. And so will that
always be the case where staff will have completed the checklist? You say generally this
complies with the arts and crafts style. doesn't? And then,
you know, what is our opportunity to deviate from that checklist, if any?
Help me understand how the checklist works, I guess. Well, I guess the way we're
thinking about it, and this is obviously we're all working together to find the best
way. I think the way we thought about it was that we give you staff's
perspective and you may say, you know, A.3.4, I disagree that this
complies or I think it does comply and that is a part, that's I think
a big part of what we're asking the commission is to let us know if
you feel that you concur or do not concur with the evaluation that staff has
done. Okay. Good, and that's how I see it. I just wonder,
suggestion, do we find a time to pause here and review the checklist
together? Now, I also don't want to bog down the conversation, which I also
think is very productive, but it is a tool. So are we using it,
I guess, is my question. And I know we'll find our way here a little
bit. And so I just guess I want to suggest maybe that we do some
point in this process introduce checklist review and, you know,
specifically maybe the ones that don't comply or just areas that you think you don't
agree with what staff has said complies. Not that we necessarily need to hit every
single one and go down the line, but just an opportunity to review the checklist
is one suggestion. So that's all I really had on that and just gaining an
understanding of that. Female Speaker 1 1st of 10,000-year-old, could I make one suggestion? And
you and I will, and Dan will not be the right people to answer this
question. But there used to be something called the green sheets, which the commissioners
I think staff maybe provided conditions and perspective, you can tell me if I've got
it wrong. And then you would go through and review that checklist as sort of
a part of your deliberations and discussions. And so it seems to me
that that is something of a model for how you would do this. you're
gonna have to school us because I was never here for those deliberations, so I
don't know exactly how you did that, but it seems like that is a format
that the commission has used before. I would offer that it seems like part
of our pre-meeting effort ought to be to look at that checklist and
evaluate whether we agree with the staff decision or not, and if we don't, then
to bring that up at the meeting, but I guess I'm not thinking it would
be a lot of valuable time going through and everybody agreeing to whatever was already
indicated. I'd rather talk about the things that we disagreed with and we could do
that. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, would it not be possible for us to do exactly
that? And part of our homework is to look at the staff recommendations,
after we've studied the packet, look at their recommendations and then say, nah, you know,
I just, and then have a specific part of our meeting that's addressed to
the staff recommendation, or the staff checklist, and opportunities to
point out where we individually or collectively don't agree, as opposed to going through the
whole thing. Because I think if we agree, with the staff recommendation. It's not a
good use of our time to go through and read it aloud and so on
as we did with the green sheet. The issue I think is when we don't
agree. And so one thing I would just like to offer is why don't we
take a shot at kind of this taking the pages and marking them off kind
of thing and give you an updated version with your packet next time and then
And I mean, of course, if you already know things that you disagree with us
about tonight, we would want to hear about them sooner rather than later. But just
as a part of this test run, it seems like a great opportunity at the
next meeting to try another updated version of this and have you give us
some feedback about whether that's getting closer, because as we're going to work with this
consultant, it would be really good to have that level of feedback about whether we're
getting close to the kind of tool you think would be useful. Okay. And can
I, if you're mind, can I suggest, can you pull up that page again that
you had with the, that showed the design standard, or the design guideline for the
arts and crafts? Yes. That you would be creating the checklist from,
so there. So if the staff creates a checklist that covers appropriate and
inappropriate, and they've gone through and they've gone through that, So instead of the green
sheet where we're going yes, no, yes, no, everyone, we could just say, okay, here's
what they've done for appropriate. Does anybody disagree with what staff has come up with
for appropriate? Exactly. And then we, yes, no, we're good, discuss it, then go to
the next. Does that work? Okay, that does work. And I, yeah, I thought that
was a really worthwhile discussion because, yeah, I don't want to bog it down. It
is on us. We're compelled to understand this before we walk in here and have
reviewed the checklist, screened against the styles before we walk in here. But I guess
it was really a springboard for my next question to the applicant, which was with
the checklist in mind and the style, I guess I would like more information about
how you arrived at the stair towers and the elevator towers screened against the arts
and crafts. it is the one element that sort of jumps out as not being
part of the arts and crafts as defined here, specifically the roofs, steeply pitched
gabled and hipped roofs. So that introduces the shed roof. And so I guess
part of that question is why do those towers project from the building plane and
then why is there a shed roof as well? Was it a head height issue
or was there another way to solve that? Was that considered at all?
Your plans are here. Okay. If you want to... It was more of a look
that we were going for, and part of the arts and crafts thing was a
lot of different pitches and gables and so forth. So it didn't really say they
had to be dormers necessarily, but some of the options that we were given were
the shed roofs and changing the pitches. But it was multiple ridgelines um, breaking it
up. The, we're also trying to break up the length of the facade also. I
mean, that building is 175 feet long and we didn't want to have a 175
foot long facade there. Right. So it's to help break that up. Head heights for
the stairs probably wasn't an issue, but it was more of a design element. Okay.
Well, I guess my interpretation of it is I just see steeply pitched gable and
hip roofs. Um, multiple gables and
dormers. And so I'm getting into the nitty gritty, but
it just feels like it contextually doesn't quite fit. Well, the dormers can
not be a gable then dormer. I mean, some of the examples in the arts
and crafts had dormers that look like these. Okay.
And then they're blank walls just due to... the type of
enclosure they are? Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you. That's all I have. Well, it's
also an issue of building department issues because you can't have openings in walls that
close to a property line. Right. So we can't put them there even if we
wanted to. Okay. Thank you. Is this an okay time to talk about the
design? Do we want to get all the questions out of the way first? Sure.
Before we go through design guidelines and Yeah, am I jumping the gun? I guess
I go back to my procedure question. Don't look at me. Look at your chairperson.
Maybe all the questions and then talk about it. Let's ask the questions first. Okay.
Okay. Thank you.
It's
not for me. So in the staff report, and this is related to the trail
crossing and conversations with the county, And it talks about, and it's in
the development agreement as well, about working a solution that works for all parties. But
the county, obviously, as a property owner of the trail, is a critical player here.
So what happens if you don't get to an agreement with the county? So what's
the solution or what's the contingency if that's the case? Or do we have, have
we reached a preliminary agreement that's documented in some form? Excuse me, sorry.
Yes, so we did meet with the county. There's nothing
there's no stamp of approval yet, but they have approved of the concept
and and now it's just getting through the procedures
of drafting an agreement for for that
access easement and then sending that to the city council.
And didn't the, I wasn't there, Dan was there, but didn't the county also lay
out some of the parameters that they would apply for that connection so that we're
already kind of aware of them and incorporating them? Correct, so one of the
stipulations was that they didn't want to, originally it was going to be the
applicant gaining that access easement. The county indicated that
they are not agreeable to that, that they would want the access
easement to be the responsibility of the city. So that's where we, and we agree
to that. So again, it's just a matter of
drafting that agreement and taking it to the City Council. So we have high confidence
then essentially that we'll be able to sort this out? We have high enough confidence
that we don't really have another plan in place for now.
Okay. That was a risk assessment question because we're proceeding ahead with approving a project
and if that falls apart, there's no commitment in the agreement the applicant to do
something else other than to try. So that's why I wanted to make sure we
have high confidence that we're getting that done. Some quick questions to the architect just
about some physical characteristics of the parking because there are a number of conditions
that are in the, there are several conditions that are in the staff report related
to parking. So loading, two spaces required for loading and unloading. And how do
you integrate those into the arrangement here and do you have a height requirement that
you have to meet to do that? I'm asking these questions because it could have
a physical impact on the site or the project. And then there is also the
discussion about a bike locker that's about 300 plus square feet. Where are you going
to put it? Are you displacing parking? Where's access? That kind of. So those are
pieces that aren't clear in the plan. If you could maybe speak to those, it
would be helpful.
I don't know if I need it. We don't have this anywhere, so it's a
new one. Okay. We've been talking about. Okay, to address the question on the
parking, we know about the loading bays. I guess currently
we're trying to utilize one of the loading bays in the self-storage unit, but we've
also developed a plan that provides a loading bay under the building. The heights are
fine. We've come to agreement. Essentially, that's one of the conditions in the that came
up and that Dan talked about earlier. We've addressed them all. We haven't submitted anything
finalized, but we have been running stuff by them. So all those conditions have been
addressed and we're close to an agreement on them. As far as the bike storage,
300 square feet, we didn't propose at this time because it wasn't necessary
from the first one, but they came back and made a condition. So we're gonna
put it in. We haven't decided if it's actually inside the building upstairs for the
tenants and take away one of the loft spaces for it if it's going to
be downstairs. But we're not intending at this point to lose a parking stall for
it. We will find a spot for it. Okay. And then there was
one other question and there was a, looks like a preliminary assessment done
by, I don't know if this was done by Eastside Fire and Rescue or not,
but about for the fire truck turnaround in this location. Has Eastside Fire and
Rescue Act looked at this and approved it? Okay. Yes. Okay. So we're good. Okay.
That's all we've got. Okay.
I'm still confused on the crosswalk, the intersection. Is it going to be, are
all the stoplights going to be there? Is the city, the part you talked about
where the city's not doing their part, is that just the Rainier portion where they
come together? Correct, and I do have a backup slide.
Let me. It'd be nice to, yeah, if you could pull up the intersection with
the stoplights and show just how it should work. So let me start with the,
oh no.
I'll get there.
Yeah. So this is currently, It is
light here, a light here, a light here, and a light here.
Pedestrian crossings there. This intersection
is not Juniper and Rainier. That is essentially a
phase two. It's the city portion. That is the city portion. But this intersection will
be to view this as a completed intersection then? Developer will do
all of this? Correct. Great. Okay. Yes. Thank you. I didn't even need my backup
slides. Yeah.
I'm gonna stay here if that's okay with that. Bob Power, ISL. We've been working
with TSI and with city staff and I'm not sure how well I'm gonna be
able to do this, but the important thing is this signal arm and this signal
arm at the request, I'm not sure if it was the request of the city
or the recommendation of TSI has actually been moved farther back than it would normally
be. So the city in future planning, if they need to widen that point,
signals the the mast arms have already been located to allow that to occur thank
you and all the talk of the bus stop that is
would just be on Gilman that side correct it would
be on Gilman it's really going to be a determination
with Metro the applicant and with city staff it with in terms of the exact
location of the bus stop. I think right now the
direction that it's moving in, as the applicant just indicated, was that there are
bus stops within a vicinity, but perhaps those could be improved, so maybe building a
new one and eliminating one that exists, those are all things that are gonna have
to be discussed with Metro. But I think part of Commissioner Morgan's question was that
the buses are not entering the site. They would all stay on, this is
about stops on Gilman. Correct. They would stay on Gilman, most likely
on this side here. Okay. Past the signal. Right. Thank you.
And then this is just a comment to point out that I think on condition
17, and there's a discussion in there about both the lintels around the doors and
windows, but also on page, I think it's 166, it mentions the doors need to
be recessed and that that would be in the condition, but I don't think it's
in the condition itself. So they talk about the lintels
there, but there's also requirement that doors be recessed.
something to, just a comment to make the look when you come back. And again,
I think it's page 166 of the package. Yeah, no, I see what you're referring
to. And this is a design question, I guess, for the
architect, if you could. And if you
can pull up a top shot of the building looking down, a
site plan with the building on it.
or something like this? No, it's gonna be a, well, this would work. Okay.
So my concern is the elevator on the north side of the building, that column
there, and what you can't see here, but the green column that we
see is the elevator shaft, or actually maybe it's better if we do show
the site plan with the building on it. Yeah, that's the west side. Greg. Yeah,
the west, northwest side, yeah. Do you want to just look at the point? I
don't know what he's looking for.
Would this work? No, one that's got more detail on the building itself.
It would be A1.0.
Yeah, that's it. Okay. Actually, even better would be A2.0, if you have that.
Okay. And then if you can, it's sort of hard to see here,
but if it's possible, Dan, to zoom in on where the elevator shaft is, the
blue, square in the middle of the screen.
Okay. And
then, yeah, it's scooted up a little further if you could. That's even further than
that. Okay, so here's my concern. So to the left of the
elevator, as I understand, is an entry door to the lobby. The double door is
entering the lobby. more people in that parking area. And
there's a walkway on the outside of the building that the elevator shaft sticks out
into about two thirds of the walkway. And my concern is that cars
coming into the site from the upper right hand, they're curving around and
they're gonna see that elevator shaft sitting out there and then people are
coming out those double doors, walking out that walkway to go across to
their cars and they're not gonna be seen by those cars
coming around that way because you've got an elevator structure there and they don't step
out on the sidewalk until the last couple feet there. Does that make sense? Yeah,
I got what you're saying. We could easily pull that elevator back and provide some
more room there. That'd be great, okay. Thank you.
And then as I mentioned, the email, I think
the parking requirements would be very helpful to know what Seattle and Renton required for
those projects, not just what the parking study said. I think we could just ask
them. Bob, the applicant mentioned was
that they didn't use Seattle, that they were using Linwood and... I thought it said
North Seattle in the past. Okay, so... Linwood and Renton. It was Lin... Okay. So
I'm just thinking the suburban context may be more informative. Yeah, those two projects, actually,
what the square footage of the building and what they required. I'm just curious
what the other cities did. I think it's called North Seattle Active Space.
And that was in Linwood then? Okay. And I know that we know what the
actual . Well, right. More or less.
Yeah. We're gonna flash the light at you. Yeah.
And then the, yeah, I guess a question to be for Dan, the section 4.3
of the development agreement, as Connie mentioned, says draft or completed urban design requirements would
be used. But we're saying no, only the ones in July apply. And I
sort of agreed with Connie's comment. I'm trying to understand why we don't use the
more recent. Well, so I think there are two thoughts.
One, they submitted the project before the ones were adopted in December.
they'd submitted in November, the design manual was adopted in December. So
that seems at the least unfair and not that you're
wanting to be unfair, but it just seems like that would mean that we're asking
them to redesign when there was something about a draft manual. I think the reason
that we picked July was July was the point at which they submitted
plans to Crandall Arambula for evaluation and that was the manual which Crandall
Arambula gave them detailed comments and then they went back and
redesigned and resubmitted. So I think our perspective was they were
asked to use the draft manual that was in place at the time, then they
went and incorporated all those comments and submitted. So that's why I think we focused
on July. Okay, thank you. And just this is a comment,
I think that the trail connection, the plaza,
and I mean no offense, obviously, certainly the architect about what's designed there with the
trellises and so forth, but I think that's such a critical connection point for our
city that it's got to have a lot of people involved in it. I think
we should have Issaquah, We should have the parks
department. I wouldn't require that the developer be
the one to come up with a design for such a signature feature for our
city. I'm not sure how we do this, but I think it's got to be
something bigger and involve more people. Then I would like to talk about the
design a lot in terms of going through some of the checklists if we could,
about the question whether it meets the arts and crafts, if that's okay? I just...
I have a non-design, one question that I'd like to ask, and then we can
do that. Going forward, man, I personally,
and I think the staff, or I mean the commission would agree with this, but
I think Issaquah has an opportunity, particularly now with the moratorium, the design standards, the
manual, and the focus of this town
on salmon, and it's a part of our image, just as much as the wooded
hillsides are, to start really setting new standards for
environmental protection when it comes to new construction, and particularly since we know the devastating
effect of parking lot and road runoff into salmon,
and ultimately Puget Sound, that this structure,
this applicant, this building will not reduce
any parking lot runoff into Issaquah Creek. Is that correct?
I would not know. I can't imagine that it would. I don't think so either.
I mean, when I go through this, I understand the storage vault and I understand
the plan and I looked at it. But I'd just like to know if somebody
can make that categorical statement that we are designing this so that there will be
no possibility of parking lot or road, battery, brake pad, all these
things that we know are devastating. That we're gonna, from here
forward, we're not gonna have any of that. So my name is Doug Schlepp. I'm
with the City of Issaquah Development Services Engineering. And I would say
that our drainage throughout the city does go to Issaquah
Creek, Lake Sammamish. And we have standards in place to address
stormwater quality. The city just recently adopted new stormwater standards.
Furthermore, any of the parking that's undercover actually does not
go to the storm system, it goes to the sewer system. So I don't know
what the percentage is, but the majority of the parking spaces are undercover
and would therefore go to the sanitary sewer, not the storm. Could you talk though,
Doug, just because I think there's a little disconnect between what you said
Most of it does, I understand what you're saying about going to the creek, but
there's a quite significant filtration and cleaning
process. Sure, yeah. So there are standards in place to
address water quality as it relates to stormwater
runoff from cars. And so there are standards and... The
environment is a critical part of that water quality program, making sure that the stormwater
is treated before it's discharged to the creek or to the lake.
It's not a direct discharge from the parking lot to the creek. Yeah, that's great.
I got that impression. I would like to see the city remain at the forefront
of that effort region-wide. I just think we have a particularly good opportunity here to
be identified as being an environmental leader on this fundamental issue to the entire regional
environment. Okay. So any more questions?
How about- We're gonna be addressing specific elements of the checklist now? Is that,
I'll save my question for that if that's what we're gonna be doing. Let's do
that. So,
We want comments or we want more? I don't think it's arts and crafts. Okay.
I'll go through a couple of things. If you can, Dan, if you can pull
up the staff report on page 164 of 220. I actually think
it should be Urban Grange. So I will tell you, I have to say
something before Bob just explodes over there. So they came in,
as Urban Grange and Crandall Arambula told them they could not be Urban Grange, they
had to be Arts and Crafts. So. Why did they tell them they couldn't be?
The massing, the scale, I mean they went through a whole series of things so.
That would, Crandall Arambula felt very strongly that this was Arts and Crafts and not
Grange because that was, that's where we thought they might be as well. I tell
you, I look at the photos of arts and crafts throughout here and, you know,
it sure doesn't look like it to me. Anyway, can you go to page 164,
Dan? And part of this, and I appreciate the applicants going through this, because you
are, this is our test case for this, so. Let's see.
What's the page number? Page 164 of 220. It's
the exhibit E.
It's page one of exhibit E.
Okay, so if you go to the next page where it has, goes through the,
so this is on massing. So I was, this is kind of where I think
you would be creating the checklist, Lucy, that we could use and for each one
of these items and we'd say perhaps massing and we'd say, do we agree or
disagree with each of these, whatever you had come up with on this. And just
to let you know kind of my thought process, when I went through I thought
Well, appropriate would be steep pitches, no. Inappropriate is low pitched or flat roof, and
I would say it does seem like a low pitched roof. It's got the little...
So let's talk about that for a minute because steep pitches are defined, a defined
term, a specific pitch, and that is the pitch of the roof. You mean the
end roof or the mass of the roof? The end roof.
Yeah. Because from what you see down below. And I would disagree. I think the
majority of the roof you see is that large shed roof structure. To me, it's
a low pitched roof. When I look at the, I don't know. Kevin, you're the
architect. I would agree with that characterization.
That's what you're gonna experience driving up and down that street, the side of this
building. You're not gonna experience it front on. And so for that reason, I think,
Those feel like shed dormers coming out of a gable. They don't feel like a
series of small shed dormers nestled in a larger gable. It's a big, broad
building. And so I'm inclined to agree. Okay.
Where that's concerned. And that's what also made me identify the elevator towers. We introduced
another roof that's even a shallower pitch. And so it doesn't...
I mean, elements of the arts and crafts are certainly there. But I think
arguably it's just such a broad building and that's where it falls apart for me.
It's just not articulated on the side that you'll truly experience this building just driving
by, in my opinion. Yeah, and would asymmetrical composition, would this
not fit into that? Yeah, and I don't feel like it's asymmetrical either.
It doesn't always have to be asymmetrical, but I don't see asymmetry in that.
I don't see asymmetry as the tool they're using to then introduce this other roof.
Yeah, or intersecting ridges. Yeah. So
I have a question about the consultant. I'm not clear on,
I mean, I think they did great work, but I'm not, I don't quite understand
where they could say, I thought it was Grange when I looked at it, just
before I even realized, but I'm not an architect. But
do we have final, does the City of Issaquay have final say whether it's a
Grange or Arts and Crafts? So
I think that what we would have to do is go back and look,
so I looked at it a week or two ago when we were writing the
staff report, because when I did this I was looking at the July 20 draft,
the December 18th draft, these drawings, and then Crandall Arambula's
comments from July or whenever, August,
whenever they did it. And so, I would have to go back
and look at that to try and refresh my memory unless Bob
wants to relive the pain and identify if he remembers.
I just, off the top of my head, I think it had to do with
potentially the number of floors and also the length of the building. Hey, Dan.
Could you pull up in the July 20
draft? It's two to three stories. No, the chart that's right
at the very end of the architectural, so the
July 20 draft, can you pull up that version of the design guidelines? And
then it's going to be like two-thirds of the way down after
Urban Grange. Page 48? Yeah, page 48. No, I'm way past
that. Keep going. You just passed it. Go back one page. Yeah.
So go up again to the, I think it's the next page. Oh, no, I
guess it was just that. So this was our first version of comparing them all.
I just thought this might help us because it compares all the styles. Now we
ended up with a much more detailed version of this in the final draft.
Did you make that very beautiful? Well, Lucy, can you humor me for a second?
If it's possible to pull up two pictures, because I love pictures. So if we
can do from the plans, if you can pull up G0.02,
Which one? Yeah. So that, and then if you can, I don't know if you
could split screen it. But if you could also pull up page 47
of the urban design manual. I don't think we can do that on this
screen. Just go back and forth really fast. Yeah, exactly. It'll blend. I'm going to
give it a shot here though. Oh, can you? No, you can do it. What
page number again on this? 47 of the, and
then it would be, yeah, so I think we're maybe one above that.
Maybe another above. I'm sorry, one more.
Oh, maybe I have it, there we go.
know it sure seems like urban grange to me yeah especially when you
key into appropriate terms that the length is twice the width can be
typically two floors up to four admittedly I'm looking at the final draft
so not that could it be that the architect the the group that we had
looked at the entire building rather than this, because we see it as two separate
pieces connected by a tunnel, they might have been looking at it as one footprint,
and so the length and the width are fairly equal. That
might be why they. Sure. Well, I guess the question I would have is, okay,
so we think, the applicant, the city
said it's Urban Grange, and the consultant said, no, I really don't think so. I
think that's arts and crafts. what would be the consequences if any of us saying,
well, actually, no, it's Urban Grange, I mean, on the application or whatever, I mean.
It's allowed, right? Urban Grange is allowed. Yeah, it's allowed there in
that district, right? I think that's where we'd wanna look at that draft comparison of
what the constraints were, because the bottom line is it doesn't matter what we call
it, what we wanna make sure of is that we can accommodate it in, and
so if we look at it, look at, what the constraints are on that chart,
on that draft chart, then we can see what might have been violated or what
not. Because we may just be arguing about a name when it doesn't matter much.
Well, that's my point. Well, I would suggest, though, that if we do then collectively
say it's Urban Grange, I think there's other elements then. we walked the line of
asking them to go then back and put a different applique on this with respect
to the windows and the siding. So what is our resolve to do that as
well? So I think there are some subtleties which would take it a little further
if we... That's what we need to look at, right? Yeah. Well, and the question
is, does it give us a better product or not? Exactly. Well, yeah, partly
for me though would be if end up approving it as an arts and
craft where we don't think it's arts and craft, I wouldn't want to get
off, step into our first project with this design manual and say we're approving something
that we don't think fits in the category.
And I might also just go one step further that's not captured in the guidelines
that the billing should reflect the function a little bit. And I wouldn't want my
startup an arts and crafts building. I would want it in an urban grange building.
And that's, you're young, you're hip, you don't wanna be in your grandma's
house on Capitol Hill. Just to suggest. Should we go to
the checklist, the comparison, Lucy? Sure. Before.
That chart that we were talking about.
that I had you pull up when I interrupted Mel? No, when I interrupted you
and made him do the other one. The, this one? So it would be the
July 20th version of the standards.
It wouldn't be in that document. Okay.
And yeah, keep going down. It's going to be right after this.
We were in Grange. Right after Grange.
Wait. Oh, yeah. No, you're right. You're after Northwest Contemporary. I'm sorry. That's OK.
How quickly we forget. No, keep going down. You're going the right direction. Thank you.
There. Yes. Yeah.
So in looking at this, the heights fall for
commercial, fall in the same range, two to three stories. The length is
something that is distinct. The arts and crafts is 200 feet max. Urban
Grange is more than 200 feet. This is slightly less than 200 feet.
Footprint is both kind of rectangular. Symmetry is is
distinct. One is symmetrical with vertical emphasis, the other one is
asymmetrical. Sorry, got that backwards. Moderate to steep roofs
versus steep, gable,
gambrel, or hipped. Materials would obviously be different.
Windows would be different. So the main distinctions then are going to be
symmetry windows
length, and materials.
point out one other thing that I think is important is context is always a
big part of this. Now this is the first building out there so
I suppose it's setting the precedent for context around it but given that there's a
larger development agreement there is the adjacent building that it borrows from
you know that's a very contemporary structure and so what is the context of arts
and crafts as it relates to that the storage facility. It could be as subtle
as materials and windows to give them some parity, but I feel like right now
they're night and day. And so we were given exhibit B tonight. I don't know
if anybody looked at that, the last page of what the building was, I think,
before it was an arts and crafts building. Correct. Yeah. So it came to
my attention recently that the development agreement that I provided was
missing that exhibit. So it was the link on
our website has been updated and I provided the hard copies.
Okay. So I just feel like this building has a stronger relationship to
the storage facility. Irving Grange would be a step away but still have some
contextual relationship. Whereas, is there context
is the question I'm asking. And there's context potentially in the larger Issaclaw
traditional district. But I think we have to really take into account the context of
the immediate structures and Just another thought.
Well, so I will say I don't disagree with what you're
saying. I think that at least for consistency, and I mean that within the
terms of the design manual, consistency was using
one of the specified styles. So I think the thing that we were trying to
avoid if your neighbor is the first one to develop on the block and they
pick Northwest Lodge, you're not stuck with Northwest Lodge because of that.
That doesn't mean it can't inform your choice, but it doesn't necessarily restrict your choice.
But I don't disagree with what you're saying as well.
I'm uncomfortable with
starting off with a compromise on something that the design standards, but by the same
token, I don't, if this, if changing it or requiring it to be
called Urban Grange because it looks like that to us, that that would
involve at this stage in the game, what I understand would be a
significant impact on the applicant who has done this. I'm not sure that we are,
of that frankly.
And I say in general I think it's at this what we're looking at I
think is an attractive. Yeah. Building. Yep. I mean I agree with you all
about that. Yeah. Sure looks like an urban grange to me.
Yeah. So I remember when we were going through the
of reviewing the guidelines and about the question about blending
various elements or do we stay true to the specific criteria. But even that
criteria has a lot of room for kind of interpretation which we're first project in,
here we go. So maybe a different way to think about what's in front of
us instead of being really stuck with, and there's a risk here, but being stuck
with we gotta make it, we've got to make sure it fits within the black
and white lines here is, okay, what elements of this building do we think we
need a little bit more work on? Are there some things, whether we think there's
some elements that we want to bring in from the Grange architectural style and take
the risk of doing some blending? Because to be honest with you, I think it's
going to be a struggle on a lot of projects to hold to the black
and white lines that are defined. It is, I agree, it's the first project out.
Here we go. Even though the ink's not even dry yet, these things are still
in draft, but close. On how we're going to deal with these projects, the other
thing about this project that's important is that if this is the first one that
goes to construction coming out from the moratorium, it's going to be front and center
in the community because it's on the main street, most traveled street in the city,
well, at least in the downtown area. So we gotta make sure we're comfortable with
what we end up with here because we all have a role to make sure
that we're reflecting back what the community is telling us they want. And they didn't
like what we had and it's our job to try to put in place with
the staff something that does match up. And this one,
architecturally they don't have to match what's next door and they've tried to to connect
them and we saw on the materials board how they were, at least with colors
and some materials, but maybe one of the pieces that we want is give us
a little bit more so we can really see how they do or don't mix
or relate to each other. So maybe part of what comes back to us is,
okay, here's some things that we think you should work on. Give us a little
bit more either design or detail. or some elements that we wanna see
changed in the building to reflect what we think is a good ultimate product. That's
kind of where I am. I'm a little bit, I don't wanna get into a
big debate on is it this or that. We could probably argue both.
And I just, I think we should maybe take our conversation into are there specific
elements that we wanna learn about or that we think the architect should do more
work on before it comes back. If I may just add to that, during our
discussions in the manual, we also wanted to provide for some creativity, right, in terms
of the architect. And when I look at this, it looks like a contemporary version
of one of the traditional styles. It looks like it takes off on the traditional
style arts and crafts a bit. perhaps informed a little bit by the building next
door. So I don't object to that. My feeling is are there aspects of this
that are closer to arts and crafts and therefore we could suggest changes to those,
maybe tip it a little bit more toward that traditional style or are there elements
of this that are really more like urban grange and then we're gonna have to
have other changes, right, in terms of pitch of the roof and in terms of
the window size and so on. that's a fair
a fair way to to proceed is to talk about what what do you want
to see more of what how how do we how do we clarify the design
one way or the other if we need to or maybe we need to get
the architect to come up and tell us why why he was so insistent or
why they were so insistent on on the arts and crafts that was
Yeah, not this architect. No, no, I don't want, I don't, that's what I meant.
Maybe I can start and start small and then we can work bigger. But there
are parts of the building that I think some additional detail and maybe some more
creativity. And that's down at the pedestrian level, at the front of the building that's
interfacing with the plaza. Because what it looks like in the design is, you know,
you've got glass storefront going on there. And that's not what one of these architectural
styles is looking for. And the other part that I'm struggling with a little bit
is the primary use here is for the lofts. And we have kind of minor,
you know, trail street facing retail. But there's no prominent entrance to the main use
to the building. It looks like a swinging glass door. And obviously the design isn't
fleshed out here. But some more detail and some more work around on what's happening
down at grade, what's the interface at the plaza going to look like, how do
we create an entrance to the primary use that is
different than the retail uses that stands out? So how are we inviting people into
the building in the primary use? And I don't see that in the design. One
of them is go around to the side of the building. That doesn't quite work.
I see the convenience for that. Fix the elevator problem with Melraised.
But what's the entrance to the primary use look like and how do you integrate
some of the forms and materials that are called for in the arts and
crafts style? So the one thing I would point out, and again, I'm trying to
use this the first time too, so I'm not much different both than you all
are. there's pretty specific prescriptions about
how much windows you have to have for each use. And
so they are just about at the amount of windows. So I don't think in
terms of retail that the amount of windows can be reduced. I think the question
is, is the style of windows.
I mean, it talks about multi-pane. Now these are broken into small,
mini lights as the sort of technical term. I'm not sure that it
qualifies as small lights. And so
that I think would be the question is should it have a more fine-grained
window pattern for the retail windows,
that makes that more distinct from, say, the commercial entry.
one point i think that relates to this related to entryways too one of the
points of arts and crafts is the use of arched entryways and i didn't see
that called out as a condition we have recesses the condition but there's nothing about
arch entryways here so if we could incorporate that maybe in some way in terms
of the entryways to the building that would give it possibly a more distinctive look
on that perhaps where the bulletin board wherever the entryways are perhaps yeah
well that so if you look Let me hand these
out for you guys to share. So these are some of the
images and this is a, if you can share in pairs.
And let me bring mine. Can you pull up in
the July 20th draft, page 20, you'll see that arched
Doorways are an option, but not a requirement. They are both square and arched
doorways. So I think that is a characteristic, but not necessarily a requirement.
Now the question for the staff That
might be one technique to make a distinction between retail and commercial entries, but I
don't know that it's something that would be required based on the illustrations.
I guess I was looking at material under doors, urged entrance is appropriate.
listed there. And I completely agree. I just don't think it's required.
And that's one of the challenges, honestly, with using the appropriate and inappropriate. Some of
them are, there is no option. You know, I mean, you have a certain roof
form, and if there's only one roof form listed, then that is the only one
that's appropriate. Whereas in some cases, you've got some choices. Right.
as long as you're selecting among the choices. And this just seemed like an
opportunity, perhaps, to give it more of a signature arts and crafts look, because arch
doorways are so common. Sure.
I have, I guess, another comment in terms of changes that I would consider. And
Dan, if you can pull up that perspective again that you had before. Yes.
There's two things that I think will stand out a lot in this building because
this view is, well, the view I think we will see a lot of is
a little bit further, I guess, east from here. And two things that I,
no, if you can scroll up, yeah. So it's that south side of the building.
The two things that concern me would be, number one is the elevator shaft, a
large vertical
structure that's a standout sort of color, not Atlas blue standout, but a
standout kind of color, and that you would see that from Gilman, and is that
going to stick out too much? And I think the architect mentioned wanting to break
things up somewhat. I'm concerned about that being too big of a, too prominent of
a feature, given what we had with the stairwell end of
the Atlas building. facing Gilman Boulevard. So if there's something else you can look at
doing with that to break that up or soften that somewhat. The other concern is
the garage lighting. We've got six foot screening, a 15 foot garage.
And I would be concerned from Gilman standing there that the lights in the top
of the garage would be visible. And so looking from Gilman, we're gonna see what
looks like a big lit parking garage. I'm wondering of the possibility of bringing some
screening down from the top of the garage down as well. So if it's
maybe a five-foot screen between the pillars, it would come
down. So looking from street level, you don't see the ceiling of the garage or
the lights of the garage, if that makes sense. And
to expand on Commissioner Morgan's comments about the comparison to a...
other leader development in Issaquah. I'm a
little bit concerned about what I perceive to be a disparity between the illustrations up
there and the board, and particularly with regard to the
green. That up there seems to be
much lighter than the green here. I like this green. I
assume that's wrong or that's whatever, but yeah, but
I'm really concerned about this. That to me is a very trendy color. Cars are
that color and there are a couple of other structures in this town that have
that color green and I think four years from now it's going to be as
passe as bell bottoms were in the 70s, but we're going to be stuck with
it. So what are bell bottoms right? I still wear mine. But
anyways, that that if this is the right green and it's dark green and moss
green as opposed to this kind of electric green, because that really stands out. And
I concur with Commissioner Morgan that that would be another. I think we'd be setting
ourselves up for another comparison to another development where the color and the of
the area where the color is is what I think has got people upset. And
this sample board was very helpful to have that Sherwin-Williams actual sample color for that
because I thought the same thing about that Rookwood blue-green and then seeing that in
person. Yeah. And I will say that
it is challenging when you're doing architectural elevations to
the colors to render well, and then you're projecting them on top of it, and
that makes it really, really difficult to get it to be accurate. So that's the
importance of the color board. So I think you do have to rely on, kind
of translate that in your head. I liked all of them. Yeah, I did too.
So what other concerns or focus would commissioners like to see as we move forward?
Well, I think it's still a little difficult to give that recommendation, not knowing exactly
which way we're pushing it stylistically. I guess my suggestion would
possibly throw a wrench in the works, which is just give them more
flexibility on the siding. I think one of the conditions is to reduce one of
the siding types, but then do we go beyond that? So I think right away
we need to get specific and say like, at another siding or window
application, or do we stick to our guns, say, fine, it's
arts and crafts, eliminate one of the siding types, bring more articulation into the divided
lights? Am I being clear? I kind of feel like
my comment, I can't make an informed comment unless we know which way we're pointing
this thing a little bit, but...
I guess the other one I would say is just going back to the towers.
Arts and crafts aside, I appreciate what you're doing trying to break up the facade,
but I would be more inclined to push them in and give them windows
just for the user experience more than anything. And that's just my
suggestion. So I would make a suggestion. Let's presume that it's arts and crafts.
regardless of what our bias is at this point, let's presume it's arts and crafts.
What would you like to see that would, as I recall when we were going
through the design manual, that the intent was to be pretty rigorous in adherence to
the appropriate and the inappropriate. Does that resonate with anybody? I mean,
our architect was saying that's really gonna be important and we're gonna start getting
whiplash back and forth if we don't do that. So if, I guess my
question would be, if it's arts and crafts, what more do you need to see?
If it's urban grange, what more do you have to see? I
guess the, so let's look at arts and crafts. Okay, and I think I can
get to that really quick. For me, it's just introduce more TDLs into the windows.
I think it states that the windows should be pairings of two or three. On
the one building, we have, pairings of four that have single lights. I would like
to see all those read the same. And then
otherwise, yeah, reducing the material type, which I think is a condition of the agreement.
And then, so let's say it's urban grange. I would just give them more flexibility
on the siding type and the windows. and point it more in that urban grange
direction. Short of that, I wouldn't really change the massing. There's nothing I would really
say. Generally, it's a good building
in a lot of respects. So that's all I would say. So let's stick with
the arts and crafts. Okay. Does anybody else have any concerns about what they would
want focused to more represent arts and crafts? Well,
I would agree, I think, that on the front
facade, on that bottom one, there could be a slight, it doesn't
have to be Gothic, but there could be slight arches on those
entranceways. Very subtle,
but it would be more arts and crafts to have that element
in that of the structure and it again it doesn't have to be huge but
in the illustrations in the guide there's one that is uh i think it's a
bank building that's stone and it's very subtle but it's clearly an arch and
it softens the uh it softens the approach and it is an architect an arts
and crafts element mr morgan
i i don't want to make it more arts and crafts so
I don't use the answer, sorry. All right. So
it's not out of the question to actually have them give us a couple of
options when you come back. I mean, something that does something a little bit different
with the windows. We're not talking about redesigning the building envelope. We're talking about the
details now, and that's something that you can work with. So I think we might
want to look at, we're just trying to visualize from schematic level design
work here, what this is gonna look like. So I think if we could do
something that does add the urban green style opening.
So the blending is not a part of this. I mean,
I have to say, I know we talked about that, I know it's desirable, but
that is really not a part of the design manual. And I have some hesitation
about starting by doing something where we're introducing. So you're arguing
pick one and stick with it? Yes. I think that's the way it got adopted.
The direction that I was gonna go was we've talked about arts and crafts, what
it would take to further comply with arts and crafts from each of your perspectives
or whoever felt like comment. So if we talked about urban grange and we talked
about what it would take to be able to reflect and Kevin, I thought you
did a good job of explaining what your thoughts were on that. So if
anybody else had comments on what it would be to take to more reflect urban
grange, And our issue or our discussion or our decision
would be what would we prefer the applicant to do? Because it's gonna be,
he started Urban Grange, he was convinced or somebody convinced him that it had to
go arts and crafts and so he tried to do that. So now going to
Urban Grange, if we hand that back to him, it's gonna be an additional piece
of work that he didn't anticipate or count on. So the decision would be
if we're pretty convinced that this is Urban Grange and it wouldn't take very much
to be consistent with that, then maybe there's no work.
So is that making sense? I mean, what would it take to be, what would
it take to really nail down urban grange for you, for any of you? When
we have to review all those guidelines again, I don't have them in my mind,
but I remember very pitched rough, steep roofs. I remember punched windows instead of this
more open style and both of those give me pause at this point.
Could you, Dan, pull up in this July 20th draft
the Urban Grange, just so we could maybe scroll through some of the images
to give us an opportunity not just to look at it as a comparative chart,
but stylistically? Yes.
It's on page 44, I think.
a closer picture on the next page. There it is.
That one kind of matches the massing of what we're looking at right now. Bottom
image? No, the top one.
I'm just reading through this too, so.
Anybody have comments?
meet the 200-foot minimum length? Well, the access building less than 60 feet in length
is inappropriate, so anything above 60 feet would be appropriate, I would say. I think
200s. I think that comparison had it be over 200 feet, right?
Seems to contradict itself then. Yeah. It makes it sound like 200 plus is
suggested. It says 200 plus suggested underneath of it says. And then not less than
60. So it means you should be able to do. Yeah, you can go from
60 to 270. I'm
wondering about the typically two floors. And I wonder if that was Crandall or Ambula's
principal objection to. But it says up to four. Possibly up to
four, but typically two. As
illustrated. Lucy, do you recall, I think you said this earlier, what was their specific
rationale for saying, no, it is arts and crafts? You know, that was
six, eight months ago. And I just, I didn't, I looked, they didn't
evaluate, what they had given us
and it's on a different drive that I can't get from here, unfortunately.
What they gave us was more the corrections and I think
my notes were more, it was more in my handwritten notes, so I just haven't
looked at that in a while, so I apologize, I don't remember.
Yes, I could have guessed that we would be faced with our first application and
be betwixt and between. But to me, the
structure fits more, as it's been presented to us, fits more of an urban grange
look. So I understand Commissioner Morgan's concern. I agree with it.
I really don't want to start by compromising the things that we worked on for
so long, but by the same token, I think
we also have an obligation to consider all sides in this, and we've told the
applicant what it has to be, and I'm
not real comfortable with changing that now, frankly.
Do other commissioners have thoughts on that? Yeah, I was going to ask that same
question. What additional work do you expect? We've
talked about arts and crafts and trying to nail that down. We've talked about urban
design. He's been focused on arts and crafts and looking at even some of the
conditions are reflecting arts and crafts and lentils on round doors and that kind of
thing. Are we really going to demand additional
work to make that change, what it boils down to.
I guess all things considered, they've been asked to shift gears
once, and so asking them to shift gears again is a big ask.
I think so. I guess the bottom line for me is if I thought the
building was unacceptable, I'd be willing to do whatever it takes to make it acceptable.
the building as I see it with the conditions and with the opportunities to make
further improvements on it is acceptable. So the
question is if we require change,
will the appearance of the structure, the function of the structure be
changed to the degree that it's a real Will we get
something tangible out of changing it, both in the appearance and in the procedure?
So what do you think? Yes or no? I think we've
got to compromise. I think we've got to accept. I would say keep it arts
and crafts and do what we can to make it more arts and crafts okay
we've articulated that commissioner sanford what would you agree i think we should i think
it's an interesting spin and variation on arts and crafts and it's closer than to
urban grange and we should stick with that add some elements that might tip it
a bit more in that direction make it more interesting commissioner price arts and crafts
and crafts i think the the way that you have to look at is either
you're looking at as two separate buildings attached by a bridge which would be too
great you know that's why i think the the feel of the grange comes in
the urban grange but if you look at it as one single building from a
front facing then it's arts and crafts is what it's supposed to look like
you have a majority i don't know if i need to vote I'm there too.
I mean, we need to pick one. Let's just go with it. That's what we're
going to do. I don't think the building would, in its overall form, would change
dramatically. I think the detailing would change. But as the building stands right now in
form, I think it's fine. I think it will be good to see more detail
when it comes back, particularly for me at the ground level and what's happening at
the front of the building and with the plaza, which I know that's a work
in progress. Yeah, I would agree that we
stick with it. Again, partly it's not fair to think to have them come with
Urban Grange and be told by an outside consultant, you have to go to arts
and crafts, then have us come back and say no, go back to Urban Grange.
Attractive, I think there are some changes we've talked about that improve this a lot.
I think what this is, is and I think we're finding
that this defined here are the six categories you have to fit in and do
exactly that in each building. I just don't know that it's gonna work that well.
Well, and I think we're gonna, I mean, it, that's,
we're gonna have to keep coming back and revisiting it. I mean, I
think what we're trying to find is a tool that provides clarity. And that is
workable. and I think we are discovering some of the
many challenges of applying this. I mean, I have to say it's very enlightening to
me to hear you all talk about it because the way I was looking at
it while I was evaluating it was very different than the way you are, so
that's hugely helpful. I think we need to go back,
try going through the checklist again, working with the applicant, fine tuning
the building, both from some of the functional things you've identified, such as loading,
but more interesting things such as architecture, to figure out how
that we're going to get closer to
what the expectation is. And I think, I think,
in six months we may decide that we want to be able to do it
more as a Chinese menu and then we've got to write it that way. I
mean, if that's going to be the intent that we feel that that's going to
get us a better product, then that's what we need. We just need to
put edges on that. If you recall when we were originally talking about
wanting some kind of design standard manual that would help direct our decisions, We wanted
it to be as prescriptive as we, and we kept being driven to make it
as prescriptive as we possibly could. And so there's real value in now being able
to take a look at those prescriptions and saying, I'm not sure that's exactly what
we wanted, but as Lucy said, there's gotta be, the
architect that helped us develop this kept saying, you gotta make it real clear. I'm
not sure we all agreed that we had to make it real clear, and now
we're really getting to experience that. So my sense of the group is that we're
with proceeding on the 18th, if that's when the next meeting is gonna be with
some focus on the recommendations that were made to move towards arts and crafts.
Am I stating that correctly?
So we talked about questions, are there any other further comments? Yes. I have a
very clear one. presented to us, I find the
plaza to be stark and uninviting.
I think there are a number of things. This is a gateway, and I don't
know if that's just an initial- Do you mean the plaza out on the King
County land? No. At the trail or at the building in front of the retail
space? The one in front of the building. It has two benches and cement.
I just found that to be very stark and not
a gathering place. So I'd like to see it significantly softened and much
more inviting. Yeah. So
this is just a recommendation. Just want to be reasonable and
considerate of the architect's time as well
as the amount of work that I think we might need to put into this.
So we can come back the 18th. The
agenda would be published a week from now. So that would be
a set of drawings prepared by the applicant that would also be
reviewed by staff within that week. And I don't wanna make, commitments
on their behalf. So I think it's a question for the group to discuss whether
everybody's better served by. So it would be the
18th, but we need to publish the agenda a week ahead of time.
Correct. What's the next meeting after? It would be the first Wednesday of the
month in May. I'm looking. Just in the general discussion,
we'd much rather have adequate time to be able to provide the information that we
want than to make something happen faster than it needs to happen. May 2nd.
May 2nd. That does not impact our submittal
development, correct? This right now...
Let me see that for the microphone. So this, what I'm saying is
delaying this two weeks doesn't affect critical You'd be waiting two weeks
in terms of submitting for building permits? You could submit for site
work. Let's have a conversation about this separately so everyone doesn't have the joy of
it. We'll show up whenever you want us to. Yeah, I'm just trying to be
pragmatic and think about this ahead of time. If we're looking at essentially a
five-day turnaround, it's what the quality of that work. From our perspective, you decide the
timing. Don't worry. Yeah, we don't want to push you on timing. Yeah, I mean,
I think we were trying to keep up with Bob's schedule and let us have
a conversation and be in touch. I'm not sure that there are, I don't think
there are any other permits coming up because of the moratorium, so we may have
some openings in the schedule that allow us to do that. A bunch for free.
Well, the UVDC is meeting like mad, so it's feast and
famine. So you'll have to excuse my ignorance. I think
procedurally, I don't know whether you keep the meeting open indefinitely or whether
you have to designate a date, which is why I mentioned it. I don't think
we need to designate. I think, as Mel said, what we would do is you
decide when the next meeting is. We've gone for very long periods of time and
not had meetings and had meetings fairly quickly, so we're flexible and we'll show up
whether you want us to or not. You just say when the date is. I
think that what Dan's referring to is because it's a public hearing. He, I think,
was indicating whether we could keep the public hearing open without a specific date.
Okay. And I think we're okay. Okay. It's a good question. Thank you for translating.
Thank you. So I do have one quick question. Do you need guidance from us
tonight on the raised crosswalk? Is that something that you would like to see
included? Is it something we haven't discussed yet? Does it people think about that?
A raised crosswalk at what location? It's not in Gilman. It would be...
the drive cross it would be at the project entry so it's this crosswalk
here and it would be uh significant in the sense that it connects uh
the trail plaza and the um building plaza my i
guess my only i like gray sidewalks but my question might be that with a
storage facility of people bringing in trailers trucks things bouncing around on
got my valuables in the back of my U-Haul truck and I'm going in and
I have to go over a race sidewalk. Do I bump over it or something?
So I believe, and I'll have Doug correct me, but I believe that one of
the reasons for the 10 width, the 10 feet wide for that
crosswalk is to provide landing for trucks? It's so fire trucks
don't hide center or other large trucks. So
and honestly, sometimes the way they end up being designed is they're maybe three inches
in height. They read over the the course of the whole length as if they're
raised, but it isn't necessarily the full six inches just to try and facilitate.
Can I move? Just on this point, so the plaza, as part of the development
agreement, that's part of one of the conditions in the development agreement is to provide
this plaza that's open and usable by the public and it creates a connection to
the regional trail. So anything that we can do to invite people over there that
says it's okay to come over here and sit on a bench? I think we
should do that. So a raised sidewalk or crosswalk treatment
that accomplishes that is what I think we should do.
Agreed. Okay, last question or comment. I'll just ask for last
question or comment. Does anybody have or can we move ahead on the agenda and
start talking about the Issaquah Middle School sports field lighting?
I need to formally close the port. Just continue this. Right. You're closing it just
for this evening. OK. Since it's almost, it's after 10 o'clock, could we,
maybe we should take a few minute bathroom break before we head into the next
agenda? Okay, we'll take. There's no water fountain out there, by the way. No, but
there is a kitchen. So let's take a five minute break. And I do apologize
to the public and anybody else that this has gone on especially long. We're just
trying a new process and we appreciate your bearing with us. Thank you. I
have suggestions. Thank you.
We will come back together and begin our discussion of the Issaquah Middle School sports
field lighting revision. Good evening. So
just as a sort of background refresher, I think in 2015
the master site plan and site development permit went through the
commission and council for approval. it was approved with
conditions. Subsequently, we've been working with them on construction permits.
We've had building permits, site work one, site work two,
landscape permits, I think maybe even two landscape permits. And so at this
point, there is a revision to the permit.
which we'll talk about sort of the nature of it. I think the main point
from the administration and staff's perspective is that there was
not a lot of clarity in the original land use permit that sports field lighting
was going to happen. While we feel that this could be an
administrative decision because it's allowed by code and it was shown in SEPA, we feel
that that that does not give the public and the commission the kind of opportunity
to discuss something that we feel is going to be important to the community
to really air it out and to provide transparency over this aspect of the
site and potentially add conditions that are supported through
either SEPA or the code. So that's our goal tonight.
Do you have any questions about what we're doing? I mean procedurally,
I guess. Well,
yeah, so what's the status of the
cease and desist, the red tag? It's still in place. It's still in place. Yes.
Okay, so will this meeting and our conclusion have
Will this meeting and our conclusions, how will that affect
the status quo? So at this
time, the submittal that we have received did not meet the original
conditions of approval or the level of information we needed. So
we have sent it out for correction. inform the school district that subsequent to
this meeting, based on any additional conditions of approval or revisions to
conditions of approval, we will notify them. I mean, they are here tonight as well.
So I think that within the context of
that discussion, those can, I mean, as long as those conditions are supported by code,
that is something that can be applied to that permit.
Does that help? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Yep. So just to give
some orientation, this is the middle school site.
This is Second Avenue coming down the west side and Evans. This is where the
new building is located. High school is down below. And then
the sort of dotted outlines the field
whose lighting is in question. Sorry, I didn't realize how
clever she was. I'm reusing part of Amy's presentation, so I'm discovering all the
things she added to it. So our site is the northern part of
the joint middle school, high school site. There is open space to the east.
high density housing to the west, and two types of single family housing to the
north, although this particular parcel is a church, just to give you a sense
of the context. So the background. The SEPA
checklist, the school district is the lead agency for their
own State Environmental Policy Act review,
And so they prepared their own checklist and they review their own
checklist with some city input. So in their checklist, and it was an
attachment to our memo, it showed that under light and glare, sports field
lighting was briefly described in the nature of descriptions
within the checklist. Their published MDNS or Mitigated
Determination of Non-Significance, that's the decision that comes out of reviewing a
SEPA checklist, and which is published in the newspaper, did not
include the lighting of the fields. They did include that there were fields, but not
specifically that they would be lit. The SEPA checklist was attached to the staff report,
for the master site plan and site development permit. However, the drawings did
not include, indicate that there was field lighting. The staff report
indicated that the applicant had stated that they did not intend to light the fields,
but the report indicated that the code sections that would apply
if they did. And there were conditions of approval The permit was
approved May 18th, 2015. So afterwards,
we issued a first site work permit and then a second site work permit. And
neither of those included sports field lighting. The second one was approved in
August last year. In the middle of January, we learned that sports field
lighting was planned and we directed the school district to submit a
revision. In February, they proceeded with installing,
so we issued the stop work order. To date, we have not received any
complaints and questions, although we did receive two letters this evening.
One is from Christina Bruning of the Awareness Initiative and Jeff
Tonka, excuse me, President of the Board of the Issaquah Condominium.
I believe the commission has these and I will provide these to you just in
case you wanna read them.
These are the first comments that we have received. And then,
as I mentioned, sports field lighting is allowed by the IMC.
These are some pictures of the lights in place, so it gives you a sense
of the scale and the relationship to the trees that are nearby. The,
So there are specific lighting level standards, shielding requirements,
limits to our, not hours of operation, but relative to a sporting event.
So we received a submittal from the school district
that included a lighting level evaluation, which has gone out to our consultant.
The glare map I think is useful to
understand some of the newer technology related to sports field lighting,
which does focus the light quite a bit. As you can see, the sort of
green edge around the outside extends to maybe
halfway or just across the area. Street and the green
is equivalent to 100 watt incandescent bulb, according to this
map. I have not asked our lighting consultant to confirm that. But
this is a big change. And I think that is the point that was
made in the letters as I skimmed through them this evening, that in previous conversations
with the school district, this topic hadn't come up and there were concerns about
what the impacts of the additional activity later into the evening would be
on the neighborhoods. That's the end of my presentation.
So do we have a representative from the school? We do. Would he,
I'm assuming he, he? Royce Norquist. Oh, okay, he's on the list, so
maybe that would be the best person to have come, and then we'll go through
the public comments, and then we'll ask the commissioners for their questions and comments.
i'm royce norgade with this school district i'm a construction coordinator our address is 565
northwest holly street i'm here to talk about the uh the lighting
uh jay cooper could not be here tonight he's the cfo
As Lucy discussed, there is severe light cutoff on these lights. They are very well
designed. They come out from the site. They actually are set up with lasers that
they put on the top that aims at the middle of the field for all
the adjustments, but there's still some adjustability to them, so they are laser shot in,
not just vertically, but they aim to a point at the center of the field.
We've got these at Liberty High School and a few other sites, and the light
bill is so little that we actually at liberty high school had to add lights
under the covered um seating area because the aisles were too dark to see so
i'm hoping that we we achieve this same thing here there is still some adjustability
in the lights if we find that we have some issues that we need to
tweak it they're they're not solidly set that they couldn't have some adjustment to it
um we have we have a new bell time
and that has pushed some of our events to be later, such as soccer and
winter and all that kind of stuff. So any of those activities are all of
a sudden ending up being completed in the dark, so they felt that this was
a good method to go. We had it in the SEPA. It didn't really catch
the standpoint that it wasn't in the site development. And so when we went to
submit, We also, because we had to do multiple packages, we put in
the field permit. And the field permit was part of the landscape originally, and
it was in with the first batch. They were told to take it out for
phase two landscape work. When we submitted the landscape to work,
we inadvertently didn't have the field package in there, so we had to put back
in the field package we were going to do the lights it was decided um
not to go and add add the lights at the time they were reviewing the
field package because they thought it'd be a little too much confusing to slip it
into the middle of that so we submitted as soon as we could unfortunately the
lights showed up and all the parts were there and it was it was a
great opportunity to we have to do a crane and drill the holes from the
field. We didn't want to go damaging a field and a track, so we knew
that we would just install those. And if you guys told us not to turn
them on, we would not turn them on. But it got them into a safe
location where they wouldn't get damaged, and we wouldn't damage a track and field. So
unfortunately, we got ahead of ourself and got them installed. But they are not lit
up, and we won't if you tell us not to. Part of this will
reduce competition on Issaquah High School's field also. Issaquah High School's field can run quite
late, because it's one of the few fields in the community that have got lights.
So at this point, instead of stacking things on top of each other, we can
bring some of the soccer matches over, the JV football, some of those things, and
maybe end up shutting down the lights in the fields earlier at both locations. So
hopefully, or at least provide more opportunity when we're in our winter sports outside groups
to come in and use that field or the middle school field because now it
offers us a little bit more flexibility. There is
community use available for the fields. We've always allowed community to come in, parks and
rec, outside groups. In this case, there would be another opportunity for a field with
lights. This is a fully fenced area with just a couple of secure
openings. So it is a secure area to know that you can be it and
know that people are just walking up. They have to come in through a general
couple of fence locations. The athletic field is synthetic turf,
rubberized track. It's got a small set of bleachers. It's lined for girls and boys
soccer, girls and boys lacrosse, and football. So it's pretty well set up for our
all-weather and operation in the evenings.
Thank you. Any questions? So we want to hear from
the public first. So we appreciate that, and we'll hear from the public,
and then we probably will have some questions. So James Marsh is the first.
from the public. Good evening. My name's
James Marsh. Can you actually do the slide to show the map of the neighborhood?
Sure. I'm on 500 Southeast Evans Lane, which is, Evans Street is
next to the, no, that one's good. Okay. I'm
actually in the cul-de-sac area, which is Evans Lane, the next one over.
I'm right here. I was on the original council meeting when they were
discussing tearing down Clark and bringing in the new junior
high. I have kids that go to the school district. I've been
supportive of the construction project. The construction company's been phenomenal.
all their different phases. Really good to the neighborhood. School district, little
silent. There's been a lot of issues and a lot of impacts
with this new junior high that I expressed pre-construction of the
junior high. The traffic impacts, the damage to the roads coming to and from for
construction. And they really limited their scope of the construction to just their property.
So sidewalks on the other side of the street never happened. I asked for that.
Can you really, these kids are walking up and down these streets where there's no
sidewalks. Extend their construction ability out to the
roads that they're damaging. If you go down 2nd Avenue, when they redid the high
school from where the high school parking lot exits out on the south to
in Quahobart, that's been torn up and patched and torn up and patched. So
they really limited their scope to their property.
And I know this has a lot to do with the lighting, but one of
my initial comments was, are we building a junior high for academics or are we
building a sporting complex? And they have deviated from their original plan up in this
area, where there's a softball field. This
was all gonna be softball fields and more sporting complex.
And Evans Street was supposed to be a bus lane with an island in it
to mitigate that traffic coming through there. That never happened, so I don't know where
the revisions for that, if they came in and were approved. Again, I don't know
the structural plans of these lights, the wind comes through there. So if
they were built without an engineer designing and reviewing it, that could be an issue.
But again, I was I was questioning whether they're building a sporting complex because my
concern is. As you alluded to from the school district, it's not just the high
school and junior high sporting events. It's going to be paid events, so we did
build a sporting complex for everybody to use. And again, I'm not against. the schools,
the sporting activities. It's just now. What did we what did we create here?
It does get noisy and I love hearing the band play and you can tell
when there's a touchdown. It's it's that evident from there. I do walk my dog
every night up into the open space and when the lights are on at the
football, you you can walk up a quarter mile and you can see. at nine
o'clock at night if those lights were on. And it shines decent and it's no
big deal. It's actually kind of nice. But again, the traffic impact of the junior
high, which was a concern of the neighbors, I expressed it. I speak on behalf
of a lot of the neighbors. We're a small group. As you can see, there's
not a lot of houses. This is all church. This is single family duplexes here.
So a lot of duplexes. And then single family on the other side. So we're
just a small street that's heavily impacted by this junior high and high school.
Lately, what we've been noticing is when Second Avenue gets backed all the way up
to basically the community center, they're cutting through Darst. Then they cut through
where the bus is cut through. They cut through the junior high, take this parking
lot, and then they get over to the high school. So they're avoiding the traffic.
They are ripping through there. No sidewalks for the kids in a lot of these
areas either. So a big concern there. So now you couple that with a
sporting event. There is no parking. There's no parking right now for all the high
schoolers. Our neighborhood is inundated every day on this street.
This dirt parking lot and this dirt parking are jam packed.
Again, I've contacted the school, the resource officers, oh, we'll talk to the kids. They
park wherever, they block the mailboxes. Today I came home and I couldn't park on
my own street. So it was very difficult. So I gotta go and park, usually
by the church, wait for school to get out, and then move my vehicle. So
more and more that's a common problem in our neighborhood. So now you add a
sporting event onto that, it's gonna be very difficult navigate our own
street the kids on the other hand are a little reckless again that's
generally you know high school it's they all got pretty nice sporty cars so they
they rip through our dead end and it's a cul-de-sac and they'll turn around and
just rip out of there and they park wherever so that's that's been a huge
impact and that we tried to address that early on before it was even built
and again they have this where it says
faculty parking is woods and it's a dumping ground for garbage. And they're
parking all the way up to the gun range and they're just jam packed in
there. So a lot of poor planning on the parking side of it. I don't
think they realized what the impact was gonna be. And it does impact the neighborhood.
A lot of times we laugh because we wait for summertime when we know it's
but they really underestimated the parking.
Again, as far as the lighting, it's hard to tell. As far as I've seen,
they haven't been on, so it's no way to judge what that light spectrum's gonna
cast out. But if the clouds do come through the valley, which they generally hang,
and then they reflect off the clouds, going to show a lot
more. And another thing you might not be aware of is when they did build
this junior high, they didn't face it to the south, they faced it to the
north. And it is over the building height restriction by quite a bit.
And that was asked about in the council meeting. And so we asked if we
could build higher, and they said no. So it has taken away some of the
view. A lot of the trees are gone now. wintertime when the lights are on
at the middle school, it does. We don't need our street lights on. It's ambient
enough light. But again, that's just the wintertime. So there
has been an impact and they have taken away a lot of trees. All these
trees are gone. This was all trees. And then up here where there were quite
a few trees, those are gone too. And I know they're planting a lot of
stuff back, but again, it's My biggest
concern is the traffic impact, the safety of the kids,
this new bypass that everybody's using to cut through the junior high on Evans
Street. And nobody's obeying stop signs through here.
There's no enforcement and you can watch it all day long. And my kids are
young, they're four and five, walk the street we have we have to come out
Evans Lane to Evan Street to walk up to the trails so a lot of
times I just I just when the schools in I said there's no way they're
going to walk on their own so again those those are some of the impacts
that have happened since the junior high has been in and we did as neighbors
tried to address this before it before it was built and we kind of felt
like and the plans actually changed. So
the impact actually we feel has doubled and it has. And a lot of times
you can just go up there and sit and kind of watch the activity go
on. And again, it's a lot of times it's if you think it's
a call Hobart's tight, if you try to get from Second Avenue just from downtown
sunset to our house here on Evans Lane, it can be 15 minutes from here.
It's blocks away, it can take 15 minutes. Anyways, that's what I had to share.
Thank you. Mary Lynch.
My name is Mary Lynch and I reside at 2690 Northwest Oak Crest Drive. I
did send a letter in today, I don't know if you have it. before I
address that I wanna go over just a little bit more as far as information
that we were told at the community public hearings and to remind you, part of
the commitment was on Evans, there's supposed to be lanes
for going out of Evans, a left turn lane and a right turn lane, going
on to second, that's not been done yet. There are also supposed to be angled
parking up at the north or the far west Far east end of Evans
and no parking then on the north side of Evans, that was what was the
school and was proposed at the last community hearing. That's not been done. There is
no enforcement to speak of of any in that area for no parking. So when
the parents are there and the students park there all day, there is no real
enforcement. The school did commit during the public hearing that they would have a gate
that would be closed and would control parents and visitors from
going, cutting through the school. The problem that was stated here, that is, gate is
not regulated, it is open almost all the time. I've given there off hours, it's
open. There is tremendous problems in parents picking up
and blocking even the buses getting in and out of there. The small buses pick
up at the north end of the school. There's also been issues with parents parking
in there and troubles with students loading. That's just on the layout. I can give
you a copy or put a copy of my letter up here. But just to
also timeline. I got a copy and saw a copy dated March
23rd from Lucy talking about this issue. Friday is when I first saw it
and was made public. So the timeline that she talks about As soon as I
saw those polls go up, I did notify some of the neighbors around there because
I was not aware of that going up. And we have been trying to address
it. But as Lucy said, the polls didn't go up until mid-February. So it takes
a little bit of time to get people aware of the issue, then to go
back and research and find out, lo and behold, in the community meeting and the
public hearing, in your final decision on May 6th of 2015, what was
in the staff report, It stated, according to the applicant, the softball field and the
outdoor track football field will not be provided with outdoor lighting. the lighting of these
fields will have a significant impact to residential neighborhoods immediately to the north. That's what
the city staff said. Steve Crawford did not contradict in the meeting. I went back
and I've listened to these meetings. I've looked at your approved minutes. Nowhere in those
minutes did Steve Crawford or any city staff tell the public that they were going
to be approving with this phase of the projects, any phases of these current projects,
lighting. was in there. The actual summary of the SEPA
did not say anything about lighting. Now if you go back in the checkoff list,
but the summary that the city reviewed and the school district submitted did
not say that there was gonna be any lighting. Thus, there is no mitigation for
lighting. One of the things in Whiting and doing Evan's work, gonna talk about, or
probably have to take down more trees. They've already taken more down, more trees along
second than what was agreed to. And these are established large conifers that
do give you shading from noise and sound and light. So if they're
gonna have to remove more trees, what's that gonna do to those along the north?
The SEPA and the public hearing did not say anything about the lights. There was
no mitigation considered for the lights. The other thing that there was no mitigation for
was the extended use after hours of this field, then when there is no lights.
So what does that impact? It impacts traffic. all hours, so if you've got two
major fields having events going on, you have plays and other musicals
going on at the high school and the middle school, there is no mitigation for
traffic, there is no mitigation for parking in the neighborhoods and what's gonna be done.
It's just appalling that the, that the CEPA was allowed to go through as it
was without any mitigation. There's also no mitigation for noise. And if you've got this
type of events for the school, what if they do start renting out this to
groups? What if there is a rock concert over there? where's the mitigation for the
hours and the use of these fields? A lot of soccer games can go
well into the night, after midnight, because your adult leagues, that's the only time they
can get hold of the fields. Where is the mitigation that limits the hours to
the use of these fields? There is none. And so, the other
thing I'd like to know is how did these get approved and it get installed.
And the lights are up, if you go out there, they're installed without a permit.
I'm an engineer, there's mechanical permits that need to be reviewed and drawings, they're civil
because you gotta dig ditches, there's electrical. How did it get this far down
without it being stopped? The tag is on the lights that are already installed.
How did this happen? What are we gonna do to prevent this from happening again?
What are we gonna do to protect our neighbors that live there and the ones
that live, and you'll hear from the others that are also impacted across second? What
are we gonna do? Are we gonna allow this to go forward without any mitigation?
If you read the letter that was sent out on 23rd, there is no more
mitigation that's needed. There's none recommended. So I would ask that you
making any decisions on this until you have the details of what the impacts of
the lighting, the noise, the traffic, the parking is going to have and how
you're gonna mitigate it and how you're gonna make it safe to walk along there
because if you've got all this traffic zipping in and out of there, you're gonna
need to have more control and more flow. Thank you. David Kapler.
Ed Kapler, 255 Southeast Andrews Street. I taught for 35 years, the best seven were
in the Issaquah School District, but their arrogance and dealing with SEPA and
construction is horrible. And now they're wanting to put a school on top of the
hill up here and they're wondering why we're concerned about the impacts.
There's the glare, I know there's good advances on the glare
issue, but we don't know how it's gonna actually turn out there. But the noise,
the traffic, the lack of sidewalks around there, people at the game walking on lousy
sidewalks or no sidewalks on poorly lit streets after a game. There's things
where they're gonna park, there's some real issues there. Just as,
years ago whenever we, this was gone three years almost now, I kept saying the
visitor, the bus parking is a mess, the parking there, the parents have it. I
went up there today, in 10 minutes all the parents were out of there.
They pick up their kids, there's hundreds, I don't know how many were there, all
these SUVs, the kids in the buses were out of there. they're waiting at the
middle school in their buses for over a half an hour in some cases before
they got to leave. School was out at 3.30 and there were still buses leaving
after four o'clock. So this whole business of how this was
approved there is not working and there's bigger problems than the lights. Thank you.
So that's all the people, of the public, would you I did not. Well, would
you just sign in? You can go ahead and make your comments, introduce who you
are, and then come in and let us have your name, please.
I'm Jeff Tanka. I live at 580 Front Street South. I did submit some comments
on behalf of my community. And the reason why I wanted to come up here
and speak is of this wonderful map here, just to give perspective. Where our community
is located is over here across 2nd, Back in here, we have 48
families living in this area.
We live immediately adjacent to the new Clark Elementary School, which we
worked with ISD on regarding lighting, and they have newer
technology lighting that I'm sure is gonna be similar to what Royce was talking about
tonight. We still do see the lighting. It does impact our property. They did put
up a screening wall. Problem is that the lights are a little bit higher than
the wall, so we can see the lights. Is it glare? I don't know, but
when you look up, you can see the lights in the sky. From this perspective
over here, again, heading east, we can see the
lighting that is at the school bus parking, particularly in the new part of the
parking on the north, right over, I lost the mouse here.
Here it is. Right in this area here. This used to be heavily forested. and
the school district took out hundreds of trees when they went ahead and did this
expansion over here. That was screening, if you will, but more importantly, there's lighting in
there now. We can see that lighting from our property because of the elevation grade
that we're at. It's a step function up to that parking lot. With the completion
of Also, with the removal of those trees, we can now see the street
lights on 2nd Avenue as well. These would be the city street lights. Of course,
that's another step function up. If you've ever been in that parking lot, you'll see
there's a huge retaining wall. So again, it's a kind of a staircase, again, from
the elevation to where our property's at, up to where the bus barn parking is,
up to 2nd, up to, I'll come back to the field here in a second,
with the of the new middle school in the blue here, we can
actually see the lighting at that school from our property. Not only the external lighting,
but we can actually see the internal lights shining out the windows, perfectly visible at
our property. Again, there's no screening whatsoever. Getting back to the field, again, from Second
Avenue up to the field is another step function in height. I don't know the
feats, the increments in height, of elevation gain,
and I don't know if there's a map in here that shows the topos at
all, but you can see it's consistently up. So again, we have three major step
functions, plus in another picture on here, you saw how high those lighting towers are.
Again, the lighting technology may be great and it can be focused going down. The
problem is, is our property relative to where the top of these lights are is
an extreme difference. And looking up, we will see the lights. It will light up
the sky for us. That's the main point that I wanted to bring up here.
I think a lot of folks already did mention, you know, potential impacts to traffic,
so on and so forth. The other concern, last concern I have here is didn't
know about the lighting going in. Matter of fact, we had conversations with ISD and
they told us in a community meeting that there was absolutely no intention of having
lighting at this field. I'm now concerned about amplified sound as well if the lighting
goes in. Again, we can hear sounds from the
high school, which is off to the south over here when games are, again, cheering
crowds. They have loud amplified sound systems. If a same or similar
thing goes in here, it's gonna be really detrimental to our neighborhood. Thank you. Thank
you. Anybody else from the public care to speak?
why we would trust the school district with much when we keep getting surprised by
them. Just because something is in the SEPA checklist, which maybe three people read in
life, and then it's never followed through, there is no way you should
say, well, ah, we covered it in SEPA. That has not been covered in SEPA.
Covered in SEPA means that you have said there is a proposed and
then these are the things that we can do to reduce the impact to nothing,
otherwise you don't get a mitigated determination of non-significance, you get a determination of
significance and you do an EIS. And that process was not followed. They showed
an impact, they never showed any mitigations that would reduce that to zero. So if
anything, the MDNS was erroneous. So now, what do you do with that?
you could sit here tonight and try to figure out how to create all of
the mitigations in order to reduce that impact to zero or
insignificant. Or because it is, I don't know, midnight or something, you
could say to staff, this is not in our budget, our Ballywack, what we
need you to do is bring us the proposed mitigations to reduce the
impacts to insignificant and come back with a future meeting to review
those conditions to see if you think that you agree with them and then you
can impose those mitigations upon the school district in order to make the
lives of the people who live around the school unimpacted by
lighting and the activities that would be at night and address issues like amplification.
So one little reiteration, I would put the onus back on staff to come back
with the mitigations to be proposed to get it down to insignificant. Thank you.
Would you care to sign in? Right here, sorry.
So
commissioners, questions, comments? I guess, comments?
Okay, I'll start. I am about as disappointed with the government
entity as I can be. I remember our meeting in here on this.
Lighting was discussed by members of the community who expressed a concern, and I
recall that they were told, don't worry about it. The fact
that the city had to issue a red tag the Issa Caw School District
is incomprehensible to me. I will also say that every single point, I know we're
talking about lighting here. Yes, we are. And I don't wanna get off on the
other thing. But we had a member of the public use the word arrogance.
And I think what we're dealing with here is a fiefdom that is operating in
a vacuum and not cooperating with us and not honoring agreements.
Every single point that was mentioned by the members of the public tonight was raised
in that meeting in 2015, and it was not addressed. It has not been addressed
by the school district. Garbage, illegal parking, racing through parking lots,
all of these things were discussed back then as a possible impact of this. So
to get to the lighting specifically, I don't know that there's any way to say
will be no impact, no negative impact on the neighbors by lighting on that field.
I just don't know if that's possible. And if it isn't possible, then we should
not allow lighting on that field. So I agree with the suggestion
that perhaps the best path forward is to have the staff come back to
us with what needs to be done The lighting is going to go in there
to have zero impact, negative impact on the neighbors.
And have that be enforceable. Okay, I'm done.
Other comments? What he said.
Questions? Can I ask a few questions just to try to get a better idea
of the increase of impact. A lot of it was around traffic and level of
use. So maybe this is for the school district. But what's the, generally
what, there was a comment made that there's no limitation on the number of hours,
but it says you have 30 minutes after the event to shut the main lights
down and use ambient lighting. So what generally is the period of time that you
operating, would be operating this field if it was lighted? of events are going on,
how late do they generally run? I
can't honestly say that because it would depend on, I don't know that our offense
would go all that late. It would depend on what happens for outside use.
So if it was felt that there's a time limit that makes it acceptable,
I think that would certainly be up for discussion. About,
cumulative effect of all of the fields now operating for
longer periods of time and simultaneously you talked about you would be running both fields
that you know after hour or after daylight and it's dark you're going to be
running the high school fields which are lighted but if this was lighted you'd be
running these simultaneously so you would have a cumulative effect of both of them now
operating at this Typically at the middle school, I don't know that you'd have big
events, so I don't know that you'd have the issues with the loud music
that you might hear at the high school stadiums, as Jeff was mentioning. I don't
know that you'd have those things. It's a fairly decent sized parking lot.
Granted, if you had something super big going on at Disco High School, I don't
know that you'd have anything by a school district happening at the middle school at
that point because usually those events include everybody from the other location.
But I don't know that you'd have a lot more than community use
going on at that and depending on what happened with what you felt needed to
happen as far as that goes, you could limit the hours. you could
limit big events happening at both locations. I mean, we do that right now. We
don't try to have a game going while we're trying to have something going on
in the theater, because then we're competing for parking. So you have
standard operating procedures that would prevent that from happening? Is that internal to the schools?
Well, you certainly try to, yes. I
can't speak for sometimes what happens behind the scenes where somebody doesn't understand that, but
typically if it was set up, no rentals on this, we put that
in a rental program that you, we have rental, I won't say it's
more reservations for our fields, for our buildings,
all that kind of stuff. So if you were on there, that field could be
shut off at a particular time. These are community assets, obviously,
and we want to make sure they're used appropriately because there's significant dollars spent to
build them. One more question, again, responding to some of the comments from the public.
There were, and we were involved in establishing conditions, approving the permits for the schools
that are there. Are the conditions of those permits and enforced by the school district
in your operations? Typically, I can't. There's ones
where they're talking about the people cutting through the back of the school. They have
gates back there. I've applied pressure to make sure those gates
were shut. It's not happening. I've got notes from everybody that's been here and have
made notes about their complaints. I will bring those back and at the administrative level,
they will push those. So I'll see if we can take care of some of
these issues with people cutting through or how they use the site.
Thank you.
Other comments or questions? Are these events a source of
revenue for Issaquah School District? Is there a financial incentive for you to have
on these fields? I don't know that you'd have that at the middle school football
field. When they have large football games and events like that, they do bring in
income for the fields, but it's usually at the high school level. The high school
would never play at this field unless it was like a C team that happened
to be playing Wednesday night or something, so it wasn't competing with the other varsity
teams. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm not clear. So if this
field had lighting, would it be policy
for Issaquah School District to allow a non-school function on these fields in return
for due recompense? Yes, but it's usually very minimum. And I think the
City of Issaquah Parks and Rec uses most of our facilities for free.
comments? I guess the thing is strange situation.
All the time I've been on the commission, I've never run into something like this
where this went through and they said, no, we're not going to do it, and
then come back and say, well, no, we want to do it. You know, putting
the lights up. But I think despite all the complaints that we've heard tonight, and
I appreciate those, but the only question we have lighting question, should that be
allowed or not. A couple things. I don't think the
idea at this point that we can trust the school district to be the reviewer
of their own SEPA checklist has not been proven adequate. I don't think we
have enough information to just say, yes, we should approve this. And I don't think
that we are the body that should be approving it. If the original that we
recommended approval for was approved by city council. This is a
significant part of it. If it was a very minor thing, maybe it's one thing,
but this is significant. I think our job would be to recommend to city council
one way or the other. But at this point, I don't think we have enough
information to decide how we make that decision, what the impacts are,
how they would mitigate those. I don't believe that there should be no impacts on
anybody in the community from lights at night on a school football
sports field. We gain things by having athletics and those kind
of things and having them all times of the day gets pretty dark in the
winter here as we know, fairly early. beneficial thing to the community. So I think
we can't expect to have no impacts on anybody of any lights on a sports
field, but I don't think we know enough right now to make a decision of
how we should recommend this to the city council. So I would say that we
go back to staff and say somebody else needs to do a CEPA review, determination
of what should be done, then come back to us for us to make a
recommendation to city council. That'd be my recommendation. Commissioner
Morgan, I'd like to see specific uses by type of
this field. I'd like to see frequency of events. I'd like to see proposed time
limits for events. I just agree that I think we need more information to be
able to make a decision. I kind of disagree. I
mean, the original licensing was around not having lights.
that was a decision and I think that's what we should stand by. The decision
was made, the community was informed there weren't going to be lights. The permits were
signed without a light. I don't think there should be lights. Can I, Mr.
Chair, make a comment real quick or question?
Question for Lucy. So this is a procedural question because if, take a step
back from this and say a permit has gone through, it was approved. You can't
have it's amended after issuance and there's a process you go through to amend them
depending upon the scope of the change that's being proposed, right? So this is one
that's coming back to us because there's some confusion about the documents, but clearly the
permit documents that we approved, the permit itself, didn't have one. Well, the council approved.
Excuse me, the recommendation we made to cancel, the council approved, thanks. Didn't include the
lights. So this is an amendment to an approved permit. Is that, this is being
addressed? Yes, it is a revision to an approved permit. Okay, so the
process of the revision is similar to, I mean, does this one follow the same
process that the original permit went through? So, I'm not sure that,
if you're gonna send it back to us for more information, which I completely understand,
I think we can discuss, I have discussed this with the mayor,
and this was the process we proposed. Now, I recognize
that there is disagreement about the value of SEPA having
been done. I think that the,
to play devil's advocate, the SEPA listed lighting, I
agree no one reads it, but it was attached to the staff report. And
you could make a case that no mitigation was required for the lighting because
that lighting is allowed and there are regulations for that lighting. And so
you don't have to do additional mitigation if regulations
address the impact. Now, As that happened, I don't know, I wasn't the
person who did the SEPA. I don't know how they thought about it. And so
we can certainly do more research about that. But if that
perspective was put forward, then you would
say that the SEPA period, the appeal period has run. There's no
mitigation because the regulations took care of it and therefore we are
implementing something that was under SEPA and that was regulated in the permit.
We feel that it is vital to have this conversation publicly.
We wouldn't want to sweep this under the rug or do
this administratively because this is the very kind of conversation that these process
are intended to afford the community and the commission. But
because ignoring all of the
community piece, I think procedurally we could have done it administratively. I don't think that
would be the right thing to do, but that's why we're coming back to have
the conversation here. I'm not sure that it has to go back to council. You
can make that recommendation. I don't have any idea whether the Council would agree,
as I said, this was discussed with the mayor about what process to undergo and
this is the one we
have
proposed. that had a
sports field complex and got permission to put it in and
followed the procedure and then
put lights up that weren't approved by the procedure.
we'd be doing the same process here, would be discussing the same thing, or is
there a special relationship with the government entity? I'm not being facetious here.
Because it seems to me that, and maybe this is just not, has
absolutely no basis in fact, which is possible, but it seems to me that if
this were a private enterprise that was in this situation,
I'm not so sure we'd be as willing to just you know, say, well, here's
how we're gonna fix this administratively? I don't think that we're trying to
fix it to make it possible for them to move forward. I think
the, so I don't think that the process is different. I mean,
you can remember when Gateway wanted to change the parking, we brought this back to
you. We felt that that
was important to the kind of relationship that we wanna have with the community and
the commission and that we wouldn't want someone to look at it later and say,
I don't remember that. And then us saying, well, we didn't think it was a
big deal. So we think this is a big deal, that's why we're here.
I think that to touch on a point, and I don't know if this was
the intent of that point, The school district gets to decide who is their lead
agency. They are their own lead agency. That is a decision they get to make.
We've had some discussions about whether they would let the city take it on, but
it is their decision, not ours. The distinction with a private entity is would be
ours. And so that is a distinction that doesn't
absolve us of our responsibility to, they give us, they do
provide us with a draft to review. If they didn't provide us with a draft
to review, we would have an
opportunity when it was published to review it and make comments. And that's frequently what
happens between jurisdictions such as with Sammamish. So, and it is,
our responsibility to be thorough and careful in that review and question things. I think
traffic was primarily the focus at the time that that SEPA review was done. That
was very complicated, if you remember, and was part of, I think,
some of the issues that were remanded back to the Commission.
I don't have a lot of historical documents to understand exactly how that thinking went
through, but I don't think that there is, we're giving a break to the school
district and we wouldn't do that to X Corp. Thank you. You're welcome. I
think, Mr. Chair, my recommendation on this is, so you're right, this is a little
unusual from what we typically get. would be that I'm not ready to
make a recommendation or tonight some additional information I think would be
helpful to me one is we have the lighting study that was provided by the
school district Lucy you mentioned that you're having a peer review done of this
of their study you were having a peer review or somebody was looking at the
so they provide it so Part of the conditions which were included in your memo
was that they had to provide photometric study, lighting levels, they had to meet certain
standards. They were supposed to provide information on the
fixtures. We got the photometric study, we did not get enough information on the
fixtures, so we've gone back. I think one of the
Someone from the public also commented on structural reviews. That's exactly our questions. So there's
a number of pieces of information that we are asking for. However,
the conditions of approval are an essential part of telling the
school district what they need to provide us. So there's a little bit of a
chicken and egg going on here. Okay. the
additional the kind of the additional information about just an
affirmation that the the lighting footprint that's being created by their proposed fixtures because you
have you know if you don't want the fixtures you can't confirm this so you
we need to you the staff need to understand um what the specs are for
the fixtures that they're installing and and whether they're going to actually accomplish what they're
saying here the other The other piece for me that's not included in the conditions,
and it's not specifically called out as a condition in the code, but this
is a field that's right next to residential neighborhoods, single-family homes
and condominiums just across the street. So having
no limit on how long they can operate this field with lights seems
like a little much too much leeway to me for its location. And it
is a new facility at that location. So working with the school district on trying
to end the neighborhood and the neighbors on if this is a lighted
field, what's a reasonable period of time for operation and when should it shut down?
And I know everybody's gonna have different perspectives on that, but I think that would
be a good conversation to have. Okay. I would ask all the public
who's here in attendance to please make sure that your email address is clear and
legible on there because that's how we would be able to communicate with you and
follow up with any questions, communications, additional process that
it sounds like we'll be going through. And we have other schools in the district
that have lights, lit fields, like up at Skyline, there are houses right next to
and it'd be interesting to know what restrictions are in place at all the other
schools too. Well, and I did speak to the, I've talked to our lighting, I've
emailed with our lighting consultant and contacted the Parks Department. And there were
hours, the Parks Department, I don't know whether they put it
on themselves, I don't know that it was a condition, but they did put hours,
our restrictions on Central Park fields, for instance. So I do have
some information from them and we can gather some more. It seemed to me
that while there were some specific comments about the impact of lights and being able
to see those, there were way more comments about traffic and unmet
obligations that were discussed, like for parking and those kind of things and I don't
see any of that being addressed at all and the issue really is a revision
of the permit to get to allow the lights right so so I'm not sure
how that gets wrapped into any further discussion that we might have but there seems
to be a little more than a little angst about unfulfilled out unfulfilled
commitments that were made that aren't So I was thinking about that as well. I
mean, some of those are on the operation of the school. And
however, some of that I need to go back and talk to staff about. Those
permits are not closed out. You know, they are, it was a multi-year construction.
And what I need to understand is in reviewing the concerns that
are voiced about, for instance, of lanes, parking and things,
whether all the specifications of the permits
and conditions were met, and I just don't know that off the top of my
head. It doesn't sound like they were, but that would be something to really
look at, I think. It sounds like the general consensus of the group is we're
not ready to make a recommendation one way or the other. Is that fair to
you? Okay, this means, yes, that's fair to
say. This means no, it's not fair to say. So I think we
are handing it back to the staff and asking for more information and
more research and once again, setting up a time when we can
have additional discussion about it. So. Chair, can I ask a question?
If we could get a sense from the other commissioners, how they feel about if
this does come back to us, are we the deciding body or would we be
making a recommendation to the State Council? I agree. That to me is a very
significant point. So what would be the
preference? Well, I agree. I mean, this is a special situation. I think we ought
to do our due diligence I think the impact of this, of all the
factors, not just the lighting, but we'll address the lighting issue that's before us. I
think the city council should have this
as a possible venue to look at the community situation.
So I... Well, but from our perspective, you think we should be making a recommendation
to council to allow or not allow? Mr. Stanford, do you agree? Yes,
and it's my understanding that's how the original permit recommendation went, is that correct? This
is a revision or a change order to that permit, so essentially I would imagine
the same procedure should apply. I would agree. Okay.
Yes, kind of. I think it's a procedural question that's not ours to
answer. So I think this is a question to staff and the administration
and the city attorney to really decide what's the appropriate path given the nature of
this amendment and the documents that were provided in the original approval or not. I
think it's more their call than ours. So however it comes back, we're gonna make
a recommendation. So it's either gonna be administrative decision and we're gonna provide input to
the administrative decision or it's gonna go back to council. Right, and
so I hear your desire That's great to know. And I take
that very seriously. I will just, for your
pondering, and we will provide something written for your consideration, and I think that's completely
fair. For instance, if the master site plan, which is the element that required it
to go to council, is not the element that would normally include lighting, if that's
normally part of a site development permit and you would be the decision making body
for that component, it might be your decision. But I think that is a completely
fair question. I am appreciative of the respect that you're
demonstrating for the process and to be respectful of the decision making body
and we will take it under consideration in that very light and provide you with
guidance just as Commissioner Brennan identified. Great.
Well, we could spend another half hour talking about it and break
our record. Or we could just, I just wanna express my appreciation to the
members of the public. I know it's late, we're all tired and we've all had
stuff to do today, but it really once again reaffirms how valuable it is for
people to get come come and provide comment because it really can change the
directions of way things are going so i just i just appreciate you all so
much and i think at this point we ought to adjourn the meeting so moved