we just met last week so you lucky you
get to miss that stuff
I good evening and welcome to the
October 2nd meeting of the planning
policy commission uh we're going to foro
the minutes from the last meeting and
we're gonna get right into the agenda
items and tonight we're going to uh in
our continuing Saga of looking at the
comp plan we're going to review the um
economic Vitality element and the
cultural element we've already done it
we've gone through and made our
Corrections and I'm sure you've reread
everything does anybody have any
questions comments additions uh yeah
just just have one comment on the E
economic Vitality element at Gold D and
um my version currently reads isqua is a
vibrant Safe Community where people
choose to live um which is kind of a
static uh goal I'd propose that it be
changed to maintain and enhance isqua's
reputation as a vibrant Safe Community
where people choose to
live does that work for everyone yeah so
could you read it one more time Justin
please maintain
uh maintain and enhance isqua's
reputation as a vibrant safe etc
etc anything
else
nice I have a um question on uh
workforce and development if we go back
to the August
14 uh minutes uh Joan brought up uh
should we separate or talk differently
about work Workforce Development and
housing and they mentioned that
the uh other committee that this comes
through uh also discussed that and they
were going to get back to us with
whether or
not Workforce Development and housing
should be in one goal and which goal was
that Susan what's the page number on
page
eight we have economic Vitality goal C
uh oh I'm on a different goal C okay I
got different numbers than you do see
see see okay and there was just a
question back in August about
um how housing and Workforce Development
maybe should be separate right and I can
go online to do the track changes to see
what um the Jen from Economic
Development put in to see what what's
different than
this oh it's blurry I love
that
no are you in the sustainability
section I'm
inity
okay Oh wrong one wrong one this
one no I broke
it so goal
C this does not have track changes in
it I bet this is open on my computer
back in the
office ever do that okay this is how it
changed um we moved out or um from our
discussion we moved out the first
piece and we put education and
housing more together in the goal
but it looks like it didn't change the
policies
much was there something that you wanted
to add or change to the policies based
on the goal no I just didn't see
um
any changes I mean we didn't hear back
about what the other
committee said about it oh okay I this
must have been um that they were fine
with putting them together in the goal
but it looks like it didn't change any
any of the ways that the policies were
formatted the question wasn't they
should be together if I read the August
14th minutes correctly and maybe I
misinterpreting the minutes it was that
they shouldn't be together Workforce
Development and
housing there's a question whether
housing
there's a question I interpreted that
and like I said maybe I'm looking at it
wrong that it should be on its own
rather than grouped in and I don't know
what Joan meant by that that that St two
months I
know and so you're thinking Susan that
Workforce Development might be a goal
and Workforce housing might be a
goal
no oh
okay that I guess maybe with in it to
separate them out to dress them oh under
one umbrella but the policies would call
them out differently yeah that's what I
thought
but does that I don't know it was a here
it
said Davis Hayes was going to go back to
EVC and get their
input and okay we I guess we never this
is what her she wrote to came back yeah
this is what she came back with this
these are her edits based on what you
said and what she researched with her
group but I I don't have anything more
than
this
okay is it should I follow up with her
on I don't know I think if we're happy
with how that came out okay are we happy
I'm
happy the happiness monitor
okay that's good good reading though
Susan I was just happy that there was a
lot of that she did a lot of editing I
thought that was good any others while
I'm here with the track
changes
no are we ready to jump into
sustainability I think indicators well
um introduce David and uh have him and
Megan I have to say this is stuff is
really exciting I helped with the
sounding board when we first were
creating them out of nothing and it was
just it was a fabulous process I thought
so I'm really happy to have you guys
here tonight to finally get this
wonderful information into the comp plan
you want so I'll let you queue up
whatever it is that you guys wanted to
queue up but this is dve Fujimoto and
Megan yes and um she's very new but very
wonderful already and we're happy to
have you both here tonight thank you
very
much I do want to point out that David
is that director of The Office of
sustainability so his the oh did I get
it wrong on the agenda it's in the
agenda but I just want to make sure
everybody knew he was the director oh
well there you go to our studio audience
yes
all
right uh you guys can hear me thank you
very much Joan uh David Fujimoto
director of The Office of sustainability
again I'm joined with Megan Curtis
Murphy as sustainability coordinator and
uh we're going to tag team a little bit
um and I just wanted to give you a
little bit of an introduction and some
background as Trish mentioned uh we had
done some work on the sustainability
indicators with a group called The
sustainability sounding board many years
ago and it's uh been a it was a great
process and it's been building from that
uh Point ever since so it's great to
formalize some of these pieces within
the comprehensive plan as
well uh as I mentioned um it's kind of
started all back in 2008 with um some
work by mayor uh Ava fringer at the
point at that point in time uh she asked
us to work with a pretty broad
cross-section of folks from the
community um and it included uh several
folks from the business commun Community
um uh there were a number of uh just
kind of community residents uh there
were folks from The Parks Board Human
Services Commission a Cascade land
conserv um there were some local
developers uh the isqua Alps Trails Club
so kind of trying to incorporate a mix
of different folks U kind of
environmental social and economic into
the equation as we were taking a look at
this and really had a couple of
different purposes one was to help us to
identify and Define a long-term vision
of sustainability there are a number of
pieces that kind of live throughout
places like the comprehensive plan and
the city's own vision statement um but
it kind of uh wasn't all kind of
contained in a long-term one long-term
kind of a vision so they were kind of
helping us to flush that out a little
bit and then uh looking at that uh
helping us to understand uh what is what
are the ways in which we can um measure
and kind of track our long-term uh
perspective so kind of this framework uh
we came up with was thinking about big
uh long-term assist sustainability
vision and principles uh developing
eight sustainability themes out of that
and then the sustainability indicators
themselves there's 26 of
those and here I'm not going to read
this but this is um the vision and
principles and these are the pieces that
came out of the report that that
included the sounding board of the
collection of those folks was it report
called measuring matters you may have
seen this before I'm not sure um but it
talked about kind of this long-term uh
vision and principles uh looking at
things like future Generations similar
to uh the definition of sustainability
that lives in the comprehensive plan
talks a lot about livability talks about
natural resources environment Citizen
and the economy um kind of the concept
that we have to connect and and look at
these things as an interrelated system
um and then also looking at some of
these values that help to kind of guide
some of our thinking that
direction and as I mentioned there were
um these basic uh or excuse me the
sustainability themes that the group
came up with basic needs education
Mobility business climate uh water or
waste resource use uh natural Open
Spaces Community Ste stewardship and
awareness the idea that if you have
active folks in your community that's a
Hallmark for a sustainable community and
then also because development is a big
part of what we have in isqua that's
also an important element to
consider um so this first one is basic
needs and I'm G to Megan's been doing a
lot of the work and updating the data
sets that live behind all these 26
indicators and that's a large body of
work and so wanted to turn it over to
Megan she's going to take you through
some highlights from
these thank you yes so as David
mentioned we have the eight themes and
then um 26 indicators within that and um
I'm going to go through a couple from
each one uh not all 26 however you have
it in the draft report in the packet
there um so you have information on all
of them
so for basic needs um each of the themes
the sustainability sounding board also
came up with a um vision for them so for
basic needs it's that an isqua food and
shelter and Healthcare will be available
for all and the indicators here are
Community Health Community safety Food
Bank use and housing affordability
Gap so the first one is Food Bank use
and this is the total number of
individuals and families served so in
2013 the isqua Food Bank served
18579 um individuals and families and
that's the highest number that they've
served in their 30-year history um and
that is about an 18% increase from 2012
um which is reflective of both uh
increase in need but also um more
Outreach that they were doing and then
the chart on the right is the breakdown
of food man clients um you can see the
majority is adults and children Age 3 to
18 and that bre Down's been about the
same over the last several years and
just a quick question on that indicator
is there any um statistics or data on
whether there's a gap between the client
served and the needs of the
community um I think we haven't done a
formal um CommunityWide needs assessment
on that as far as I'm aware um but
that's definitely as we're going through
this process we're looking to improve
the the indicators as we go so um
yes uh next is housing affordability Gap
and this is the difference between the
price of homes affordable to median
income households compared to the medium
price of homes on the market um and in
over the last 10 years the housing
affordability Gap has been higher than
that of King County um and in
2013 the Gap um the difference between
the average home price and isqua and the
price affordable to household earning
the King County median income increased
to 61,000 um from about 92,000 in
2012 and isaaz also adopted housing
affordability goals and um 177% of
housing units are affordable to moderate
income households is the goal and right
now we're at about
12.2% and the second goal 24% of housing
units are affordable to lowincome
households right now we're at about
4.8% the next theme is business climate
and this is um has a vision that our
economy will be healthy and diverse and
the indicators here are business
diversity job housing balance
participation in the Arts and revenue
based
diversity so the first uh business
diversity this is the number of
businesses in isqua by size employment
and type and over the last 13 years the
total number of businesses has more than
doubled uh we had about 830 in uh the
year 2000 and now we have just over
1,800 um however you can see here that
the breakdown uh between large medium
and small businesses has remained
relatively constant uh we also measure
it by sector and we have 64% of um isqua
employees are in the service sector this
is a fairly inclusive category of um
Business and Professional Services and
Health Services uh and then the second
largest category is retail with
14% the job housing balance is the ratio
of total jobs to total housing units in
isqua and um right now we are at about
1.52 jobs per home um and this is an
important indicator because it shows
that um whether or not we have enough
housing for those who work in isqua and
jobs for those living in isqua um the
target is about
1.2 or is
1.2 uh the next theme Community
awareness and stewardship uh the vision
here is that citizens will be actively
engaged in their Community uh so we
measure this uh by quality of life
volunteerism and voter turnout and
quality of life is actually one of the
indicators that we haven't had a formal
way to get data for so far um but we are
going to be doing a survey this year so
hopefully we'll be able to get some more
data on quality of life and be able to
measure that in years going
forward so volunteerism um this is the
total hours volunteered in city or
Community program
and this is important because um by
volunteering isqua residents improve the
quality of life in isqua for themselves
and others um which is fundamental to
building a sustainable community and in
2013 we exceeded about 42,000 hours uh
which is on par with previous years but
it's about two and a half times that of
2008 um and this is again Volunteers in
city or Community programs but not
necessarily representative of all um
volunteering in the
City the next theme is education uh so
in issaqua the vision is our schools
will be world class and we'll have
excellent ongoing education for adults
um and this is that the isqua student uh
school districts school districts really
strive to um continually improve the
students education and they have been
ranking um higher than both state and
National averages so the average SAT
score in isqua is 7 1921 right now um or
for last year and the state and national
average is closer to,
1500 um the extended graduation rate is
just under 95% which is about the same
as last year and this is the percentage
um of students who graduate within one
calendar year of their assigned
graduation
date next we have uh green Compact and
mixed use development um so this is that
we have a vision um that we can manage
our growth so we can live work and play
Closer To Home and the indicators here
are community and plan density green
buildings and population
density so for green buildings um isqua
really strives to increase the number of
lead and built green uh certified homes
in the city and right now we have um
just under 177% of the current housing
stock is built Green certified um Which
is higher than most of the surrounding
cities um with redond being next highest
at 10% we also have 12 lead certified
buildings as well as several more that
are currently going through the process
to be certified as well as severally um
several nationally recognized buildings
including the uh Maple Street Fire
Station uh the Swedish uh Medical Center
and then also zome which is the nation's
first zero net energy multif family
housing project
next we have population density so this
is the average number of residents per
acre in each sub area and this is really
a key measure in understanding how well
the city of issaqua managing growth
which is important for several
sustainability indicators um as well as
natural resources and
transportation um and since 2009 each um
sub area has been becoming more dense
and the highest um or the most dense sub
areas the isqua Highlands followed by
Greenwood Point and
Oldtown the next theme natural areas and
open space so our vision that Open
Spaces will be protected um and also
we'll have a regional food supply that
we can trust and keeps us healthy and so
the indicators are preserved natural
open space food grown locally stream
health and tree
canopy so isqua is well known for their
ease of access to parks and um open
areas so this is something that uh the
city highly values um and this so the
indicator is for the percentage of Acres
within the city um that are parks and
preserve natural open areas so in 2013
we had um just over 1,600 Acres of um of
open space and that's about 22% of the
total acreage in the city and that's up
from about 15% just 10 years
ago for tree canopy um in 2008 the city
adopted a Target to have 51% of the city
um have tree coverage and no net loss of
overall coverage and in 2012 um we did a
baseline aerial photography to assess
this and find out where the tree um the
trees were and where potential trees
could be planted and isqua has just
under 48% um covered in tree canopy
right now which is more than um the
surrounding communities but still a
little bit more to go till
Target uh next is transportation and
Mobility uh so this is the vision that
issaqua will lead the region by becoming
a pedestrian bike and Transit dominated
city um also our transportation will be
carbon free and use alternative fuels so
the indicators here are carbon footprint
which is really a cross cutting
indicator but fits in here uh
Transportation by type and
walkability so the carbon footprint is a
measure of the greenhouse gas pollution
associated with our activities and
carbon emissions have been linked with
adverse effects on um human natural
resources and in Washington is linked
with um in the future decreased snow
pack and also increased flooding so this
is an indicator that we've watched and
uh the city also uh adopted a goal to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80%
by the year 2050 we're also working on
adop ing interim goals there as well so
this indicator is measured once every 5
years uh so from 2007 to 2012 we
decreased emissions by
1.9% and in that time there was um
economic downturn but we also increased
our population from about 25,000 to
about
31,000 and isqua is also one of the only
few cities in the city or in the in King
County with a formally adopted um
greenhouse gas Target
uh so Mobility um transportation this is
the percentage of total travel trips by
Transportation type and the source for
this data is the commute trip reduction
survey which is for businesses with over
100 employees so it's not um
representative of all residents in isqua
um but isqua has actually been
identified as the city that has the
highest um Van Pool mode rate so um just
at Costco one of every four trips are
ride sharing um so that's a place we've
really been able to thrive in this um
indicator however our Drive alone rate
is still just over 70% um so we're not
meeting our Target there to to reduce by
10% so there's still work to be
done uh the next indicator is waste um
resource use so in our vision is wasting
resources will become Unthinkable and
the indicators here are energy use
renewable energy use and waste
generation and water water
usage so energy use um isqua strives to
um decrease the amount of energy used
and over the last several years it's
remained relatively flat um however the
um residential energy per capita has
declined significantly since 2000 um and
this is thought to be representative of
the built green housing stock that we
have as well as newer efficiency
standards for
appliances and waste generation uh this
is the total waste generated the amount
landfilled and the amount diverted um so
isas strives to decrease the amount of
waste and increase um the amount that's
recycled and composted so in 2 uh since
2006 we've been decreasing um the total
amount of waste until last year um
there's a slight increase which may be
due to uh um the economy improving we
also work closely um with King County
and have adopted Ed their um Solid Waste
Management plan goals and they have a
diversion rate um of 55% by 2015 and
this is waste that would be diverted
from a landfill um and isqua's rate is
44% in
2013 and single families are um have a
higher diversion rate than the multif
family and
Commercial so now I'd be happy to open
up for questions about these
and we have the 14 that I went through
here as well as the 26 in the packet
that you can look at
later all your work and gotten all the
numbers put together so um it seems like
you're doing a good job overall in the
city so if you had one area that that
you thought the city was really should
think about and really spend some time
what would that one not that not all of
them aren't important what is the one
thing that maybe the city can really uh
take the lead in
and um I think we're really well known
for our natural areas in open space I
think we're we're doing well there so I
think we definitely want to keep that up
um I know that Transportation has come
up a lot in the city about um um too
much traffic so I think that that's
something that um we could work on more
um there's so many great ones to talk
about but I'll leave it at that well I
figured you'd come up with
Transportation um that's kind of a you
know with the new development that is
coming in it's going to even impact it
more so we've got to get a lot of people
out of cars and on the bikes I don't
know yes more van pools or van pools um
um or have enough jobs in the city so
that so that they can walk to work
exactly anything else Trish do you have
anything else to add no no there's no
questions on any of the indicators or
what any of them mean or any of
them they all you know you've done your
work and and uh it shows in the reports
that you know right and I guess another
thing to point out on our city web page
the actual sounding board report and the
um um I'm not sure exactly what they're
called but the how we measure things the
the reports of the years are in there
too so you can see the in-depth um
pictures and Analysis and there's some
really interesting things as we've moved
through that um Megan went through
pretty fast but they're actually on the
website if you wanted to ponder through
them um David had one in his hand um
that he showed sort of briefly but um
they're I think they're really
interesting all the measurements that
are out there and how well we're doing
that a lot of them because we're really
kind of a small City compared to our
neighbors in the region and we're we do
some really incredible things with as
small as we are I do have one
comment which uh you'll understand and
probably laugh when I tell you you uh
talked about all the volunteering that's
going on in the city and you called out
salmon days and the
rotary and where's
kowas I think it's um so we we track the
hours from from some of the um groups
but not we don't have hours from all of
them and most of that is just the city
hours but that a great great
note because I'm a CO so you need to get
us your hours then wonderful yeah so we
can track them you can start getting
hour well I I don't have any more
questions I I think thank you for
putting it together you certainly doing
a lot of work and uh David
congratulations um wherever we go from
here only up and better so if there's
nothing else right the next meeting then
we skip to you have two weeks off and
then we come back on the 23rd and it's
going to be transportation again so what
happens on uh just Transportation or
anything correct and hopefully we'll
have the maps by then and we'll have
concurrency policies then um because
they're working on concurrency across
the street um with the council committee
and so hopefully they're doing some
policies so that we can put some in our
plan at least in our draft for in two
weeks for you guys to review so do you
have the schedule for November are we
going to meet in on Thanksgiving no
actually we have Thanksgiving off which
is good we try to do that every year but
we think the public hearing um the first
public hearing for the whole plan um
such as it is would be the 13th I think
is that a Thursday and that will be
where so people it'll be here it'll be
in council chambers and then the next
public hearing won't be
till uh December and I have to look at
the schedule but we're kind of doing
some some space I think we're going to
try and have maybe even an open house
where we have this open for you know an
hour to people can come in and talk ask
you guys questions maybe we'll have some
um some little stands around so people
can see you know the new format what
what's different um maybe get some
public in maybe not but at least it'll
be open it'll be the 13th bring your
cookies yes we have cookies so that
might help the attendance and um and
then we'll get comments that night and
then um we'll go back and make any
changes that you all have and then uh
hopefully in December send it over to
the council with your recommendation is
the is the plan is the when does it have
to be approved it has to be approved by
the state it has to be sent to the state
by June of 2015 so we're hoping that the
council has all of next you know from
January to June to to mess around with
it okay well with that uh we're done yep
and so um I'm going to close the the
meeting at 7:01 great thank you another
fantastic group night thank you all we
didn't do anything all the work was done
by the I know they were
fabulous