So as soon as that light goes. Here we go. Hello and welcome to
the September 22nd meeting of the Planning Policy Commission. Thank you all for being
here. We have people in the audience tonight, so welcome. Tonight we're gonna talk
about the comprehensive plan amendments, the land use element, and the capital facilities element.
But before that, we need to have a motion to approve the minutes from
Our last meeting. I'll make a motion to approve the minutes. Do I have a
second? Second. Are there any comments, updates, concerns? All those in favor of approving the
minutes as written, please say aye. Aye. The minutes are approved. So we're going to
go right into our presentation. We have a lot of things to talk about tonight,
and I know Trish and Kristen are going to do a great job. in making
us understand all of these notes that we had to spend hours reading.
And with that, tonight is a preview, not an official like public hearing
kind of review, but it's a preview of a few more of the
comprehensive plan amendments. The public hearing is in October, so we have tons of time
for you all to think about things, ponder things. You can ask us questions tonight
and see if there's any more data that we can collect or find for you
before the public hearing that would help you understand or help you feel comfortable about
the comprehensive plan amendments that we talk about tonight, okay? So tonight is not the
end. Tonight is another chance for us all to talk about them, okay? So in
October, we're only going to talk about these amendments? No, all of them. All of
them. We've been doing previews, sort of trickling through as we get them done or
get them almost done. Like last time, it was the sustainability indicators. And I think
we brought the rezones before, but I'm not sure we had the new members when
we did the rezones, the proposed rezones. So I brought them again, just because. because
they were so exciting the first time I thought well we'll talk about them again
just in case because I couldn't remember when everybody started so in October I think
it's the 13th it's in yes that'll be on all of them okay which segues
into a really good segue is those of you that weren't here in the beginning
of the year we have our january docket that you all review and sent to
council and it's all the comprehensive plan amendments that we believe we will do in
a year according to the state you're only allowed to do comprehensive plan amendments once
a year and that's to make sure that you don't sort of trickle through things
and not think of them all how they'll react to your city all at once
So you have to set your docket in the beginning of the year and then
you can't add anything until the next year. So that's why I show you the
docket every time we talk about this so you kind of remember what we, well,
you wouldn't remember, but so you hear about what Joan and her fellows did back
in January and council adopted them back in, this was the one that made it
through Land and Shore in February. The interesting news, we had a very large docket
that went through Planning Policy Commission and when it got to Council, they didn't think
we should do them all because there were so many of them. And so we
cut it back from that and then we continued to cut it back as we
realized we were running out of time and all the information wasn't available for some
of them. So it's a lot smaller than it was. And those, the first six
we are doing this year, The second page, many of them fell out,
all of them fell out. Some of them we knew would fall out before we
adapted it, but the continue to 217 There were several reasons if you feel like
asking at the end, you can say, well, why did that one fall out? For
example, number 12, the parks plan, we have a new parks director now. And so
we're updating the parks plan and we didn't wanna write a park strategy plan without
that plan being written. So this will come after that plan, hopefully next year.
On the third page, there are three of them that, well, two of
them that are continued, but the last one is no longer needed. And
so there's only one on this page, the Cougar Mountain potential annexation area
that we'll talk about tonight. So the land you sell them in, this
goes to Kristen. I will be right there with you. So we are
going to talk... I think that these, okay, we're going to talk numbers, and we're
going to talk a little bit about the Regional Growth Center and some changes there,
the zoning and land use changes, and the potential annexation area change. I'm doing the
hard one first. And what I'd like to do, I know that you probably want
to talk about I'd like to do the population page and the next table together
and then because they relate to each other a little bit and then if you
guys have questions that way we will have already covered some of the information. So
this is the pop chart. We are required to update it every year. The Washington
State Office of Financial Management or OFM. sends us our official numbers. They send us
housing units, households, and population for that year, or what we estimate it to be.
From there, we are supposed to project it out for our 20-year planning cycle, and
so that's what we do based on what OFM uses. They say, we think 97%
of your units are occupied, so that's how you will project out your households. We
think... or they're about 2.3 people per household. That's what they tell us they're using.
So that's what we use to project out. And we have to factor in things
as well like our potential annexation areas where they have a certain bucket that they
are allowed to fill up and they cannot go above that. You know, so you're
not going to just keep going up annually. That's going to come to a stop
at some point. So that's what we have here and we go through 2035. This
table is a new table that was requested by city council. They are wanting to
know where we stand with our targets. So our targets for housing, they are state
mandated and adopted growth targets and we have housing targets and job targets. Housing unit
targets are much easier to keep track of than job targets but that's what we
are focused on here and that's what council has been focused on so that's what
we included. They wanted to see what, so our targets go from 2006 to 2031
and those won't be adjusted again for quite a few years. Our housing targets are
5,750 units. From 2006, we are supposed to add, or we are supposed
to not add, we are supposed to plan for and be able to
accommodate 5,750 additional units. So starting in 2006, we had 9,418 units. These
numbers we took from OFM because those are our official numbers, so we've
started taking them from OFM. So on the right hand side you have
the total citywide number and in the middle you have the units that were
added each year. Those do not include annexations that occurred, so it's only new
units. And then in 2010 there was a census adjustment that added like 1,300
units in there, 1,341 units. So there was an adjustment there as well. In
doing this we realized Our population numbers are OFM. We're using OFM here. They're
kind of official numbers because they are what are accepted by the state every year.
So we're going to use the OFM numbers in as many places as we possibly
can. So there are a couple of other charts and tables that will be adjusted
because of this that we'll bring back to the public hearing in 2013. Okay. Are
there any questions about those two? What did I say? Oh, October 13th. Yeah.
I'm so glad. You guys watch me. This is going
to be a fun night tonight. Okay. So are there
any questions on those two tables? I listened to you
that all of these numbers are based on what you're
required to do. And based on that, you come up
with a housing target. Can I correct you? Because we
didn't come up with a housing target. That's what
the state gave us. Okay. Okay. So does the council have the
ability to push back on these targets? Yes, and we did. These
were done back in 2005, 2006 is when they were, during those
two years. We sat through meeting after meeting with all the different
King County jurisdictions and fought it out. Okay. And 5750 is what
was established? Yes. Okay. What happens if we don't meet these targets? You
know, it's funny you ask that. I was on the phone with the O.F.M. today
and with the county today, but they reminded me that the targets are not numbers
that they measure. The targets are simply ways for cities to plan to make sure
that we can accommodate for people. They're not going to measure us every single year.
The county doesn't to make sure that we meet our targets. And they don't look
at the fact that putting another 5,000 units on Gilman is going to
stop traffic. They don't look at the traffic with it.
They just give you-- No, they do not. They just
look at numbers and vacant and redevelopable land. I understand.
Yeah. OK. So the numbers that they gave us for
the 2031 housing target of 5750, you have 3442 already
built, 2308 is our new target. That's what's
remaining to target. That's what's remaining to target.
Now if we look at the table, looking
at units built, and I'm looking at April
1st 2020, total unit built based on OFM
targets is 19,244. What we have now is
15,186. That's a delta of 4,058 in three years. So we
are going to be 1,750 units over the state. So theoretically, city
council at this point could say, we're not going to grow anymore.
And they could actually put the brakes on until 2031, and we
would still meet state target. CHRISTIE WOOD: No. I mean,
you can't just stop development. You can't say, okay, we're gonna have a 10-year moratorium
on development. You just can't do that. So no, they can choose to possibly, and
Trish, correct me if I'm wrong, but they could choose to possibly down zone properties
if they wanted to. But right now, we're also a regional growth center, which that
puts us in an interesting position because we've said we wanna accept more growth in
our regional growth center. But if we hit this target of
2308, we would still maintain that status of a growth center
because we satisfied the state. We just did it on an
accelerated plan. Right. I guess that's the question is, if we
absorb 2308 immediately and actually we go ahead and build out
the 4058 to the OFM plan, the state could
just keep piling more requirements on us. They could say, well, you know, you have
the capacity to build more, so. No. These, the targets are going to remain what
they are, 5,750 until 2021. That's when they'll be renegotiated. And at that point, we
can push back even harder and say, look, we've already accommodated, you know, we've accommodated
our growth targets. We really don't have that much more area to build out. And
then you start the negotiation process. But they cannot in between now and 2021 or
2031 say, well, cool, you've met your targets. We're going to give you 6,000 more
since you guys seem to be doing so well. They can't do that. You mean,
okay, OFM can't assign us more because we hit the target early. Correct. Got it.
Does that impact our ability to get fees and grants from them? If
we hit our targets? No. No. But that would give us a chance
to recover with the growth so that, because I would imagine OFM, if
they assign us a target of X and it grows, you know, 5%
per year, They'd want us to be able to be on target. So here's the
growth expectation and here's our capital investment so that we can actually maintain growth and
level of service. But if our growth goes too fast, then when we hit our
target, we can slow it down so that we can allow our level of service
to catch up. And yes, if there's a way to do that. Yeah, Trish. Yeah.
It's part of what we're looking at in the capital facilities element. to
make sure that you're keeping up with the
investments you need to make in infrastructure like
police and fire parks and buildings. But when you
say to slow it down, because the city doesn't control the market, we don't control
private property, we would have to put some kind of levers in place that would
slow things down either through higher level of service or... some things that we control
because we can't just say like Kristen said we can't have a ten-year moratorium you
just can't I mean this is America you just can't do that you have to
allow some development of private property within the bounds of your regulations right but we
could put in control so that we can actually keep checks and balances so that
as we grow we can also make sure we still maintain a level of service
right so say you know I say our transportation level of service on a certain
street or a certain intersection is C you you can That's the worst it can
get. You say that's as bad as it can get as a C. You can
lower that or raise it, whatever you want to call it, to a B, which
makes it harder for development. They have to pay more money or do more improvements
to support the development that comes in. That kind of thing. Okay. Would help at
least to keep the infrastructure. Right. So if the level of service starts to drop
down, then we could put in controls and say we have to bring the level
of service back up before we can allow more growth in this section. Can't really
do it by section, no. How do we control intersections then? If intersections start
getting too impacted. For example, back in the 90s when TALIS first came online
with their development permits, they took, because they were so big, they took up all
the concurrency capacity, traffic concurrency capacity that the city had. So because they, you know,
they took it and we got right up to the level of service with the
amount of units on commercial they were supposed to bring in, We couldn't approve any
other permits in any place else in the city until we were able to make
some road improvements to put some more capacity back on the road. So we had
several years where the only folks that could build were in the villages because they
had already gotten the concurrency trip. that they needed and so the city had to
be doing improvements to get the capacity back on the road so it wasn't a
moratorium but it was a growth control if you will that allowed no more traffic
no more development to come in until the city corrected the level of service problem
with the roads but it wasn't a moratorium we didn't stop things Yeah, I'm not
looking necessarily for moratorium, but just to check some analysis control. So if we start
accelerating too fast, we can slow it down so the rest of us can catch
up. Right. Yeah, and I think Trish touches on that more too when she talked
about capital facilities during that conversation, which is why I went, Trish, capital facilities. That's
why we're the tag team tonight. From what I understand from the regional growth designation
that we have, as long as the council approves it to go forward, even if
we don't meet any kind of specific growth, we are still working towards that. We
are still available to get money from that. city, county, state, whatever the money comes
from. As long as the city council has approved that we are in the
future going to bring in 7,500 new homes to support transit center. Right. And
simply the fact that we are a regional growth center helps us, gives us
more points to get grants through CSRC and federal government. cities ask for money,
if you're designated as growth center, you're able to get more money. And that's why
it went through. If you end up not doing that, then it just goes away
and you just lose future funds. You're not hit on the back of the hand
because you don't continue on. So I'm assuming, so if you get to a point
where the city is like an ice cube, you can't move. then the council can
go back and readjust and rethink what they're going to do and how they're going
to do it. And the good news too, since you mentioned about the Regional Growth
Center, is there's no time limit to how fast it has to grow out or
if it ever has to. It's just a never-ending date. I mean, you don't ever,
it's not by this date you have to grow this much. It's just the capacity
is known and we can just, go on as well as we can with the
market and see how it goes. There's no pressure to have it done by a
certain year. So we really like that part of it. Okay. Any other questions on
these? I think at some point, Ron, correct me if I'm wrong, you made the
assumption that we're going to continue at the pace that we have for the last
10 years. So in the last 10 years, we've built 3,442 new units. Are you
making the assumption that over the next 10 years, we're going to Again do that
is that why you're assuming that we're gonna exceed the goal based
on the numbers at the OFM gave us so if we look
at the numbers, I'm going back to the New housing units towards
target the 5750 was defined. We have 3442 built we have 2308
that's the leftover for us to be able to reach that target
Right. So if we go over to The table, the
population table, and we look at as of April 1st, 2016,
and look at units. I'm not worried about population. I think
it's too complicated. We look at 15,186. That's how many units
we have built today. We have OFM, who came in and
said, April 1st, 2020, we think you can build up to
19,244 units. So it's a cumulative total. That's
4,058 units more than what we have today. And
so if you take the 4,058 and you subtract
what has already been built, you come up with
1,750 units more than this target within three years.
And this target was originally intended to be 2031
target. I want to make one correction. OFM gives us the existing estimates. They gave
us the estimates for 2016. It's from there that we make the projections. For the
city, it's based on the numbers that they gave us. We are estimating 2.3 persons
per household. We can do that for most of the city, but we can't do
that for the villages. The villages have a cap. And they may accelerate one year
and then all of a sudden they're going to stop. They've reached as much as
we have allowed them to develop. So that's not going to develop anymore which is
going to kind of slow it maybe citywide if they can't do it. Same thing
in TALIS. Same thing in Raleigh when they do it. You know, costs go as
far as jobs go. So that's why we do it citywide. We base our stuff
citywide on what they've given us, but then we have to make adjustments for our
villages and for our regional growth center and for different local circumstances that the state
can't anticipate for us. Right, and that's why there's so many categories on the pop
chart, because they all kind of grow at different rates. The other piece, too, that
I think John brought up, I don't know directly or indirectly, is we work with
OFM for the each annual number of units built. We use our track it programs
and which ones have been finaled. to let them know, let's say one year we
say we have 100 units according to our records and they might come in and
say, well, you know, this one was a university, so you're going to get more
credit for the units or this one was a nursing home. So you get, you
know, they translate their units a little different sometimes than we do. And they send
us, we're usually within 20 units of what they come back and say. But then
they do all the occupancy rates and the persons per household to give us the
population number. But we give them the unit number at least what we think it
is from our building records first and then they kind of so if we only
build 50 units then that throws our projections off if we were thinking we were
going to go at a straight line. Because one year we may just build 50
units, and one year we may build 300. And they might say it's 55 and
305. They may wiggle it a little bit based on what they do. But they're
never going to be 300 every year, no matter what the data is that we
give them. They have to start with our building information from our permit data. So
then if we technically approve, the growth target of 19,244
for April 1st, 2020, the council approves it. And this would actually amend
the... No, the only one that's approved is the 2006 to 2031. The others are
just projections to just sort of give us an idea of what might have to
be in place if we keep growing at that rate. That's why we update this
table every year. Part of that is the states, you know, that's showing them, you
gave us this target and look, we are accommodating for what you gave us. We
can do this. But it can be adjusted. We hit a recession and you get
131 units. Whereas the year before you had 676 units. So you just can't tell.
But it just shows the state, these aren't adopted by the state. This is adopted
by us just saying, yeah, that's our projection. We don't have a crystal ball. If
the city council approved it, then that would become our new target. No. No. It's
not a target. Our target is 5,750, and it stays 5,750. until 2021 when we
go negotiate again and the state adopts it. Our target will not change. Thank you.
You're welcome. Just for planning purposes, right? Yes. So this is just for planning purposes
and to show the state requires that we do this to say, yes, we are
working to accommodate those targets that you gave us. Right. Okay. I'm sure a lot
of other people had the same questions you did. So thank you for asking. Because
if the projection numbers were the same in the 10 years and 20 years, we
still had only added two units. the state might go, hello, you're not even trying
to accommodate anything. They'd probably call us on that. But this is the way we
show that if we kept going the way we're going, we're fine. And so then
they're fine. That's helpful. Okay, good. Do you have any idea how many have been
approved that are in the pipeline? Not the ones that are still looking for approval.
So now this is... We didn't sit down and count each individual unit but we
were kind of running through it today and down on the valley floor there are
about 550 units that have made it through that are now in the pipeline that
could still go. Up in Issaquah Highlands there are about 200 units that could still
go and then there are about 200 that they're not sure where it's going to
fall. It could fall on either side of the line after the public hearing. And
I think from-- I'm not counting the ones that have already been started. Correct. That
doesn't count Atlas. OK. Yeah. But it counts things like Gateway, which has gone through.
It does count Gateway? It counts Gateway. It counts the senior housing, Riva. This is
what I was told. That's what I'm like, don't count. Senior housing, Gateway, Riva, Inniswood,
I think is on the fence. I'm not sure. I'm not
sure. Basically, we are either in the pipeline or being
built 2,000 new units. Pretty darn close to that. Right. And from
what I remember in the monitoring report, and I may be totally wrong, there were
900 residential units either in the pre-app stage under construction or in development review somewhere.
I remember the 900 in the dashboard. So that would include Atlas. Right. That included
everything. And that was just in central Issaquah. Yeah. So we're... Well on our way
to meet those. You know, it could be changed. People might come in here. We
have good school districts and we sit in the Issaquah Alps. People just want to
come. No, I understand. It's a good place. We just can't stop them. I'm just
looking at it for a perspective in the way of what to expect and what
the citizens could expect right now in the way of needing extra services, needing extra
transportation ways, you know, kind of thing. Sure. And this is probably jumping ahead to
Trish what you're going to talk about, but I assume then, if I remember from
this morning when I read this, those numbers, these numbers that we're talking about are
what we factor into the level of service? Yes. Any more before I move on?
The other thing just to stress is these are only new construction. We didn't get
any credit for the annexations for South Cove and Greenwood Point or Providence Point that
came already loaded with families and people on units. We didn't get any credit for
those through OFM. That's just one of the PAA's potential annexation areas moving into the
city. So we got more, obviously, but we don't get any credit for them towards
our target. All right. Well, because the county already counted them when they were in
the county, so they would be double dipping. But even though we love having them
all here, we don't get credit for them. So the next one is the Regional
Growth Center. So when we adopted our plan, when we did the periodic update in
June 2015, that's when it was adopted, was June of 2015, we had applied for
our Regional Growth Center designation, but we had not yet been certified, so we couldn't
put anything in the plan about it because we weren't there yet. We were certified
in 2016. So this just goes back, we had originally talked about the urban center
and we just went back to adjust it to talk about regional growth center and
what that means. Essentially the same as an urban center but changed the words up
a little bit. And there was a requirement from PSRC when our plan was approved
in 2015 to go back and add policies or a policy about the regional
growth center. So that's what is added here, prioritize funding for transportation, public spaces
and other investments necessary to accommodate the growth. Any questions about that one? -
I do have one question. I noticed in the very top, it says the
Central Elizabeth plan was adopted by in December, 2012, and crossed out, is now
being replaced by the urban quarter So CIP is actually falling away and will
be replaced by the urban core plan? No, no. Or just a wording? When the
central Issaquah plan was adopted, we were just saying that the background, the central Issaquah
plan was adopted in 2012. And then a little bit later, I think 2014, it
was designated an urban center and that we wanted to go for the regional growth
center designation. We just say here that the urban core lies within central Issaquah. So
the central Issaquah plan is not going away. That area, the zoning is
not going away in that area. The sub-area is not. We're just saying
that that's where this is to give a little context. Urban core is
the CIP? It's part of the CIP. It is 480 acres of 1,100
acres. 480 acres of 1,100 acres? Yes. Central Issaquah is 1,100 acres and
I should know better. 481, 451. Anyway, 400 and something acres in the
urban core. Okay. That was really helpful. Okay, good. Anything else? All right. Do
you want me to do the, I can't remember, am I the resource? Oh,
go for it. Okay, so every year the city acquires either through purchase
or dedication, we get land. And when that land is, when we get that land,
it needs to be, have a land use designation and zoning which shows that it
is now going to be used for public purpose. Our land use designation for public
purpose is community facilities as well as our zoning designation. So we have community facilities,
open space, Community facilities, recreation, think parks and activities, and community facilities, facilities, where
our city buildings go. Our city hall, this one, the shop sites, those things go
on community facilities, facilities. So in this case, this was actually dedicated to the city.
So the area around here, that is the Atlas development. It's going up on Gilman
and 7th. And part of their development requirement was that they give this, they dedicate
parkland to the city. So this is the area in gray that's being
dedicated to the city and is being proposed for community facilities recreation. These two
properties, it is a priority of the city's to buy Creekside properties. And these
two were purchased this year and both are being proposed as community facilities open
space. These two properties also purchased by the city Creekside properties. Number four on
the map is proposed for community facilities recreation and number five is proposed for
community facilities open space. I don't know what's going to go
on the recreation site. And the last one is actually a different situation. This one
is privately owned. This property owner owns this land and wants it to be saved
in perpetuity as a conservation site. So it is being rezoned from low density residential
designation and single family estates to conservancy recreation in perpetuity. Can you,
I can't understand where exactly that piece of property is. So is this an
Overdale? This is Overdale. Up there, so the top. Okay, got it. So my
question is, when we acquire these pieces of property, does that, these properties would
go towards our open space? It depends, it depends on the use. You know,
we acquired some properties that became Confluence Park, or one is Emily Darst Park.
up north, those are different properties that we acquired that are recreation. Some we acquired
and we built the shop site on there, the Public Works Operations shop site off
of I-90. It depends on what we need. The ones along the creek, we'd like
them to be open space because the creek floods, we want to protect and keep
that pretty and protect things around it. So it depends on kind of what the
land looks like and if anything could actually be built there and what our needs
are. what the city's needs are. - We care if the property is actually
usable or we just, we're more interested in acquiring the property 'cause some of these
properties aren't really usable. They got power lines over them or they are already unbuildable
or unsuitable for development. So if we didn't do anything, the property would still be
blank. Right and like the flooded properties, that's why we buy them so
that they can flood and be natural and we don't have to worry about health
and safety of the people that used to live on it or were being flooded
by it and we can do creek restoration and all that good stuff. When we
acquire these properties, that can go into our bank of open space, right? So we
can use that as credit. It can be part of our inventory, sure. It counts
as our open space. I just have a quick question
on the Atlas example where as part of the development agreement they set aside
or deeded part of that to the city or whatever they did. Does funding
come along with that for the operations and maintenance upkeep over time for the
city? CHRISTIE WOOD: It didn't, did it? No. I'm just curious. I mean, it wouldn't
be much. CHRISTIE WOOD: No, with Atlas, which is different than Gateway, but Atlas, I
think how it went is we negotiated that they would maintain it in perpetuity because
they wanted to be sure that it really looked great for their residents. And they
didn't trust us as much as they trusted their own crews. And we said-- That'd
be great because of course maintenance is really hard to do on all the little
parks that we have. But Gateway, I don't think we were able to negotiate that
with them. So it's kind of parcel by parcel. It depends what we can, you
know, what we can negotiate. Thanks. So there is a piece of property that recently
went up for sale that's on the creek on Sunset between the Salmon Hatchery and
the apartment complex. You might know which one I'm talking about. It's right next to
the bridge. Wouldn't that be a piece of property we'd be interested in? They're probably
looking at it. They've got a list. The Parks Department has a list of, and
Public Works, of flooding properties that they apply for funding, recreation properties that they'd like
to get, and they go through different funding sources. But they have a list of
many properties that they have their eye on. And sometimes it's just waiting for them
to go for sale, because sometimes the property owners don't want to sell it to
us. So we have to just wait. But I would guess they probably have their
eye on it. OK. Seems like a perfect solution to what we're talking about
now. All right. Anything else before I hand it over to Trish? Oh, is
it me again? It is. Actually, I did have one question. Sorry. Not quite
off the hook yet. Going back to page 17 of 51, forgot to bring
this up. Under LU policy K2, it says prioritize funding for the urban core
regional growth center and transportation. How is that a departure from today?
It's not really. I mean, if you look at our transportation impact fee
map that's in the comprehensive plan, most of the projects that are included
on that are in or around or connected to Central Issaquah. So
technically when it says prioritize funding, it's really the prioritization is already designated for that
area. It's just changing its name. Well, it's happening because that's where the growth is
going to go. That's where the growth is coming right now. So that's kind of
a natural where the money is going to go to fix those spots. So it's
just kind of a natural whatever you call it. progression thank you transformation but we
just need to put this in here to ensure that you know 17 years down
the road that councils hopefully still do that but this stays in place and it
keeps going it's a reminder you explain the mechanism that's in place to ensure that
support for infrastructure and and work that the city's doing is concentrated in areas that
are Is there a way to reallocate, you know, assume there's
fees collected when developers do work and that's allocated towards that?
Or how does that all work? I could give it a
shot, but I'm going to let Trish do it.
Yeah, that would be good for instance. When we updated the transportation model
and the transportation concurrency fees in 2014, part of what happened is we
developed a map of some of the pinch points that were experiencing a
lower level of service. And so those were the projects that made it
onto the Transportation Improvement Program. That's the six-year program that We did in April,
so you all might not have been here yet. But PPC gets to look at
it every year, and you see the priorities are those areas usually that you're either
having safety problems, which is a priority to fix, or that have level of service
issues either at the intersection or in the segments between intersections. And so that's how
the... That's how we figure out what size of an impact fee to charge is
based on all the improvements that we need system-wide of the transportation system to bring
it back up to an acceptable level of service based on what council's adopted. But
that's why we adopt the new TIP every year to make sure that that list
still makes sense. Okay. So can those fees that are assessed on developers be reallocated
to another zone just to -- Sure. They can be put into another project that's
also going to help the system. Like something from the highlands, the fees collected from
that could be used to pay for something down in the valley. Right, the Highlands
doesn't pay fees anymore because they were, but let's say somebody in Sycamore, their fees
could go to help fix East Lake Sammamish Parkway. And if you look at the
construction we're seeing now on East Lake Sammamish Parkway on 62nd that goes in like
the back way to Costco, those are all in the central Issaquah plan. And those
were all listed as problem areas through the planning process. And so those are the
ones that are getting fixed now. good question though because sometimes people go
why is it this street you know why isn't it my street
but that's why good any other questions before we jump into the
potential annexation area here we go back last year it seems already
um well to back up king county is doing their big comprehensive
plan review that issaquah did last year theirs is due this year
and we requested of them last year if we could remove the
entire East Cougar Mountain potential annexation area from our potential annexation area group. We asked
them to move the urban line to not include that area so we wouldn't have
to ever annex it and provide it with urban services. We had gotten a
lot of feedback from the folks in Tallis that didn't want any more development up
there and from Bellevue, which is adjacent on the other side, Bellevue did not want
to annex it either. There's a lot of critical areas there. There's some roads that
are substandard and neither jurisdiction is interested in making it urban with urban services, sewer
and water and all that good stuff. And so we've been petitioning the county and
the county went halfway. They took out, they're proposing to take out the 24
parcels that are closest, that are eastmost, easternmost and closest to Tallis now during
this round of their update, but leaving the part that has houses in it
to consider at a future date. Neither Bellevue nor us were happy with that, but
they weren't going to move on that because they don't want an island of houses
that can't be served by, you know, the sheriff would have to still drive around
and any kind of emergency county kinds of things. It would take, it takes them
a long time to get there. so they're not willing to let the houses go
into a rural island at this time. So this is the amendment that we would
amend is to change our map and take out those 24 parcels and just have
the new boundary would look like that. The dark green areas that are
also to the east of the new boundary, those we wanted to show you, those
are already owned and being used as parks and open space by King County. So
it wasn't that hard for them to decide to move the urban line to secure
those as permanent open space. Are there questions on that one? I actually had a
question about that as well. So you said there's 24 units up
there already? No, 24 parcels are getting moved out of the urban
line. Okay, so in the East Cougar Mountain area, there's 24 parcels
that are unpopulated. Yes. Well, at least. There's at least that many.
A devil's advocate here. Why wouldn't we want to actually... um
bring that into our jurisdiction because then we could create open space with that
land right so we could meet other higher environmental criteria right right and that's
a good that's a good priority the city felt that we're not able to
serve that area with sewer water fire and poli well fire is a different
matter fire is already taken care of with east side fire and rescue but
there's um We've already met our growth targets with all of our projections, so we
don't need the area to grow. We don't believe the area is capable of having
urban densities that you're supposed to have if you're within the urban growth area because
it's critical areas, it's steep slopes, it's... Right, but why wouldn't we want to take
that and leave it as Virgin Open Space. Well, as you can see from the
dark green, the county is already buying a lot of it up as parks land.
And we are super encouraging to King County to keep doing that because they're the
rural group. They're the they should be the keeper of rural lands in our mind.
And so I think if we were worried about it, if we were worried that
they were going to do something silly with it, we might have taken part of
it and done that because we do certainly have pieces of open space that nothing's
ever going to happen there. I mean, that part that I showed is over our
aquifer, and we just wanted to be sure way back when we got it that
nothing was going to happen there. So it's not that we're not good stewards of
open space, but if King County can pick up the tab on it, we're just
more than happy to be supportive of that. Okay, because you're saying that there's a
maintenance fee associated with that, just leaving it as open space. There's no roads. We
take the roads out, so it's actually just virgin forest. Well, the part that's not
in the... that's not in the new boundary is, I believe there are no houses
or anything up there at this point. There's trails, but there's no, there's no. -
Are those 24 parcels just that little white L shape? Is that what's being discussed?
Oh, it's there, okay. - All the way over to, I think it kind of
goes like this. There's, I think the map in your packet of what it is
still like. - Well, so we're not talking about East Cougar Mountain. We're not talking
about the area shaded in purple, violet. - This part stays in
our PAA. It has houses and population. - Okay, that's what I was referring to.
So the section you're talking about is underneath the red line. - To the east
of the red line. - Okay, all right. - Yeah, it's like this area. -
Yeah. - And I think, is it better described in the, I'm just using the
slide, is it better described in your packet of what's coming out? Or is that
all I put in there? - It just shows the parcels. - It shows the
parcels, yeah. - Okay. Well, my bad. All right. Well, that was my
point of conclusion. You will have more information in the public hearing. Well,
there is on page 22 some explanation of why. Right. You just don't
want to give up free land, though. It's not free.
it's not free because we have to serve it then there's a fire if there's
if the trees fall down if there's a landslide I mean if your jurisdiction I
mean with the roads if it's your jurisdiction there's a lot of there's a lot
that you have to do as a jurisdiction I mean if you want to do
it right if you want to be responsible and we just weren't ready yet And
Bellevue, you know, we were very polite and asked Bellevue when they were going through
their process, hey, look at this great land you can have. they said thanks but
no have you been up there I mean it's a beautiful area in fact I
should send you the link we did a video up there because we were afraid
that King County Council members wouldn't ever come out to see how beautiful and how
rural it is up there so we did this great video drive-through of it and
they were they were just amazed that that's part of the urban growth boundary Because
it's really beautiful. So if we walk away from it, what's the potential that the
county could turn around and develop it? Or a developer goes into the county and
say, we want to develop that land? Well, they're down-- they're moving the line, and
they're down zoning it to-- it says in here, and I don't remember right offhand--
one of their great low density zones. - One per five acres. - Urban Reserve.
No, or one per five, something. I'll have that in the public hearing one. but
they're making sure because they would like that whole part that they're taking out of
the urban line, they would love to have that as park and add it to
the big green area below that's the Cougar Mountain Wildland Park. They would love to
add to that. So that's sort of part of their motivation. That's where I was
going with that. Why wouldn't we want to make sure that we protect that? Right.
Right, and that's why we wanted them to take the whole thing. I'm okay with
giving it to the county and saying, hey, you guys take care of it for
free as long as we get to enjoy it. Right, right. Okay, very good. Thank
you. Any other questions, Ann? This is where it gets really exciting. This is the
one chapter that can slay you with numbers if you let it, but we're not
going to let it. The whole purpose of the capital facilities element,
according to the Growth Management Act, is to make sure that your
city is allocating enough funding for capital projects to meet your
growth, your annual growth and your projected growth that you're taking every year. And
so the way Issaquah does it, and I think the way most jurisdictions do,
is when we first adopted our comprehensive plan, we set level of service standards then
when we started doing impact fees which the growth management act allows us to do
to help pay for growth the impact fee rate studies we set a new level
of service because we had a lot more information then and so we have impact
fees for fire for transportation for schools and for parks but this one does this
chapter doesn't do doesn't relate to schools per se because the school district does their
own level of service and funding and we don't do transportation through this chapter because
that's done through concurrency in the model run and that's in the transportation element
We also do mitigation fees, which are different. They're not part of the
Growth Management Act. We assess those through our environmental review, which we call
SEPA. And those are a little differently organized. but we did our
rate studies as if they were impact fees because we wanted them to be ironclad
defensible in court. So we did the same analysis that you would need that higher
level of analysis to show what the needs are as you would for impact fees.
So that's why police and municipal buildings are also in this chapter. I don't know
of any other jurisdiction that has a fee for buildings, for city buildings. because we're
just cutting edge with that kind of thing. So the data is important to understand.
We used the 2015 population because it gave us a whole year. So there's probably
later on, you're just, why aren't you using 2016? It's because we don't have a
full year yet. And part of the bad news is we don't have a new
capital facilities plan that has all the, you know, how many fire trucks are we
gonna buy? How many police cars are we gonna buy? We haven't updated the 2014
to 2019 one. So we're still using the older list of, of capital facilities. And
so that's why a lot of the, if the couple of places we have a
deficit, the deficit got bigger because we don't have any new projects in the capital
facilities plan that we use. So it's the population numbers, the budget numbers, and the
capital facility plan numbers that all go into seeing if we're meeting our level of
service. So those are the big three. It's the annual growth that we did, the
budget monies that we're putting towards it and the list of capital projects. So that
part always kind of makes my head hurt. - What is the reason that hasn't
been updated? - That's a great question. The council usually does that annually and I
don't know why they haven't done it since then. Certainly they have a list of
projects that they, you know, when they start their budget next month, but the official
document, I'm not sure where that is, but it's a great question.
We did I finish everything on this slide, but that's why I have those in
red. Cause those are the three big pieces. Oh, the 2020 population. This is another
time that we have to go out the six years to see how we're doing
in that end of the six years. If we're still in a surplus or if
we're in a deficit with any of the level of services, our projection went up.
this year versus last year. I mean, obviously it's gonna go up 'cause it's another
year, but the ratio went up a little bit more because we're a regional center
now. So that gave a little bit of a boost to the population numbers. So
if anybody noticed that the ratio wasn't going at the straight line that some people
do, that's the reason for the bump. I figured there was probably a bean counter
among you that would say. the percentage isn't the same and i'm looking right at
ron but he's not looking at me but i'm assuming he was going to ask
why isn't the percentage rate the same as last year it's because of the regional
center the population bump was just a little bit but it's enough that somebody would
notice so i put it in the slide okay now that you're totally confused i'm
moving on to fire Did I get a giggle? Okay, fire. Oh, the other really
fun thing about level of service is they are all based on different things that
we count, based on what we thought made sense at the time. It still will
make sense at the time, I promise. Part of it is for apparatus, that means
all those cool engines that the fire trucks have, the ladder trucks and all those
things. Those are based on population. So the more people we have, the more fire
trucks we need. That's how the logic goes. Now we did this, you all might
not even remember, there was a time that Issaquah had their own fire, fire department
we were just issaquah was just out there on our own fighting fires and we
were amazing and when we started negotiating to be east side fire and rescue we
knew that was really amazing too we wanted to make sure that we remembered all
of our stuff so we had we could keep track of all our stuff and
if we ever had to go on our own again which i hope we never
do but in case we ever had to we would remember what we had and
we could keep doing our level of service calculations based on if we had to
go it alone so that's why some of the numbers are just crazy because we
aren't alone we have the luxury of using all of Eastside fires apparatus and buildings
and so we don't have to really worry about that part of it but our
level of service is still based on going alone because we always want to be
sure that we have enough fire protection does that make sense or is that CHRIS
JERRAM: Beyond the pale. I'm going to let someone else ask a question. So in
reality, I mean, are we actually concerned about a deficit? CHRIS JERRAM: No. Or are
we good with where we're at? CHRIS JERRAM: We're super good. We're super good. Are
we exceeding? CHRIS JERRAM: I haven't done level of service based on Eastside Fire, but
I haven't heard any issues per se from Eastside Fire because they do their-- -
So you can never be too safe. - In a whole different way, right. But
that's why this says that there's a deficit 'cause if tomorrow we woke up and
we were kicked out and we were not gonna be, so anybody who just tuned
in, we are not gonna be kicked, but that's, we would have a deficit of
seven trucks and it would be nine trucks by 2020. But that's only, I have
to say, it's only if we were going it alone. - So I have a
question about that. Say we have a really dry year and we have fires
propping up everywhere. Okay. And Eastside Fire, because Sammamish is part of that
Eastside Fire, and we have a lot of trucks. We have demand in
Sammamish for those trucks. That could leave us. in our area with a
deficit, right? Because they, we're pooling our resources so that we can leverage and
hit economies of scale with fewer number of trucks per person that were, it's
over a larger population. But what if that, need for that arises and well
I think speaking not that I know anything about Eastside Fire and Rescue other than
they're wonderful they have these plans for what happens if something gets caught I mean
they have shared - Interagency. - Yeah, with the North Bend folks and the
District 10, all the different, so that if some major something happens, they all can
share and move and they're just this well-oiled machine that just moves to wherever is
needed. So when they do their capital planning, I think they plan for the worst
case scenario so that they can be everywhere they need to be.
And stations, this is the good one, stations are based on land area and as
you saw from the previous map, we have very little potential annexation areas left that
we could annex and so the surplus we have of we have a station over
what we would need if we were alone, the surplus will remain until we annex
more land that would make that number go down. So we're not that worried about
stations. Our state, we're in pretty good shape. Are there any questions on fire as
oddly as it's done? And we haven't updated that one since 2006. So that's kind
of an old one. Police. This is a good one and we had a great
question. We get this question just about every time we talk about it. Why don't
you have a level of service for officers? which is a wonderful question. Officers are
not capital. Capital has to be like a structure. So we go backwards, we back
into how many officers we need by going with vehicles, investigation vehicles and motorcycles and
we get all of our officers from that. The first time we did the police
fees, we only had one kind of vehicle, but when we updated it, we did
the detective vehicles and the motorcycle just to make sure that we were accounting for
everything. So we have a surplus of patrol vehicles now and we hope that the
way we're going, we would still have a surplus by 2020. The patrol ones are,
the second one are like the detectives, the investigation vehicles, which I love that if
you say it three times, based on investigations per investigator. I love that one. And
we have a surplus now and a surplus in the future. and the building space
we're getting a little tight on that's um square feet per calls per service and
investigation which those end up to if you back them out those are people as
well but they can't be people so you have to back into them so the
level of service based on the calls for service We have a surplus of 700
square feet, which is, you know, this big. And so we're certain that we're going
to have a deficit by 2020. And that's why we're looking at different ways now
to make more room for police, you know, either, you know, moving the upstairs up
there. You know, we've been in talks for a while on how to get police
more space. So we've already started that. Are there questions on police, how we do
police? I've got a question. Okay. When we look
at the capital side, we're going to be one car surplus.
Yes. But as we grow as a population looking at the,
say, the extra 4,058 units that we're going to be building,
potentially, I'm just throwing this out here. You have to go
by the chart. The chart tells you. The chart that's right
in the capital facilities element? CHRISTIE WOOD: OK. So-- CHRISTIE WOOD:
That's where all the math is. CHRISTIE WOOD: All right. So if we actually
start growing our population, we add a car and a surplus. But if officers
are handling 876 calls or cases per patrol officer per year, and we have--
we could say, well, OK, we need more police. So we add two police
officers per car, so the car is still stuck with going to one call
at a time, right? Wouldn't we want a police officer in their own
cars so that they're not buddy tied? That would be a policy decision made by
the police department is how many people they put in their cars. I mean, that's
not a level of service question. What we do, what the math that we do
with the help of police, obviously the police helped us with the rate study, the
two times that we've done rate studies. This is what we came up with. The
calls for service did go up. Because with computers and being able to log in
off-site and not have to always come back to the office to do the paperwork,
they were able to do a lot more. I think the first rate study was
like 640 calls per officer per year, and now it's up to they're able to
get through over 800. So things change with the technology and the different ways that
the police are more efficient with officers and time and vehicles. But I've never heard
of just one that they would go to just one. I think you always have
to have a partner. - No, they can't. - Yeah, you just can't. - They
wouldn't be safe. - Right, but it's all worked into the-- - So I guess
with this, we're looking at possibly doing automation then, or sort of like a virtual
officer then, because if caseloads go up, or the calls go up, and the demand
for officers goes up, but we have a limited number of cars for them to
ride around in. You could always go motorcycles because motorcycle is just one per one.
But again, that's part of the police department's way they do business. I mean, they're
always improving, they're always looking at things. And when we do a new rate study,
which I hope we do one in the next few years, because this is an
old one, hopefully all the new pieces will go in and maybe it goes up
to 1,000 calls per officer. Maybe it goes to 500. I mean, I don't know.
I don't know what the data is to show how many calls per service they've
been doing in the last few years. But certainly what you're talking about is more
the police, you know, their strategy on the next, their next 10 years is well
beyond what we do in the comprehensive plan. They're good questions though, they're just beyond
our... Any other questions on police? Parks, this
was the one that was affected by not having a new capital facilities plan.
So I had no, we had no new projects to put in to help
with the deficit. So the deficit is for existing is over a million and
for the next, for 2020, i left something up there um the is
um over 50 million and that's including backing out the bond money the from the
park bond and backing out the impact fees that we've already collected we're still at
50 million but again that's because we haven't updated the projects that we would spend
money on so there's nothing to put back in that to make the 50 million
go down We are updating the park plan in the next six, eight,
ten months. And hopefully some projects will come out of there that the city can
put in the capital plan that would help the deficit start to go down. Other
questions on that one? Yeah, just kind of a process question. So I know in
January, you know, the commission and the council decided which elements to look at this
year. Based on what you just said, wouldn't it make sense to push it out
a year or two so we would have that information? I'm just curious. Right. Last
year, we actually did the big update of the park plan that I think it's
every five years that we have to do as a city to be eligible for
grant funding because we usually do really well with grant funding with our competitiveness. And
so that got finished last year for the update in 2015. But then the council
asked for another sort of plan that's more of a visioning document of what do
we really, not only do we want to get grant funding, but what do we
really want to look like as a park system in how many years? And so
that's the one that that got put on the, at least for us, we're waiting
for Parks and the new director to sort of take that over. And I'm hoping
that that'll help us a lot more 'cause we are supposed to update the impact
fees for Parks this next year too. And the interesting, I think it's interesting story
about Parks impact fees, when we first started doing it, doing impact or park collections
we used to collect money mitigation monies for parks and some of the council members
didn't want to buy another tennis court or horseshoe pit just because they had to
because the level of what we thought of was you had to have this many
tennis courts per person or this many parks within 500 feet and so they wanted
to be able to buy land and they said you know give us a system
that while the land is as cheap as it's ever going to be, we can
buy land and then in the next 10 years we can do the improvements. Because
if we have to keep buying tennis courts, we're going to miss all these opportunities.
So we hired a consultant that does this all over the US and they do
a per capita investment. And so depending on how many people we have based on
our inventory, we get the magic number and I think it's over 3,000 now. that
you have to spend for every new person that we get in a year so
when um ofm the state tells us you have you know 600 new people this
year we have to spend the three thousand dollars times the 600 that's the boatload
of money that we're supposed to put into parks capacity projects that year to meet
the level of service for those new folks. And that allowed council, if they wanted
to, they could put the whole bucket of money into buying open space. And that
would be okay. That would fit that level of service that they set. So we've
been working on that since the first set of impact fees were adopted. And we
don't know if council's still happy with that. They had a refresher. a couple of
months ago to remind them why they adopted it that way and how it works
and other choices that they have and i'm not sure if in the next go
around if they'll choose to change the way they they calculate them or if they'll
go up or down or i'm not sure what will happen but if you were
wondering why this one is so different than all the other level of services it's
because council wanted more leeway on what to spend the money on are there any
questions on that i'm confused oh okay i'm looking at this list of of uh
park and the assessed value of all of it. And basically
that's what's determining the level of service and how much the bottom
line is. Right. I understand that the city can buy land and
use it for open spaces, but how do you decide what to
use that, what the city wants or needs. Do they look at a piece of
property and say, oh, we can just put a tennis court there and that would
be cool? Or do they look and say, well, we really need more of this
or that? People want more. How do they decide what to put that
money into? You mean to make the inventory or what to put the new
money in? New money. I think they try to figure out through the surveys
that the Parks Department does and through different... visioning like Confluence Park, we always had
the idea that we wanted those lands for a center kind of a park, but
we didn't always know what we wanted on it. So they did a lot of
open houses and community outreach to find out what they wanted. I think we've done
that for the bonds. We asked, you know, would you fund this or this or
this and this to try and get a feel of what folks are looking for
in their park system. Okay. Those mitigation fees that we're talking about, because I, when,
developer comes in and they have to pay the fees, that we pay-- they pay
maybe 80%. And then we-- the city has to come up with the other 20%.
And that goes into the park budget, right? So what is that percentage breakdown? Do
you know? CHRISTIE WOOD: I do know. - Not off the top of my head,
but you're right. It's not a hundred percent. We can't make them pay a hundred
percent. So it's as close, the numbers that came from the consultant were the highest
numbers that we could legally charge and council could lower them and subsidize it. But
with parks, I think they chose to do as much. And I'm going to say
maybe 90%, actually I have the impact fee study. So I will look for that
and I will make sure you have it before the public hearing. But I think
it's probably 90% or 92%, 94%. Because it can't be 100%, but it
can be just under 100%. I will make a note to send you
that. They basically come up with the 3,000, and we come up with
the 800, roughly. Roughly. That's good. That's good enough.
municipal facilities this one is based on new residential units and
new commercial space with the rationale that new people and new
businesses are going to need more help from the city it's
our smallest fee I think and we right now have a
deficit of 24,000 square feet this year or last year but there's going
to be a surplus in 2020 because there's some buildings that are supposed to
come online at Public Works and I think there's another one in I think
maybe they're both Public Works offices but so that one should be under control
by 2020 but that's our smallest any questions on that see how easy capital
facilities was for you guys it's amazing it makes my head explode but i'm
just not a real numbers person so so far i've written down some things that
you want before the next time and have you been keeping track of because i
only just wrote down that one um oh there was also the cougar mountain are
there any questions you have for us before maybe we take any public comments
Any more thoughts that you have or pieces of the next steps that don't make
any sense? The other thing that will happen before the public hearing when we might
have lots of people for the public hearing is Kristen is going to send letters
to people properties within 300 feet of all the rezones that you saw up there
so people know that those areas are going to be rezoned to parkland and usually
that's not a big deal but some people just get nervous when they get mail
from the city and so they want to come in to make sure we're not
doing anything crazy So sometimes they come in and they find out everything's fine and
then, you know, they're fine too. We usually get a lot of calls, but just
so you know, there'll be a lot, and you even might get a letter if
any of those are near your house. But there'll be, I'm not sure, do we
even know how many there are that are going out yet? Not yet. There will
be several letters going out. Any other questions on things that are going to come
up before October 13th? For us newbies, can you just kind of explain how a
public hearing goes? from our side of the table and yes what's kind of expected
of us yes you guys are going to be fabulous krista and i will present
all the amendments in our very entertaining way and then you all get to ask
us questions and discuss amongst yourselves and any changes or thoughts or if you have
any questions before the public hearing like if you see something in the packet that
just doesn't make any sense at all call us or email us or somehow so
that because i would hate for the public hearing to come in all of a
sudden you would like a lot more information that we don't have right with us
because we know you there's other things you'd probably rather be working on the next
month so anything that looks odd to even if it's just that morning when you're
reviewing it again you know we are standing by hoping that we get to help
you all out because you know this is big stuff some of it's a little
odd but so we'll have discussions you guys talk amongst yourself you might have amendments
or propose different things and you all can kind of figure that out and then
you kind of get a feel for it before you start taking public comment and
then there might be public comment that totally makes you think something else and something
different and so then you talk amongst yourselves again and maybe you want different amendments
and wow i didn't know that let's change this and what if we change that
and how would that have So you get to do the whole discussion again. And
then at the end, if you're comfortable, if you feel like you have enough information
that you've heard enough from the public, you've made enough changes that you're comfortable with,
you can make a recommendation to move it onto the council and you can move
it onto the council with seven new amendments that are different from what the staff
is proposing. You can go for 10 different ones or you can say the whole
thing is a bloody mess. We don't like any of it. We say thumbs down.
It's totally within your purview as a recommending body. You can say we want to
have another workshop on it because there's too much information. We'll never get through it.
It's totally fine too. We have until the end of the year to get it
through. And the state is so busy, if we didn't end up till January, we
probably wouldn't get nailed. But we try to get it done by the end of
the year. So there's a lot of flexibility where you're sitting to just have the
time to get it right and be comfortable with it. Does that sound OK? Does
that seem like something? And if there's standing room only, sometimes the chair will say,
you only get three minutes. and we do the little timer and they can do
three minutes and then they sit down. If there's not standing room only, it's up
to Joan, the chair, that they can speak their piece and ask you guys questions
and give you good comments. So that all depends on how big the crowd is
that day. I think we've opened it up and allowed a lot of
give and take, I think more so than it was before. I mean, the people
are here and they have questions and they need to have answers. So this is
a place to come. Does that help? Yeah, absolutely. Are you done? I am so,
I'm done if you're done. Do you have any other questions on what we talked
about? Thank you for allowing me to grill you guys. Sure. And if there's
any amendments listed on the docket that you haven't seen yet that you, you know,
feel free to email and say, I can't even remember which ones we haven't talked
about, but if you, you know, kind of want a foreshadowing of what it might
be if you're worried about them, you know, we're happy to talk about, you know,
to email you back, oh, we have to do that one because of X, Y,
Z or whatever. If there's something that we haven't addressed yet in all the previews,
because I think there's probably one or two that we haven't. Transportation. Transportation. transportation. That
ought to be a sweet one. Okay. So should, do you
want to? So, we got a comment from somebody, from a
citizen that I kind of thought about and came up with
a little suggestion. She was concerned that it was difficult to
find what was actually going to be discussed at each one of the
meetings that was going on. So I would like to see on the website
this little box that says Planning Policy Commission tonight this is the discussion or
Development Commission so that they don't so people can't know if they're interested in
going to those meetings that they should be able to do that. If that's
there. I don't think it was up there for this one. How do I
get out of this mess? You smiled so it must
be there. It's been a conversation before. The part that I wasn't really,
I have to be diplomatic, pause. When the meeting tonight was first scheduled,
it was before the moratorium and it had a different topic. It had
a public hearing topic. It was code amendments. So when the moratorium happened,
we were told that that set of amendments wasn't the priority anymore so we
couldn't have the public hearing but we knew that well that's okay we have all
these comp plan amendments and so when they when I told them it's not going
to be a public hearing but we're still going to be talking about fascinating things,
the cover of it said "cancelled public hearing" and if it were me I would
have said PPC is still going to be there, it's not going to be a
public hearing. Because to me, I first looked at it and went wow, I got
that night off because it just didn't, if you could only read the one line
it looked like it was cancelled. So sadly I have no protocol power over the
website? I understand that sometimes there's changes and people have to understand that, you know,
things going on. But it just would, I just think it would be really cool
to get more people to meetings and understand what was going on. If they were
interested in the city and they happened to open up the website, they would see
a little box like those up there and it would just say Development Commission discussing
TALIS. Actually, I like that idea. TODD BANDUCCI: Should we make a motion to
make a recommendation to city council? CHRISTIE WOOD: I would certainly ask Susan to
have that in the minutes, what you just said. Because if I were looking
for something really exciting to do tonight, and I opened up the calendar, and
we're not on there. That's not exciting. CHRISTIE WOOD: That's not true. We're passing.
I know. I'm teasing. I'm teasing. And so in my mind-- there's only one
thing that looks like it's available to do tonight and that would be
council services and safety. So I will certainly send your comments forward. -
I understand that it says there is a meeting. But it would be
nice to know what the-- I know the city council, you really can't do
that too because they're usually 200 things on their agenda. But if-- I mean,
the development commission is only going to discuss probably one project. Planning policy is
only going to basically look at one thing. And it just would be--
think an upgrade to let people know. And you know if it has to
be changed and you have no time to change it then people just have
to understand that this is what happens. Right and I think if Meaningful Movies
makes it on the front page next Wednesday I mean we are meaningful policy
recommenders but that's just me. Yeah, I think we're pretty exciting. And so you would
have to actually dig to find us in the view all and click on tonight.
I don't think that. But you shouldn't have to dig for that. Right. And it
does say canceled. And it says the public hearing is canceled, but the meeting is
still there. But the way they have it, I mean, if you look there, you'd
go, wow, night off. But there it is finally, but it's
not bold, it's not exciting, it doesn't... Yeah. Okay, so anyway, I'm sure the... It's
a good idea. My recommendation to tweak. No, I'm totally supportive of that. I'll probably
be fired tomorrow, but I think that's totally a good idea. Since there
are people here that might want to comment on anything we discussed today,
I certainly offer this opportunity if anybody wanted to make any comments on
what we discussed. So Mary, if you want to come on up here,
introduce who you are, and again, we'll just give you a few minutes
of... An hour long? No, not quite. Mary Lynch, 2690 Northwest Oak Crest
Drive, Issaquah, Washington. 30 plus year resident and very active in the city. I've had
a chance to briefly look over this and just had a couple of comments. One
just is explanation on the land that the county or they're moving out is you
still have to buy that land, so it's not free. So some of the comments
says it would be nice if the city could get it but I think if
they move it out and give it a different zoning the land becomes more affordable
so people who want to donate or work with the land conservancy to have them
purchase their land for the park it becomes more affordable. But if it's still considered
developable land, you're going to have speculators that are going to buy that land up
there and try and develop it. So for someone who's wanting to sell, they're not,
you know, the land conservancy won't be able to buy the land if it's still
developable land. So that's one of the reasons why some of the people started that
comment or process back about, what, six months ago. And I think the city's reacted
very quickly, positively, and it's turned into a good process with that. That being said,
the other thing I think we really need to look at our policy is with
some of the new development. Because I look at Atlas and the fact that they're
giving that little piece over to the city, I don't see any place where the
people of Atlas are gonna go and have any green space. And I don't think
that's right with the central area plan. If we're going that dense that we allow
a big developer not to do more in their way of impact fees and building
new parks. And it's great that they're going to maintain it, but my fear there
is then they're going to think it's theirs. So they're really not going to want
the public to come in and use it. What's happened with Gateway is there's a
little piece of land they didn't know what to do with, so now they're turning
it into a very small two acre piece of land that they're giving to the
city. It's not gonna have any development on it. The city's gonna have to find
funding some way, but they get park credit for that. And again, that's a big,
dense development that's not gonna have a lot of green space or open space for
the residency. And since most of these, The developments that we are doing in the
CIP are zero lot line areas. If we really want to build a sustainable, livable
city, I think we need to look closer at what we are doing with our
parks and our open spaces than what we are. So that's a policy question back
and anything you can do to help. I would say please help. I think it
should be a requirement for some of those buildings to have the parks on top
of the buildings. Yeah, and I've been a proponent of that. We talked about that
a long time ago. The other thing, and I have been on the city council's
case, you mentioned the fact that they're, capital plan has not been updated since 2013.
And the fact that we're basing numbers and levels of service on that, I
think is a travesty. Because just in case in point, which I told the
city, we spent over a million dollars this spring on a temporary water system.
and was identified there to work with the PFCs, they are looking at several million
dollars system that is going to be needed. Then it was kind of disclosed with
the growth we will probably have to go ahead and start getting more water from
cascade. That means a whole blending system that has not been identified. You are looking
at Who knows how many millions of dollars just in water system infrastructure that
we're gonna have to spend that's not in there. I think there's a lot of
traffic types of projects and road projects, traffic calming that haven't been identified. So the
fact that we're almost four years late in updating that, I wish more citizens would
get up in arms and push back on the city, because that's what we're basing
our levels of service on. I just came from a meeting tonight, and again, I
noted that this was, the policeman is based upon a rate of 2008. And there's
a lot of things that have changed since 2008, including the traffic cameras went in.
And one of the things that I've been asking the city to do is to
account for the officer's time when they review a citation. And an actual officer has
to review the citation. If you do the math, it's costing the city about a
half an officer right now to review the existing cameras. But that's not accounted for.
So if we add new traffic camera systems, which it looks like we're going to,
we could get up to having the equivalent of one and a half officers time
looking at just those traffic citations. And that's not accounted for. So we have officers
that are off the road, out of their car looking at that. And that may
be right to change behavior, but it's not right that we're not including it in
our level of service. And that's one of the reasons why I think that the
police department right now is saying they're understaffed. Well, it's because we don't have the
numbers to help support them. Or we don't have the numbers to help support that
we need more roads because we haven't done the true plan that we need on
what we need for the existing infrastructure in the city, let alone what's coming. And
I don't know what more than I can do but continually ask the city for
where is that and we need that level or we need that capital plan before
we come and make some of these decisions. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anybody
else that would like to make a comment? I mean, do we prepare? Yeah, but
we don't know. We could certainly buy a lot of the mitigation fees to help
us. Oh there's just so much to say in so little time and
you guys would be so bored, so so bored. So I'm going to start with
my phone because that's actually easier. So the long and the short is so far
our growth is, oh sorry Connie Marsh, have a store, live in town, probably have
heard me whine before. Our growth is far outpacing our targets.
And then when we go out there, we see infrastructure failure every day. When we
go out onto the roads, when we look at our parks, we see that our
capital facilities are not keeping up even with the growth that we have at the
moment. We have a moratorium, but we have what? I counted them up. It looks
like about 1,600 units in the next two years are already in that pipeline. So
when you look at your 23 whatever it was and you subtract your 1600
really for the next 14 years we only need to grow 50 units a
year to meet our growth target. Yet every time I listen to anybody talk
they say oh we must accommodate growth we're mandated to accommodate growth. Well we
were there. So now what do we want to do to
make sure that we have a community with high quality facilities that
we can use and like and be proud of and tell others
about to enjoy? So I don't I don't think what is presented here addresses sort
of this failure that we are seeing. Nor does it sort of bring the elephant
of the living into the in the living room to the point of okay how
much do we actually want to grow as a community in a given point in
time. Seems how we're we've we've already grown as much as we have to and
I would like to see you all bring that topic up to the council because
I think that that is an enormous piece of public policy. Now when
you look at the one policy change that you are given, which basically
says well we want to focus our investments into the core, and I
look at where the development is happening and the place that's most deprived
is not in the core right now. It's West Sunset Way. So
if we put this policy in place, we're basically saying, hey, we want the money
to go into the core and we're just going to let one West Sunset Way
hang out there because they aren't a priority. And they're the ones that are having
Gateway, Gateway Senior, there's Riva, there's Bergsma, all going in at the same time. What?
Newport? Newport. What am I saying? Sunset. Sunset. No, Sunset doesn't have that much growth.
Oh my God, what's happening? West, sorry, West Newport. So we have a tremendous
number of units all going out on West Newport as compared
to East Newport as compared to Sunset Way with its beautification
project. So I disagree with this policy. Perhaps when we actually start getting
a lot of more development in the core area, then we need to focus the
improvements there. But remember, especially for transportation, and they didn't go into this much, but
all the transportation trips are just thrown into a pot for the impact fees, and
you can spend that wherever you want to. And so you can spend it totally
across town, even when you're putting 700 units on one roadway. And that should
not be allowed. So I would not agree to this change and I would
change it to focus, if you want to have something in there, focus it
where the most development is happening at a given point in time to ensure
that those meet the standards. Okay, so. I'm echoing Mary. You don't
really even know what's happening because for the last two years they haven't updated
what we needed for our capital infrastructure. And so to make these decisions without
that basis is potentially a waste of time. So... I think I've been asking
for a year and a half for that plan. The council's been asking for a
year for the plan and yet the plan has not come. And so one way
to actually get a plan so we can make good decisions is not to allow
things to move through and that will get their attention quickly. So then I went
back and I looked at the language for the capital facilities element and I have
to read you the vision because oddly the vision for the capital facilities element tells
me what I think this chapter should be doing for you, yet we don't talk
about it. Provide high quality public safety services and well maintained and dependable
parks facilities, excellent fire and emergency response times, professional police services, beautiful parks,
clean drinking water, and effective wastewater and storm water management. So then you
read what is provided in this for the capital facilities and it's only
about level of service for capital funding. Yet this vision indicates that we
are going to be talking about staffing, we're going to be talking about maintenance funding,
we're going to be talking about all of those qualitative things that create what I
would consider to be excellent capital facilities. So I don't really understand how this great
vision dropped off to be, wow, we have to buy buildings and cars. So somewhere
in this chapter we are missing the entire point. And now one little more rant
I'll go really fast because I can see you're starting to fade. Our traffic is
stalled, our parks are neither beautiful nor well maintained nor improved. There's not enough police
to control our transportation and our parking rides are full. Because of the increased
growth, we're looking at our water now having to be blended with the Seattle water,
so everyone on the valley floor would be getting fluoridated water whether they want it
or not, which is an enormous expense. potentially against many people's will. But because of
our growth, that is likely to become mandatory without really looking at any other ways
around it. That's nowhere in here at this point in time. Almost, almost. The council
exempted all of our major traffic intersections and they don't count those anymore so we
have no projects that really can be funded to address those intersections. So what do
I want? I want the the whole package of our capital infrastructure to be
discussed with appropriate maintenance, staffing, and capital funding in this chapter and presented.
And that is a tool that we could actually use to give us
an awesome town. Okay, there you go. Thank you. Anybody else? Oh, my
goodness. He's way short. Staffing. Maintenance, staffing. This is like having an
open house. Hi, my name is Steve Pereira. I live at 170 Northeast Dogwood Street
here in Issaquah. I've been here about nine years now, a little bit over. So
just a couple quick thoughts. I agree there seems to be a different discussion between
what development do we want and do we need to have development and at what
level. We don't seem to be asking the second question, what level of development do
we want to have versus how much can we cram in. So I think I'd
like to see this group ask that of the city council. Another thought was I
agree with we don't seem to be, if we want to have development in the
central Issaquah plan, then we need to stop it in other places from happening. Otherwise,
we're not going to get the density where we want it. An example, it seems
to me, is there's the new proposed 11-story apartment or hotel facility behind the Home
Depot lot. It seems like that would be the type of development we want in
the Central Issaquah plan, not in the current location. So we need to do a
better job of defining and directing growth to the CIP than we are currently doing,
it seems to me. I've heard talk about the zero lot line development for the
CIP and where we're going to put open spaces and trees and all that. That
hasn't been discussed. I've heard we currently have a I think a 47% canopy cover
in this area. And I think there's maybe a difference between the canopy cover and
a wildlife habitat area. But I think we need to plan for some of that
in the CIP. Otherwise, I don't think it's going to happen. And lastly, the thing
that occurred to me was that with the talk about the redevelopment of Sunset, one
of the folks' concerns raised is that folks are taking Sunset and just driving through
the neighborhoods. And there needs to be more monitoring of that by police to stop
that from happening. So the idea that with the idea coming back to here, we're
monitoring by the number of cars and vehicles for the police to do that. There
needs to be maybe more vehicles or more capital funds for the police to do
that. I know in a number of places I see people speeding, including my neighborhood.
Others as well, I've done Pestos radar places where it says the speed limit here
is 25 or 30 and they're going well above that speed limit. I'd like to
see more enforcement of and training our citizens to obey what the speed is. That
means capital improvement for the officers to have vehicles to do that. Great if you're
gonna do the traffic cameras for those areas where they have them, but there needs
to be some enforcement to retrain our officers. That's capital budget for the police, so.
I just wanted to share those thoughts and thanks for taking the time to listen
and to serve. Thank you. Thank you. This is what an open house is exactly.
We probably have more comments tonight than sometimes we get on open house. Thank you
for your comments. They're all well thought out and something to think about and explore.
I assume you'll be here on the 13th to continue to stress your points. So
thank you. And I want you to especially understand that you're always welcome
to make a comment on something that we're discussing. But again, it should
be concise and short, since it's not in the public comment. It's not
in the open house part of the meeting. So I appreciate it. You've
all been awesome tonight. Thank you so much. But that's just something for
other people who might want to-- I'm a man, also. I appreciate that.
No, I don't think any of you rambled. I'm just saying that, I mean, there's
other people that actually the millions that are watching, I just want them to be
able to know that we're open to hearing your thoughts and discussions. So with that,
our next meeting is the 13th. It's the 13th. And I have one more thing
to remind you of. Next Tuesday, the council is having a council meeting Committee of
the Whole Council, something like that, named. And there's very fascinating topics on that agenda
that are going to include you all in the future. And one of them is
the housing strategy that everybody's talking about. Well, at least we are. We're going to
make a presentation on that on the phase one of the housing strategy, which is
the existing inventory of housing units that we have. And if we projected that out
to 2020, what would our housing stock look like and what gaps do we find
when we... when we forecast that. So you might want to stay tuned to that
because you're going to be part of the outreach and working on the gaps in
your meeting with the Human Services Commission and the Economic Vitality Commission in October. I
think it's the We did a save the date because it's an odd time for
everybody, but we're trying to get a time that would work for all three commissions.
But the three groups will help us work on that. So if you can't be
here Tuesday, you can watch it on TV because it'll be on TV. So that's
one item. The other item that council is going to get a presentation is on
the mixed use question. There was a preview at Economic Vitality Commission last night that
I'm not sure is on TV, but the real presentation is going to be on
Tuesday, but that's to evaluate whether our market in Issaquah can handle required mixed use
or how we can try to get more mixed use in our developments. So that's
another one. There's two other topics that are truly fascinating as well, but they
won't directly affect you as well. Because if mixed use, if something changes with
mixed use, the amendment would go through you. And the time? The meeting, I
believe, is at-- is it on our little calendar over there? Oh, that's just
for tonight. I would say-- Come Tuesday. Is it 6:30? 6:30 or 7:00? It's
6:30. Oh, there's something up there. 6:30? Yeah. So feel
free, it's in here. And it's also televised so you can watch
it with popcorn and you know, whatever. So I just wanted to make
you aware of that, that since those are projects that you're probably going to get
to work on, that would be a nice preview. Are we going to have meetings
in November? Depending on how the moratorium rolls out, we have a different work plan
than we did before the moratorium. One of them is working on the housing strategy,
working on the, I think, council listed six issues in the moratorium. discussion that they
would like to see at least worked on before they, before the moratorium gets reevaluated
in six months or however they're going to do the timing. In fact, that's another
thing to stay tuned for is the council's public hearing on the moratorium is also
in October and that's where they would share the work plan for all the topics
that they listed and sort of discuss it again and take public comment on the
moratorium, which I think will be a very lively, a very lively time for everyone.
That's also in October. I will not be here in November. That's right. You're not
here in November at all. Okay. As far as I know, Depending on how the
comp plan goes, there won't be anything like that going forward unless it's something to
do with the moratorium, whether it's the housing strategy, the mixed use, the urban design
is one of them. I'm trying to think what the other ones are. Architectural review.
There was a whole list of things, but I think only a few of them.
Oh, yeah, the district visions. is going to be a hot one that you all
of course would be involved in that one. But maybe November we won't quite have
our wheels under the wagon yet. Not sure. We're still trying to figure, we don't
know what obviously will happen at the public hearing if council decides to change things
or we don't, you know, this is all sort of unfolding. - It's like that
little box that has the meaning that it could change. - It could change. We
just always hope we are a little bit ahead of the curve, but often we're
not. So is there anything that anybody wants to contribute to the good of the
order? Okay, so with that, I'm going to call the meeting at 816. Excellent. And
again, if you do think of something you need before the public hearing, the sooner
you let us know, the better. That would be great for us. Thank you so
much.