And welcome to the March 24, 2016 meeting of the Planning Policy Commission.
Thank you all for being here. And thank you all of you who
are in the audience this evening. I really appreciate it. First thing on
our agenda is approval of the minutes from January 28. I think that
says 28. Do I have a motion? I'll make the motion to approve
the January 28, 2016 minutes. I'll second. All those in favor? First
of all, is there any discussion? All those in favor, say
aye. Aye. Opposed? And the next one is minutes for the
March 10th meeting. I assume that you've all read the minutes.
Do I have a motion to approve? I'll move to approve.
I'll second. Any further discussion? Motion approved. Tonight we're going to
have a public hearing on some proposed changes to the
use code for the Central Issaquah Development Design
Standards. And Kristen? Yes. take it away and give us an update
on exactly what's going to happen tonight. We have, what's the word, melange? A big
variety of things that we're talking about tonight. Some are land use code amendments, some
are central is a quad amendments, and some have to do with transportation, some have
to do with marijuana, some with maps. It's all over the place, but it's going
to be good. All right. So as I mentioned, we will talk first about regional
light rail transit facilities. then bicycle parking stations, non-motorized map consistencies with
the comprehensive plan, references to non-motorized maps, and then marijuana and
consistency with the state regulations. So light rail transit facilities. For
many years now, a good 10, probably more than that, We have
been talking with Sound Transit and inviting Sound Transit to bring a high capacity transit
facility to Issaquah through I-90 so we know it would come from the west and
come east. We don't know if this would be a light rail or if it
would be buses. Don't know what that would be or what any alignment would be.
But in order to prepare for this and encourage them even more to come this
direction, We adopted, part of it was adopting the Central Issaquah Plan and
planning that our growth will go into Central Issaquah. In that, we included policies on
working with Sound Transit and we included four potential light rail stations in that area.
Then we became a regional growth center that also helped to encourage. And most recently,
we adopted policies in our 2015 Comp Plan Update talking about bringing light rail to
Issaquah. So we have also been very active in the ST3 process in helping them
to figure out which projects would be included in the list for ST3 and for
the next vote that comes up. And as Sound Transit and their consultants were going
through all the potential projects, they got to Light Rail in Issaquah, or High Capacity
Transit in Issaquah, and recognize that one of the obstacles or issues potentially here
was that light rail is not included as a permitted use in Issaquah. Therefore,
to make the process easier and to continue encouraging and hopefully get light rail
on ST3, we are proposing to amend our land use code. So the first
thing we're doing, brief amendments, is to include a regional, a definition of regional
light rail transit system. and it includes bus lines, rapid transit
lines, park and ride stations, anything that's included, not just the rail, but
anything associated with a rail or bus rapid transit system.
The other thing that we are proposing, and this is both in the land use
code and in the central ISQA development standards that was not in your packet was
mentioned, but they weren't shown, but they're exactly the same. The definitions are exactly the
same. And for both of these, we are proposing as Sound Transit asked us to
do, include regional light rail transit system and associated facilities in all zones as a
level three process. which means that it would go through public hearing. Now, when Sand
Transit's involved, they have several public hearings and several public meetings, but that's what we're
proposing for light rail transit facilities. The next one is bicycle parking stations, and some
of you may know that the state just gave four east side cities, Issaquah, Redmond,
Kirkland, and Bellevue, $5.5 million to put in a bike share program on the east
side. And we're still working through the details, but another one of those things is
we wanna make sure that we can actually have bike stations in Issaquah. So we
already allow them in central Issaquah, and we're proposing to allow them in all the
other zones throughout Issaquah. It's a level zero process. These are temporary structures, though, so
they can be picked up and moved to other locations, which is why we thought
level zero would be sufficient. Next one. non-motorized map consistency. So
we adopted Central Issaquah and in there there
was a non-motorized map We already had a comp plan non-motorized map. And
then we went through the whole walk and roll process, which kind of adopted other
things for the non-motorized system. So part of our 2015 comp plan amendment was to
pull all of those things together into one document, the comprehensive plan, and make sure
that everything was in one place. But we now are going back to update the
central Issaquah map. and to make sure that those two things are consistent. Interesting,
there really wasn't a non-motorized map in central Issaquah. There currently isn't one. We have
a green necklace map and something else. Oh, a significant community facilities map, but we
didn't actually have a non-motorized map, so we're just taking the comp plan map and
plopping it in here. A comment was raised on this map earlier from the public
that noted these yellow lines here are, we were asked by council to
put those on there they are just showing where the regional connections are
where we recognize that people are writing so we put those on there
it came up that perhaps oops that doesn't work does it um this
one should continue either down here and down front street or over
here, and downtown street all the way down to Hobart Road. And then
another one would connect-- oh, you can't see it right now, but we
would do it-- down this way and over to Sunset. So those are
some other things that came up that we would consider doing. Lastly on
my list are the non-motorized maps and references. So in chapter 6, Circulation
Facilities, the map refers-- the note says, refer to figure 7A, non-motorized map.
It's in Chapter 7, not Chapter 6, and it's not a non-motorized map, as I
mentioned before. So we said we have to fix that. So we're inserting the correct
non-motorized map, changing all those references, which I didn't include in here. And in doing
that, we combined the two maps that were there. One is the conceptual green necklace
map and the significant community spaces map, which had much of the same information, and
combined those two. So what this shows is we were asked by council to include
all of the streets, which would be tree-lined streets through central Issaquah, which are the
pale green, and then the bike routes, which are purple, and the shared use routes,
which are dark green. So those are the changes that we're proposing there. Do you
have any questions before I sit and let Dave come up? I do, regarding the
bike share program. Yes. What is the estimate of the number of stations that we
will get out of this project? The reason I ask is-- Recently there's an article
in the Seattle Times about the underuse of bike share and that's been attributed to
a lack of density of bike share stations, whereas compared to New York City where
the stations are closer together, they've been much higher utilization rates. - Right, eight. Eight
is what we're proposing to start with. And we don't know yet where those would
go. And that's just for Issaquah. That's not the east side. There are several more.
We're anticipating that it would be a regional system that would, you know, the cities
would connect and we could work together, you know, and park bikes in different cities.
That's our hope, but we'll see. And we've been watching Seattle very closely, and we
wait until they have a meeting, and then we have a meeting. And they have
a meeting, and then we have a meeting. So we've been trying to learn from
their process and what they've done, things that have gone right and things that have
not gone right. We're flat in the valley and then we're surrounded
by hills. Unless you're an expert rider, you're not going to be going up and
down those hills. How do you come up with a number what you need? What
do you propose that's going to be used in the way of bike sharing? Well,
one of the things that we're talking about are electric bikes. because those are becoming
easier to get. So that's a possibility. But we haven't gotten to the stage that
closely of even looking exactly where these spots will be, where the stations will be
located. We have to finish getting our interlocal agreement between the four cities figured out
before we can move on to that next step. But before we even do that,
we want to make sure that they're allowed here. And you hire a consultant to
help us do that. Okay? It's all yours.
Thank you and good evening. I'm Dave Faber also with the Development Services Department and
I'll go to the next slide and talk about the package of marijuana code amendments
before you tonight. So give a brief summary of the amendments and then talk briefly,
I summarize the last five years or so of marijuana code work in our town
and then go more in detail on the amendments. What is the reason
for the amendments? So in 2015, the state did adopt additional
state law and rules that regulate the medical and retail marijuana
markets and we are responding to those state law changes with
what's before you tonight. Some of those state law changes have to do
with eliminating the medical marijuana collective garden model that is in place in our code
today. It provides the option for medical cooperatives that I'll talk about in a minute.
We currently have one allotted retail marijuana store in the city and the state has
allotted a second one. So that's just that's not really code change but that's a
state rule change. And then the name of the Liquor Control Board is changing. So
those amendments we're proposing tonight are to repeal the collective garden, the medical marijuana,
model to add some definitions that address marijuana cooperatives and then to
we propose to prohibit the the medical marijuana cooperatives. There's some other
topics below. Yeah. Just so everybody knows, would you explain what the
difference between those are? Sure. The medical marijuana collective garden
is a model where 10 members can come together
in one place and would have a limit of
45 plants in that one place and 72 ounces
of marijuana. Some people would call it more like a dispensary model,
kind of like a store, but the state law term is collective garden. So
you have 10 patients or 10 members. The issue there, though, is that there's
no limit in how frequently these 10 patients can kind of exchange their membership.
So... Anyway, so that's the current model. And then we have three,
we had three collective gardens in town, one closed, so there are two existing
in operation in town today. The marijuana cooperative is a kind of a replacement
option for that where four people can come together and must operate out of
the home of one of the four people to have a cooperative operation. with
a limit of 60 plants, so 15 plants per person times four, 60 plants. And
the fourth element is that it has to be located a mile away from the
nearest retail marijuana store. So it's quite a different model than the current collective garden
model. So again, to summarize, it has to be in the house of one of
the four members and a mile away from a retail store. You mentioned earlier with
the current collective gardens model, or I guess the previous now that the rules have
been changed, that there was no limit on the exchange of memberships. Was there a
fix on that at all in this last go-round? Was there what? A fix on
that in this change? I guess the fix is, yeah, the state is repealing, eliminating
that option. And the package before you tonight is to delete and eliminate that whole
collective garden model from our city. And in fact, the state has said these have
to close by July 1 of this year. CHRIS JERRAM: And I guess my question
would be more towards the four-person cooperatives. Is there a limitation on how many times
or how often members of that cooperative can be swapped out? CHRIS JERRAM: Yes, there's
stricter limitations than that. And I recall, I think it was every either 15 days--
I think it's 60 days, a 60-day limit. 60-day limit on that. as well as
a registration with the Liquor and Cannabis Board. So it's more
heavily regulated than the collective garden model. You mentioned in the
House of one of the members, if I remember the previous
discussions, there was quite a few conditions put upon the collective
gardens in terms of safety and access and whatnot. Is this
changing? Is that any house could then become one of those? Yes, and I was
going to get into this later, but we're talking about it now. I might as
well talk about it right now. There are many reasons why we feel that we're
not in support of this cooperative marijuana cooperative model. The state law as we've read
it says that the state may adopt rules and regulations and may adopt a license
process to regulate these co-ops, but they've not done that yet. So we're not sure
where that stands. And secondly, they would operate in the house of one of the
four persons. So all of the work we've done in the city so far has
focused it towards the commercial zoned areas and we've stayed away We've shied away
from having marijuana facilities in neighborhoods, in residential areas. And I think our
feel is that this is heading towards that model, and we're not supportive
of that. So that's some reasons. I guess additionally, I'll introduce Commander Bob
Porter here from our police department. He and I have partners on this, so
he's here for questions later. But we've been talking about what if we get a
complaint of a co-op in a house? How enforceable is it for a planner or
perhaps the police department to show up and enforce this? And it sounds tough to
knock on a person's door and have access into the house legally to really enforce
that. So for all these reasons, we're really not in support of this this model
at this time talk louder talk louder talking to the mic okay so there's the
new amendments i guess my presentation is over here but i'll keep going i got
several slides to go so let's whip through this i was going to talk about
the background from 1998 till now i think we've covered a lot of it but
this commission back in i'll just say in 2011 did a lot of hard work,
had hearings like this to adopt the collective garden model and all those safety elements
and the zoning and permit process, you know, we had choices. Do we want to
prohibit? Do we want to do nothing and just let them happen wherever, such as
in residential areas or we, the city chose to take a middle of the road
and regulate. So that's collective garden in 2014. you know after 2012 adoption
of legalizing marijuana through initiative 502 the city adopted retail marijuana regulations that remain in
place and as an outshot of all that we have approved three collective gardens in
town and one retail marijuana store in town and i can show you on a
map in a bit if you're interested in where those are located So that's
a quick background. And then in 2015, the state says, oh, we've adopted,
we've merged medical and retail together. And cities, if you're regulating, you need
to eliminate the medical collective gardens by July 1st and then let the
state regulate medical and retail together through the state liquor cannabis board process.
There's some background. So... Moving on, so and here's a
map showing where under the retail marijuana regulations that are
in our code today, the colored areas on the map
are commercial zone areas that it's possible to locate a
retail marijuana store in today. And the one existing store,
if this mouse will work, is located right here on
Juniper Street. next to the RV park and at the base of the
gravel pit back behind the 76 gas station. That's there. There's a requirement there be
a thousand foot buffer separation between that and the nearest store. So that's what that
circuit represents. And then, as I mentioned, the state has allotted one additional store to
our city. And based on the rules we've adopted with the zoning and the 1,000
foot separation from the list up here in the corner, schools, rec centers, parks, playgrounds,
et cetera, this is our estimate of where that second store might locate in the
city. So I'm telling you all this, but we're actually not proposing to make any
changes to the rules that are shown here on this map. So
let's go into the actual code amendment package tonight. I've talked about
collective gardens. So to be consistent with the state, we're recommending to
delete the collective garden regulations, the permit process definitions, everything related to
collective gardens. And then to address the The marijuana cooperative that
I'm going to talk about, where we propose prohibiting that, we have to first, we
feel, define what that is in our code. And then we take the third step,
which is to show in our permitted land use tables that we propose to prohibit
co-ops by listing them in the permitted use tables in our code and then showing
them as not permitted in any zones in the city. So that's a quick summary.
of the code amendments. And then I'll talk briefly about these topics that have come
up in our discussion. And we've heard some feedback. The first one has to do
with the thousand foot buffers around retail stores. So in October, the Liquor Cannabis Board
gave cities the option to reduce some of those buffers to as little as 100
feet from a thousand feet. So we have a choice. We feel that We're
allotted now two stores, not one, that the buffers that you saw on the map
earlier are sufficient to give the market a chance to find that second store. And
so we're proposing no change to those buffers. I do have a couple of questions
related to that. And these relate to the current operating collectives. Do we know
what the barriers are, what the specific barriers are as to the two currently
existing collectives or even if they've applied? OK, I'm not aware if they've applied
to the state. They've not applied to the city for any city retail marijuana license.
I know that. OK. And I'm saying this because my anticipation would be that those
would probably be the two most likely candidates to file for retail. Do we know
what the barriers are in terms of those areas? I mean, I know 160 Gilman
that may be-- or 1730 Newport might be extremely close to the transit. it is
are there any other issues that would relate to those i think there's a
couple issues one is barriers or buffers is that i'll just talk about buffers
so on this retail map on the screen yeah yeah i'm asking specifically which
uh barriers would be at issue for those two addresses do we know um
i believe for the one on 160 gilman boulevard the Parks and possible
childcare centers in that area would be barriers to that one. And then out
on the west end of town at Newport Way, yes, the transit center, I
believe. I haven't actually studied what is the barrier, but I would guess that's
one. Has there been any issues in the community with either of those two
establishments? And that may be better directed to law enforcement. I have
not-- no. That answer your questions for right now? For
now, yes. OK. So back to other considerations. The third
item is should we consider some regulation of what people
do in their own homes with regard to marijuana? We've
chosen not to touch people's own residences, and we propose
to stay that way. The issue of home delivery or delivery to a place.
- Can you clarify that? Actually, I didn't know that there was no law covering
home growth. - Oh, for medical only. Okay, so you need to have a-- -
So yeah, our understanding is state law allows, you can have, for your own personal
use, if you have a qualifying patient card, you can have up to 15 plants
in your own home for yourself. - I knew that part, but it's still not
allowed for anybody else. - Right, right. And then should we regulate, prohibit, permit
deliveries, which seems like a growing trend in the state? It's not permitted by
state law, so we'd just like to rely on state law and not do
our own regulations. And likewise for smoking clubs, that sounds like another emerging trend.
They're not permitted by state law, and we would just like to rely on
state law for that. So that's the... summary of the marijuana code
amendments that we have for tonight. We have next steps. Should I run
through? You want to talk about next steps? Questions?
I've got a few questions. I was curious that eliminating this ability for patients in
our community to access a very vital need for them in their life. Can you
speak to that? What impacts has the city-- I mean, we talk about environmental impacts.
I'm sure you guys have done a health and services impact for our community regarding
this. With regard to eliminate the collective gardens? Yes. Right. Feeling is that so there's
a retail marijuana store in the city so if a person wants to acquire marijuana
there are still options available to do that and it's to go to the local
So is it the city's position that the products available are the same? There's a
reason that there is this legal definition and that doctors and legislators have actually created
this in our state's code. And if you look at the products available, for instance,
having different cannabinoids, low THC, more available for different ways of getting it other than
being smokable, things that are much more limited because of how recreation is created by
the Liquor Control Board. These are now no longer gonna be addressed in our community
for really vulnerable patients and I'm assuming that the city has done some sort of
study of that impact. Can you speak to what that impact will be by eliminating
this? - Well, I guess a couple comments would be that my understanding is that
the state license procedure for retail stores will allow with the merger as of July
1st for the retail stores to, obtain a medical qualification endorsement to provide
medicinal marijuana. - Yeah, medically endorsed. I didn't see any language in
there about medically endorsed stores. - And that's where we are deferring
to the state license. And again, we're just working on the local
level. The state Liquor Cannabis Board is doing their work to merge
the medical and recreational markets together. And that's where we would see that
need being addressed. And yes, we understand it is a great need. And in the
public hearing process we heard for collective gardens, we heard testimony about that. And secondly,
I guess the personal home grows we talked about. A person can grow in their
own home for medicinal purposes. - Not all people who, though they have that qualification,
are able to necessarily grow their own. Sometimes they don't have that availability specifically because
of the medical impact that they're having in their life. So I don't really see
that as being a solution to the problem when you wanna specifically address that. So
it sounds like the city has come out with a stance, but you guys haven't
actually looked at who, how many residents in our community will be impacted? Well,
if I may make a comment, I mean, there was a comment about cannabinoids. My
understanding is the FDA recently came out and is now regulating cannabinoid use. Regarding the
medical collectives, it's my understanding that the reason we're not taking action as far as
the four-person cooperatives is that the state hasn't regulated them yet. And at this point,
it's too speculative to even determine what our regulations might be. And it would put
businesses in a-- or put those cooperatives in kind of a fugue state, not knowing
what to do. CHRIS JERRAM: I think our position-- we'd like to take a wait
and see attitude and see how do these rules play out at the state level.
And instead of us creating our own rules and kind of guessing what is the
outcome of that. And if that were to happen, it could expose the city to
litigation in terms of those regulations if they were in contrast with the state rules.
Those rules haven't been created yet. So we'd like to see, again, what the state
does first before we step out there and make our own rules.
I guess I'm concerned because right now it looks like you're just eliminating what is
a vital resource for people in our community. With this wait and see approach right
now, you're outright banning it. And I'm not sure why. I was under the impression
before I read these documents that we were going to be merging our codes. And
right now it looks like we're actually segregating them and we're creating an environment where
we can only have recreational in our community. Well, again, the
collective garden model has to go away by state law. Right, but by state law,
stores that have been around since before 2013 who apply for the 502 license, who
meet these requirements that are being set by the Liquor Control Board, are then able
to continue to operate on this collective model of four people, 60 plants, but we
aren't allowing that in our community. And I'm not seeing how we're going to be
not only servicing really vulnerable people in our community, but also in communities around us.
We are a gateway to Seattle. For some people, have to drive sometimes a few
hours to be able to even reach their medical access point to Issaquah. And now
we're creating a situation that kind of has these repercussions outside of our community as
well. Can you clarify, I'm sorry, do you want to respond
first? Let's go ahead. Could you clarify actually what, so the existing collective gardens
right now, could those be, do they have the right structure to be just
changed into the new format? Do those have to go away and new ones would
have to be put somewhere else with a difference? Yes. But it's not like the
same people, the same place can... That's my understanding, and now we're in the state
law area versus the local, but the collective gardens today are in commercial spaces. They're
not in the home of one of the four members, so just based on that...
They would have to go away. They would have to go away. Then you'd have
to move them up to... up or to someone's home. Yeah. And going back
to at least the collective that obviously we don't want marijuana establishments anywhere
near our children. Um, but in terms of the marijuana collective that is
towards the transit center, um, One of the things-- one of
my concerns is that if this place were to apply for a retail license, that
we're essentially taking a place that has had no problems and putting them in a
new location in a strip where there may only be one potential barrier to them
operating as a retail establishment if they meet all the other state and code requirements.
I guess I'd point out that location is out CHRIS RODGERS: Right approximately
here on Newport Way. And so under our current retail buffers, it could not operate.
CHRIS RODGERS: And that's what I'm saying is because we have the option to reduce
certain buffers, if there was a small buffer adjustment that could be made to the
transit center buffer that would allow that collective to easily transfer over to a retail
establishment and keep them on what it comes down to, separate sides of the city
so it's more spread out. That's my one concern with the recommendation
on no buffer adjustments. OK. That's why we're having a hearing. So we're here to
get input and go from there. So would they go away immediately and have to
go back and get-- the patients that come to these places that now have to
go away, is it like they close down tomorrow and they have no place to
go? Or is this going to be a process where they can continue on and
be serviced? Well, as of July 1, the state law
would say they have to shut down and go away. So
I don't have an easy answer of where they go. They'd
have to search other places for the medicinal product. It's true.
CHRISTIE WOOD: OK. Officer Porter, do you have any info for
us? I do. uh myself i'm so i'm bob porter i'm
a the support services commander for our police department nice to meet you
all um been working with dsd on this issue and as far as
the police perspective is that we we really need something that we can
if we show up somewhere and try to do enforcement or regulation i
need to have some guidelines on how to affect that regulation or
else I can't do my job very well. And so as Dave
mentioned, with the state Liquor and Cannabis Board not having any clear,
they don't have regulations on, they haven't begun the permit process yet.
They haven't begun issuing the enforcement or the regulation guidelines. And so
we don't feel that we are comfortable enacting guidelines that would be
consistent with anyone else because we generally follow the state's guidelines.
That's why they created the, they added the cannabis to the liquor
board so that they would have consistent guidelines for all of us,
the local municipalities to operate and be effective. So I'm not sure
as a police officer how I could regulate or go into someone's
home and make sure that they're counting, I'm counting the plants or
issuing a violation for too many plants when I don't have any direction from
the state yet. So that's why Dave and I both agree, the city agrees
that we should take a wait and see attitude and listen to what the
state says once they enact more regulation. I cannot go into someone's home without
consent or a search warrant or an exigency in circumstances such as a life
safety issue. So, if I was to monitor or regulate a marijuana, let me give
you an example, a co-op, whether they had 60 plants or not, if they had
65 plants, I would have to get the consent of the homeowner to come inside.
And, you know, if they didn't give me consent, I would have to go and
write a search warrant for a medical marijuana issue, which I'm not getting
a lot of feeling from the King County Prosecutor's Office that they want to enforce
a lot of medical marijuana issues. We all realize it's a very, it's a necessary,
but it's a sensitive topic. And I'm not, I'm not, I don't have a firm
footing in law enforcement on where we stand on this. That's what I'm telling you
guys. So do you guys have any questions? I do. Officer Porter, do you
have or does the department have any opinions on buffer reductions as I explained as
they relate to maybe any of the existing establishments, the existing collectives should they seek
retail status? Whether the collectives should seek retail status, I don't have, we don't have
an opinion on that. That's, to me, that's a business decision that they have to
make. Um, our department and the city historically is as supported the
1000 foot buffer and that's what I support. Do you have any,
um, anything to, to add in relation to, so if those were
adopted as the state proposed it, this would move some of those,
uh, operations in residential areas. Any concerns, anything you can
say about what, if any type of crime, anything has
been associated with those facilities? I don't have specific anecdotal
evidence for you guys on that. The city has historically
stayed away from any type of group or commercial operation
in a residential neighborhood. Right now, as Dave
mentioned, you are allowed to grow up to 15 plants
if you have a medical card in a residence. And
the city doesn't differ from the state on that. That's
state law. But historically, the city's position has been that
they wouldn't support any of these commercial type or larger
than one home or person being involved in this in
a neighborhood. Questions? Thank you. Thank you. Dave, do you have
anything else to-- Not at this time. I'm here for questions, though. Well, with that,
I'm going to open up the public hearing at-- Who wants to speak? Has anyone
signed up? 7:12. OK. Then maybe just come up to the podium and state your
name. You don't have to sign up. You don't have to sign. Just go right
up to-- just state your name and where you live. Hi, my
name is Clifford Garrett, Shoreline, Washington. I'm the general manager at
Issaquah Cannabis Company. It's located at 230 Northeast Juniper Street. And
I'm here today to advocate for a lower buffer between restricted
entities and new stores. You need to get closer to the
microphone. Speak up, please. Sorry about that. I'm here to advocate
lower buffers between restricted entities and potential new stores. And the reason
for that is that it would allow for a new store to
open up on the opposite side of Issaquah from where we're located,
which would allow for greater access for consumers and patients alike. As
a side note, we've applied for a medical endorsement
so effective July 1st 2016 the Liquor Control Board
will allow us to sell marijuana products to to
medical consumers that have they have cards obviously we
cannot we're recreational only at the present time the
I also, the final point I'll make is that I'm also advocating a
reduction in buffers between stores as well. You know, right now, theoretically, someone
could get a license and then move, or would not be able to
move next door to us. We do not see a problem with that
happening. So that's it. I do have some questions you were advocating for buffer reductions.
Did you have specific site locations in mind or specific buffers that you were looking
at? Um, I know this may require some talking about business plan, but you were
saying on the opposite end of the city. So I'd like to hear some specifics
with regard to that. Sure. Absolutely. So I have not done an analysis to see
how much area would open up if one were to reduce buffers between restricted entities
from 1,000 feet down to 500 or less. What I can say is that right
now, even though there's some red that's on the left-hand side of the map, effectively,
I guess the area that's just south of I-90 is one strip mall
and it's all owned by one property owner. So if that one property
owner decides that they don't want a marijuana business in their establishment, which
is probably the case, anyone with bank financing will not want any marijuana
establishment on their property, then essentially that's zoned out. There are
also other areas that are occupied by large strip malls and
it's virtually impossible for a marijuana business to locate there because
generally they're getting financing from federally regulated banks.
So to speak to your your comment
earlier about about Restricted entities being close
to existing existing medical. I know that there's one,
one of the establishments is something somewhere in the vicinity
of 500 feet from a daycare. And so I know
that 500 feet would open more area. I don't know
exactly how much. Do you recall which establishment that was?
I don't recall the name. It's roughly. So you're, excuse
me. You're a retail establishment. Yes. That is seeking
more competition. Is that right? Yes. Why? Well, so there
are two issues at play. Back in back in October when
the Liquor Control Board decided that they were going to issue additional licenses.
Originally, they did not put a cap on new retail license issuances, and
there are a host of problems associated with that. Number one, our break-even
under current federal tax code is a very high sales number, and we
can speak offline as to what that is. And so essentially we wanted,
we want to limit the number of total establishments in the city, but
I don't think that it's a healthy market should there just be, you
know, just one establishment. Right now there are two that are allocated to
Issaquah. Based on our sales right now in Issaquah, I think Issaquah can
handle two and can, can both generate enough sales to be viable
businesses. Above two, then it becomes questionable. - So how many do
you believe Issaquah in that area should have or might have or
could have? - In the current zone area? - If you reduce
your buffers. Well, the Liquor and Cannabis Board has only allocated
two retail licenses to Issaquah right now. So given their rules, there can
only be a maximum of two. And under current zoning, it's questionable whether
two can ever be established in Issaquah. So would... Is there two
now? There's only one right now. Okay, okay. And then there are
two medical establishments that are currently operating, I believe, right, Dave? And
then in effect, come July 1st, 2016, those will disappear. I'm curious,
how does reducing the buffers increase the viability of another competitor? I
mean, I know what you're, you know, if you've got the, what
is it, 1,000 feet, and you take it to 200 or
whatever. Sure. You know, obviously that means somebody can come in closer,
but that's a pretty good-sized map. I mean, why would you want
to have one 200 feet from you versus a half mile? So
from a selfish standpoint, the best-case scenario for us is to either
have an establishment Right next door because people would be going to the
exacts going to the same place the same street and and there would be double
the number of advertising to the same the same area and conversely having establishments on
the opposite sides of the city would be best for us because Essentially, it's opening
up new market. It's taking it's taking market that would otherwise maybe go
to Bellevue or more likely probably just take advantage of an illegal delivery
service or just purchase product on the black market. Whereas if people have
access points that are close to them, then they're more likely to go
into a regulated system. That's reason for a thousand foot buffer, isn't it?
1,000 foot buffer between stores or from restricted entities? I'm just thinking
in terms you said you had your store and then there was
another store on the other side of Issaquah that would be best
for you. Sure. So why push for a reduction in buffer when
you really would prefer to have larger distance between your stores?
because it would open up much more of the map to possible locations including some
viable areas where they could actually locate themselves there is no place over there that
allows it now with a thousand so if you go down to 500 that be
able to find hopefully a place to all right and that's the question i have
two quick questions is there a limit to what you could the amount that you
can sell absolutely so there are There are limits. So essentially there are
four different types of products that we sell. There's what's called usable marijuana. It's
just flour or bud. And we can sell up to one ounce of product
to a customer. And an ounce is, well, if you can think of flour
that's about this big, that would be one ounce of product. And for medical
consumers, that's Depending on their consumption rates, that's a small
amount. Whereas for your average recreational consumer, it's probably a lot. And
then we also have concentrates, kind of... vape cartridges and then
we all have edible products as well. I don't mean how much can you
sell to each individual, but as a store, are you regulated by the amount
in total that you can sell of your product? Nope, only regulated by transactions
and how much we're able to sell to an individual. And second question, what's
the, knowing how much I know about marijuana, What is
the difference between recreational and medical?
How are they different? Sure. It's
a difficult question. So generally speaking,
medical patients will gravitate towards what are called high
CBD strains and the and CBDs are the non psychoactive cannabinoids and
cannabis and so generally speaking it CBDs can help with with pain
anti-inflammation so on and so forth and However, if I were in our
store now, I could not make those claims because it's illegal for
us to do so. That being said, we still sell high CBD
products. The psychoactive ingredient in cannabis is called THC, and that's the
ingredient that gives people kind of a euphoric effect, and it's why
most people purchase cannabis. I guess one could think of a high CBD strain
as non-alcoholic beer, for example. And so I guess to put it in perspective, we
have roughly 100 different strains in the store, and I would say I think we
have roughly five or six that are high CBD strains. And
you would increase the amount that you have of those in order to support
the medical side of it? Right now, I think we probably have more high
CBD strains than any store that I can think of in King County. And
so we have all of the most popular ones, and I think that even
were we to come july 1st and we have a medical endorsement we likely
will not have a larger variety of high cbd strains but we would probably sell
higher volume no we should have enough i'm assuming that once you combine the medical
and the recreation facilities, you're going to have more patients coming in. So
you're going to have enough to support them. Just going back to Joy's
question of access, basically, for medical marijuana. Sure, absolutely. Yep. And right now,
any consumer with a valid ID who's 21 or older can come in
and purchase any strain that they like. Sorry, I don't
know if that answers your question. That answers my question. Thank you. Is there
a difference in price between medical and -- or will there be a difference
in price between medical and recreational? Is that what the card would allow to
buy at a different price? Yes. It's my understanding that medical patients will have
an exemption from sales tax.
Thank you. Thank you. Would anybody else like to speak,
state your name and where you live? Absolutely. My name
is Mitch Setlow. And where do I live, you want
to know? I live in Sammamish, but I've been a
business owner for 20 odd years in Issaquah. And recently
I also own some commercial real estate. I come to this meeting
completely without an agenda, but I've been listening to all the different... It's a very
confusing subject that you could just see by the panel themselves and a lot of
different agendas. Although I have long hair, I know more about furniture than I know
about the pot. But I've been reading about it recently, and I've been getting calls
from anonymous calls if I would lease one of my locations. And then I started
going through the LCB regs. It's very confusing. But I guess as
a citizen and somebody who survived the 60s, a father
to an ex-vet who can find relief through, I think
Joy addressed a very important subject, which might not be,
it's kind of what leads this discussion is, you know,
Where do is it the city stands? I mean Justin Justin made a comment.
Well, of course, we don't want to be within a thousand feet of a
school Well, if that's the city's consensus, it's almost like this is typhoid So
we have this inherent contradiction with the 502 regulations there's an a generation my
generation and probably young generation that the train has left the station and
whether it's Alaska, Oregon, soon to be New York, California, and I'm not here lobbying
for the legalization, but the train has left. There's certain issues that you don't, you
just have to be there. I had a conversation which is completely convoluted from this,
but about LBJ. LBJ was a racist, but he knew it was time to pass
the Civil Rights Act. So I think whether it's on a municipal level or on
the state level, ultimately, We are behind the rest of the world. I have friends
in Israel. I used to work. Israel's on the cutting edge of coming up with
the cannabinoids and solutions to seizures, epilepsy. We are in the dark age of the
United States and dealing with the good part of marijuana. But I, as a business
owner, am so conflicted, I mean, Up on the, I mean there's McDonald's and Kentucky
Fried Chicken serving white sugar and poison and death in front of the schools. My
fellow business owner at Costco is the largest purveyor of alcohol and I can't speak
for the police department, but I think there's probably more issues of domestic violence vis-a-vis
alcohol than people getting high for marijuana. So at some point it'll be a general
consensus that this will smoking pot, smoking cigarettes, smoking, it's just something at some
point hopefully you do it in moderation and you do an adult decision and we
don't spend money putting people in jails or police who are conflicted with this as
well from the officer's statement. But is it the city, and I'm asking this as
a question because I've really just kind of weighed in on this, but aside from
the 502, the LCB's regulations, Has the city already passed judgment that this
isn't a bad thing and we need to isolate it? You know, I used
to own a piece of property. I used to own that little house across
from your establishment. And as a retailer, as an entrepreneur, as a free market
guy, it's not the greatest location, okay? So it's sort of like politically, socially,
religiously, we have a lot of conflict on this issue. But so far, the
city of Issaquah, I've met with the economic development gals very good, and they want
to bring in sports medicine and bring more traffic. One of the best draws of
traffic for the city of Issaquah is your place. I went to get my boat
fixed, the cars were lined up. I should have kept my house years ago there.
Instead, I have to schlock furniture all day. But I myself am tired of hearing
this archaic attitude that pot is bad. And I don't know if Justin speaks for
the rest of the people who are the city of Issaquah as a posture. I
think it's time we grew up, looked at anecdotal, medical, and the actual statistics that
how many people, and I don't know if I can ask, can I ask a
question here? Am I allowed to do that to the officer? I mean, how many,
my house was broken into on the plateau by crackheads. So, I live in
paranoia on seven acres on the plateau that I have people addicted to drugs coming
into my house, causing violence and possible violence on my child. But I don't have
that fear with marijuana. I'm just saying as a citizen, a business owner, we should
probably at some point reach that level of maturity that this is not cancer. This
is not crack. We can have hours conversation of what creates
an addictive personality. I'm not happy that I see our children with pre-childhood
diabetes as they come out of Skyline High School and go to the
Kentucky Fried Chicken. And I'm sure that's less than a thousand feet. So
I'm personally think the whole concept that if this is a legal commodity,
and as a society we're saying this is not something that's
necessarily going to hurt us that we have to look at it. Is there any
regulation about how close a liquor store can be to a high school? I mean
QFC? I mean, there's no, I don't think there's any regulation on a supermarket which
sells booze. I'm just saying, and I'm not trying to be emotional about this, I
think we have to take a overview of risk-benefit analysis and I realize now
we're sort of, it's an embryonic stage. I remember almost 40 years ago, my roommate
at the time and my friend who was Speaker of the House, they passed the
legalization of marijuana, a possession in Alaska. You're allowed to hold some pot. I think
the police have better things to do than worry about if somebody's growing some pot
in their house. I think we as a society and we as a city, a
growing city, should take a hard look at maybe allowing our retail establishments, and no
comment than yours, to be in places that have a little bit of, that aren't
like Typhoid Mary, down in the back alleys or in places that normally retailers. And
of course that's the free market. As a property owner of a large building, I
have my own issues whether I would lease to a pot store, but I have
to tell you, I've read your numbers. There's big profits and I'm not 100%
sure why you want other stores. You might have your own agenda. But I know
I don't want 50 furniture stores around me, but whatever the market bears. So I
think as a collective here, not as a collective garden, that we should down the
road be more open-minded about the issue. that this is a complete contradiction. If the
administration should change, things could change, but it looks like it will be downgraded at
some point from substance one. And at some point, it won't take so much of
our effort. And the free market system will allow how many stores will exist. If
the city's taken a posture that this is a bad thing, and we have to
keep it as far away from our children, as far as I know, you have
to be 21 to go into your store. You can't smoke pot outside your store.
So I'm not quite sure how that relates to our children. Our children, I mean,
we all grew up, you asked your friend to go buy booze for you, you
know, put it in a bag. I think we're just over, this is over dramatized.
And I think at some point we should take a more progressive view as a
city and as a businessman. I mean, I'd rather see some very hip pot stores
eventually, I mean, the medical marijuana is a big industry now. It's gonna start
up in Alaska, it's downtown Seattle. Are more people smoking pot because there's a medical
marijuana store? Absolutely not. I know legislators, lawyers, policemen, I don't have to name any
names, that smoke pot and probably 75% of the people over, and kids from 18
and up. So we just have to get a grip. And I guess at the
end of the day, I just think we should take a different approach and keep
in mind there is a population that Joy brought up of people that really need
this. And instead of getting, I had a guy come into my showroom and he
had a bag. He was blown up in Mosul. We sent this kid into harm's
way for nothing. The VA administration's got him loaded on oxycodone. The kid's an addict.
His mother looked at me and said, "My son survived an IED." He came back
and he survived. He's come back to America and the VA's made an addict out
of him. His only relief is the medical marijuana dispensary. Who am I? If I
send the kids off to harm's way, I'll be damned if I'm going to say,
I want to take away his access. So when the LCB, what is it like
37% the tax? So that's a step in the right direction, the LCB. As a
city, I think we should think about, look, the cup is half full. Marijuana is
here to stay. It should be regulated like alcohol. or cigarettes, but this notion that
it's a pariah has to be a thousand feet away. My daughter, if she was
going to smoke pot, was not going to make a decision by how close a
retail store would be. And I guess that's all I have to say. Thank you.
Thank you. I appreciate your comments. I also like your commercials. Thank you, Jim. I
had to get on the same. Is there anybody else would like to speak this
evening?
So I'm Connie Marsh. I have a store at 1175 Northwest Gilman Boulevard,
which is actually in the pink here. And I live on Squawk Mountain,
too. I regularly have people come in and ask who my landlord is
so they can see if they can have a pot store in my
shopping center. I will note that Rowley and two other independent owners own
those stores on Mall Street, so it's not just one large
landowner controlling those leases. But I don't care about pot, so
I just wanted accuracy. I want to talk about two things,
and one of those is the Sound Transit Zones. I looked
at where the Sound Transit Zones would likely impact, and single
family housing, which would be the Old Town neighborhood
that Third Avenue Bridge, FAME, Birch, Alder, one of our historic neighborhoods, right? That would
be one of those places that this change of zoning would de facto say that
yes, you could put sound transit facilities in that neighborhood. think we have to have
discussions about what we need to protect in our town to preserve our identity as
compared to what we want to lose in the name of transportation improvements because no
matter how good our transit is if we lose our soul we've lost a lot
in our town so i don't want any of the single family housing included in
the accepted zoning for Sound Transit. You will note that all of
the community facilities zones are in that zoning change and that includes Conservancy
and all of these things, our parks. I say community facilities facilities which
is zoned for large things like city halls and banquet facilities should be
the only allowed zone for the Sound Transit. Now say on transit, they're big. They
don't want hassles. They want it to be easy. They want to be able to
walk in and they say, well, it's already zoned for that. And when it's already
zoned for something, it's way hard to say, yeah, but we don't really want it
there. Better that we should restrict some of the zoning and then be able to
be convinced that it is imperative that it be in that zone and maybe have
a little give and take at that point in time. Bellevue got a lot
of say. Sound Transit, not terribly happy with how hard it was to get their
transit light rail located in Bellevue, so you can see why they would want it
that way, but it's our town, and we should have say. We give a lot
to WSDOT, 900 and I-90, adding another large gorilla in the room and giving it
all to them in advance is unwise. So, moving on to bikes. Now these
little temporary bike structures, I don't know what that means. I don't
know if people will park. I don't know what temporary is. And
so I am unwilling to say that they should be in all
zones until I actually understand the implications. Somebody could have one of
these in their front yard. and then you would have bikes in your
neighborhood. Is that what that means when it's in a single family housing zone? So
maybe you can ask enough questions that you would understand what that entails. It's also
a level zero review, which I went through the code. Level zero review doesn't seem
to indicate that there's any notification of neighbors. So if indeed it's allowed in all
zones, which means it could be in your neighbor's yard, because I don't understand,
then you would never know until it showed up one day. Really? I don't know.
So, and the last thing, it seems like the most likely place for these would
be in public right of way because there's quite a bit of public right of
way in the city, but our public right of way isn't zoned in this way.
It's a different thing. So I would like to understand whether these would be allowed
in the public right of way or encouraged as
a priority in the public
right of way before it
went someplace else. I support
what Connie just said and
I'd like to bring up
my program. And just to
point out, with the Gateway Project was zoned that area.
Can you introduce yourself? Okay, I'm sorry. I'm Mary Lynch. I reside at 2690
Northwest Oakcrest Drive, Issaquah, Washington. And I also served on the Central Area Citizens
Task Force planning. and kind of got worn out, so stepped away, didn't follow all
the process through when some of the zoning and standards were put in. But what
happened was there was a blanket statement that all the central area plan would have
zero lot lines and all the same standards because it was easier to do. Well,
what you've created now is around Sammamish Point, which is 132 homes, residential homes.
They now are threatened by a new Newport Way that's gonna encroach and take
part of their property. They now have a multimodal trail from the Gateway
Apartments, zero lot line, and a City Park, zero lot line, that's yet to be
funded, but they've got the land. Now with the river project, zero lot line, another
proposed multimodal trail, and another road that's going over an abandoned creek bed that's happened,
again without real notification that we knew that that creek was being abandoned. So by
making these sweeping things it's easier you need to consider what it might do
to existing citizens. And a lot of those property owners in those 132 are still
trying to recover from the economy and their under on their loans because of the
economy. They're unemployed and now they have to think about because they're being squeezed in
by this development, the central area plan, because they're going to have to go also
through four to five years of construction around them, what do they do? Because their
property values during those four to five years are probably going to go down versus
up. Long term they may go up, but it's going to be hard for them
to sell. So when you do blanket types of things, think about what it's going
to do. I support light rail, but I think we need to decide where it's
going to be and have some control on the decisions. And just because it's easier
doesn't always mean it's best. So what I'd like to do is share you something
that I gave to the development presented, and just to show you some missed opportunities.
That being said, when I was looking through then the
next portion I ran across some of the significant spaces
that we're looking at amending to put in the map.
And one of the things I presented to the Development Commission last week were missed
opportunities. And I think we really need to look at the language that we're redoing
the central area plan and changing our ideas. Much like marijuana, if you're gonna densify
an area, we're not gonna have the land. So when you're looking at opportunities, look
at the rooftops for open spaces, for parks, for community spaces. This wasn't done with
Gateway. And to prove that,
Just as a comment on those roofs, when we were discussing the
central area plan, that was one of the things that we assumed
and encouraged to be on those roofs. Assumed and encouraged, but it's
not in the language. There's nothing in the open space that says,
It's all assuming it's on ground level. Nothing is written in that says it could
be accessible or community space. And over here with State Farm and Tom Sessions, we
have a nice community space that he's built up there. And I don't have many
of you visited, but we already have an example of that. But this is what
the city staff is giving as far as direction. So they haven't heard any of
what's been assumed out of that task force. And so we get what we get.
Just other examples. The other thing, if the city council met with the schools, they're
talking, they don't have land for all these new schools. We ought to be encouraging
and looking where we're going to put in the central area plant, maybe an urban
school that might have the playground and the soccer fields on top of it. Here's
an existing building. It was built in 2009, School of Art. So it's going to
have different looks. So, that being said, getting on to this
part, as far as the non-motorized multimodal trails, during the Development Commission, it's been
asked several times, and we've been asking as citizens, and so you've got kind
of a conceptual, is the map, but it doesn't really show where they are
now. where they're going and there's also lacking where the connections and there's still some
big voids and how do we get over 900 and I don't see any on
the map that was shown today that would there are any multimodal dash lines across
S 900. So we need to know what's happening and I would like to see
a map that shows the what's there now, what's been permitted, what's proposed, what's
funded, and where we're going with this. And right now we have with
Gateway, we do, and rather we have multimodal trails that are through wetlands.
So I'd also like to see in the policy and some of the
standards is Do all of our multi-modal trails have to be in wetlands so
that the developer gets to build everything out and then get credit for putting a
multi-modal trail in because they're putting it through a wetlands? And we're not going to
have any green space left in the central area plan or in the downtown floor
if we continue doing what we're doing. let alone where the wildlife is going to
go. And one of our developers has already said that we can relocate the wildlife
someplace else. They don't belong here anymore. I also don't see any design standards for
these new trails. How is the city going to maintain these trails? Where are the
maintenance funds going to come from? And who's going to fund and complete the missing
links? So that's the main thing that I
have and I would just like to say when you're going forward and looking and
with these proposals is look at the whole inclusive. Just don't say you want them
but make sure you put the steps in there and the policies that the follow
through is given and that we have complete moto-moto trails. Thank you. I'd like to
take back what I just said about we assumed that they would be in there.
The way the central area was presented to us was this is the general
idea and then approve it and then we're going to come back and put
all these wonderful little requirements in which we're getting piecemeal at the present time
i mean i agree with both you and connie i mean these are things that
the trains left the station i understand i understand that and um you know i'm
not sure why that isn't being done but there you should have had a continuation
of the of the um group the central area group to to continue on and
plan what was actually going to go in there We as
a group had asked for models of what to get a real idea of
what it was going to look like. Was there enough room? How are we
going to do this? That wasn't done either. So I think the money spent
for something like that would have been well worthwhile to see if it works.
But I do want to comment. There was a letter that came in from
Mr. Kapler about don't take away the parks. With
that one designation of having to put light
rail in everything, what you're doing is doing
exactly what he said. Basically, I would like
to see a real-- idea, one area that everybody sort
of agrees it could change in 20 years, but right now what that that link
where it's going to go and then eliminate the parks from the designation so that
they stay parks. I mean, that's what I would like to see, but I don't
know how that's going to work. I don't want to see 14-story building
put on the right of way that is the best way
to do light rail. So I think we need to look
into the future more than we are right now. Does anybody
else would like to speak? No? If there's nobody else that
would like to speak, I'm going to close the meeting-- not
the meeting, the public hearing at 7:50 and open it up
for any discussion for the panel. I said enough. Would
somebody else like to say something? CHRIS JERRAM: Yeah, I do
have one specific amendment recommendation. That would be to IMC 1807512,
the current buffers. As it stands, I would recommend that we
amend 1807512 to reduce the transit buffer to 500 feet.
I feel this would open up some retail space on the opposite
side of town, not concentrate the marijuana establishments essentially to the I-90
corridor or to North Issaquah. I also feel this would provide greater
access to patients if we do have a retail establishment with a
medical endorsement on the south side of town. It currently seems that
the only-- and there may be other barriers because we don't
have information on that, would be the transit center currently and reducing that
to 500 feet would allow some space in that area and potentially allow
one of the current collectives to seek a retail license and or someone
with a retail license to work with them to become a retail establishment
with medical endorsement. I would support the reduction of the
buffer as well. It's something I kind of argued for last time we
discussed this. I personally do not see any reason for that big of
a buffer, not just for transit but for anything else, for the reasons
that were eloquently discussed earlier. child care. I don't imagine toddlers
walking out of their child care center to go to the marijuana store
and purchase something or whatever it is. I tend to agree that if
we are allowing liquor stores close to and selling cigarettes close to
schools that we shouldn't have this being that difference. I would be
fine with going halfway and 500 feet as kind of a half
step, but I do not personally see the reason for such a
large buffer. So since that's a council decision. Right, well you can
make a recommendation to change what's proposed. Is 500
feet enough? I mean, it would be nice to see a map, kind of what
opens up, if it would-- 100, 200, 500, 1,000. We did see maps last time,
and it was opening a lot. Right, and we happen to have a 500 map
because that's the one that exists now for collectives. And so we just happen to
bring that in our back pocket. I thought this might come up tonight.
and while dave's finding that just so you know we do have standards for multi-use
trails for how wide and the surface and that kind of thing we also talk
about parks on top of buildings and how they would look they're encouraged because we
can't force them to use their open space that way and so as the markets
evolve and we've had some projects come in we're learning how better to maybe incentivize
or to make them seem to be more um more of a way that an
applicant can give us their open space through rooftops or through other mechanisms. And that's
why we're starting to bring you amendments because we're learning as the applicants are learning,
we're learning the new code together to make it better. So those are some of
the ones that are coming forward this year. Did you find it? I'm going to
add one more thing. And I was going to add one more thing to that
regarding the non-motorized maps. The non-motorized map does show the existing routes and it shows
the proposed routes. It is a static, relatively static map because it is only allowed
to be amended once a year. So once changes are made and once something is
actually constructed, then we can put it on the map as an existing route and
change from proposed to existing. But for that reason, we cannot put on what might
be permitted. But they are going, staff is planning on going to D.C. with a
presentation regarding that. Right. And once they get on the TIP, meaning they're funded, then
they would go on the map as well. But again, as Kristen said, we're only
allowed to change that one once a year with the comp plan. I think we're
all on the same page and it's actually being worked on. Maybe we don't know
everything that's happening. How about that? We're just trying to educate everybody. Okay. I have
one question. It came up that the bike racks, exactly how big are they?
I mean, the ones I've seen are not that obnoxious. Connie brought up a
really good point, too. I should have mentioned it in the first place. But
most of these do go in the right-of-way. because that's the easiest place to put
them. You take up on street parking. You take up one space or maybe two
spaces of on street parking. And the stations themselves are not very tall. It's large
enough to put like a credit card or some kind of gift card kind of
thing in. And then there might be a helmet box next to that. So they
are not large stations. The reason for including them in the zones is maybe you
want to go put it at close to a trailhead or maybe you want to
put it on a site that seems to need it but it's not there at,
you know, BMC or Staples or something that's close to the right-of-way but not enough
room in the right-of-way or at the transit center. That's not public right-of-way. So you'd
need to allow a permitted use there in order for people to do it. If
you did go on to a more private property such as a BMC or something
like that, you would do a memorandum of understanding or some sort of shared agreement
between the two on how long that would be there and any conditions that would
be associated with it. Does that help? - I suggest that we discuss one amendment
at a time. I have comments on all three of them. I don't know when
to. - I was just using time while Dave was finding the map. I just
thought I would quick throw stuff in, but yes, we'll focus back on this one.
in order whichever so yeah you're back on all
right okay your mission is over all right so
yeah this is here's the collective garden buffer map
this is this is in this 2013 so take it
with a little grain of salt but this was our estimate of what we knew
if the land uses back then just pick up please I'm sorry yeah this was
our estimate in 2013 of the various land uses with buffers up in the top
left corner and how that played out on the zoning map so that's my little
disclaimer that some new uses may have showed up lately but here's a snapshot of
what pretty much the collective buffer map looks like and the possibilities
which are the the properties in color there so and that's 500 feet
and that's 500 feet from another um marijuana place or there's not a
separation in that either yes it's a thousand feet from other collective gardens
it's not a thousand there's no separation from retail stores So
we used to have, until it closed, at the ground floor of the Iskall Cannabis
Company was a medical marijuana facility, collective garden, and upstairs is the cannabis company that
Cliff is talking about. The one downstairs, I understand, just closed for other reasons, not
because of the city. I can't read the zoning. Can you quickly go through at
least the purple, light and dark purple there? Sure. It's basically the commercial zones of
the city, so... help to point them out purple is village residential
this is village residential out of newport way that would not apply or under
yes that's within the 500 if you had a 500 foot buffer right you
could go there you would not be able to put a commercial
So under today's retail marijuana rules, no, you cannot put a store in that
area. But again, this is, I guess, information for you all. If you wanted
to reduce buffers, here's a potential example of some buffers if you reduce these
to 500 feet. That's what that could look like. You couldn't put a second
store there because it's residential? No, that is a commercial zone. Oh, I'm sorry.
I misunderstood what you said. Yeah. The term is village
residential, but it does. Mixed use. It allows commercial
uses as well. Yeah. So that's this area out
here. And then throughout central Issaquah is the urban
core zone. Mixed use is out along East Lake
Sammamish Parkway, Fred Meyer Home Depot area. Professional office
is a little blip up towards Sammamish and 229th.
It's like the remaining only zoned parcel of PO in the city,
just about. And then CBD, the Cultural Business District, is the zone
in Front Street, downtown Old Town. And this shows just spotty parcels
because there are many buffer uses that take away that availability. And
then finally, Intensive Commercial is over by the RV park where the
retail store is today, right here. So up here, the
current collective garden buffers talk about 1,000 feet from schools and community
centers, 500 feet from parks and daycares, and 1,000 feet from other
collectives, zero feet from retail stores. And I guess to address your
comment, I see transit center was not addressed back when we adopted
this in 2011. And that's why you see the 1730 doorway store
is possible there. So there's-- And that 1730,
that's-- since it's 1,000 foot from other gardens, that 1730 address,
if we reduced it to 500, would be half that circle,
half that radius? Yes, if you reduced-- yes, if you chose
to do that. What's the-- rationale for the transit center. So
you can drive to your store, but you cannot take the bus to
your store. Right. I don't understand it. I mean, it's-- Let me flip
back to the other one. There it is. CHRIS
RODGERS: You know, I guess I'd say the state adopted those. CHRIS RODGERS: Oh, is
it the state? Yeah, I blame the state. CHRIS RODGERS: OK. Yeah, so essentially, currently,
we'd be marrying the state, but we have the option to reduce those. CHRIS RODGERS:
We don't have to. OK. Down to 100, I believe, right? CHRIS RODGERS: I don't
even see the rationale for it. I would reduce it to 100 if that's the
minimum we can go. That is the minimum. CHRIS RODGERS: As far as transit only,
or? Yeah, just transit. I mean,
that would be-- I know you suggested 500, but I just don't even see the
rationale for it. Maybe I'm missing something. CHRIS RODGERS: Let me be clear about your
options, I guess. I think it was schools and playgrounds are the two that the
state said need to stay at 1,000 feet. All these others that you see listed
up here have the option of 100 to 1,000 feet. I know that at the
beginning of the presentation, staff said we're going to be looking at very different things.
But I'm finding it odd that we're looking at allowing, for instance, transit uses blanketly
across the board, and yet we're completely eliminating the use of medicinal in our community.
I'm not sure why we have this disparity going on, It's an odd thing that
they're being paired together. I don't know if I'm the only one seeing this merge,
but I really would like to have some language rather than just striking this all
out of our code. I realize that we're in this gray area right now in
our state. We're pioneering legislation, but we are actually changing things and just completely taking
it out of our code makes it so that it's much more harder for us
to come back and align with what the state is allowing and working very hard
to create these conditions for and these conditions are going to be existing. We know
that the state is going to be getting a limited number of licenses So these
new collective farms of four people and 60 plants have to be regulated closely. It's
my understanding that law enforcement isn't being asked to regulate it, that it's the state
will be regulating if people are having the correct number of plants. It's my understanding
that we're going to need to be having to permit these things, which means that
they're going to be a limited amount in our community. And by completely striking it
from our code, we're creating a... What I see is a really problematic situation for
people who are very vulnerable in our community and are not able to access things
that are necessary in their life. I'm really unhappy with the fact that we don't
have any kind of language to even state, hey, in the future, right now, as
of July 1st, this current concept of collective gardens will be going away, but we
make room in our community for it. Yet we have language saying blankly, if wind
sound transit wants to come, we want them to come. I'm seeing this odd thing
where I don't see what would be so hard about the staff writing language to
allow for these changing conditions that are happening in Olympia to better reflect our community.
Is it possible to have a... So I know we need to strike all
the language regarding the collective garden since that's no longer allowed, but we do
not have to forbid the use as one of the-- I forget what section
we had. CO-OPs. The CO-OPs. Right. You have that option, yes. We could choose
to-- the city could choose to be silent. And if we are silent, what does--
Just let the state adopt rules and see what happens? And then make a decision
about-- Right. And I don't think we're trying to get rid of medical. I mean,
we're following along with the state mandate that we can't have collective gardens. But we
know that the retail establishments are taking that on, as we heard from our very
successful store, is that they're willing and able and they're ready to step in on
the first day that the other ones have to close, that there'll be a spot
for those in the community that need medical. So I would disagree that we're not,
in fact, when you think of the city of Sammamish to the north, they've prohibited
all marijuana since it first came out of the state. They have said, "We don't
really care if we have people in our community that need it. They can just
go to Issaquah because Issaquah is open-minded and they are allowing folks to go there
from North Bend or from wherever. We've always been really open to the medical and
the retail marijuana regulations." So I just want to point out that a lot of
communities are just prohibiting all of it out of hand, and we've always tried to
be as open-minded and as out there as we possibly can be. We don't want
to violate the state. because as Officer Porter would say, it's not a good place
to be as a city, as small as we are. But we've always tried to
embrace the folks that need it, the folks that can't find it readily, to always
be able to have it. And we were happy when we went from one license
to that we're allowed two now. And so I just want to be sure that
you're aware that a lot of communities around us are just prohibiting it outright They're
just saying No, we're not even talking about it. And so we're trying to be
open in our regulations But we don't want to go out on a limb to
have our neighborhoods all of a sudden have Collectives that we can't regulate yet because
the state isn't regulating them yet and as office reporter said I If next door
you're finding that there's just a whole lot of smell and stuff going on and
you call us and say, "I think there's like 500 plants next door and there's
people coming and going and I would like you to check it out," we would
have no way to go in there other than we'd have to get a search
warrant. And so we just didn't want to do that with our neighborhoods yet until
we have a little more direction from the state. Have they thought this through in
a neighborhood level? So we're just not ready to go there yet as a community
that has a lot of neighborhoods. So I just wanted to kind of add that
we're certainly not against it. We're certainly not trying to close down medical. We're just
trying to make it the best we can make it for our neighborhoods and for
the folks that need it. So I just wanted to... CHRIS JERRAM: And I would
add, I mean, the state law is the state law, and we have to comply
with state law. And that means we have to-- 86 collective gardens as they currently
stand. A lot of the issues you bring up have been issues that were raised
by, I think, CARE, CORE, and the other marijuana lobbying groups at the state level
that it does create a gap. I mean, but again, that's a gap at the
state level that has initiated this. Again, I agree we want to set something up
that's long-term fruitful. And if we go and start creating local regulations now that are
eventually not going to match the state regulations, I think we put ourselves in a
very weird spot where we're opening ourselves to litigation not only
at the local level from people challenging our regulations, but also once our regulations
don't match the state regulations, we have additional issues there as well. I'm always
of the opinion, do it once, do it right. And I don't think that
doing this where we have no direction from the state would be prudent. But
if we do not add the language marijuana cooperatives are prohibited in all zoning
district, they still wouldn't be able to exist unless they are licensed.
what would happen? Correct. From what we can tell from what little is in the
state regs now is there'd be some sort of license procedure that they're thinking of.
Right now they're focused on retail, the merging of the retail and the medical. So
they have an idea of what they want for the co-op, but they haven't quite...
nailed it and so they're saying it's out there and that you can do them
if you want like Spokane is trying to figure out how they could do it
and you know they're just sort of flailing thinking well we could do this and
we could say this and we could license it and we could um but they're
they're not there yet and we've looked at what they're doing and it's like We're
not as big as Spokane and we're just not that comfortable going out on our
own to try to allow it in neighborhoods yet. But if they come back in
two years and they've got this set idea of it's licensed, you can regulate it,
it's gonna have security cameras, just like now, the collectives, then maybe it will feel
a lot safer for the neighborhoods that it's not gonna be a risk of break-ins,
it's not gonna have its own travel issues with comings and goings. So we're just
trying to be a little careful for the neighborhoods with that, with co-ops. I
think actually the medical marijuana situation is going to resolve itself. Looking into the
future, what I can see is that medical marijuana will be treated for what
it is. It's a medicine. And I think in the not too distant future,
I can see the federal government, federal law, maybe initially state law, saying
that, hey, we will treat medical marijuana for what it is. It is a medicine.
It will be provided by prescription, and it will be obtained in a pharmacy like
any other medicine would be. I think that's where we're going, whether it's how soon
it's going to go. I can't visualize, but I think we have to consider that
when you talk, what do you want to do about regulating marijuana? not regulating, but
how you're going to go about selling medical marijuana. I don't think
it belongs in a recreational marijuana facility. I think it belongs in
a pharmacy. - Just follow up on the previous discussions on both
sides. I would support, I think, a blanket amendment to the
IMC reducing available buffers to 500 except for transit, which I would support reducing to
100, especially given the fact that we had no issue with it as far as
the collective garden buffers. And did you want to have any separation between the two,
between two marijuana shops? I think a 500 foot buffer was still-- 500 separation as
well? OK, I just wanted to make sure that you were covering all the-- The
reason for that? My reasoning behind that is I think having
everything close together like that might make it a target for
rates of that sort. If you have that much product so
close together, that would be my only concern. Remember, we're only
allowed two. So it would just be the two of them
that would be close. Yeah. OK. So that's your motion? Yeah.
My motion is to reduce the available. And my understanding is that we
can't reduce schools. Playgrounds? Playgrounds was it? Yeah, beneath 1,000. But for
all others, it's reduced to 500, except for transit, which would reduce
to 100. And separation of each other would be 500? Yes. OK.
That's a motion. We need a second. Second. I'll second. All those
in favor? Third to fourth. Please say aye. Aye. Opposed? I don't
see the reason we need it. One opposed.
CHRISTIE WOOD: That doesn't-- I mean, that just goes to the council as our recommendation.
It doesn't-- Do you
have anything that you wanted to propose in terms of the -- Well, I could
make an amendment. I don't know that I have support. It's a different thing. This
is a very different thing. I don't know that I have support from my fellow
commissioners, but I feel that our elected representatives have merged these two systems with thought,
though we are in a complicated time, and that medical endorsements within recreational stores is
not the same as the new form of four members to a collective garden. Uh,
the availability of product to people who are vulnerable in our community is not being
addressed currently. And I would like to see language that even though if we want
to stave that off, we still allow for it in our community right now. This
blanket ban is something that will be difficult for once our state begins to create
regulations that are a little more clear cut as it will be licensed and highly
regulated more so than it ever has been in our long history of having medical
in our state. I'd like to see language that reflected that availability right now. Having
a blanket ban on it I think is problematic to really vulnerable members of our
community, as I've stated. So just so I get the amendment, you would want co-op,
marijuana co-ops allowed in all the single family and multi-family zones? Because they have to
be in a house. They have to be in one of the-- Yes, but right
now it's my understanding that there would be less than 1,000 allowed and licensed across
the state. So I understand that there's kind of this witch hunt idea of the
fact that they're going to be in every neighborhood, but it's they need to be
legally operating. And so that will create, the state regulations will create an environment where
they won't be rampant across all of our children's backyards. And I just want to
get your amendment down that you were proposing that it would be in all single-family
and multi-family zones? I would propose that we follow the state statutes that will be
set. So whatever the state is actually going to be licensing. And that would be
in all zones, correct? Because the state legislators has already said that it has to
be operating out of a home. So we already have that condition that we have
to adhere to from-- from state law and point of order are you saying um
when it when the state law is effective or when the regulations uh go into
effect we would follow those regulations that it would be prohibited until that point, because
statute and regulations are-- Yes, I would be more than fine to say until those
regulations are set up by the state. That right now, IZACWHA wants to say we're
in a gray area and we're not quite sure, but right now the language as
written is outright banning it, and that's what my issue is with. So it would
be-- we can write something to say when regulations are specifically enacted by the Liquor
and Cannabis Board. I don't think you can put that in-- You can't put that
in. No, you just come back around like we did when the state-- disallowed-- when
they took away the collective garden, then we had to come back and be consistent
with the state. When the state comes forward and has new regulations for collective-- or
for co-ops, then we would come back like we're coming back from this state, this
round of state regulations. We would come back and amend ours. and say, the state
did this now, do you want to be consistent with it or do you want
to continue the ban? For example, Sammamish came back and said, the state's now allowing
this and this, what do we want to do? And they said, We still don't
want to do anything. So we would give that same option when the state comes
back with new regulations. That's when we come to you all like we are tonight
and saying, what do you want to do with the new regulations? So that would
be the time that you could still say that you would like them as nebulous
as they are, that you would like them permitted in our single-family and multifamily zones.
You could still have that as a, you know, we could be like Spokane and
try and figure it out. I don't know that we have, it doesn't sound like
we have support for that in our community. So I'm not proposing that, uh, what
I'm not proposing that we necessarily need to, uh, need to do that at this
time. I guess I'm concerned about the language as it is right now striking it
out. But if someone else wants to speak up and say that they're in favor
of that, but from right now I'm not getting a sense that that's representative of
our community. And I do think currently, because we would be prohibiting them to tell
the regulations, the municipal code would have to read that it was banned
because you can't have contingent laws within the code. You know,
currently it does read that. But I agree, when the regulations
come back, I would like to see this again and see
if we could propose an amendment to the IMC as well
as regulations in comport with the state or either additional or
lessening if we have that authority, but however best fits our
community. Other? So-- Oh, point of order, Joan. So the amendment
proposed and passed, is that going to alter the findings of fact and conclusions
in comport with that as our recommendation? I'll have to add that, yeah. I'll
have to add that. So tonight we're supposed to, do we agree to present
it as is with that one amendment or do you want to And
this encompasses all the issues that we spoke to tonight. Is there something
in there that you disagree with besides putting in the amendment to forward
that onto council? Any discussion on that? Is there anything else that causes
consternation in here that you would like to see changed? I'm good with
it. I would make-- I have concerns about the mass transit in every
zone. The same argument that's been made. Think it might be a chicken-and-the-egg problem though
Apparently we can't get mass transit unless we tell them we're ready to take it
and we don't want to take it unless we know where it's gonna go and
Part of that is in the central plan you might -- That's what
I'm asking. No, I mean we've all agreed to the amendment to forward
that on and now it's a discussion is there any other issue in
here that you would like to make a recommendation to council for? And speaking
to what Carl was mentioning in the central plan, you might remember that really great
map. In fact, I think it was our favorite map that we made that looks
like a slug that actually has, are you finding the slug map? No. That actually
has, and we were signifying that for when Sound Transit comes through, that this is
the route that we would like as a community, where we would want it to
go and where the stations might go. so that they knew that we as a
community were thinking of it and so now they wanted us to come back and
say you have that in your policy plan but what zones could it go in
and so that's where this next step is is sort of that next part of
the commitment that we did it as a policy and now this is how it
would be as a zone in the zoning pieces of it to add to that
i heard jona excuse me i heard you say that you wanted to see a
design of where it would go before You'd agree to that? But part of the,
as Carl said, the chicken and the egg is we would like light rail or
high capacity transit to be on ST3 so that that will pay for the design.
But we have a better likelihood of getting it on ST3 if we allow it
in our zones. So we won't see a design from Sound Transit until it gets
funded through ST3. But it may not be on that list unless we allow it.
So are we then able to create a situation where we say where it is
and isn't allowed? We're still endorsing it as a community. We're just limiting where it
can and can't go. That's part of the design. Right, that's part of the whole
process. They spend years doing public process with people with different alternatives on design and
where it might go, where stations might go, where a station might go. So there's
a very large public process once it gets put onto ST3. I think that makes
sense. They're allowed in all the zones. That's just my opinion. And just for fun,
can you pull up the slug map? Sorry, got busy talking, yes. Because if you
think of how expensive that would be, you know, it certainly wouldn't go in Sycamore.
It certainly wouldn't go, because it's expensive. And so when we created
the map, we kind of did a swath along I-90, since I-90
is the logical, most efficient route that we can think of. We
don't know where the little stubs would go. But we tried to
sort of think it through, but we didn't ever put any zoning
with it, just because it's so far out there. I'm sorry, hang
on. Here comes the slug.
Doesn't that look like a slug? We just thought that was just... Even got the
slime trail. I just always loved that one. And as you can tell from the
swath, there's some single family in there. There's some retail. I mean, there's a lot
of zones that are in there. And not that the whole swath is going to
be a concrete whatever it is, but generally north and south of the freeway, generally...
We tried to quantify it. And so this is the next step
that they're asking us is what zones would that include? I love
that map. Are there questions now that you are reminded of the--
I don't have a question. I'm still conflicted about it. I'm kind of giving carte
blanche to -- it seems like we're giving more than just that area. If it
was just that area, and I do know that it will go through huge
public process and i've kind of followed what happened in bellevue for example but
i don't know that uh the that we're giving up some leverage by by
uh allowing all zones to be open as opposed to being able to stand
firm because it is not zone for it right but i who like
the light rail and i would like to come sooner rather than
later so right some i am conflicted i would just like to
have the city recognize that they're you know those are the areas
that are the most probable and when they're allowing the future development
or changes in those areas that they take into consideration the areas
that might be affected with the coming in right now That's my
only problem about it is just to make sure that you're thinking about that. I
was talking to Sound Transit today about this. I'm just going to read a sentence
or a little paragraph that he sent me. "We understand the concerns and sensitivities of
your constituents. and hope to work closely with them on the best alignment choice. However,
it would make little practical sense to require an essential public facility apply for a
rezone on an alignment set by input from the same parties. Allowing use in all
zones allows for the greatest flexibility and sensitivity in balancing and addressing all these concerns,
which were environmental and single family and the letters that you all received, while helping
us build the best alignment possible. So they recognize that they're environmental sensitivities and there
are single family homes and they've been through this in several other cities before. So
they do recognize that. I just don't want them to tear down two houses and
put in a 30 story building right in the middle of where it's going to
go. That's right. Okay. How would that prevent that from happening? It wouldn't. It wouldn't.
It wouldn't. Right. There's nothing that we can do to prevent that from happening. That's
what I said, when they're thinking about it, just take into consideration that they're not
building a taco stand that's going to be there for 30 years that's not going
to be able to be torn down. Taking into consideration is exactly the argument you
were making a moment ago about the green roofs and all the debts. I understand
that, but what can you put in the code? Once you put it
in the code, it's law, and you have to have some kind of
a bottom line when a developer comes in that you can do this,
this, and this. You can't prevent them from doing that. You know, it
has to be in the code. There has to be some rules. And how many
rules can you put in there? Can you put in a rule that you can
only have a yellow roof? I mean, you can't do that. They have to have
some creativity, but you have to keep the main ideas that are most important, you
have to have in the code. So with that, is there anything else? Do you
want to add something to my conflict? I mean, is there an amendment
that you-- or a suggestion or anything? No, I'm kind of
stumped over that. Anybody else? So we have-- our duty tonight
is to forward these recommendations on to city council. So if
there's no other questions or concerns, I need a motion
to forward it on with the amendment that was presented. I'll make
a motion to approve the findings of fact proposed amendments, review rationale
and recommendation as amended by our vote tonight regarding the IMC and
the retail marijuana regulations. Do I have a second? Second. Is there
any further discussion? Just to make sure. With no further discussion, all
those in favor of forwarding this on to the city council
for review. Please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Nay. I'm going to vote opposed
as well, just to have it on the record that-- OK. So-- --some
concerns about-- Two opposed, and the rest of you are in favor. So
it still goes-- it's still passive. Mm-hmm. Good work. This was tough stuff
tonight. Can it show the record though that it's related to this particular
issue? Okay. That it's related to the regional light rail. My position is based on
the zoning for the San Francisco Transit. Duly noted by our rock
star. Our next PPC is the 21st of April, which is not on
the second or fourth Thursday, and that was due to the person that's
presenting is not available the other two Thursdays. Do you know yet if
anyone is not able to be here on the 21st of April? I can't. I'm
off anyway, but I'm gone. I can't. You're gone the 21st as well? OK. Carl?
As far as I know, I'll be here. You're going to be here? OK. I
will be here. OK, Justin's checking. OK, Paul? Not sure. Okay. I have a possible
conflict as well on the 21st. Okay. So you have the presenter, but you don't
have the commission. I don't have a commission. It's a story of my life. Okay.
You think maybe my, okay. Ray, do you know? Am I still on in April?
Yes, that would be the last, that would be the last meeting for all of
you that are jumping ship. As far as I know. I'll make sure I'm there.
You've got to make that one. Right. Maybe we'll have cake for all of
you that are leaving, or we'll think of something to make it exciting, more
exciting than usual. No brownies, though, just cake. With that, I'm going to call
the meeting-- Yeah, you can close it. --close at 8:31. Thank you very much.
Well done, group.