- Assing Ebola or something. Good evening. The Planning
Policy Commission for February 9th, 2017 will come to
order. First item of business tonight is a renewal
approval of the minutes from October 13th, 2016. Are
there any additions or corrections? - Correction on page
nine of 19. Second paragraph, third line down.
It was quoting myself, it says, "City is growing too
fast and it could be misinterpreted." I was stating to
growing faster than our projected resources could handle, was the
intent of that statement. Okay. Yeah. That's all. I move
that we approve the meeting minutes with the addition of
your intent. Second. Second. Moved and seconded. All in favor?
Aye. Opposed? Minutes approved. Do either of you
need a packet tonight? You're okay or you
need one? I thought they wanted a packet.
Tonight's agenda item is a public hearing on
the proposed 2017 comprehensive plan docket to be
presented by Trish Heinonen, a long-range planning manager.
Trish, you have the floor. Thank you, sir.
I wish they would get this fixed.
Okay. What a crew here tonight. Thank you for being with us tonight. And thank
you all for coming tonight. Another epic beginning to a year of comprehensive plan amendments.
This is how we start our comprehensive plan amendments. And we're going to talk about
the docket and you guys can ask all the questions that you need to ask.
And we'll open it up for public comment. And then you can talk some more
about the docket and what you've heard from the public. And then hopefully, if you're
ready, you'll be able to recommend it with whatever changes you would like to the
council. And then they will take action, hopefully, in March. And then after we've done
all that excitement, we get to talk about the PPC work plan for this coming
year. You guys are going to be packed with adventures this year. There are so
many cool things that you're going to be working on. And I thought I would
let you know in advance to make sure you're all in and not like, oh
my gosh, this is more than I thought I signed up for. So I kind
of wanted to give you a preview while there's still time to get all excited
about it. So with that, are there questions on how we're going to move through
tonight? OK. The Growth Management Act at the state requires that we look at our
comprehensive plan, which is our overarching policy document for the city, that we look at
that only once a year. And they have a suggestion on how we go through
it. And the way we've chosen to do it is a docket or a list
that we approve in the beginning of the year. And then if any other requests
come in after that time, we have to put them on next year. And that's
so that we don't do piecemeal, changing this, changing that as they come in. And
then at the end of the year, we realize that things don't all fit together
anymore. So that's why we only do it once a year. Tonight is the-- we've
gathered some of the amendments previously that we weren't able to do. There's a lot
this year that we're not able to do. You probably noticed that in the packet.
But tonight, you get to look at it and make your recommendation. And hopefully, we're
done with this part of creating the list by the end of March. We used
to have a docket of land use code amendments. But the land use code, which
is more the development regulations, like how high the building is, how wide the sidewalk,
those kinds of things, we used to have a docket of those, but you can
amend the land use code as many times a year as you can do. So
we decided we still have a list of things we want to do, but we
don't keep it as an official docket that we roll out in the beginning of
every year. This year we'll do a lot of code updates because of the moratorium.
So it's not like we won't be looking at code this year. We'll be looking
at a lot of code. This is the docket. It probably looks... big on this
list on the screen. Most of these are annual amendments. Those of you
that have sat there for many years will recognize that every year we
put the updated Transportation Improvement Program in. And you all look at that.
Usually April or May, you have your review of that. We do the
capital facilities element. And we update the level of service each year. We do our
population update, which is number two. We get new numbers from the state in April.
And that's how all of our revenues as a city are based on the new
state numbers. And we roll those all the way through the comp plan to make
sure that all of our data is up to date. If we've purchased or received
any public property for public use in the past year, we redesignate and rezone it
for city use. So far, we have one of those. I don't know if we'll
be getting any more of those as the time goes on, but we kind of
hold that as a placeholder. And there's also another one. I don't know if you
remember last year, there was one in Overdale that was a privately owned property that
they had turned into conservancy as a conservancy easement. Overdale Park is asking to do
another one this year. So that's kind of exciting because it's privately owned, but they
maintain it in open space forever. So that's kind of a neat deal for us,
for the city. So there's another one of those on the agenda for this year.
The central plan will have some amendments. The Old Town sub-area plan will be coming
to you, I think, in April for the hearing, but I think you get to
see a preview which is really exciting. We haven't looked at Old Town for a
while. So we'll have a little more detail on that later on tonight. The housing
element to do an implementation strategy, you've all been involved in the joint meetings that
we've had, three of them now. So you're pretty much aware of what's going on
with the housing strategy. The other one that's carried over from last year is the
King County Island annexation. We never made it through that last year, so we're hopefully
getting through that this year. That's over by where the King County shop is and
the city shop is. It's that little, I think it's like maybe 30 acres that
we're hoping to annex this year. The only other one that
we're hoping to do this year, number eight, is the Issaquah Highlands Development Agreement and
the TALIS Development Agreement have come up to the end of their 20-year time period
this year. And so we have to figure out how to revert the urban zoning
and their standards to regular zoning and not change anything. Our goal is not to
really change anything, but to to take it out of development agreement. So that's a
project that you all will be working on, I think, with the UVDC. I think
they're going to help us, because they're so familiar with the development agreements, and we're
not. They're going to help us work through that change. The other ones on here,
we just don't have the resources to do them. None of them are-- earth shattering
we would love to do them all we would love to have more more staff
so we could do them all but um from nine on are the ones that
we just we just don't have enough um help to to work on especially with
the moratorium work plan that we're working on that we're supposed to have done by
october trish you might if i ask about that sure um so is is it
really a matter of just how this was set was priority set by the council
or is it just that you're saying that there's just not staff to be able
to complete the work needed done past the first eight? Right, because the moratorium work
plan is mostly in our department and there's not enough staff to do the seven
pieces, well I guess six pieces that they've asked us to do and do a
full load of comprehensive plan amendments. Does that mean that staff, that there's currently open
headcount that needs to be filled to complete it or there isn't even budget to
be able to do it? It's not a matter of having people. It's budget and
staff, right. It's not even in the city's budget to be able to do more
than the workload we have here on the stocket right now? Right. Like for example,
right now we're going out and we've advertised for three planners because we're down. We
had three planners. We do have open headcount and we don't, even if we had,
all of our positions filled, we still wouldn't have the resources needed to complete these
things. Correct. I guess, so I guess I'm wanting to work backwards a little bit
because I don't want to focus too much on the things that we're not looking
at right now. But you know, we had specifically this last year in 2016 been
looking at transportation, so number nine. I was kind of curious, If there was anything
that had come out of that, obviously the failure of the bond, if there was
any movement on that or if that was actually kind of at a dead halt
from the last time we had heard anything about it. There's been movement on that
topic. I know at the council level, they're talking about a transportation committee that would
work on transportation issues kind of that came out of the bond. and came out
of the council's priority when they set the moratorium. They said that not only were
there the six land use pieces, well, in the visions is a kind of land
use, the six land use pieces, there was also the transportation mobility part of the
city's growth that was worrisome. And so that's sort of being looked at by, we're
helping Public Works look at that, but that's sort of, they're trying to do implementation,
whereas this would be, number nine would be more of a planning document not actually
an action you know we're gonna we're gonna build an intersection we're gonna change some
lanes we're gonna that kind of thing and I think they want the action they
want to just which is what the bond would have done would have gotten some
funding together so we could actually have some action So do you know if number
nine falls into the category of more being an open headcount issue or
a lack of resources to be able to put into that planning document
for transportation? I think both. Trish, to follow up on that, is this
the transportation element implementation, is that looking at how the items in
our annual tip are going to be analyzed? No, that's more of the,
like the comp plan talks about the mode split, your transit rides versus
your single occupancy vehicle rides, and what kinds of things can we implement
to get that shift closer to more people are riding together using transit or bike
pad than our single occupancy. So it's taking the policies that are in the comp
plan and figuring out action strategies like we're doing for the housing element. But that
one actually made it the affordability part actually made it on the moratorium. So that's
why that one sort of bumped up in priority because a part of that is
connected to the moratorium. Okay, thank you. I kind of saw number 12 as being
a part of it. I know it's not directly related to housing policy and strategy,
and I was curious, when was the last time that we updated the land use
implementation strategy? All of the, oh, well, we've never had a, implementation strategy for any
of them. That was something that we created in the 2015 when we overhauled all
the elements because some of the pieces of those elements were sort of talked about
implementation and some of them were policy based. So we took all the parts out
that were seem to be more code related and put them in a bucket and
said we need to work on these because these are They don't really belong in
the plan, but they belong somewhere so we can implement, so we can sort of
check off like, you know, we need a-- I'm trying to think of a good
example. You know, we need to better understand our transfer of development rights program. Well,
we have that as a policy, and we kind of talk about how you'd implement
it, but they're kind of mixed together. So they don't have the power of law
because it's not in a code. and yet they're aspirational because they're in the plan.
So we were trying to separate them so they would have the power of law
because they're in a code. That's actually, we haven't been able to do that yet.
I bring something interesting when you bring up the TDRs. I know staff has been
working on on that. with the ending of both with TALIS and the Highlands. Is
that something that's going to be, that we're going to be looking at on the
2017 docket is putting something into the code addressing TDR? - I know we'll have
to for the development agreements. I'm not sure how far out of the code, you
know, to the rest of the city that will go, 'cause certainly we still have
our TDR bank that has units in it that are available and there's still units
out there that folks haven't used yet. So we have to figure out some way
that You know, that seems pretty applicable to what we're looking at at number eight
as well as our housing strategy. Right. So I was so I when you so
I'm glad you brought that up because it seems to me that's something that should
probably be a part of something on our code that we actually specify rather than
having it be changing back and forth on how we want to deal with TDRs.
Right. And there was a discussion at the council level that when we when we
did the central plan, because that's where we wanted the development to go. The TDR
program can be somewhat cumbersome because you have to have a buyer and a seller,
and then they have to agree on the price, and then you agree on how
much they're worth. And so it's kind of a dance that sometimes takes longer than
an applicant wants to take to get that extra development. potential. And so in the
central plan, we just allowed them to get bonus density. And we said, these are
the three or four or five things you have to do as an applicant. You
don't have to talk to another landowner. You don't have to fix a price. You
don't have to-- these are the criteria you have to provide us-- open space or
housing, affordable housing, or some combination of both. And you get more height or you
get more that you don't have to do the wedding cake. So we tried to
make it easier, if you will, for the central plan to have the bonus, to
have the extra density there. But we couldn't change it citywide because there were still
TDRs out there. So the TDR program is still in effect in the rest of
the city, but not in the central plan because they have an easier way to
do it, which is through the development bonus part. And so I think part of
what, through the development agreements, we may be able to explore a little better how
to, how to make the TDR program maybe flow in an easier way. But it's
never easy when you have two property owners trying to find the right price. But
I think that's something that the development agreement folks are going to be looking at.
So I guess my question is I think about 12, but since I'm seeing that
these are all kind of listed as being new amendments, I think I assume that
they existed and that there was something additional that staff wanted to do but were
not able to. What I'm hearing from you is that these don't actually exist. Correct.
I see. Right, in 2015 we put a page At the end, there's an appendix
of what the implementation strategies would have included in them. And so there's, I think,
one of the first ones is a public participation section that spells out how the
public gets involved, how they get communication. And that's one of the first ones I
remember pulling out of the land use element. We talk about it in the plan
that we want to have it. It should be great. It's very important. But we
never really solidified it to say, this is exactly how it's going to flow for
any different permit or any different kinds of action that you might have. And so
someday when we get to do a strategy, that would be something that we'd like
to have in it. Because other communities do have public participation strategies. thank you
can you uh anticipate any issues with delaying looking at 9 through 17 as it
relates to any of the other ones that we're already looking at like what kind
of jumped out at me is number 13 for utilities and public services if we're
talking about housing before we're talking about how we get utilities to that is that
kind of a well the or the horse well the element the utilities and public
service element exists and that's got the water plan the sewer plan the telecommunications and
the cable and all that is in the plan now in a policy piece and
then they have the different water plans and sewer plans that actually talk about the
pipe is six inches and the you know the stuff that's beyond my comprehension but
what this was was to try to take those aspirational goals out of utilities like
water conservation. We talk about it in the comp plan element, but we don't actually
get into, if you're residential, you should have this many whatever's in your, your faucets
should be this way, and sort of the whole incentive, something that would make the
policies be able to be implemented and measured more than we can do now.
Okay. Would it be worthwhile to look at those before and make sure those are
fully implemented before looking at further development? I don't think it's really a development question
because we know we have the the amount, the supply amount out there for the
growth that we've accommodated in our zoning. But these were more, and I should pull
up, I can send them to you that there's a, in the comp plan there's
a list of each of them at the end of the the comp plan that
just has lists of the things that we would want to have in the implementation.
In fact if I can get to it because you guys are asking good questions.
Oh can I not get out of there? There should be an exit key. Thank
you. I apologize if you're if it seems silly to be asking questions
about things we know aren't on our docket rather before we actually get to the
things that are but I was struck by what was curious about kind of how
they get addressed and I realized when you have an issue of not having adequate
staffing to be able to complete these planning strategies but something that I think we
all feel passionately about is having those plans in place to be able to productively
have the best community that we can and I really think planning is a great
tool for us to be able to achieve what we want and as we especially
in this moratorium wanting to be delicate about how we how we go about it
and so seeing some of these action items pushed off to 2018 I think it's
something we're curious about and wondering. So I know we don't have staff to be
able to actually do planning the way that we've had, whether it was a temporary
committee for traffic, the traffic task force, or the way we've had committees come together
and talk about housing. I'm wondering if there's a way to still use a limited
amount of city resources to be able to have meetings with the city so that
when they do get addressed in 2018, we have an idea about how the community
perceives these things or things that they want to have included in the plan, almost
like a pre-planning activities in 2017 where we recognize that staff doesn't have the resources
for them, but if there's some way that we can start to integrate them into
the consciousness of the city so that we can get back feedback from citizens and
kind of pulling numbers to, I guess, be more ready for it. Right. I don't
know if that's an unrealistic goal because we don't have the resources to do them.
Right, and the hard thing is you have me and I'm full time and I
have half of Jennifer and I have less than half of Kristen. And we have
to do the comp plan amendments and the district visions, which you'll see in the
moratorium and the housing strategy and the central monitoring report. I mean, there's the annexation.
And so there's just this really small band of long rangers that are spread pretty
thin with what we've got going. So to have-- A heck of a job. to
have another commission or three to be working on other things. I think all of
the products would just, we wouldn't do A plus or B minus projects. It would
be really difficult. - Be taking from others to be able to try to-- -
Right, I just think that would be, and current planning has even fewer. They're the
ones that are trying to get three people 'cause they lost three people in December.
So we're just at sort of this flux where, We just don't have a lot
of resources, but our plates are really full. But I love your idea. I mean,
I would love to do them all because they're all really interesting and they're worthwhile.
And I think they would help us as a city, but I just don't know
how we would... For example, the council is still working on the 2016 amendments that
you handed to them in October because their plates are so full that they're having
troubles getting to everything that's on their plate. And so it's just, there's just, it's
a really, even though people are like, you have a moratorium, what are you doing?
It's like, oh my gosh, you know, we're doing everything and then. And so it's
just been a really tough time to be able to ponder all the things that
we would love to ponder. But that's a great idea. I hope when we get
to do it that that's how we get to do it, is with a lot
of public input and find out what folks really do want. But this is just
for before you go. This is what the implementation strategies appendix looks like. And it
talks about how we got them. And then we'll see public participation element. That's the
first one. And it talks about-- so these aren't connected to any element, but then
they're broken down by element. So to get back to our urban forestry and open
space management plan, I think that would be fabulous to work on that. Climate action
plan, update the tree canopy. We haven't done that in a few years. I mean,
all these things were in the comp plan, but they're more code related. So we
want to get back to them sometime and actually update make more of a code
or update the inventory or whatever it is that's listed. Because I think that would
just be better for all of us. And housing element, of course, we're already working
on. And to speak to Carl's question, this is the piece of the transportation element
that would be part of the strategy plan. And then utilities is just a few
short pieces, although I'm sure they're difficult. And we have emergency management plans. policies in
the element and we also have over in our operations department, they have a whole
book on emergency management, but one of the council members last year wanted it to
be an element and I thought, That whole book in the plan, wow, that would
be hard to print. But we thought, well, we'll put it in there. Maybe there's
pieces of it that are super policy-oriented and that we could put in. And then
cultural has pieces, human services element has pieces. And I can send this to you
so you can look at it at your leisure at home, but all sorts of
good stuff in there. That would be great. Thank you. Okay. And back to you,
Ron. So looking at some of these possible amendments,
I see a lot of them that are not that are going to be
postponed until 2018 that look important. Yeah. And considering where the city is right
now, the fact that we are starting to build a lot in the, but
we haven't exactly started. We've started but we haven't expanded. We're still in our
baby steps, right? So if it's a issue with staff, where they're not
able to have the capacity to be able to handle all this volume, then do
we have the ability to be able to propose to City Council to raise, to
open up for hiring to help you out? Give them a proposal or give them
a recommendation. Our recommendation to City Council is to approve a new headcount for your
team. Where would we get the money? What would you take part of that's what
I was asking earlier is that it's not just a matter of open headcount and
getting staff in. It's a matter of also budgetary that we've already maxed out on
the resources that we have. There's no budget for the year to be able to
add in on the docket. Even if we had staff, we would we filled in
with what headcount we currently have open. We don't have the money or resources to
add on additional headcount. That's what it sounds like. Right. I just don't want to
see us as a city not focus on some of these key
initiatives, and then we get to a stage where it's too late. So we're kind
of at that point now, right? So do we have a choice? Well, it depends
on how you look at that, because we have elements, all those elements are in
place. It's just the pieces that I showed you, the implementation strategy for them, is
not in place, but there's certainly codes and plans, you know, like I mentioned to
John, we have a water plan, sewer plan, we have all the plans and emergency
management, but there's pieces like the urban canopy, the climate action plan. There's other things
that would be great to have, but I don't think they would impair us as
a city if we didn't have them next year. I mean, it's not anything like...
CHRIS JERRAM: Postponing a year is what you're saying is not a big deal. CHRISTIE
WOOD: Right, because some of them have been postponed since last year, since we first
did this. And when we first identified them in 2015, we had hoped to do
them all last year. But then things happened, and we only were able to start
on housing because that seemed to be the priority, because that was on the council's
priority list. last year. So that was the only one that we were able to
start is the housing strategy plan. But the good news with parks is parks is
doing a huge plan starting this year. And so we bumped the parks strategy plan
to next year to find out all that they're going to find out will inform
us on what was what's left for us to work on once they do the
heavy lifting, if you will. Then we kind of figure that was your strategy with
parks. Yeah, I'm happy that they're moving forward on that one. Okay. Um, Would your
staff be open to volunteers if someone in the public had qualifications or you don't
have the staff to handle them? Because then you have to manage and keep them
focused and it would just be a lot. I mean, we're at our wits end
now trying to get done what we're trying to get done. I think, Ron, that's
what I was trying to ask her earlier was saying, hey, what if we even
tried to do open up meetings for the doing initial pre-planning with members of the
community and it's even... It sounds like trying to manage that would be too much
on staff. Yeah. Right. There's very few of us in DSD these days. But we're
mighty. We're few yet mighty. Yes. Other questions? I'm going to see if I can
flip back to. Thank you, Trish. Yeah, let's actually talk about what we want to
do. From the current slide. Oh, I jumped too soon. Were there any other questions?
I think I probably already jumped too soon. I already mentioned this when we were
going through the docket. And these are the new ones. And there's a blank slide.
So that's the question and answer. Are there other questions or thoughts? No, we have
public hearing, though, correct? Right. But I wanted to make sure you had all your
questions answered before we opened it up. I do have some questions about our actual
proposed amendments. I know that was all discussion about stuff that we haven't been doing.
I was curious about number two, our population updates. You mentioned that in April we're
going to get numbers from the state. So when I think about the work that
we've done in the last year about thinking about our development indexes, our happiness indexes,
the things that we do to rate kind of where we're at as a city,
how we're using our resources. We're just gonna get updates on our numbers. It says
population updates. Are we getting a huge dump of numbers? Why is it just population?
Are we also getting? - The Office of Financial Management, they give us the actual
population number and then they give us housing units based on the data that we
send them of what building permits have been approved and demolitions that have gone away,
they give us an updated housing number and population number that then we take those
and roll them into our population housing forecast table. It goes into the capital facilities
element to roll through the level of service. We sort of use that to update
all the plans that go by population. So that's the number we use as the
state because that's the number that we get revenues based on. Sure. So last calendar
year when we were looking at things, we had mentioned as a committee that we
were wanting more updated numbers across a variety of areas. Right, on impact fees and
the capital facilities plan. And that letter went, in fact, the council is still talking
about the letter that you sent. And they budgeted-- I don't think they were
budgeting this year for police and buildings, but they were talking about how
best to figure out the impact fee and mitigation fee numbers. But they
are updating the capital facilities plan, which is the six-year-- that includes police cars and
that kind of thing. Because we've had, as you remember from last year, the one
we were using was a few years old. So there were no new capital pieces
and parts to put in our equations to make them look like we're actually producing
our end of the bargain when growth comes. We still have to provide police cars
and parks and all those capital things that you can't ask a developer to provide
all of it. So so they're updating. They're supposed to update that this year. So
that would be good. Okay, thank you. That's what I'm that's exactly what I was
asking. Excellent. Excellent question. Other questions before we open it up to anyone in our
vast public that would like to comment. Are you ready for public comment? I'm ready.
Open it up for public hearing. You would like to speak, come up to the
microphone and have anything you want to say. Come up to the microphone and state
your name and address. please hi thank you my name is steve
pereira i live at 170 northeast dogwood street here in israel for about nine years
i think that's the customary format i'm supposed to use so uh if i'm wrong
please correct me so a couple thoughts uh first i wanted to go to mr
mr falls comment on do we have the ability to recommend to city of israel
administration or council uh prioritizing plans further before we do other activity and how that
might impact It seems to me like yes, you very much have the ability to
make that recommendation. The city has X number of dollars coming in and prioritizes how
to spend those X number of dollars. We are making a lot of growth of
plans. We have a six month moratorium, maybe a year moratorium. It seems like it's
worthwhile to say we need to have these plans fully developed before we continue with
development. I'm not suggesting that's what you want to say, but you have the ability
to make that recommendation. to city administration and the city council. So I
guess I would suggest you do consider making that consideration for them to prioritize the
funding. Obviously that would mean other things probably wouldn't happen, but that's again within the
purview of what I think the policy planning commission has to do. Next comments,
number four and number five kind of related Central Issaquah plan to expand include
the Old Town area and number five the Old Town sub area plan update.
So Trish while you were speaking one of the things I heard you talk
about like in the Central Issaquah plan there's certain policies in place to enhance
development and building heights and all that so As a resident of Old Town, I
think technically I'm just outside the border of Old Town based on where my address
is, but I consider myself Old Town. I think technically it stops right before where
my house is, but that's what I think I understand, unless I can plead differently.
But I count myself as Old Town. My point is I'm concerned with Old Town
seems to be a unique and special place, and I know they're doing a lot
of plans proposed looking at it seems like it was last looked at in 2009.
We're less than 10 years later and already we're talking about changing it. It seems
like a part of the growth, a part of the plan for the CIP was
that we got to keep Old Town the way it was and Central Izaakau Plan
could change into whatever and that was kind of a implied consent decree that not
officially recognized. Now we're talking about changing Old Town and I'm not sure that's what
we really want. Once we lose this place that was developed in 1960s, 1970s, I
don't think we're ever gonna get it back. So I'm just hesitant at this point.
I'm not saying yes or no, I'm just saying I think we're moving too fast
and I wanted to express that concern to all of you while that continues to
thresh out. The next one I wanted to talk about was the number six, the
Create Housing Element Strategy. Thank you for being involved in that activity. One of the
things that occurred to me that I've heard somebody say is that one of the
few examples of affordable housing still left is in the Old Town area because it's
smaller area undeveloped housing or smaller lots, smaller house sizes. So I think that one
of the things that should be included in the moratorium discussion is zoning for smaller
houses, smaller lots. There's not a piece that talks about the moratorium now where it
talks about smaller houses. You can get, I think it's called best use for land
so they can build big huge houses, big old lots. But there needs to be
a way of zoning that includes and incorporates a smaller accommodation of housing. So
Again that's not specifically listed here on the docket but I think it's within the
purview of the policy planning commission to hopefully give some feedback saying that that's something
that should be looked at. Wanted to jump back to number one the capital facilities
or more specifically the TIP updates and this is used just as an example. One
of the things I know being looked at is the loft building which would have
kind of office housing and in exchange the developer would put a four-way traffic light
at that intersection rather than having C-curb ramps as I understand it. If I'm using
the wrong terms, I apologize. That's my understanding. I'm having to go into meetings.
One of the things I heard at that meeting was that they've long talked about
this idea of rather than having Rainier connect with Juniper, connect it directly to Gilman
Boulevard. I had never heard that before. So in all this talk about the TIP,
which is the Traffic Improvement Plan, I think that's correct, we talked about all these
other things like widening other streets, If that's something that was looked at, that's something
that should be talked at. My point is we don't have, the TIP doesn't seem
to include to me the things that it should that are talked about more about
free flowing traffic and improving traffic than they should, than about widening individual streets in
neighborhoods that don't facilitate that traffic movement.
keep up the good work on the housing plan and I would again like to
see not talk about just encouraging developing housing for affordable housing but I think we're
kind of losing the focus of we've been trying to do trying to encourage that
from happening and it's not been happening. I think you need some more teeth in
the plan that says make this happen and not having code that says if
it's the force of law, then you have to have it. I think
that's a good thing. We don't, at least to date, have not been
doing that. So thank you. Thank you, sir. Hi, my name is Zach.
I'm from Seattle. I'm first time to all this. I'm still very green.
So pardon me if I haven't done my due diligence with homework.
But with having the transportation element pushed back a bit, I thought I read somewhere
that we're like cusping to full capacity, like 96% or something during peak hours. So
if we're putting that back, then how would that, you know, if that's for another
year and we have a quicker growth than expected, who knows? I mean, as someone
that maybe will use transportation to get here from, the downtown area how would that
pushing it back is that gonna affect any more rapid growth or you
know what could be adverse in that respect versus or what's being done
to keep that from happening I guess that's what I'm saying so yeah
but cool place never been to squat before it's gorgeous and yeah bright
future for sure okay thank you seeing no one else from the public
we'll close the public hearing portion Now we have to do
what, Chris? Chris, if you're ready, do you want to talk about any
of the court or ask questions? The only question is, I don't know,
Ron, if you want to try to address the issue of whether telling
the city that they should spend money that they don't have to buy
people that they can't get. Well, I'd like to propose the recommendation to
city council and let the subject matter experts figure it out. But
this way, at least we're raising the flag that we are concerned that
staff doesn't have adequate capacity to be able to handle all the projects
that we feel are necessary and let them figure out how to fund
it if it's a priority for them. CLARE DUDA: That's a good point.
We've only got eight of 17 items. So less than half can be
worked on. At some point, we're going to have to say, well, we're going
to cut out those extra items altogether, or we've got to have more people to
be able to handle them. Or we have funds, or we're funding projects somewhere else
that may be lower priority than what this should be. So maybe this isn't getting
the proper attention. But again, that's really not... for me to decide, I
can just make the recommendation and let them figure it out. So that's what
I think would be a good strategy is, hey, we have this concern. And
I think that's the issue is that we could make that the-- we have
a concern that with current staffing standards, we can't address all the items that
should be addressed. And city council needs to be aware of that. Maybe
we're bringing coals to Newcastle. They probably are aware of it. But
there are 17 items that we would like to have and amendments.
We can only address eight of them. CHRIS JERRAM: You said it
well. TODD BANDUCCI: I don't know how we would-- I guess-- I
don't know if we make that an addition on the findings or
make a separate letter.
I don't know if we're able to specify, but to me number 12 and 13
really get to the heart of what we're trying to do with how to create
a housing strategy with our development moratorium. And I don't know if there's a way
to highlight that we think that there are other pieces that need to be used
in conjunction with it. I am a little curious. I know staff does a good
job of saying, hey, where do we want to put our resources? But it might
be helpful for those who are watching at home to kind of maybe understand, for
instance, why is number seven given more of a priority? Maybe it takes less resources
to deal with our annexation agenda. And I'm not saying that that isn't important, but
I'm curious maybe why staff chose to put that on the docket maybe versus dealing
with actually creating implementation strategies for utilities, land use, things that
can be related to dealing with our development moratorium. And that's
actually a partnership we've entered into.
- Okay, sorry. - It's a preset thing. We've already committed those resources to and
that's why that's on the docket. - Right, we just weren't able to do it
last year 'cause we ran out of people and resources. - That's a great explanation.
I do have one question too about, I'm looking at number four and five and
they both have the same bullet point in reverse order about considering increasing that boundary
and they have different dates. So first we're gonna look at the Old Town in
April and then that will go to recommendation in June. and then that same bullet
point is listed for number four and that is September. I'm curious how these two
are going to interact. It sounds like this boundary issue will already be decided come
June before we even have a public hearing on it in September and so I'm
curious how you guys laid that out, how you guys see those pieces folding together.
Right, and it's the same piece of land that would move out of Old Town
into Central. And if it doesn't pass in Old Town plan, then it would be
moot in the Central plan. But we wanted to have them queued up at the
same time so that anyone that's just following Central wouldn't be surprised when all of
a sudden part of it is a boundary change from Old Town to Central. So
we wanted to label them in both places. But if it doesn't happen in Old
Town, then it would be moot in Central. Okay. but it's that top
notch technical term up by Front Street and it
has where the new Bellevue Brewery, what is that, Staples, and it would
be that little piece that actually pops into Central, but it's still part of Old
Town right now in the mapping of it. And is it the city or is
it the brewery? It's the city. The city wanted it connected before the brewery came.
I see. What is that? Why is that? because then it would have the
building potential of the central plan, which is taller, more dense, because it's right up
there by the freeway, versus the more quaint, as Steve mentioned, the smaller density and
the smaller footprint, if you will, of Old Town. And that was one of the
sites also where the Economic Vitality Commission wanted to try an anchor project. and
then they realized it wasn't in Central. So they were petitioning as well to get
that little corner to be in Central so that could be potentially an anchor project.
Is it kind of a race against the Bellevue Brewing Company? No. No, I think
the Bellevue Brewery, they're already talking to us, so they can do what they want
with the Old Town zoning with the way it is. Gotcha. Thank you for laying
out that plan. I just kind of wanted to see how you guys thought you
were going to want to address those since they obviously overlap. Right. We just wanted
full disclosure that it would be in both of them if it went through. And
it wouldn't be in either of them if it didn't go through. Well, what do
you think is the best way to address it? Separate letter? Well, if we put
it in the findings, I can pull out the part and actually put it in
their agenda bill so that they notice it better. Put it in the findings that
we approve. Well... We'll vote on whether we approve or not, but when
we do approve, we'll put a notice in that we have concern over the lack
of funding and they should... The funding and resources. You can pull up what are
wonderful words we at some point said. Right, because Susan often makes you all sound
so... And I'm sure you're doing that right now. Freedom juices. That being the case,
is there a motion to approve the findings of fact? Second.
On the docket amendments for 2017. So motion with
the included suggestion to council of being able to
have additional resources. Second that. All in favor? Aye.
Aye. Opposed? None. Excellent. We just have to add that.
And then I guess you'll send it to me to sign after we put it
in? If you want me to, to send it to you to okay it, that
we got it right, that Susan got it right. Now you're going to tell us
what you intend to do with us the rest of the year. Yes, how we're
going to keep you so excited and busy. Thanks, Carl. Thanks, Joy, for working on
that. Thank you. The moratorium, the temporary development moratorium, I
don't know if you've heard, was enacted in September. Then a
few weeks later, They actually, they had another public hearing on it and
they had, they adopted a work plan to address the pieces that they wanted to
look at. And this is all on the website, by the way. I think I
included the link in your packet. But the six issues, well, there's six, we've combined
two of them, that they addressed initially were affordable housing that was a citywide issue,
And then the other issues were only in the central Issaquah, were limited to the
central Issaquah planning area. And that was architectural fit and urban design, which we put
together because they're very similar. They kind of have similar feels to them. Vertical mixed
use, because we haven't gotten any yet. Parking issues, some folks are saying that we
put the parking limit too low. and that it's we're under parked and the council
was also worried about we weren't getting enough structured parking. So they want us to
look at that again. And the other piece was that the district visions, there are
10 districts in Central and of the 10 visions that are listed, they felt like
the developments weren't actually looking like the vision made it sound like they should look.
And so they wanted us to take another look at the district visions. And you
all are going to be part of all of these. So I wanted you to
know upfront. You already know this. I thought I'd start out with the easy one
because you're all aware of this from coming to the meetings. This is the housing
strategy. This is supposed to be done and to council in before October.
And I thought you were leaving. I was going to say, what did we say?
Um, um, you've seen this before in your packets. Um, right now we're in the
needs analysis step. Um, and we're almost done with that. Um, we've talked to focus
groups. We've, uh, had three joint commission meetings. And we've done a lot of really
great work. We're working on the survey now that would go out to the public
to talk about their views of housing issues and if we've found them all or
if there are other issues that we haven't found and sort of how they feel
about different kinds of affordable housing and what might work in their neighborhoods. We're trying
to figure out how to ask some questions like that. The next step would be
more public outreach, but actually having, we started a little bit of it last time,
but having strategies that are actually actions, incentives, accessory dwelling units, how do you make
those easier to build? How do you get a levy going where we can tax
ourselves? Because everybody has to put in a little bit. It can't just all be
on the developers or all on the city or all on one group. We kind
of all have to partner together to figure out how to build more affordable housing
for the folks that live here and work here or the kids and family members
that would like to live here. So the next group of policy conversation is not
only the affordable strategies that we started with, but also how do you get, you
know, do we need more senior housing? Do we need more housing for developmentally disabled?
Do we need more? really small we're finding we need a lot of smaller homes
because it seems there's only the I think the average is they're building three and
four bedrooms but what the focus groups are all saying is they would just really
like a little house just a little starter house and and we don't have those
so so we're learning a lot of new things and the policy conversation we're hoping
we've kind of started already but that will be going strong in May and June
And then we're hoping to unroll the actual strategy, you know, this summer sometime where
we actually get into these are the things we would do immediately in the next
five years. And these are the things that we would roll out for the whole
20-year plan to have to sort of change the aspects of our housing that we
have. Are there questions on housing? District Visions is the other one that Long
Range is the lead on. This I use, this is a sample of what the
District Visions say now in the central plan. This one is Western Gateway. I
guess the good news and the bad news about Western Gateway is it's for some
reason it's all the applications that we got right out of the gate were in
Western Gateway and we didn't actually have all of the development standards in place to
actually get exactly you know it talks about office and mixed use but we didn't
have it be required so the applicants said we're really not interested in mixed use
so we're just going to build residential and we had no way of making them
do the vision because it wasn't in the code. It was aspirational, but it wasn't
in the code. So this is one of the reasons that the council would like
us to re-look at the visions to see if there's ways to strengthen the vision
and also ways to partner with regulations so that we actually will get what the
vision says that we want. So that's just a sample. And the pieces, as you
can see, the categories for the vision were the vision, which includes pieces of the
green necklace, how the green necklace fits in, the primary uses that we're hoping for
in the vision, the key environmental features and mobility connection, you know, the transportation piece.
And what we wanted in the new version of these is we want to actually
call the green necklace and parks out as a separate topic and not put it
in the opening statement so that each of each neighborhood district will have specifically this
is the green necklace component of this area and these are the trails or the
connections to the other areas from this so that all of the 10 districts have
some aspect of the green necklace in them We had that originally, but we didn't
come out and give it its own category. So with parks helping us with their
plan this year, we're hoping that that's going to be a really great part to
help us realize the vision. The other piece that's not in the original is to
talk about boundary adjustments. One is the piece in Old Town that we talked about.
The other is the state park wasn't part of the city when we first did
Central, and there's been some questions whether we should add it to the Central area
because it's such a beautiful resource. Not that the zoning would change, but that it
seems like a logical addition to the plan. I don't know if we would do
that, but that's something that's come up in comments. So boundary adjustments is added as
part of the scope. Are there questions on this part? Just giving you
guys a little teaser on all of these. The next one is only
for Central Issaquah and that's the architectural fit urban design piece.
And this is parts of the pieces that we didn't have for some of the
gateway projects and atlases. How do the buildings face the street? How do they interact
with the public area? How do you make sure that the public areas are just
more in our toolbox so that we have things turn out the way we thought
they were gonna turn out? So those are just some ideas on to sort of
help you understand what we're hoping to get from that piece. And you all will
be working with the Development Commission on this one, because the Development Commission just nails
all the criteria. They just know what they need. So they'll be helping us understand
that. Vertical mixed use, this is a good one. This has already been worked on
quite a while. It started when we started housing. And so we're trying to figure
out, are there places where we're going to require it? Are there places where it
makes more sense than other places? I think this comes to you--
I'll look at the calendar. But this one I think is the most, the farthest
along than all of us, than all the other ones. So this is going to
be an exciting one. And I'm not sure who, if you're working with any other
commissions on this one, I couldn't find that in the notes. But I know this
comes to you, I just can't remember when, it's on the last page of the
schedule. Any questions on vertical mixed use?
parking. This is only in central Issaquah and again it's because some folks thinks that
when we change the ratio and the central plan in the central standards instead of
having a maximum we sort of lowered them so that they can still have higher
number of parking but we're hoping over time that they would choose and they would
be able to get to market a lower number People aren't really using the lower
number yet. We knew they wouldn't because people aren't into transit and all that kind
of stuff yet. We don't have those other options available. But we want to re-look
at that to see if the parking ratio is off and also if there's a
way to require more structured parking or if that just changes the price point and
then we don't get anything. So those are some things we want to look at.
And again, you'll be working with the Development Commission on this one because they just
know the stuff. They're just brilliant with this stuff. And you will be too. You
will be too. And so those are the moratorium, before I jump, those are the
moratorium ones. Any questions on those? The other
things that you'll be working on that are also very exciting is the Old Town
Plan. And just to make a comment on one of the comments is we're not
talking about a lot of changes. The plan was originally done, it was the first
sub-area plan we did after growth management, which I thought was pretty exciting. Back then
it was the priority of the council that Old Town be the first one to
have a sub-area plan. And the one change that we did back in, I think
it was 2009, is we took the bypass out. That was the only change we
made. We weren't allowed to go in and fiddle with any of the rest of
it. It was just take the bypass out and you're done. But we wanted to
get into it because some of it is old. And so we've been having a
lot of fun at the outreach because so many people are so enamored with the
way it is and that it's small town and it's charming and it's quaint and
it's just all these wonderful things. So we're really having fun with this project. And
I know you guys will too. I know some of you have been at the
outreach meetings. These are some of the pieces that are in it. And then the
one part about the moving the boundary is part of it. We're doing some surveying,
I think coming up pretty soon. And I think there's some more outreach meetings coming
up as well. This comes to you early. I think you mentioned when, is it
April? No, April, May it's coming. But this is another one that's coming earlier than
the end of the year. And then the end of the development agreements. And I
think we're going to get help on this one from the Urban Village Commission. And
this is to figure out how to turn TALIS and the Highlands Development Regulations into
regular zoning, like our zoning code or like central, but not really change anything. Because
we don't want everybody up there to have nonconforming uses, because that would be a
nightmare for everyone. So we're trying to figure out how to change the zoning, but
not actually change what can happen up there. So that'll be kind of an interesting
process. Are there questions on those two? No? And this is our best shot
at what the schedule is for all the pieces that we know. You don't
have a lot of off nights so far. And I know in years past
you've had many. So we're turning up the heat now. So there's going to be
a lot of things going on. This could change depending on how quickly or not
quickly staff can get things through to you and how quickly the council can get
things through. Because we're having, as you can imagine, because it's council's moratorium, we're having
a lot of touch bases with them to make sure that we're on the track
that they want us to be on. So that... can always change how and when.
And we'll try and keep you apprised as soon as we know, just so you
can plan accordingly. Are there any questions about the schedule as we know it? Our
next two dates on there are the 23rd and the 9th, and they're blank. Are
they-- do you know if we're meeting, if we're discussing and congregating? You're right.
I will have to ask if anybody's ready for anything. Because what's the next one?
Oh, the next one's district vision. 23rd, that's just right around the corner. Oh, my
gosh. And Old Town. Dave will be here for Old Town. Well, I wonder if
any of them could go earlier. I can check tomorrow to see what the next
two are. That would be bad to give you. I'm just wondering if those are
blank if we're not meeting and the next time is end of March or if
those are placeholders for something. Right. That would be bad to give you guys two
weeks off right after I've told you that we're going to be so busy. Okay,
good question. And the one in May,
the Transportation Improvement Program, that's usually when
we but I'm really not sure. That's a public works piece and so they
bring it when they bring it and we just try to clear the decks for
when they bring it. But certainly you have some good questions to ask them this
year about the part that goes from Rainier right into Gilman because I thought that
was fascinating the other night. I had never heard that either, but then I'm not
in public works, so that was pretty interesting. Anything else? Do I have anything else
listed? If you know of anybody that is as brilliant
and captivating as yourselves, we are looking for folks to be on our
commissions. Is that time already? It is. And as you all are sitting here,
you know that you are the ones that have been brilliant this whole time. And
so if you have any clones that may want to join us in our exciting
work this year. You're saying that just so you don't have to raise our salary.
That's what you're saying. Yes, there is no salary raised this year, sadly. But we
could request an accommodation of some sort. Yeah, I don't even think we get
pins anymore, do we? Do you get pins anymore? I'm sorry. I love a good
button. That's a sad, that's a sad thing. Anything else? Thank you for being here
tonight. I really desperately needed a quorum. Thank you for having public comment. Thank you.
Thank you, two members of the public for coming in and bearing with us and
for all you at home watching. Right. And the other comment, we do actually have
the transportation element. that has all the pieces and parts that you mentioned about growing
and that, but it's the smaller piece that's the implementation that talks about when we
scrolled through it, the mode split and more transit and important things, but the basic
parts are there. But good comments. Good to have folks here. Thank you. And I'll
let you know. And that case will adjourn at 7:40. Maybe we just need a
smaller commission. Look how efficient we were tonight.