oh good the video still up here
we're live good evening and welcome to
the january toyota 28th meeting of the
planning policy Commission tonight we're
going to after presentation from Risch
have a public hearing on a proposal list
of the comprehensive plan amendments for
this year but first we have to approve
the minutes of our last meeting which
was in October first do I have a motion
to approve the minutes well make such
motion I'll second it any discussion
changes all those in favor please say
aye I post hearing none the minutes from
the October meaning of a clinical estate
commission is are hereby approved so
with that we're going to open up to
Trish to tell us a little bit about what
the public hearing is am okay we start
out the new year with a new list of
comprehensive plan amendments and that's
our purpose for tonight as you might
remember the growth management act of
the state says the comprehensive plan is
very important it's a policy document
for your jurisdiction it's the umbrella
to which everything needs to fit
underneath and you can only amend it
once a year and that's so
comprehensively you look at all the
impacts of your choices at one time that
year to change or modify your policies
of your city so that's their intent and
so we can only do it once a year so we
have to establish the list in the
beginning of the year and then you can't
add anything the entire year those have
to go to next year if someone in June as
I said comes in with a fabulous idea we
can't look at it until the next round of
the docket amendments the way we do this
requirement is we call it a docket and
we have it in the code how you create a
docket and we gather information and
ideas the previous year that didn't make
it into last year's dakot and we hold
this hearing by code it has to be done
by the end of
January in order to get it to the
council in February and they look at it
and then they have to they should have a
list established in March and this is
the crazy chart that's in our land use
code that shows all the decisions and
all the input times that get that get
worked through and the little circle
that's where we are right now is
establishing the docket and it has to be
done by your second meeting in January
or by the end of January okay the land
use code on the other hand we can do as
many code amendments at any time of the
year as staff can work on it's very
different than the comprehensive plan we
quit making dockets for the code
amendments a few years ago because there
were so many that it was overwhelming
this year it'll be a little overwhelming
because we have olive round 3 for the
central standards you might remember
fondly round one and round to that you
all worked on last year this is around
three and there's 22 amendments on there
we're going to do it in three stages we
hope maybe act 1 egg 2 and the final we
haven't quite decided how to call them
we also have old town standards the task
force just finished up from their work
last year and they have all sorts of
ideas for how we could change the
standards in old town so we're working
on those this year there's going to be
an exciting one on marijuana this year
that has to be done by June merging the
medical and recreational somehow before
the state deadline in June that's
another exciting one so there's all
sorts of code amendments coming to you
soon but we don't actually have a
concrete list because it's just changing
too much but know that they are coming
we're not just doing comp plan this year
I thought I would put the list that you
have in your packet and flip through
there's three pages of them I believe
there are 20 we have them broken down
into
two new amendments or and I start with
annual those are the easiest to talk
about there's some that we do every year
and that's our Transportation
Improvement Program which is the amount
of money that we allocate to our
transportation program each year and you
all have a hearing in front of with our
engine our city engineer and they go
through the transportation the TI p as
we call it they go through that with you
every year and you make a recommendation
to the council we do that every year
that's part of the comprehensive plan
and also the capital facilities program
which would be like parks and trucks and
other facilities that the city purchases
or plans to purchase the next year that
keeps us going with our level of service
commitment that we make to the community
we do that every year we update our
population every year so that all our
forecasting is accurate and we also do
what we call community facility redoes
ignatian and reasons every year and
those are when the city purchases
property usually it's with a FEMA grant
FEMA monies which is the Federal
Emergency Management Agency perhaps what
else would a it's the group that gives
money to buy flood prone properties and
we've gotten a lot of those monies over
the years and we take the zoning off of
them whatever they were single-family
multi-family commercial and we make them
community facilities zone which shows
that they're publicly owned for public
purpose usually it's a recreation zone
for just parks and kind of opens or
they're an open space kind of a zone
floods and we're just leaving it natural
there's five of those this year and I'll
quickly run through just for excitement
where they are the first of the five is
in what we call the Atlas development
and they're giving us over an acre acre
and a half park there they have to give
us because it's part of their approval
and it's going to be community
facilities recreation and it's going to
be in the middle of their their project
and it'll be for the public it'll also
be for their the folks that live there
but it also be a community park there
right off of Gilman and there's two on
either side of dog would both would be
open space I believe those are
flood-prone seeing the creek and the
buffer going right through and the
little parentheses are that was the
owner that we were able to get them from
four and five are off of front street
and Newport and five i think is
flood-prone and four we own some of the
parcels to the north and so we're trying
to to put them together to do so and
we're proposing the zoning to be
facilities which allows you more leeway
at what the use would be so it might
even actually have to get to have a
building on it if it becomes a park it
might have a restroom or something like
that as you can see they're pretty
little parcels so it wouldn't be like a
fire station or like a big building but
the facilities zone allows you a little
more leeway and what you might put there
but again it would have to be for public
purpose are there any questions on the
five I don't know much about them other
than then then what I said that and the
other exciting one that's not
technically community facilities because
it's not publicly owned but one of our
community members has asked for her
property her vacant property to be
rezone to Conservancy and she has a
contract she went through the whole
process of the name just escaped me but
to put a conservation easement on her
property up here up at the top of 56 and
it's and I put the language right from
the conservation easement that for the
purpose of forever conserving the open
space character ecological significance
native vegetation and wildlife habitat
features of the subject property which
is really amazing that a landowner would
do that and it's almost a full acre and
it's a beautiful little piece of land
and she's required to keep it maintained
and a marvelous for a wildlife and all
those good purposes so I lump that even
though that
was her request to us it's still to me
sort of fit into the public purpose kind
of rezone so that's why i love this
requesting with that any questions on
this one okay back to the not so
exciting ones the sustainable indicators
that you adopted last year to put in the
appendix we're updating those with new
data we try to do that as often as
possible the transportation element if
you remember when we were certified last
year in June when we finished you all
finished the comp plan update that took
two years the big one last year psrc
came back they loved it but they had
some ideas that they wanted us to add
the next time one of it is to recognize
state-owned facilities there nothing
that would have stopped our
certification but they thought they
could make our plan even better if we
would do a couple of things so I don't
think those will be very hard there are
two items that have been requested for
the central issaquah plan one of those
is to move the boundary to include the
staples the staples area take it out of
old town and put it into central
issaquah so we'll look at that it I
haven't quite figured it out yet but one
of the Economic Development Commission
no economic vitality Commission was
looking at anchor projects that would
vitalize the central plan and they
thought that corner would be a really
good corner for an anchor project till
we said it's really technically not in
the central plan it's an old town you
know it's right it's where they collide
but it's so they said well you should
look at change in the boundary because
that would be a fabulous place for an
anchor project okay we'll look at it but
I don't know if you've seen the video
that they did the economic vitality
Commission on possible anchor projects
sites in town it's I think it's on the
website but they did a fabulous video
you know standing right on the different
corners where they think it would be a
really good idea I thought well we
should get PPC out there to do a video
on
not sure what the topic would be but it
was fabulous video I thought they did
but that's that's one of our amendments
we get to look at this year and the
seventh one is old town the task force
they came up with some plan changes that
they would like to see us look at so
that's going to be a fun one I think
there's only a few for the plan they
have a lot of code amendments for old
town but I think they only have a few
suggestions for the plan all of the
elements need an implementation strategy
last year if you remember we made the
elements shorter and just policy instead
of having all the implementation ideas
mixed in it because it was kind of
confusing so we took all the
implementation out and now we have to
firm up how you implement each chapter
because we couldn't do both pieces last
year so that's that's going to be a big
part is thinking up ways that it we
would know that for example the land use
element is successful because this is
how we implemented it and so I think
that's going to be really fun to talk
about those kinds of things this year
the development agreements in issaquah
highlands and talus have almost run out
they were 20 year plans that we did back
in would that be 95 and 96 and in 2017
is when they're supposed to sunset which
means they would go to regular zoning
and since they're so very different than
any other zoning we have in town we have
to sort of ease them into what would
that look like when they turn back into
regular zoning and so we're not sure if
we need a comprehensive plan amendment
for that but we wanted to put a
placeholder in in case there's something
up there in either of the urban villages
that doesn't have it like sort of a
safety net policy and the comp plan so
we don't really know if we need that but
as I said if something happened in June
and we realize we needed something we
wouldn't be able to do it this year we'd
have to wait till the next year and by
then they'd be sun setting and we'd be
we'd be lost so this is sort of a
placeholder because we're not really
sure what it looks that we've never had
to close out of development agreement
for so we're trying to think of every
situation just a quick question on that
hasn't been any discussion with the
developers of they come forward oh yeah
okay because some of them are really
happy there's that that they're just
about because a lot of the lot of pieces
have have moved very far from 20 years
ago as you can imagine and so some of
them are looking forward to and some are
them Sun setting and maybe getting to
use some different standards or some but
there's an in both of them there's not a
lot of parcels left and but there are
some that they're wanting to hang out if
they could just do an extension for 18
months could they keep the existing
development for another year so we're
trying to negotiate and figure out you
know what's the best all-around you know
do you sunset it with some criteria or
do you but again we've never had to do
this before so we're sitting down with
the master developers and trying to walk
through it together to see what works
best for you know even just figuring out
the zoning you know because the sizes of
the parcels you know in the highlands
there you know there's such density and
there's uses that are mixed in there so
just even finding a zoning category
because right now the whole thing is
one's own it's urban village and you
know if people go traditionally you got
your residential you got your mixed-use
do you have your office game so it's
even just figuring out how to how to
parcel it out it's it's just kind of
like a coloring book that you haven't
invented yet so it's kind of exciting
but we don't really know what it's going
to what it's going to mean any other
questions on that one 18 is an exciting
one this is the mayor's request to
remove East cougar mountain from the
city's PAA and there's a map of East
cougar and we had our meeting on the
King County meeting on it last night and
I'll show you the little video that we
put together of driving through and
walking through the area just two
minutes it's it was really well done our
I to Tim Smith did a fabulous job on it
I'm any questions on that one I just
have one just for background
there was a mention in the letter of
talus potentially looking at that area
earlier and was there a reason that they
rejected going forward with that
actually that's part of the last one
lied the very last one is the the little
star you see the twentieth amendment is
the property owner there the blacks
would like to annex those ten acres and
get access through talus and they came
in actually it was more property owners
last year came in and they weren't able
to make they weren't able to make a deal
with the talus master developer and also
the folks that live in tell us we're not
really excited about more development
happening out there out there in the
more rural area and so that one went
away the the master developer pulled
that one and so this one came back as
just the ten acres and when we let him
know that the mayor has come forward and
said you know after the council talked
about this all last summer with the comp
plan update he's making his move to say
okay county we're ready to ask you this
and so the blacks are trying different
ways with the master developer to see if
maybe they can get access but not annex
and just for the two houses not for 50
or I think they asked for almost a
hundred last time with the strip of
property so that one is they still
wanted to keep this as a placeholder in
case they couldn't figure out another
way to work through with the master
developer but the mayor and we've it's
listed on your packet that that's the
only one that the administration doesn't
support because it's in conflict with
the mayor's request to King County and
the one in between not to make it any
less exciting the that this would be the
last potential annexation area that we
have and we call that the King County
Eiling Island and it has the King County
shopsite in it now they're trying to to
move it because they have to course go
through the freeway interchange you know
the I don't know if you've ever been
back there
it's a little now there's a traffic
light at least but it's tricky to get
out of there there they just want to
move and our shop site is also back in
there although ours is in the city
limits but we're going to try and annex
that this year and then it will be all
anak stand we won't have any other
potential annexation areas will be as
full as we should ever be so that's kind
of exciting and you guys would be part
of the annexation I believe actually you
know since it's already in in the comp
plan as an annex as a PA a i'm not sure
that you will be but we'll i'll have to
check that but because usually you guys
at least get to say yeah that looks
right when we do annexations so that's
exciting are there questions on any of
the 20 oh the mountain mm-hmm was that
the property that we had discussed
several years ago about annexing into
the city and the city was having trouble
getting utilities and stuff and oh is
that that piece of property right right
so now what happens to it is that
issaquah doesn't annex it Bobby doesn't
want it right then it would it would
stay in king county and the line as you
see the heavy red line is now what we
call the urban growth boundary the king
county would move the urban growth
boundary to follow our city limits which
it is the rest of like the south and all
through grand ridge and around that's
all the urban growth boundary we're like
the farthest out and so this would again
allow more rural area the zoning would
change in that instead of having the
suffix over it called urban reserve that
if you meet all this criteria you could
get more density one of the criterias
being annexed by the city that you can
have more density but that would go away
and it would just be rural so it would
be the st. like some of them are rural
one acre lots some of them are rural
five acre lots and so that zoning would
just stay there
so they wouldn't but they would lose
that opportunity that if they ever got a
next they could get more density when
you're up there it's a lot of the areas
are very steep and very critical areas
with with wetlands and streams and
beautiful area though and but what we
were when we looked up there and went
around we can't imagine putting any
density up there because the roadway I'm
going to step away from the microphone
there there's just no way that we could
imagine to get that road to be a
standard road I mean it's even on a
really nice day it's like holding onto
the it's really steep and there's
everybody up there has just private
water water wells the loop that's the
little neighborhood at Edgehill they
have their own little water system and
as King County said last night they can
still try to hook up to public water if
they can get it through bellevue or
through issaquah but if their rural
they're not allowed to do sewer I'm not
sure why the county makes that
distinction but but they do I've never
heard that before but I can imagine
sewer would be really hard to figure out
how to do that but they're still served
by eastside Fire and Rescue as they are
today and they would still be served by
King County Sheriff as they are today so
the only things that would change would
be that their urban reserves own and
category would come off any other
questions about
so tonight is the public hearing
februari the council and inshore would
look at your recommendation and march
they would have the final action on the
list and then we work on it all year and
hopefully bring it back to you September
depending on how long it takes us in
between all the code amendments and then
you take the council would take action
in December any questions on that does
anybody want to see the video of the
least cougar paa for two minutes do you
want to dim the lights maybe a little
bit let me get out of here
and I'm going to just say ahead of time
because there was kind of a squeal when
we started it yesterday the camera is
mounted on the car as we're driving
through the little skinny roads and up
the hairpin so I kept kind of holding on
to my chair as we were going over the
speed bumps even though you can't tell
you can see the speed bump coming and it
just feels like you're going to go over
but so I just wanted to warn you it
seems like you're driving very fast
through this but you're really not it's
just he's sped up in here
the east cougar mountain potential
annexation area covers 776 acres and
includes 83 acres of king county land
the area is adjacent to Cougar Mountain
Regional wild land park in the early
1990s the area became a potential
annexation area or PAA as King County
work to establish an urban growth
boundary under the state's growth
management act after 20 years of growth
issaquah has requested for East Cougar
Mountain to be removed from a squaws
potential annexation area for several
reasons the area is not suitable for
urban growth due to environmental
constraints such as steep slopes and
streams wooded hillsides and rural large
lots the area is not served by public
source or standard roads issaquah would
have difficulty providing urban services
to this area East cougar mountain is no
longer necessary to accommodate is a
quad urban growth targets for these
reasons issaquah has no intention of
annexing East cougar mountain in
addition the city supports changing the
designation of this area to rural
beautiful it's just beautiful up there
any questions um yeah I want to making
me dizzy then it's a beautiful area
there's a couple of lookouts that you
come around the corner when we first
start up there look down on the
Highlands it just it's just really hard
to figure out where you really were that
are they trail stops for all that area
yeah the Wildman part is amazing okay
anybody have any other thoughts okay so
I'm going to open the public hearing at
X 52 g 7 all right 57 hearing and seeing
no one to comment i will close the
public hearing at 658 there anything
else that you need oh do you think
anything else needs to be added to to
have the they look like next year that
would cause consternation for next year
so with that do I have a motion to
approve the docket as written I'll make
such a motion I'll second that motion
they just any further discussion all
those in favor say aye I could be it so
with that if there's nothing else to
discuss this evening anybody has
anything for the common good if not with
extra meeting you know
I've asked Dave if he can bring the
first pieces and parts of the marijuana
amendment at the last meeting in
February so that's what we're hoping for
oh it's not to the end the 25th right
right and what did I was curious I had
never done that before but I put in all
the work that you did last year and then
how it ended because I thought probably
sometimes you don't know how all your
hard work turns into real ordinances and
legislation and things so I thought that
was probably my fault that I didn't let
you know how it all works out really
well back this morning at the Puget
Sound Regional Council Executive Board
confirmed or certified us as a regional
growth centre and that's taken a couple
years to finally get through so now
we're eligible for a lot more grant
money then for transportation especially
than we used to be so so that's good and
we're in line for a bike share program
by the end of the year we're supposed to
have some locations chosen in the city
for a bike share program we're one of
three jurisdictions that that receive
the grant from of course I don't know
now but we're working with two other
jurisdictions in there it's really
exciting to and I can't remember how
many stations but that will be coming to
you all as well just I don't know
exactly what the process is I know it'll
have to go to counsel but one of the
amendments we're doing is doing a code
amendment to make sure that bike
stations are you know that you can have
bike stations in all the part you know
and right-of-way a course or and you
know like if we wanted at the transit
center if we want it at a school or if
we want it you know all the locations
that you might want a bike share program
so we're excited about that in the other
that reminds me of the other pieces I
don't know if you all saw the article
about sound transit three and we were
misquoted or someone misquoted us that
said that issaquah does not allow light
rail facilities in the city
which typically light rail would be in
your right-of-way and which is uh you
know owned by the public and so we just
thought that was a little crazy and so
but we're actually going to put an
amendment we're together to make sure
that it is totally crystal clear that we
can have light rail come to the city and
it would be okay with our land use so
we're going to do that in the bike-share
amendment at the same time just so the
region doesn't have any questions about
our intent with as far as a ways of
traveling that are not a single
occupancy vehicle so we're excited about
both of those two things sometimes well
a lot of times we all feel the
government goes very slowly get things
done but all those things in the
background have to be done so yeah okay
so with that I as I kind of do every
January I want to make sure that our
wonderful listening public understands
that there are openings on the planning
policy Commission and if you are so
interested please fill out an
application that you can get online and
let us know you do not have to be a
resident of the city nice if you were
close but you don't have to be a that's
not a prerequisite and with that i'm
going to close the meeting at seven oh
two home thank you much thank you for
coming tonight it's very exciting and
the reason i'll wait or off the air