all of you
i'd like to welcome everyone to this
very intimate and friendly
planning policy commission um tonight
june 24th which we will have begin
and i'd like to call it to order at 6
32.
um tonight due to the for virtual format
as well as the governor's proclamation
we will be providing some guidelines and
as you can see we're all
meeting virtually we have participants
who will be attending by computer
as well as others who will be attending
by phone for all meeting attendees
please speak clearly and pause
frequently
state your name each time before
speaking
mute your microphone when you're not
speaking and if you're having technical
issues
please try joining the meeting using a
different device such as a smartphone or
tablet
or use the call-in information in the
meeting invite to call into the meeting
tonight we will be discussing issues
related to the title 18 update
and i would also like to call for
attendance so kristin if you could
please call the role
mr milligan here
mr monahan here
commissioner lewis here
commissioner zaragoza not hearing
commissioner voice here
and then commissioners fall and
commissioners bader have
excused absences this evening but we do
have a forum
excellent we have a quorum so right now
i'd like to
approve the minutes from the last
meeting are there any corrections
adjustments disputes with the meeting
minutes of june 10
2021 provided in the agenda package
hearing none the minutes are approved by
unanimous consent
so again as we had stated tonight's
regular business will be the title 18
updates
with goals and outcomes gaps analysis
as well as another discussion tonight
following
subdivisions and other things
but we are going to follow two different
types of presentations tonight
after the break of the first one we'll
take public comment
and then we'll have a planning policy
group discussion
and we will follow that for the second
part so i would like to pass it now
to our director miss dollywood please
thank you chair uh voice uh can everyone
see my screen
mindy do you mind clicking the got it so
that the blue
uh bar goes away we can see the full
screen
i recall that from a previous
presentation you had that blue bar stays
at the top and blocks
like an eighth of the screen so it's
just like a little guide like a little
clippy if you can
click that so we can see your full
screen would be great
is that better now
can you guys hear me okay it looks clear
okay
uh so good evening uh commissioners and
members of the community
um today uh we have uh like uh chair
explained we are first gonna go through
the goals and outcomes b
that's right so um
first we'll go through the goals and
outcomes chart
and um this is something that i think at
the last uh ppc
at the planning and policy commission
meeting it was discussed
uh to give uh you all an opportunity to
get a little deeper into what the
council uh had adopted in terms of
golden outcomes chart
have an opportunity to discuss and add
anything that you feel is missing
or some additional details that might be
needed
and then later after this discussion
we'll talk about the gaps analysis and
the code
update memo for subdivision which we're
showing as a template
but really uh using subdivision as a
sample for that
and a little bit about the schedule at
the very end
so for the golden outcomes chart council
last fall
uh adopted uh these um and there was
there are two parts to it the first is
the umbrella goals
which uh you know the guidance is to
apply these to every chapter
so we need to realign the land use code
with the community's aspirations
for the city um in the adopted plans we
need to provide a transparent code
update process
that allows everyone to engage in the
process
and we want to reform our regulations to
improve efficiency
equity consistency and predictability
we want to look at what the current laws
are what the best practices are
and um so
then i think i'm getting some
comments here okay there you go um
then the part two uh is really asking
about the forested hill
there are 13 total goals um the first
one
is to protect the forested hillsides
parking
use the land efficiently conserve and
protect environmental critical areas
uh enhance wetlands and riparian
corridors
improve public awareness increase
housing diversity
um retain 50 tree canopy
um and
for the neighborhoods retain their charm
and distinctive character
create a livable community sustainable
development and climate goals need to be
looked at and and in
terms of all the chapters effective
management of travel
resulting from new development you know
with non-motorized transit and climate
goals
we need to successfully implement the
parks and strategic plan and green
necklace
sign code which you already made your
recommendation to council and councils
considering that
and 13 is to modernize the code and
incorporate best practices
then each of these 13 goals that the
council looked at
they got into more detail um in terms of
for i
i just picked one example of uh protect
forested hillsides
so what are some possible actions what
are some desired outcomes um
things like you you know hillsides
around trees or retaining wall
character um we need to respond to
topography
limit the the vertical cut and fill
maximum wall heights uh allow
development so that
tr um transfer development can occur to
maximize
um but but not to the extent that
um any challenging or difficult
properties uh
can be really clear-cut and tall
retaining walls built so those are the
kind of level of detail they got into in
terms of what
what does this really mean in terms of
the code
and the outcome was you know that you
have a
attractive character of the hillsides
are maintained
uh the cut and fill is reduced so there
are not that many trucks come
hauling the dirt off site um while still
protecting
development rights of the the
individuals um
so that's sort of um you know possible
actions and desired outcomes so if you
as a group uh decide to add more goals
then that sort of format would would
help staff
in terms of what the desired um
what the issues are what the desired
outcomes are for each one of
your additional goals that you want to
add so with
that i think that's a very snapshot of
what's already in your packets
um but i'm happy to bring that up on the
screen it's more
you know discussion it may help
facilitate the discussion
but at this point we want to pause and
take uh discuss
this amongst yourselves and give us some
direction in terms of
uh what additional items or details
should be added
to this document with that i'm going to
turn it over to
the chair to facilitate that discussion
great thank you director dollywall so
i'm going to phone a friend here
it's my first one of the evening but do
we
want to do public comment before this
part senior planner leasing
or after this discussion i know we just
had this conversation but
i'm going to say we want to do it now so
we can let the public talk
and then we can incorporate what they
have to say into our response if
we would choose to do so
that is correct we decided to have
public comment now okay
feels like a curveball so i'd like to
open it up for the comment
at 6 41 to allow our public to address
um the issues in the agenda packet and
also note that we have received
i believe three different emails to from
individuals and one from an organization
so having said that senior planner lisa
do we have
anyone to speak tonight
yes ann fletcher has signed up to speak
so
ms fletcher and we have another person
raising her hand
i'm sort of ann fletcher and then connie
marsh but
miss fletcher i am going to make you a
panelist
and now you are unmuted
so you oh and i believe the guidelines
are
what five minutes yes okay so we please
ask people to stay within their time
parameters
right thank you good evening
um i do want to comment on the title 18
update materials and i'm ann fletcher
i'm an issaquah resident
and with the people for climate action
happy to be here tonight to share kind
of a climate perspective on where we are
now
um i searched uh the references to
climate goals in the packet and i did
find
one one in the attachment a
which is what uh vinnie just went
through
uh and uh it did note that the comp plan
and the sustainable building action plan
uh are kind of the sources right right
now of what we have for climate
and it's not a lot um and and those
probably need review
uh based on current climate action
information things are
changing really fast in that area uh i i
wanted to point out that the strategic
plan does not address
climate at all so we aren't going to get
any
any um help from there at this point uh
and issaquah's climate action plan
completion
is estimated to be completed in december
of 2021.
so given the state of our climate
related policies and plans
doing a gap analysis is difficult and
uh i'm my concern is that this challenge
could result in climate being uh
somewhat or largely left
out of the title 18 overhaul unless
there's some sort of mechanism
so i'd like to bring up the idea of
having some sort of mechanism built in
a strong one uh that
make sure that climate is somewhere in
there as a placeholder
perhaps uh for when the climate action
plan is done
or somewhere in this title 18 process
to ensure that there's strong
involvement from the sustainability and
environmental staff
in the city and involvement from other
departments
that affect climate such as
transportation
and parks etc and ample input from the
environmental board
um i so those are those are my comments
on the attachment a
i did want to make two other comments
one is
i appreciated the the template um
the attempt to come up with something
and i know it's difficult
and uh and it's a great opportunity for
community learning
i think and i'm learning a lot by trying
to read it and interpret it
with other people um i have an education
or a teacher background so a couple of
ideas from that
i wanted to share just to see if
if that might strengthen the structure
or the delivery
of the template i think the first thing
that i always had to do as a as
as a teacher educator
is to know your audience and
find out what they really do know or
don't know and then build on that and i
know that's tough to do but i think that
there
can be ways to do that with some sort of
preliminary
um chances to or survey or whatever
and the other suggestion i have is to
try out the presentations
on uh people that aren't in your
profession
uh maybe family or friends uh and
incorporate their feedback
uh into your presentations
the more examples you can give the more
concrete examples
that are local or cutting edge things
that are happening
new possibilities uh using graphics or
photos that really is helpful
for people to gain uh knowledge of your
subject
and stopping midway through your
presentation to kind of
check in and make sure things are being
understood and
adjusted and then um and then
of course you you're you're already
doing quite a a lot of good listening i
think and
checking back with the audience then to
make sure
that you understood the feedback uh the
way they meant it
and that so that was my ideas there and
then i just have one other quick thing
and that is in the subdivision code
policy direction
i think it would be really great to have
climate
um uh in number three and number four
they really lend themselves to some sort
of climate reference
uh because non-vehicle transportation
and what they're now calling 15-minute
neighborhoods where
residents can meet most of their needs
of daily needs without driving long
distances
those those kinds of things they both
reduce vehicle miles traveled and i
realize that's a transportation goal
but they really do reduce carbon
emissions so
i want to thank you for this opportunity
and
i would love to see a schedule for the
other boards and commissions now that
the ppc has
um their schedule thank you
thank you ms fletcher i'm going to make
you an attendee again
and then
um let's see connie
going
connie marsh you are now a panelist and
i have unmuted you
hi i'm connie martian i live up on
squawk
and uh i was hearing you all speak
before the meeting
and we know we get to speak at the
meetings
we get to speak for five minutes there
is nothing
saying that what we say is ever
responded to
or written down or forwarded through and
not forgotten
so often when you speak at a meeting
it's like going into
the void so i was a little upset to hear
well you know you get to speak at every
meeting
yeah but do we get any acknowledgement
from our speaking at those meetings
because i've done it for like 20 years
and you don't there's not a mechanism
for that now um i
minnie was really quiet and i was trying
to listen but
do we have two public speakings or just
one today
do we have one before and then one after
is that a yes i can't two yes okay
then i am going to talk about
the chart um now
i talked to several council members and
that is not a council adopted
item it is it is a chart that came out
of an ad hoc
committee which is three people
which is not a council adopted
item and when i talked to the two of the
people on ad hoc
that it was this
is a first draft this is not set in
stone
we expect and hope that people will
change it because we
can't see or know everything we can't
see or know what the problems are
so um the idea
that it is a set thing i think is
not what the council members who did it
had in mind
and in in that order um
the biggest question is
is what we have in our comprehensive
plan
and our strategic plan or our guidance
language correct
because it does us no good if we create
code for guidance language that is
incorrect so the first question
is geez on these topics where do we want
to go
what do we envision our city to be
and trees are a great example right so
what is it that we actually want from
our trees
um and and then we have to make sure
that is
actually in our guiding document
so for example our tree canopy
percentage
includes lake tradition plateau but
because of that inclusion of all of the
extensive tree protection that we have
we have a nearly naked downtown and
that's okay
and we have a nearly naked issaquah
highlands with no real mechanism to
plant it because
we've already achieved that goal but
is that really what we want or do we
want trees covering more of our city so
we don't have the heat islands
as our summers get hotter and hotter um
do we want the trees to to do their
climate action
function and i think this needs to be a
discussion
not a these are our goals this is what
we want already perceived because this
is what exists in our code
and what i would like to see with this
chart is to go down that first row
and say okay these are our topics now
let's talk about our hopes and dreams
here
what is it that you think the city
should be in the future what is our
vision
per topic and then we can adjust
and see if we where we need to change
all of the language
and that is the biggest step that is
missing
here so um and and going through and
saying do you
have things that you want to change i
who know the code and know all this
stuff
better than most would have a really
hard time in a few minutes
outlining my 20 pages of changes that i
think are necessary in our code
right so i i think it just has to be
come out from a different
place that is more
a visioning session first and then you
can
get down into the details so uh
there is there is that one and then i'm
happy to talk at the next one thank you
all right well i definitely want to
acknowledge our two community members
speaking tonight
and as far as having a mechanism to
respond to those how would staff like to
respond to any questions or concerns
from our community
something in writing something
yeah i mean um i think there's a good
point i think um
some feedback for us in terms of how we
should uh
look at this template and how we you
know as we start the journey
um what i heard the end
talk about i've taken notes so we will
you know incorporate that
for our future um discussion
you know know your audience try the
presentation concrete examples are good
so that's what i heard
um in terms of the climate action number
three and four
creating these neighborhoods um so
that's an additional goal that you all
can discuss and
you know it's definitely embedded in
some of the existing goals but
we can be more explicit in calling that
out um
in terms of the climate action plan and
the schedule for that happening
uh at the end of uh next um you know
uh the the timing of that um i think uh
the council was
clear in these golden outcomes there's a
sustainability chapter so
we will have be having that discussion
and maybe it's a parallel discussion
between policies and implementation
regulations
so we would um you know she's right that
we don't currently have
uh the policies in place because we're
still working on them
but to the best of our ability we will
have a discussion of the policies and
the implementation regulations on that
and to the second speaker connie marsh
comments i think those are also feedback
for staff
that we are incorporating into our
future work
and and i think her suggestion was that
we need to
uh step back and take a take a more of
what do we want
uh approach with these goals and
outcomes charge so for your discussion
tonight
uh of the 13 goals that are there maybe
that's um something you all can discuss
of what you want to do with this goals
and outcomes chart and
and and make it you know add to it amend
it um
add more details um or or have a have a
discussion about
what what you think as we are embarking
on title 18
um update journey what does that look
for
and and where should we be
so the kind of an open-ended discussion
is i think what she was recommending
well excellent well thank you director
dollywall and
i would like to open it up for what this
commission does best which is discuss
and debate
but i am going to phone a friend again
because that's what i do
and do we need to as far as the public
comment
i've seen this 100 times but it doesn't
actually stop do it what is the correct
terminology the public comment is
suspended it's tabled it's
so this is not a public hearing just a
public
meeting
stop it start it everybody gets five
minutes um
it doesn't get suspended or anything
like that no
we'll see you guys have great misfortune
fortune to have me as your acting chair
tonight so i am
doing this on the fly and having a lot
of fun with doing it but
i would like to open it up for
discussion amongst my colleagues
and um yeah so we'll start now with the
some discussion amongst the planning
policy and i'm looking for i'm
going to go to my chat box and i'd like
to
have commissioner lewis has a comment
for us so please commissioner lewis
thank you acting chair uh commissioner
joy lewis here i want to start by saying
thank you to staff
and thank you to the ad hoc committee
because when we saw this
two meetings ago um myself and
commissioner boyce were saying hey i'm
surprised you guys aren't taking
feedback on this
where we would like to comment on it so
i appreciate creating this avenue for it
and i really um responded strongly
um to the comments that connie marsh had
about
being able to continue this dialogue
right i think it's important for us to
have a discussion um what this with
saying
what is our vision with the public right
so creating more space for this i
appreciate you guys wanting to hear from
us
but i also want to continue this
discussion um whether you want to use
comparisons of
baking a cake or building a house
whatever works for you
but building the foundation for how we
address
um title 18 is really important and to
me i see this gold chart as being our
start
right so um i see that and the
educational component as being
extremely important before we start
actually even looking at drafts
um so allowing there to be space whether
that is the ad hoc committee
hosting um an open meeting for the
public to be able to discuss this
whether it sits on multiple different
boards and commissions i do think it's
important to get more feedback on these
goals
when i saw it i saw both things that
needed to get
good and things that needed to get
amended i sent those comments to staff
and again i appreciate them passing it
on to the ad hoc committee to be able to
say hey there is
some discussion going on i don't want to
necessarily read verbatim all of my
stuff
i have a couple things that i want to
float around to everybody um once we
start kind of having these discussions
um so i have kind of boiled them down to
a couple basics of things that should be
added or amended in my opinion
um so i'm going to dive into a little
bit to help the discussion start
i think one of them is education is
missing right now in our goals
um specifically we need to align our
school standards and specify our code
for an urban compact school planning and
implementation
we've talked a lot about urban schools
we've talked a lot with the school board
school district um sorry i should say as
saying
whether they come to us with a lot of
different
opinions about why or their current bond
doesn't allow for it well we don't have
standards for this yet right
so let's actually start this discussion
right now of saying how do we expect our
schools to be built
right this is our land use code we want
to be able to move forward with urban
schools
designing in a compact way but yet we
don't haven't had that discussion
right we know that we need to create
that so this is a good opportunity and a
time to start bringing the community
together
with the school district and the school
board
with members of the community to say how
are we moving forward with building
schools in our community
um so i would love that food to be a
goal and i would love that to begin
um because i think it's a pretty
important thing that's missing right now
um one thing too is that um the live
work play
is not fully represented i feel right
now in the goals um
our job creation needs to be represented
our goals um
and i know in our my discussion with
minnie she was saying this can be
addressed in our land use and standards
section um i think that's something
that's open
to discussion right how do we implement
um our job numbers right now um we've
been really fortunate
that we have a fantastic member of our
community with costco
but when you take out those numbers for
the costco expansion
we're seriously lagging behind our job
creation and we're seriously lagging
behind and um our goal for the community
to be able
to be able to work and live in our
community
and i think that that goal really needs
to come to the forefront in some way
and needs to be addressed right now um
and how we um
how we're actually building um our
community specifically right so
um i think that's open to discussion as
far as amendments um
i had uh for our current goals um i can
go through um i think point four
um on the environment specific needs
specific mentioning of native spam and
runs
uh being supported and restored as a
separate objective
i also think possible actions for
non-repair non-repairing
wildlife um needs to be an additional
policy to create and prioritize when
possible
um when we think about how we're
developing and building our land i think
it's really important to
factor in you know does this wetlands
have a native salmon run in it versus
being just a native western stream i
think that needs to be called out i
think there might need to be different
um
development standards that are put to um
you know whether it's laughing jacob's
creek whether it's lewis creek right we
have a lot of
areas that need to be protected and i
think they need to be called out in our
land use code
um and i also think that we need to
start having expectations of our
developers of how they build to be able
to
um accommodate the other members of our
community
our four-legged friends effectively um
on point nine
um i think that new development is
mentioned
but massive retrofitting is needed for
the existing infrastructure
of our city and public spaces
and i think this could be a possible
action for the planning and
implementation of retrofitting all
public buildings
i think additionally we need the
analysis of a current pollution
generated by the city and how to
eliminate our waste with the intention
of carbon neutrality
um i think it's really important to be
able to have
i mean i i recognize that um our climate
action plan is tbd right now
still in the works and still in the
process but i think it's important to
call out in our goals
that we specifically need to have an
analysis done of where
is our pollution being generated by the
city and how do we
get to neutrality for that um what is
the plan
for being able to retrofit all of our
buildings we know that most likely in
the next two years there's going to be
massive grants coming
from the federal government i want us to
be ready i don't want the
typical pattern that we do um often with
like mobility where we say
well we have sort of a plan it's a light
plan let's see where we get the funds
and then we can really dive in
i want us to have a plan and be ready to
go when we think about what a strict
timeline we are on
um to be able to lead in this community
um the last one i'm going to talk about
is point
13 and i think it needs mentioning of
streamlining our code and ease of use i
think we need to have language about
that um
i think we need an examination of the
alignment with the comp plan and we need
to know
what our current exposure ability is to
fill the gaps
um i'm not seeing that right now and so
i think with port 13 we need to
pull that out um i realize that's a lot
of work for everybody to absorb
and you would have needed to be looking
at your at your goals for that so
i'm happy to i'm happy to go back but
what i basically want to
loop through and everyone is to say i
think that we're missing some goals and
i think some goals can be amended
and i'd love to hear from everybody else
to say where do you think we're at
i'm going to interrupt you for one
minute um i just wanted to note that
commissioner zaragoza
is present as of seven o'clock and
that's all thank you
great thank you senior planner do we
have any more discussion from amongst
the planning policy commission
i see commissioner milligan so
please thank you standing chair voice
this is commissioner
milligan and thank you for uh breaking
up the
conversation this evening into pieces so
that we can address these things and
then um
in kind of a tangible fashion i think it
helps the public it helps me certainly
um
one of the things that and we're going
to talk about gaps later gaps analysis
later but in in regards to goals
i felt that the goals
and the outcomes in the whole chart was
very well done i really appreciate
louis's
commissioner lewis's um thorough
evaluation and finding things that
aren't there which is i think the most
difficult task is to see something that
you're missing and i really appreciate
you uh bringing those
uh those ideas and i don't disagree with
any of those
however i think i'd like to just
recognize for the sake of the hard work
that people do is that the compact
schools
is a um our standards that we have been
developing
we have a more complex school standard
than we
did so it's not like we haven't done
anything uh but you know
we are becoming more urban and there's
another stuff that needs to be taken i
recognize that
and i really appreciate the um comments
about especially about
enhancing our employment objectives
with some stronger language that might
help us get there
um one of the things that i appreciated
uh and i only have one screen tonight so
to jump back and forth
all the time here okay so uh i wanted to
make a point of commenting about number
13
because this has to do with following
building codes and standards and
and the relationship between our codes
and the developers and staff and all the
work that has to be done to get things
approved
and i'm not sure that um
it seemed good to me the language along
that row
that what i want to see and what i want
to continue
and i hope to foster if there are ways
to improve it
is not necessarily to make it easier
to build anything in issaquah because
what i'm hoping is we're going to
increase our standards we're going to
we're going to challenge developers
to to rise to the occasion of building
in a more sustainable fashion
or you know some of these standards that
are difficult to achieve but i want to
make it easier for them to get there
and to create a reliable path from
application
to permit so that it's predictable
and has integrity i think that row
covers that quite well but because
subdivisions is an example tonight
um and some of our comment
wanted to make it easier to get a permit
well
easier in the process way harder
in meeting our standards that's kind of
what i'm looking
for and i'm hoping we can get there
and then i also wanted to make a comment
and ask a question
um regarding the public comment about
the underlying
uh we're using in these um foundational
goals
and if i thought that most of these
documents were fairly current
um the mobility master plan is brand new
the strategy plan is planned brand new
and if um can fill in
how new is the comp plan
that might help us understand better
whether we are dealing with
fairly new resources to base our goals
upon because
i would rather not go back and rewrite
the premise
we've got a lot of work going forward we
have to do a little trusting
that the work that's been done to this
point is something that we can use
so that's it thank you
thank you commissioner milligan we have
um
two other commissioners that they choose
to speak please let me know
okay well i'll just say real quickly for
my piece this is commissioner voice
is that i agree with a lot of what my
fellow commissioners have just said i
really appreciated
um the public comment as well there is
one area that i'm a little concerned
about
and i'll explain why and that is the the
part
where i think the city sometimes tries
for too many goals
and i'll give you an example so our
strategic plan calls out too
we want our environmental regulations to
be tough as commissioner milligan just
mentioned
and we also want more affordable housing
when i hear the streamlining the
processes to make these things
easier for developers to understand the
process i'm in full agreement
um but there's also things that i've
read in this document that talk about
how
developers are trying to maximize their
profit or they need to be
responsible for more outreach i think
the problem we're getting to
is expecting developers are going to
want to build in a city that is
notorious
of more affordable housing with tougher
regulations
and i just and again in a more regulated
atmosphere
i think you can get two i really do i
think you can get the environmental
regulations
and i think you can get the pricing the
affordability that we want the different
types of housing
but if we continue to ask developers to
do
more more and more you're not going to
get the affordable part
they will put that price in there
somewhere and that is my concern
like i said i think we can do a lot i
think there's people that want to build
in issaquah but just today i was talking
with
a developer in kirkland they have much
easier regulations and they don't have
our force at hillsides and like i said i
i'm perfectly fine having tough
regulations to build here
i think it's appropriate and i think
it's what our city wants
i think like i said we just needed to
understand if affordability is one of
our other strategic goals and visions
i don't think you're gonna get three out
of three i think you're going to get
closer to two out of three
because again you're going to make the
pool smaller of people who are going to
want to build here if you continue to
ask them to do more again this document
actually uses the phrase
they're maximizing profit and you know
we want better irrigation we want better
landscaping we want
the builder the developer to do the
outreach and the communications we want
more of that and more of this
and at some point again i don't know if
we're going to get the affordability
piece
because they will put that into
somewhere they'll put it into the cost
of the house
no one builds houses for fun just like
none of us go to work because it's a
hobby
i don't care how much you love your job
we all trade it for money
so that's my concern um but otherwise
there's a lot in this document that i
really like and
again i think the city laying out some
goals
um is appropriate and again i'm looking
forward to this being the beginning of
the conversation i also want to do a
little hat tip to commissioner lewis
because again
i would agree with commissioner milligan
it is hard to see that things
aren't there and i think the educational
part that joy had mentioned
is wonderful and there's definitely i
think this thing
needs more time to percolate allow us to
look at and see some of the wonderful
things that are in here and also like i
said see some of the things that might
be a little contradictory or harmful
so thank you
and because i'm the chair i will ask
again do we have anybody else that wants
to speak
lewis has a question
okay please commissioner lewis
thank you uh commissioner joy lewis here
um i
my question is another thing that i had
emailed staff about
um when i was diving into this from the
first round
was in regards to my comments on equity
and many we had talked about
about it when we met and i um
and then you were saying i think that
this i had suggested putting it in
with sustainability right before the
goals there's a whole section on
sustainability and i was saying i think
this would be a great place to put
a whole section on equity and um you
um were telling me you're like yes i
think that there's another place that we
could put this
so um in lieu of
my comments about equity to everybody i
wanted to give minnie the chance um to
say hey we heard this and we're going to
put this
in next time you see this we're going to
address it and we'll be able to
specifically have everybody comment on
it
or if it was still something that hadn't
the city hadn't committed to i wanted to
know if there was going to be an equity
piece involved in it
um sure uh um thank you
uh commissioner lewis um so yes we did
have a discussion about
equity and lens for all of the title 18
code update
and the umbrella goals that are in in
your packet
uh have that equity you know uh
predictability and and so it's an
overarching goal that
uh and the lens that we'll have to keep
with each one of these
um chapters as we go through it in terms
of
um land use regulations and equity
you know everyone's trying to figure
that out in terms of what does that mean
and and in terms of what does it mean
for issaquah
so um so if there is additional guidance
from
planning and policy commission in terms
of what that uh you know
uh could could mean so for instance uh
when we are doing the notification
uh to the community of a development
project that's going on
uh right now we're only notifying the
property owners
where if 40 of our population is renters
uh then we want to notify uh property
owners and renters and this is a comment
we've received from community members so
there are things for like that that we
would incorporate our
you know uh of the information that will
come to you that uh
that we're treating everyone the same in
terms of getting feedback reaching out
and getting information
um the other things that come into play
with equity and land use
regulations sometimes are you know are
we subjecting certain types of
um um uses and things to a more
more noise or more pollution and things
like that
and how do we do that uh not do that
harm to some
uh so those are things i think with the
land use code
and where the uses are allowed what does
it mean we're having a freeway split our
community and a half
and and what does it do to the air
quality and how do we want to handle
some of those and the health outcomes
from it
those are things we will be you know
looking at through our
lens as we are looking at at this but if
there are other ideas
that uh planning and policy commission
wants us to
we're all figuring it out in terms of
title 18
land use code update we have
since our discussion um commissioner
lewis i did bring it up with our
consultant
they have someone on their team that can
do some training
with the planning and policy commission
i think it'll be helpful to know
what type of training might be useful so
we can tailor it and make it meaningful
um on that so we're open to your ideas
of how you think
but there will be that filter of
predictability consistency
equity in all of our chapters as we
bring those forward to you for
consideration
well thank you director dollywall and
thank you commissioner lewis
again i'd like to ask one more time does
anyone have anything else to add before
we move along with the second part of
tonight's discussion commissioner
zaragoza has a comment
commissioner zaracoza please
thank you uh commissioner sarah gosa
here um so i
i feel torn by what knight and jason
both said i kind of agree with
both sides you know i know you're right
on and i feel exactly the same way but
then
i understand completely that you know
there will be costs
and so thinking about that and thinking
about the
education that we're we're looking for i
would i personally would like to
understand a little more
about where those costs come in so when
we're producing new buildings new homes
and we're talking about that cost
increase i i'd like to understand
exactly where those costs come from and
are there ways that we can mitigate that
as a city
you know is it coming to architecture
planning
if we're asking for more green space is
that a cost not because they have to
leave the land alone but they have to
process it in some way i know there's
definitely green um plans that
are affordable or or the take into
consideration kind of how
the natural environment will replace
certain things so you're going to be
planting less and
and the costs go down if i understood
more about those
costs i think i could more easily kind
of
affect that change that we're looking
for so that would be a good thing to
learn more about it
thanks
thank you commissioner sergoza would
anyone from staff like to
comment
sure um you know that's good point um we
have a chapter in the title 18
for affordable housing so that'll come
in uh to you
uh related to that and and policies that
we have in the comprehensive plan
there are tools that government can use
um
as incentives for instance there's a
multi-family tax exemption
uh you know how do we want to use that
tool where you don't have to pay taxes
for 12
years if you you know are have you
you have affordable housing there are
there are some
land use tools that we can have a
discussion on that can offset some of
those costs
um i think that the state law also
allows some reduction in fees and
kristin has um will be the point person
on that chapter so
if do you have anything else to add to
affordable housing
discussion sure well i just wanted to
say that so currently for affordable
housing we waive
all impact fees mitigation fees
plan review fees we waive most fees
unless it's a pass-through fee and it
goes to
some water district or you know the
school district actually the school
district waves their fees for affordable
housing as well so unless it's a
pass-through fee
for affordable housing we pretty much
waived that uh and then we have a few
other things whereas
um in some cases maybe a garage
lucy might have to correct me but in
some cases like maybe where a parking
garage is required they're allowed to do
a um carport sort of thing instead
for some of the affordable housing so
there we've made some
um definite hopefully we've made some
dents in what it costs
to do the affordable housing but we'll
still work on it
and if we oh please
um i just wanted to tag on not to get in
too deep into the weeds but just to
point out
that this was with the um because you
recently heard this on the
um electric vehicle code
um that was one of the components that
was in there was
trying to make it um cost neutral for
affordable housing
so we are beginning to do that but we
haven't had that
conversation comprehensively but i just
wanted to
um link this conversation back to a code
that you recently reviewed
thank you thank you miss loman that was
a three-tier effort from city staff
and want to thank all of them there um
so if we were to
be looking for all of these different
type of mitigation techniques as far as
trying to get the affordability of
housing down is there a single specific
place is this
all over the map or is there something
to commissioner sarah goes's point
is there a way we can be taught up and
trained a little bit better
um so we could have better answers or is
this something we just need to hunt down
in our large volume of are you wanting
to
are you wanting to this is kristen lisa
i apologize senior planner are you
wanting to
um see where we have all that in the
code because we can
i guess if yeah i guess just maybe an
email so
we could ask answer that question for
the commissioner that would be fantastic
okay can do i'd love to see it too okay
yes ms sloman
um uh you know i i think the point that
um the commission is bringing up just to
stay at a high level
is a is a one that um
we'll all be wrestling with over the
course of working on title 18
because there are trade-offs and
policy decisions that are inherently
embedded i think you've identified
the commission has identified a great
one some of the things that we want to
do
for a more urban
a more well-designed
efficient projects
could increase costs um another one
um that that you know
preserving trees and getting rid of um
existing parking lots in favor of
redevelopment
and structured parking if you have parts
of town where the main
trees on site are in the parking lots
um you know so there there are always
trade-offs and i think that that
is a good reminder to staff that we're
going to
need to figure out how in the process we
highlight
some of those policy and trade-off
discussions
great thank you thank you and thank you
for that example i know that was part of
our packet too is how we can properly
redevelop central izakawa to put
more density more you know more and more
in there in a
in a very nice and appealing
aesthetically way
and uh yeah to see that number that was
pretty wild to see 70
surface parking wow okay so we're going
to move along
and now this is part of our second
presentation and again that will be
followed by public comment and another
discussion
um actually you have one more question
from commissioner lewis
oh yeah okay maybe i should have just
had you do the senior planner lease and
i'm not doing very well i think i'm one
for four
um commissioner lisa commissioner lewis
please commissioner joy lewis would like
to say that the chair is doing a
fabulous job
and i just wanted to ask minnie um you
had
our first thing for tonight our first
agenda item really was to identify any
additional items and details to be
included
to the goals and outcomes chart and i
wanted to make sure that our discussion
helped facilitate that i know some of us
kind of voiced hey let's
let's keep asking let's keep talking
let's get more public involvement so i
don't know that we necessarily wrapped
it up with
a cute little bow like maybe it would
have been nice to be like here ad hoc
committee these are the
suggestions but if we if you need
something more from us is what i
basically wanted to double check or if
you felt like
we were able to build on it in a way
that you're able to find some successes
for my questions no i think um this is
many um i think we've got what
what what you all decide we're
discussing so
what we'll do is we'll some you know
this will be captured in the minutes
um for your uh part but we'll also add
it at the bottom of that chart to say
additional goals
from planning policy commission added on
june 24th
um and and you know i've been taking
notes but we'll make sure
all the discussion today is captured in
that in that chart so it stays in one
place
but like you said it you know if you
have more brilliant ideas which i'm sure
everyone has it's been really
encouraging to listening
to all the conversations and and all the
policy stuff that you've picked up
uh you know it'll be a fluid document
and so we can always come back and and
look at it i mean
and as we bring all those topics and and
um
chapters uh to you you know you'll be
going back to this
back and forth in terms of you know what
what were the overarching goals did we
capture them here so
so you know by the end of it we'll have
it all memorized
and and more greater bolder ideas added
to it i'm sure
um so thank you
i think we've got it
well thank you for that clarification
director dollywall
commissioner lewis and especially for
that vote of confidence
so now i would like to move along and we
will begin tonight's second discussion
and i believe this is also presented by
director dollywall
so i'll let you take it away
uh yeah so kristen i'm i should not
share my screen but do uh
share a file you said here your actual
share the application application and
not your screen yes
okay let's see
can you guys see my screen
yes right so this is the second topic
that we want it's not yet in the
presentation format so it's kind of
small
there you go okay great thank you thank
you
uh so uh moving on this is our second
topic that we wanted
um to bring forth to uh the planning and
policy commission and the community
members
um so as we begin to work you know start
our work on title 18 update
um the first series of meetings that uh
that we want to start in july but this
is a sample that we are doing this today
with this memo that we prepared to get
feedback to see if this format works
if this tool works and then instead of
just
doing a hypothetical analysis on it we
picked a topic subdivision
to use as a sample test case so the
purpose
of the gaps analysis is to identify um
where title 18 falls short for each
topic so you know there's
these goals the at a much higher bigger
picture
but then and then we've identified these
topics that we
are going to tackle and um so
this gaps analysis is going to be by
topic so we can have a meaningful
discussion about what does this mean how
do we apply it and and what not
um so the outcome of uh
of this exercise uh is
that we can capture the observations
seek input from you
from the community members and other
stakeholders and really identify what's
missing and needs improvement before we
start drafting the code language
and next slide so we included in your
uh packet uh the code update memo
uh which we we're hoping that it can be
a tool for educating
uh you know instead of giving you 30
pages document of here are the policies
for
comprehensive plan and for a strategic
plan that we
are short and succinct but we capture
things that
we felt are the missing gaps
so it includes a topic there's a summary
of the city's vision for that topic
then we have a summary of the gaps or
observations from the state law
from the five adopted long-term planning
documents
the comprehensive plan strategic plan
central essequal plan
park strategic plan mobility master plan
and hopefully we had climate action plan
but which is in the works but that's
uh captured in this number third item
which is the
the uh golden outcomes chart that we
just um
were discussing and then also capturing
stats observations
and a uh there's a whole uh section in
there for public comments
uh and we want that to be you know
really a robust section
of these gaps analysis because we want
to hear from everyone of what
what uh from their perspective is
missing or needs to be adjusted
then we've identified an up you know an
approach to
that particular topic how are we going
to handle the update
um and again like i said the purpose
here is to get the policy direction and
input from planning and policy
commission from our other boards that
we're doing jointly
these gaps analysis meetings with and
also from the public
um we will try and add some additional
resources for
further learning for if you really want
to get
more information on it so the first
topic
uh is subdivisions um just a really
brief outline
in summary of what is a subdivision for
folks that um don't do this for a living
and
and but maybe living in one um so it's
really a
division of land into separate parcels
so it's the state law that you can't
sell lease or finance
uh a portion of your lot or a land
unless you go through the subdivision
process and the intent there is that
there are utilities access you know fire
access
to water sewer before you can allow
development and um and division of land
so there are essentially four different
categories of of how these are done
so subdivision is more than nine lots
under the state law
in our city essequal we have anything
more than four lots as a subdivision
short flat is really less than four lots
um
but it can be less than nine lots uh
under the new uh state law guidance
and then binding site improvement plan
is a long word but
um but it's really mostly used for
commercial and industrial
uh properties where there's common
shared access
and they're really um you know a large
property owner owns a larger property
and they're leasing portions of
land for uh to different tenants um
so that's a tool that's used in those
circumstances and then sometimes
um you know boundary lines need to be
adjusted
um so those are called boundary line
adjustments
so what does the all the how does this
all this play into
issaquah um you know as you can see this
is our annexation
uh history map uh the city has evolved
over the years
um so there used to be the original
township and then
you know in 85 uh 15 1959
portions of the um area became
added on and as areas got added on
they also got planted as there are some
pre-existing you know really old plants
from 1950s to 60s uh
to newer development um like the
uh the issaquah highlands or the talus
but
the larger portions of the land then got
divided up into these
uh pieces but but what also it means is
that the utilities came to these
areas water sewer power and all those
kind of things
um so this is just a snapshot of it's
such an organic thing but it shapes the
landscape and the
uh and the environment for many many
generations to come
um and so here's a map uh that lucy
helped me
sort of identify you know where are some
of the
uh some of these um subdivisions so you
can kind of see
even in these larger areas
there are these smaller um portions that
got planted and then they got added on
and so on and so forth
um so this is another example of
what a plant looks like so you preser
you know in this particular case you
have an
access road you have your homes uh the
way the la
the roads are laid out um and
where the open space is preserved uh how
the buffers from these critical areas
uh the streams and the wetlands are
preserved if they are kept in an um
in an um tract that's owned and managed
by the homeowners association
all of that gets reviewed through this
uh planning process
uh here's another example where you know
things happen over a period of time
uh there's one subdivision that gets uh
approved
and then the next one comes in you know
five years later or maybe two years
later
um by another developer and and how this
type of
incremental uh planning
decisions are made and how they talk to
each other and how these roads
and other connections connect with each
other becomes um
an important part of our review
and you know the subdivisions are really
a technical thing
at some level because the surveyors have
to go in and set the corners so
it's really clear where your property
lines are how the homes are set up
what the tracks are who's responsible
for owning and maintaining them
if there's a wetland and they was
enhancements done
then there are bonds and you know
monitoring that goes on for a longer
period of time and who's responsible for
those the developer
or the homeowners so all of those things
get sorted out through this uh
subdivision process and what does it
look like on the ground
so the the the plat that you looked at
you know that
incrementally there were four different
plants that happened
this is what's there now so you know as
part of the
construction permit we look for ada
accessibility
how wide the sidewalks are how this
critical area
uh tractors preserved what do these
homes look like where do the garages
need to be
how far the setback needs to be so those
are like design
criteria that we think could be
a conversation needs to be had about
what that looks like for
issaquah moving forward
in terms of how we process subdivisions
now like i said the state law is up to
nine lots
um can be done as a short plan anything
more than nine lots is a subdivision in
issaquah it's four
um but it's a two-step process so you
have a preliminary plant approval
and then comes the final plant and what
do these mean
so preliminary plant is really when most
of the work
occurs it's it's although it's a
conceptual plan
it shows the proposed development the
amenities
um there's a public hearing
but this is where we're looking for you
know is the access adequate
um does uh it meet the open spaces are
the is the drainage going to work are
the roads
um the the right size type location
design
is the water and the sewer available uh
are there sidewalks
is the public interest being served so
majority of the work
occurs at this preliminary plan it's a
hearing anyone can
weigh in and our current process is that
the hearing examiner makes that decision
so after they get the the preliminary
plant approval they go in
and apply for a construction permit to
build all that
infrastructure so what you don't see is
things that are buried under the ground
the water lines in the sewer lines
that's the basic premise of a
subdivision that you can't
develop until all that infrastructure is
in place
so to file a final plat the developer
has to construct
sometimes they bond for a few things
like the final overlay on the road
because they don't want to ruin the road
while they're bringing in all the
construction equipment to build the
homes
so they'll bond for a few things like
that
they may bond for a long-term monitoring
for a critical area that
they may have planted as a result of
their plat
planning process but once all of that is
done
then that document that i showed you is
actually recorded with king county
records and at that point they become
separate lots until then they can't be
sold as separate lots
they're all one lot so this is a
snapshot of how
our the process kind of plays out so you
know they apply
we have a community outreach we we hold
a public hearing
then there's a decision of preliminary
approval
the work in the ground occurs all that
infrastructure
road water sewer all that stuff is built
they get the final plat approval
then it gets recorded and at that point
they can sell the lots and then
sometimes we
we have these outstanding bonds for
those items that i mentioned
uh short flats are similar to a
subdivision
except for the number of lots um and and
a more streamlined more usually an
administrative process
but it still has those two preliminary
short flat approval and a final short
flat approval
the idea being that your infrastructure
needs to be in place
before you can uh build on those new
lots
um here's an example of a short plaid so
you know these
this is a four lot short flat uh the
road in here
had to meet the fire um truck turned
around so if someone you know if you
pull in the fire truck needs to be able
to back out and get back in
um and this is what the four lot
short flat really looks like uh an
access attract
usually if it's a private uh road it's
owned and managed by the homeowners here
or if it's a public street it'll it
usually is not
tracked because here it says private
access and utilities
so those are all things that are looked
at through this subdivision
process um here are some examples of
more
projects that are currently under
construction that if you're out and
about
feel free to kind of look at those to
see what from your opinion is working or
what needs to be fixed
so this is a 34 unit single family
development
um in in the west lakes of amish
uh if the final plant was approved in
2021 and and some of these homes are
under construction
um and here's a a development in talus
um called panorama i had 63 homes
they got their final plant in looks like
2015
and they are doing uh the construction
and this is what uh
that development looks like from um and
with the homes under construction at
this time
uh and but the road and all that
infrastructure isn't
was built before the final plant was uh
approved
westridge up in essequa highlands again
73 single-family homes 38 of them are
affordable
um again these were approved in
last year and are under construction
um so those are some examples this is
the same
same development uh some more pictures
of what the plant looked like
what the road layout looks like what the
home construction looks like on the
ground
this is another project which is a
phased
development so we will be having a
discussion with you of how
phasing should work and um
so the second phase which you see the
pictures here
is under construction uh the third phase
is still being
um reviewed and they do not have the
approval for the third phase which is
uh this portion up here um
so so that gives you a sample of what
subdivisions are
what they are mean in isoqua's context
and um so here's uh our first attempt at
what we think
uh the update approach should look like
for this for this topic
so short flats you know the maximum
can be increased to nine lots so we need
your feedback from
on what how you think um that should go
uh the decision whether the final plaid
should be a hearing examiner or an
administrative decision
um what the subdivision design
section should look like this is the one
i think the most meatier section
that we would um we would be looking at
in terms of
how isequa has developed what what has
worked what hasn't worked what we really
aspire
our the neighborhood design to look like
um
so the circulation street design garage
orientation
lot design placement of the building
open space
utilities relationship to the street all
of that
this item the next one unit lot
subdivision process
what really this is is for
say you a developer wants to build town
homes
if we allow a unit lot subdivision
then those attached town homes can be
sold as
individual town homes and they will own
the land underneath
their home right now we facilitate that
through a condominium process
so you know attached town homes are sold
are built as a condominium
the the land is held in common ownership
even though the state law is is
improving for condominiums
but what we hear from developers is that
from a from an insurance perspective and
and other pit places it's a hindrance to
getting
town homes built they can still do it
but it's it's a lot
easier if we allow unit lot subdivision
process so
we want to explore that with the
community here
uh and then obviously we want to
streamline and have the best practices
um we want to have a really clear and
succinct
decision criteria so when staff is
preparing their staff reports
uh you know it's easier and we can give
issue these permits
quicker and faster because it's all in
one place it's been vetted out we're not
going searching for it in different
places
we also want to clean up how we handle
expirations
and phasing of different developments so
that's our
first take at what we think uh our
approach should be
on this so we've laid out four policy
questions for
uh planning policy commission tonight
and that's by no means the end all and
be all but that's a start
so the first question is um
the state law was changed to allow nine
new lots
to be created by the short plat process
in essequa we only allow four lots
anything more than four goes through a
whole subdivision process
which um i think master builders
association and others
have um written urging that the process
it the outcome could still be the same
the standards could still be the same
but the process itself
is too long uh for uh the
um the outcome that we get out of that
and a lot of cities
have gone to the nine lot uh threshold
uh many years ago
um so that's something for a sequel to
consider do we want to go that path or
not
um so that's uh item number one
policy question one uh
it's the second one
well i went back sorry
second question so
the second question was should we change
the city uh
code to make the final plat approval and
administrative approval
so again that's streamlining the process
uh but it's really not
going to change any of the outcome the
final plat
approval process is really at the very
tail end
we're verifying that all the conditions
of preliminary plat approval were
were met um the inspectors
are have already verified that all the
construction and the infrastructure was
built per code and what was
required during the preliminary plan
approval um
right now the final plats also uh go to
the hearing examiner
and it's a it's a hearing process so
that's
the second question um
the third one is um
is how do we lay out the streets and the
connections from the neighborhood
um you know do we continue with these um
streets or do we do we have more
stronger
requirements for making connections with
your
adjoining neighborhoods uh whether it's
by road by whether it's pedestrian
connections
how do we not create islands of
development but actually well connected
um again for climate change perspectives
and and all of those kind of things too
uh and and the neighborhood character um
so fewer dead ends more connected
streets uh block design what do we want
to do there
and then the fourth policy question is
you know there has been the development
with the isaqua highlands with the talus
and and some of the uh the other
subdivisions that have been in place for
a very long period of time
so we're going to continue to see some
of that uh residential development and
plants come through but should the shift
in focus be more on infill development
and by infill development we mean
um you know smaller you know two lot
short flats here and there
um and and the policies should reflect
being more
pro infill more streamline process
uh easier uh process but also what those
standards look like
um so those are four um you know
policy questions we've laid out to start
the discussion
but again we're we want to hear from
everyone what your
other ideas are what issues you've seen
living in the community
that you think need to be addressed as
part of the subdivision chapter
so with that chair that concludes uh my
presentation
and i will turn that over to you to
facilitate
that discussion
well thank you director dollywall on two
fantastic presentations
learned a lot and i'm sure
the fellow colleagues did as well so
right now i'd like to open it back up
for public discussion
and ask senior planner lee sin if we
have anyone out there who would like to
make a public comment
yes um ken esseman would like to speak
so mr essiman i'm going to make you a
presenter at panelist
uh just there we go and you are now
unmuted thank you can you hear me
yes i sent a
note to the planning and policy
commission
this morning and i didn't necessarily
want to
use my time to uh walk through those
comments
uh but i just want to sort of frame uh
the comments that i made
um i commend uh previous
uh residents connie and anne for their
comments about
climate and environment i'm coming
at my comments from maybe a different
angle
i'm a user of the city code
uh simply because i take care of the
property up in
uh talus for the homeowners association
so i get to see a lot about
where the code works uh and
where we could do better
my comments are mostly about
the flaws in the development process
those caused us
a financial burden uh and
just a whole lot of work to make things
right so
um i do appreciate the comment that was
made
by one of the members of the commission
about making sure that we don't
adjust the code to the point where
housing becomes
unaffordable but i do want to say
that when developers do things on the
cheap
uh someone ends up paying for it so
you may be able to lower the purchase
price but then there's a burden on
either the homeowner the home the
community or the city
when it is done wrong so i just
wanted to reply to that comment
um but as uh a person who's been taking
care of the property in talus
uh there's a list of things in there uh
that i've observed and
would ask that you read through
and make suggestions on
and they're based just on spending time
in the community and having to fix
things or observe things that
bring undue risk to the city and
to our community and the homeowners
i i do want to just sort of
close my comments by saying and and i
did include that in
my written comments um it's important
that the municipal code
um works for the residents
um it needs to
uh uh first and foremost
uh guide the development process uh
to ensure that what gets built is what
we want
uh that it gets built well uh and
when the product is done that
it's it's the result that we all want in
issaquah
that being said the code also needs to
work for those people that live here
and when the code is too onerous too
confusing
and it ties up a resident for an undue
period of time just because it's clunky
that doesn't serve the residents well
and
that's not the definition of good
municipal code so
i just offer that i guess the last thing
i want to comment on
is i accept the fact
that the code may not always be perfect
and serve the residents
but i would ask that there's always a
safety valve in there
so that when a resident gets tangled up
in trying to do something
that there is a way to appeal to a
higher authority
uh someone who has the ability to make a
reasonable decision
uh and and there's a way uh
to get a workaround for things that are
just daunting
complex confusing and
and tangles uh in the code so
um i'll close my comments by saying
uh the work on title 18 is important
i think there's great benefit that can
come out of the code
i would just implore you to look around
the city ask yourself what don't you
like
what's been built recently and how
should the code
change so that we don't get more of that
we get more of what we really want thank
you
i don't see anyone else miss marsh still
has her hand
oh she took it down i believe miss marsh
would like to speak
just a moment please
yes i should be there okay
now my understanding is
that that you want to know if
this presentation uh
works this this
um the way you presented
subdivisions works uh and it does not
work for me
i can tell you that um
i think learning is very hard
and most of the people who are going to
be hearing this
are going to know less than planning
policy
commission even uh so
the way to
learn is to interact not
to do a powerpoint presentation and
expect
people to be able to absorb uh
for example what does everybody think a
subdivision is
and then you can have a conversation
that is in engaging
and then when you talk about
the the the meat of the matter
uh you don't just show pictures of
places
and maps of places you give
an action like do you think this is a
subdivision
or is this something else and then
we have complications we have things
called development agreements
and so the development agreements
followed different processes
that weren't in the subdivision
code the development agreement
subdivisions didn't have neighborhood
meetings for example which is what
required in the subdivision i was just
reading the code again because i love to
read the code
and so i'm a little curious as to
to all of that but it would make a great
conversation well why is that so how
did that happen what the heck is a
development agreement if that is not an
agreement to be able to subdivide
land into certain things and why is that
different than the subdivision
because subdivisions don't stand alone
right
and so it's very hard to learn about a
subdivision when you aren't learning
about
its linkages and also
zoning right and so for me
you have to give a structure maybe from
the top okay what is the most basic
thing we look at in the code
and then you go finer and finer and
finer until
people get the idea of of the rules
to me if i had never heard of a
subdivision before
i would just be hanging there going i'm
really going to have to read all that
again and then i'm going to have to go
read the code and then i'm going to have
to drive around to
understand pretty much anything of what
you're talking about
and then after you have this great
conversation about what is it
and everybody seems to have a grasp of
what a subdivision is and you can check
in with them because they actually
have participated then you could say and
you know
what do you think we should be doing
with our subdivisions because
subdivisions aren't just a thing
subdivisions are a process
and you didn't really talk about the
community part of the process
except for going to the hearing examiner
and so
a subdivision in theory has a
neighborhood meeting
and then what happens for the community
do they ever get to see it again
or does it just get done and there's no
feedback loop
does it matter does it if there's 200
units is it different than
three and so for me it
it did not give me
the information that i would need to
tell you what i thought subdivisions
should be but i think that there are
ways to educate people
i don't think you have to go through it
every time if you
created that kind of a conversation
with the first meeting that you have on
a topic
you could put it in a can and people
could watch
that sort of engaged version and then
they would be able to
speak more intelligently because they
also would have learned so it's like the
sesame street of planning
you know you don't have to sing you
don't have to dance but in order to get
people to learn
that are just like people then i think
i think that would be much more
effective now i didn't know that we were
going to be
actually speaking also on the
technicalities of subdivisions
but in a quick one my long-standing
issues with subdivisions are the
sufficiency standards
for when people put in an application
are
terrible and we get into heaps amounts
of trouble
by having poor sufficiency standards
they can they can put in
anything and all the time i get it well
you know what they put in was terrible
well then it shouldn't be in should it
it shouldn't be something
that that is accepted that needs to be
better from the beginning
our neighborhood meeting is going to
continue to be required
even without critical areas
um the designated official or
responsible official had made has made
some
fascinating alterations
in what people have been allowed to do
so
either that should be removed or there
should be some very specific and very
transparent
require criteria for being able to make
those decisions because
to ken's point sometimes things need to
change
but but you cannot just
like make a broad spectrum change that
nobody knows anything about and then
surprise everybody
um and i say yes keep the hearing
examiner because we need a
a fresh eye to ensure
that things are not being dropped we
have an example where we filled in a
stream
and um because we wanted people to be
able to come out of their apartments
onto the street
but in the end it didn't happen because
it got dropped out of the design now
having a hearing examiner review that
final plant
would that have caught that thing i
don't know
but i think you do need an eye that's
fresh to look at these things and then
um
i don't really understand in this
subdivision
how master site plans and development
agreements work together
with uh the subdivisions
and
there what is explain the process for
people to see
ah yeah i already said that um connected
streets there's a caution
connected streets meaning cut through
traffic
so then you're going to have people
asking for speed bumps and
neighborhood speeding programs and
so any place that we have connected
streets
when we get congestion people want to
bomb through those connected streets so
you know you're going to have an
issue if you connect
everything like that so you got to be
cautious
and know the sneaky people are gonna cut
through connected streets
and how are you gonna solve that and um
hopefully that resonates with somebody
out there in the world thank you oh wait
i have one more thing
the land use code uh the land use
element in the comprehensive plan was
last really updated in 2015
so it's old and also the housing element
it says 2015. so
reasonably old and i'm not sure what to
do about that but you all can solve it
thank you
well thank you to both of our our
speakers i'd like to ask
senior planner lisa if there is anyone
else signed up to speak
no one else is currently signed up if
you would like to speak if you could
raise your hand
and if you have trouble finding the
raise your hand button as i always do
you can type to me in the chat
and i'll give you a minute here
i'm not seeing anyone okay well thank
you
and i need to go first to commissioner
milligan who's been waiting waiting so
patiently she had a question
um that i had missed so two for five
i'm two for five so commissioner million
miss commissioner milligan thank you
chair
boyce you are your score is a perfect
score so far
um i had just a process question i have
comments that i'll hold for later i was
going to ask it
the reason he's apologizing is that i
wanted to ask it before a comment
uh public comment because it was just a
process question that had to do with the
presentation
and i wanted a reiteration the question
is what are we doing tonight
and i wanted to make it clear to the
audience and to myself
whether we are evaluating a subdivision
code
or how the subdivision code was
presented to us
so i just wanted that to be come out
clearly right now so we can know what
we're going to comment on
in the comment period thank you
director daliwa yeah i can answer that
this is minnie
um you both so we want to know whether
this
uh the presentation the actual memo that
we gave you will that format
work for the next six series of meetings
that we've
uh set up for the gaps analysis with
the planning policy commission um and
and you know the first one is with the
environmental board the second one is
with the parks board
then the next three are with the
development commission so we're going to
bring in
topics for each one of those meetings so
we want to see if this format of giving
you this memo by topic
but that lists all the you know the gaps
then we present it
and then have a discussion is the right
format and
two the more you know instead of just
talking hypothetically
we thought we'll pick a topic
subdivisions was something we
figured maybe the easier one um because
there are a lot more complicated ones
uh that will be bringing forth that
maybe this could be a test case of
actually getting through this
substantive issues as well
thank you director dollywall i hope that
answered your question commissioner
million and i'd like to go to
commissioner lewis who has a question
thank you chairperson boys commissioner
joy lewis here
my question is also procedural for you
our esteemed chair
right now as i see it not only has many
set up four questions for us but also
one's comments on the template
and i'm curious if you would like to
hear from us one by one or if you want
us to ramble about all five points
um so i would love for you to tell us
how you want us to kind of approach
this next part let's do this and i
appreciate the
challenge commissioner lewis let's try
having
let's do a round robin see with some
initial feedback
and then we'll open it up towards the
end for just open debate
we're open discussion since we're not
having a debate but
um yeah maybe we'll just start and
commissioner lewis
i know you have some thoughts so we'll
start with you
and then i'll look for our esteemed
colleagues to put up their hands and
like i said i'll just
you can go through their initial
questions and then at the end we can
have just kind of a
free-for-all how does that sound i like
it you know
you know i always have something to say
i'm going to start then with a template
right so i'm going to start that and see
how we all want to respond to it
and i want to say that i felt like there
was a couple of things missing
so one thing that's um i had commented
to staff about ahead of us doing any of
this was that i really wanted to see a
history
right so diving into this i wanted um
the same way that our packets often have
a background right
we have a whole section that tells us
about it i was missing that from this
on the subdivisions i come at this as
somebody
who um knows a lot more than maybe the
average person
and i learned something going through
all of the links that staff sent
going through things that members of the
community sent doing my own research
so there's a lot more to be learned and
i did feel that that was missing from
this um from in our packet um
what i also felt was missing was this
kind of basic thing in the gaps analysis
when we look at things so kind of saying
um
why do we have what we have now and how
you know how has it been how has it
evolved
um and why um why are we choosing to
either stick with it or change it right
how has the effect been so i'm i'm
wondering if the gaps analysis can
actually have
everything addressed like a why is this
and how is this kind of a thing um
you know i think that the discussion on
moving um from four to nine
is a really good example of that right i
would love to see pros and cons right i
would love rather than having staff tell
me
what do you think right and having me be
like oh my gosh i need to figure this
out i need to deep dive into things
um what other people done or whatever i
would love for staff to be able to say
here are pros one way here cons another
right and being able to have this kind
of
red team blue team approach when we're
doing our gaps analysis i really found
that missing
from the template so i'd like to build
in more into our gaps analysis
of not only that history where are we
coming from why are we changing it
what is our achieved what is our outcome
i think is really missing from
that um and i hope if that's not very
clear
um let me know um but i think that we
need more of a historical reference
and then we're able to have the
therefore this is why we're doing this
and this is how we want to achieve it
um i think that needs to be more
relevant in the template
thank you commissioner lewis that's
wonderful fantastic suggestions and i
wholeheartedly agree who is our brave
commissioner that would like
to follow commissioner lewis's great
suggestions
commissioner milligan please
this is commissioner milligan you know i
it may not seem like it to you but i'm
actually holding back
and hoping that another commissioner
jumps in first you guys got to be
quicker because i can only hold back so
long
thank you uh and thanks for the
clarification
and the mission tonight
now i'm going to start by addressing
a feedback about the gaps analysis and
how it was presented
as an example of how they would be
presented
and then i'm going to just dive right
into
why i might not comment so much on
tonight's
subdivision improvements for that
first of all i really liked
the initial layout and this the way that
this
information was organized and especially
the tabular form
and i want to point to that because that
was the most meaningful and easiest to
follow for me
and i am going to suggest that
um some more information
go into that tabular form when it goes
into narrative
and it has just a number in the front of
it it doesn't give us
as helpful at context as as a as a
reader
the stuff in the tabular was much more
easier
related to that was the presentation
that director dollywall brought in for
us now that was much more robust
information it was way more than what we
got in our package
and had i had all that information i
might have something
substantive to say about subdivisions
tonight so
and feedback again about the way that
the information is presented
i'd like to see more information in the
packet
and um this relates to something that
commissioner lewis said
is that the conversations about
ancillary issues about
plat applications and zoning limits and
how they
impact subdivisions that's in the
narrative but if it was in the
more robust as robust as the
presentation was so that the public
could read it
and not have to come to the meeting and
know what's going on um
i think it's only fair to have it in the
document
so that's um some ideas for
let me see if i have one more about that
okay okay then uh one more idea about
the the way that the information is
presented and i think
commissioner lewis also touched on this
but this is a really important thing for
me
is that i i would always like to know
how are other
cities doing it how are our neighborhood
city neighbor cities doing is really
relevant in the
um where do we draw the line for
subdivisions is it at four or is it at
nine who's adopting the state
regulation i i'd really like to know
that and it would be nice if you all
would bring that in that
um chart
commissioner zaragoza has a question
okay
are you gun casher million
are we good yes
i am good but i just wanted to say in
closing that i
have not brought substantive comments
about the subdivision
um proposals because i didn't feel like
i had enough information in my
preparations
thank you great thank you okay
commissioner sarah goes there
thank you mr zaragoza um
so i i'm just going to kind of mirror
what
uh mr lewis and milgan have said
i really enjoyed the the the
presentation
we just got there was lots of good
information there i would have liked it
definitely before um it really kind of
set my head in the right place to
to review the document um so i felt much
better about
this after that than i did before so um
certainly agree with uh adding that to
the next time around
um as far as the
commissioner loses comments and pros and
cons i agree with that too
but also i really liked the way the um
the previous document the the goals were
set up where you see the issues you see
the objectives and then you have
um the staff recommendations
i i would really like to see a little
bit more about that what we're trying to
solve
um with these things um so i really like
the format but maybe
a couple more sections added to that to
discover some of those pros and cons or
the problems or the uh as commissioner
lewis said
the history behind it thanks
thank you commissioner serragoza now i'd
like to go to commissioner monaghan
thank you chair um so
i agree with all my colleagues that more
information is generally better
but i guess the one thing i'd ask us to
bear in mind
um and having been you know a litigator
going to trial a number of times i know
that
the end product that i ended up showing
to a judge was usually finished around 4
30 a.m
the day before or the morning before and
so
um i wanted us to be cognizant of
resources
uh both the staff and the the
consultants and understanding that these
projects probably take a really long
time to put together
uh and probably isn't ready for prime
time until maybe you know close a
business today
and so i i want to get more information
i want to be more informed but i also
want to be cognizant that resources are
not
infinite and so i recognize that some
things are just not going to be ready
until you know the publicly noticed
hearing
and so i just ask that staff remind us
gently or harshly at times when what
we're asking for
is reasonable where you know we can we
can fit that into our planning but at
the same time i mean i'm just looking at
this
calendar and it is jam-packed and i can
only imagine the hours you guys are
pulling and we'll have to pull so i just
ask that you keep us honest um and and
our expectations are reasonable so
that's all i had
thank you
thank you commissioner monahan i'd point
well taken
and i do want to say that it sounds like
just in that first initial
going director dollywall sounds like a
rock star of a presenter so
just a hat tip to you um your presenting
machine
is what it sounds like so well done and
as far as
kind of what i'm thinking i appreciate
commissioner monahan's point because i
think sometimes again
i think we can sit here until we're blue
in the face asking for more more
more and sometimes you know we have been
entrusted to make
certain decisions for the public to keep
that moving and again
this has been a year where our resources
especially the city have been cut in
half
however i will say i do like kind of
what commissioner lewis and milligan had
alluded to
i do like having a history and i think
commissioner sergoza said it
as well not only do i have like having a
history
i like the pros and the cons i mean i
don't think it's staff
trying to subconsciously change my mind
i just i appreciate kind of the flow of
information it's helpful
and again i always like to have a little
bit of background information when
making decisions like i said as far as
the agenda packets the last two years i
think they're phenomenal i mean i enjoy
reading the background what's expected
what's desired from staff you know
again it kind of keeps our meetings
focused um
we're capable all on our own of going in
all sorts of directions so it's helpful
from staff to kind of help us sometimes
with that
so having said that i'm just going to
give i'll be brave
i'm gonna give my first four just basic
what i'm thinking um kind of seeing some
of our neighbors
some of the neighbors that i think have
done a good job as far as city planning
and development
i think it's probably welcome to approve
or
move short plots from four to nine such
as kirkland bellevue some of the cities
that i admire
and think have done a well good job i
also think
the hearing as far as the final plat
decision making could be an
administrative process
again i'm happy to have continued to
have these conversations but the gut
feeling
is this is really more if anything this
is the work's already been done i mean
this is someone going through to check
do a checklist and again this whether
it's a hearing examiner or someone with
the
you know administrative decision they
are going to check to make certain
things done i mean that's why we have
city inspectors i think this could
probably be done to free up resources
and also streamline the process
as far as having different layouts for
communities that's an interesting one
because i think
you see a lot of dead spaces with some
of the older type of communities that
use cold cul-de-sacs
use i don't know but how do you say it
but it almost kind of makes
well i guess the word was island so a
word that's starting to be used a lot
more these days is equity so to have
these integrated neighborhoods kind of
seems like a good idea especially when
we're talking about the green necklace
making our city
more transversable so kind of looking at
that is probably a positive thing
it kind of is able to cut down on
vehicle traffic and again
make our city more connected and then
finally yes i think
probably a shift to looking towards
infill
is appropriate we want to start looking
at ways
because again our we do have a dwindling
land supply
and the goal is to start in filling the
central isoqua
area with more density so again starting
to kind of turn our focus that way
and again by all means we're not
ignoring other
developments such as talus such as
what's going on up at westridge
it's just yes should cities start
looking at ways we can start putting
some of that density where we want it
i think that's probably appropriate so
again right now just a gut feeling but
that's kind of where i am at
and now i think we'll just open it up to
general discussion
amongst all of us so please
anybody with a comment
or a question
commissioner monahan has a comment
commissioner please thank you kristen
thank you chair uh yeah so i guess i'll
give my substantive feedback
on questions one two and four i'm still
noodling
four or sorry three um on one
i'd and this probably goes to something
that joyce said earlier i'd really like
to know
why we're moving from four to nine um
i've read the legislative record
when the state changed it and i can't
find any substantive information about
why they
why they did it except the vote was near
unanimous i think only three senators
voted against it and the house passed
unanimously so
i'd really like to understand why we
think moving from four to nine is a good
idea other than the state allows us to
do so
i can come up with some reasons but i'm
not a developer and so i'd really be
curious
not only from staff but frankly from
members of the community you know
people who this would impact i'd like to
hear the why
not just do it because we can
necessarily
uh on two i i think i agree with the
chair that it makes sense to move it to
administrative process
um like i said three i'm still thinking
four yes i think we should
try to future proof might be the wrong
word
but anticipate the types of you know
work that's going to be done in the
future so if infill is you know the
latest and greatest and we should move
in that direction but i also don't want
us to lose
um presumably the lots of hard work that
went into
developing you know the code to i don't
know if there's going to be another
highlands or another talus or whatever
coming but
i i'd hate to just delete that and
replace it with something else and then
have to reinvent it later on so i don't
know if that means making different
sections
um or distinguishing some way but i
certainly think it makes sense to start
thinking about the future projects and
and build the code to incorporate the
lessons learned from the bigger
developments but then also recognize
that you know it's not a one size fits
all and so we might have to
change up a little bit so that's all i
had thank you
thank you commissioner monahan and from
there we're gonna go to commissioner
lewis
thank you chairperson voice commissioner
joy lewis here
um to go down the list um i want to say
that
i spent a lot of mental energy on this
very first one
i honestly think that we could have
quite a bit of discussion about it
because i do feel that there was some
missing
um pieces from staff on this right so
um i understand why developers
would be proponents of it i see um
a big setback as far as saying
why right what do we gain from this what
do we gain from cutting from cutting
this out
i'd like to actually have the data of
isquas saying this is the resources we
would save right this is the amount of
money
that um it's costing our taxpayers
because um because we're having to go
through a different process
beyond the four i'd like to actually be
able to quantify it
to give a reason to say why we would
move to the nine right rather than just
well i guess everyone else is doing it
it's kind of been okay
so um without um without that data it's
hard for me to kind of
to move on it um unless again this kind
of goes to more
questions of having a discussion about
the search point is to say
well are we able to not do it city-wide
and instead pick
um an example area right let's can we
pick a neighborhood to say
everywhere else is four but this is
going to be nine and let's see what we
get right
are we able to kind of um create um
um an area versus doing it city-wide i
don't know if that's possible
but i think that this is definitely
worth a discussion as far as like have
we found that the
public is asking for this have we found
the council's asking for this
um you know staff didn't provide us with
saying hey here's
um here's why we're considering this
other than
we can you know telling me that um that
the
development lobby is strong and was able
to get governor ensley to move on this
doesn't exactly entice me right
um so um i do think that it's worth a
deeper dive is to say what are we going
to be
getting from this i'd like to see hard
numbers of saying this is the benefit
this is why we want to move this way
because i don't i didn't even
necessarily get from staff
that the city administration is really
behind it it was more like
well what do you think right so i think
we should
talk about it that was kind of my
thought on it
right now i'm not inclined towards it um
without
more substantial information um
as far as moving from administrative
again
i am unless i'm missing something i
didn't see anything
in my packet where um council was saying
our workload is too much we cannot do
this
i didn't see anything saying um staff
has been overburdened by preparing the
packets to go to council
this is what we would gain right i
didn't see any kind of data that said
using a hearing examiner is costing us
this what i did see
was a couple things one having a hearing
examiner requires there to be
um a public hearing i don't think that
should be cut out i think that's a vital
part of the process
um and so saying well the same you know
right now the builders
association was telling us we're going
to get the same results i disagree i'm
not seeing the same result because what
i'm seeing is that right now
um there's no public hearing for the
shortcut application i'm seeing that
right now
if you change it to the administrative
then were constrained by a 30-day
timeline
um and for approval process um i also
saw that if there's
um there another is no process that's
being set out in state law so that means
we get to make our own regulations for
this
um so then i think that that needs to
have a whole other meeting and
discussion
um and i think council needs to set some
parameters to give back to us to be able
to advise and get some feedback from the
community
of saying what should that look like for
issaquah we can make this whatever we
want right so if we are going to take
out a hearing examiner
but these are the things we like like
for instance there's no environmental
review now
um that the environmental review
requirements are different i should say
um is what we saw in in the packet that
well
we should we're going to require that
right how do we make this what we want
if we want to switch from the current
format
with a hurt hearing examiner that
doesn't mean that we have to drop all
those things to then have
that um that second application process
go to an administrator
so i would like to see more conversation
on this but right now i'm not inclined
to take out the hearing examiner
for the mere fact that it saves um time
in the application process
i did not see that as being an onerous
problem
but again maybe that data just wasn't
presented and it has been a big um
issue so um i would like to keep it with
the hearing examiner unless there's more
information being able to be provided or
again staff says hey
we can change this but we can make this
our own right because
it isn't state law to say that there is
one way to do it so how does isabella
right let's do it our way
um as far as the third one i think it's
really interesting this is one i'd ask
many about
about maps and visualizations um when
doing
um these short flat applications
you know the background i come into it
with is from uvdc
and the urban villages and the
development agreements had very specific
ways that we did short flats right so it
was very easy with very plug and play of
saying well this is how it's done we
were able to say does this fit
how we're doing it right um whereas now
we're going to be doing it in all these
tiny little areas and all these
communities are
very different right they already exist
right how do we control
the character how do we make sure that
we're getting the result that we want
meaning that in some places that
traditional winding cul-de-sac
may work in other places um you know the
block style grid may work
i appreciate too um wheel and spoke as
someone who lived in dc
it's a pain for cars but being able to
have a street where you have
everybody wheeled smoking into the bus
stop makes it a lot easier for
pedestrians right
so i think that there's a lot of
different ways we can approach it and
one thing i'd ask many for was well give
me an example right show me an area
that can be further subdivided versus
another and how does that look right i
don't think we have one uniform way the
same way that we have different
development standards in different areas
i think how we're going to be able to
sub um do the subplots is also going to
be
very different um so how do we
almost make an addendum to our um our
design
with this design does that make sense um
because we choose the word design twice
but um and the final one is infill i
would say yes to the city staff about
infill um
we know where we want to put our density
we know that we have a limited amount of
land to use
so let's start using the code to be able
to target where we want that building to
be
thanks very much everybody
thank you commissioner lewis and now we
will go to commissioner milligan
thank you commissioner milligan here
okay i said i wasn't going to say
anything because i didn't have enough
information in the packet i was just
being
it's going to be with this lively
conversation
with my fellow commissioners i am
emboldened to provide
some feedback but it's going to be a
little
underwhelming i agree with my
commissioners about
number one and number two that i didn't
feel convinced
by the packet and i still didn't feel
convinced by the
presentation of why we should go from
four to nine and i
um even if other cities um
did this why would we uh and i think
that it's important for us to get the
background on that earlier a member of
the public said
that we should focus our attention on
what's good for the residents what's
good for the city and that's the kind of
justification i'd like to see
we did hear from a member of the public
of why this is good for developers
but we're making these decisions for our
city and for our residents
and people who live here and i'd like to
know why it's a good decision for them
and why it's a good decision for the
city administratively cost
being a more reliable permit
provider whatever those justifications
are i'd love to
hear them but as of tonight i don't
have i'm not convinced that we should
change either of those
processes and number one and two as
suggested number three
i do have a strong opinion about uh when
we have the opportunity
to enhance connectivity for
non-motorized
means which i think is a little less
intrusive than doing it for
cars which create a big bunch of
concrete infrastructure i think we
should try to do it
and not i don't mind a cul-de-sac i
think those are safe because of cars but
we'd like to have connectivity between
neighbors
for mobility the ability to get to and
from town and also to connect neighbors
to one another
i agree with commissioner lewis that i
think that our development agreements
in the urban villages provide fantastic
examples
of how this can be done and even in the
centralization plan was through block
passage uh requirements at certain
intervals and then uh the final one
i'm talking about especially in phil i
i would like to express an opinion that
i hold dear and that i think is
not uncommon in the city of visiqua that
we designed the central isoqua plan
to take on our infill and that's where
it would be
we have shown in our building capacity
reports we have plenty of capacity in
central is aqua
for the growth we have slated for
decades to come so when we talk about
infill i'm saying i'm all for it in
central issaquah i want to be careful
to uphold the um
the uh this i promise is not quite the
right word but throughout all the
central issaquah plan
development where we added a lot of
density in the middle of our town we
said
because your neighborhoods we want to
preserve the neighborhoods
in our community and so i'm talking
directly about single-family zoning
i think that urban that the infill
can go in our urban areas central is
claw
so that's uh the feedback i have on
that section of title 18. thank you all
for your inspiration
great great comment so far we have
another comment from commissioner sarah
gosa
thank you commissioner um i
so uh with with the streamlining or
making the plots go from
four to four to nine if we want more
smaller residents
cottages row homes things like that it
makes sense to streamline that process
but i agree i don't i don't really know
if it
if that's the case i'd like to know more
information on that or have more
discussions
or just build on that for a little bit
as far as the connected streets and
infill
i feel like they're very similar for me
[Music]
they're connected so connected streets
are great
but it's also not one or the other it's
not either cul-de-sacs or
long you know giant boulevards we can
have
a flow that can go from neighborhood to
neighborhood
um a commissioner mulligan
recommended having not necessarily roads
that connect these neighborhoods but you
know sidewalks paths
you know from cul-de-sac to cul-de-sac i
think is super important
but one thing about connected streets
and infill
infill creates small neighborhoods
microclimates
we we wouldn't end up with these kind of
megalithic
esco highlands neighborhoods which i
lived in for a long long time
these larger neighborhoods they become
the identity is very strong and actually
for me it always competed with
my identity as a person of issaquah i
was from this school highlands
other people are from issaquah um i like
being in smaller neighborhoods
and feeling like yes i'm part of this
microclimate this neighborhood here but
i'm also still very much
a part of issaquah so i think it's
important to
to nurture both um and infill creates
microclimates and connected streets
uh not foot traffic connected streets
also creates those nice microclimates so
i think it's important to kind of
consider those as as maybe as one thing
or or
of course part of a larger concept
thanks it's so great coming here because
i
learned so much from my colleagues and
uh
to feed to hear different perspectives
it really is building upon
just building upon and building upon so
i really appreciate all these wonderful
comments and they're going to keep
coming because right now we have
commissioner lewis who has a question
thank you chairperson voice i'm curious
if um
if minnie and kristen want to comment um
basically
are we are we able to um
to basically create an area where um
where we have necessarily maybe
incentives right where like if you're
building in central issaquah
then you are able to do nine versus the
four right um
and subvert some administrative time and
costs are we are we
are we legally able to say this is
exactly the area we're able to do it
you know um because i think what i'm
hearing is that we want to
we're asking like does this actually
create density and
does it actually put it where we want it
right rather than having this kind of
blanket
move to the nine right are we able to do
that is that a
is that a thing
i can answer that um this is minnie um
sure i mean you can do that i think it
you again have to balance
are we making code more complicated than
you know
one of the so that that's where the
competing uh
issues come come into play it's not that
you can't do it now
you know you can build more than nine
homes if the zoning allows it so
so the zoning would be the tool to say
how how you want to shape and how many
lots you want to
what what minimum lot sizes you want or
not want or clustering of homes and
those kind of things those discussions
will occur with other topics
this is really process anyone can you
know if a nine lot
plant is allowed or a four lot plan is
allowed it's it's
you can do it it's just how much process
we want to build into
a nine lot subdivision and but what i've
heard from
majority of you i think is you need more
information
so i think what we can do on those two
topics at least is do give you some pros
and cons
uh if you have four large short flat
or a nine large short flat what are what
are some benefits and advantages of that
um you know if it is speedier process
and it leads to less you know
more affordable homes that's one outcome
if it is more predictable
uh outcome from that it doesn't mean
we're going to cut off the community
feedback or input from it but it also
means streamlining some of the processes
what is the value added for this
additional process so we can we can
produce some pros and cons for those two
options
for you all to weigh in i think that
will be a better
uh way and and how much how many short
flats does this
actually has done i i you know i don't
know if it may be pretty minimal
um less than four lots may not be the
norm here
at all so yeah yeah so i see lucy's
saying yeah it's a much more than that
so so we may be having a a debate about
over something that we
don't see it happening a whole lot more
um
too so i i don't know if does that
answer your question
mr lawrence yeah thank you minnie i
think that what it really is is that
when when we readdress this what i'd
like to see is
um as being able to say kind of um how
does
um taking out those additional um
both you know um by streaming
streamlining the process right ones
right now
um by going over the floor you then jump
into this other category of
administrative
hurdles that have more costs and more
time associated with it both from the
developer
and from and on staff right and so by by
changing it from the four to the nine
what i'm wondering is is
are we able to do it in a succinct area
right like centralized law
if we do change it are we able are we
actually getting the increase in density
where we want it
or again are we doing this on forest
hillsides right you know like where are
we actually being able to direct it
and also that's an exchange of saying
like maybe this is one of our affordable
housing tools
is to tell developers hey this is the
process that you have to go through
however
we have an addendum if you're going to
make it when you're doing these short
flats if you're going to account for
add affordable housing to it then yes
you jump to the nine rather than the
four
right by giving a trade-off right i'd
like to have staff come back to us and
tell us
this is a tool that we can use and this
is why rather than just arbitrarily
going well other people are doing it
successfully if that makes sense so yeah
i would like to know
what what we can do um you know because
i because i don't know
sure and we can use you know consider
some other tools for instance just
thinking
and listening to all your all of you one
of the goals is to increase diversity of
housing
types and choices so maybe you know um i
think what if you said about cottage
homes or smaller homes you know maybe
it's tied in with that that
that in order to increase the housing
diversity so it's not all big larger
homes
if you build nine smaller homes it's a
speedier process
you know there may be other nuanced
things we can kind of look at
as well but what i want to make sure too
is that when we say hey
we are we are being able to use this
tool to address
um that missing middle in our housing
component that we are able to guide it
in a way that we're getting it right
because ultimately what you want is
to be able to have home ownership being
able to add wealth
to those who have been traditionally
shut out of the system right
we want to be able it's the most
traditional way for people to build
wealth in the community is to be able to
own their own home
and so if we're saying that we're going
to use this resource to be able to get
the kind of housing that we haven't
gotten right
then we need to actually have a direct
plan to say this is how we're going to
get it from developers and this is why
rather than i'm going to be even though
i'm putting in a short flat all these
homes are stuck so close together
but because of how i'm building them
they're still going to be
out of the price range that we are going
to have the lift work balance right i
need to see more of a plan
laid out um to have that connect through
if that makes sense um
so that we can actually um create that
missing middle
with this tool thank you
yeah i'll just say for me because
commissioner voice here is i think part
of the reason
and i'm thinking number one it should go
up is not necessarily because of other
cities doing it but uh
kind of like what director dollywood's
saying um
it's really more of a zoning thing you
can build a subdivision anywhere
this is more of like processing right
and again it just shows that issaquah is
less competitive than all of its
neighbors and again it's just another
reason why
um it's my understanding from people
that i work with it's just not a place
people really want to develop
property yet and that's kind of you know
again all of us come from our own
backgrounds and perspectives but
uh i talk to people all the time and
this is not
places where people are very interested
in and again we want more
different types of varied housing we
want
affordable housing and again something
has to give in order to make it
whether it's more streamlined process
whether it's just easier to work here
and again it seems like issaquah
continues to fall on the site
being just a difficult place and again
that's not that's not me saying it
that's
that's the people with the dollars and
who actually build these things
and again it's not to give them free
reign or rough shot over our city i
don't think that at all
but these areas are more processed
questions where again it's it's
they can subdivide anything as long as
the zoning's there
this is just to give us some tools to
make us a little bit more competitive
and more in line with some of our
neighbors
so anyway that's my type of thinking um
always love to hear from our commission
always love to have these go back and
forth because again i learned a
tremendous amount
and i just want to keep this discussion
open
um if anybody has any more comments or
questions
let it simmer out there for a second or
two and then
we will move along and we have a
question from commissioner lewis
commissioner joy lewis that was actually
you're what you're reading was my
previous question
however i if i would and question i am
curious if minnie's going to continue on
with the packet and go through
uh and we'll be having another
discussion on timeline and things like
that i think that we've
uh conquered this part but i'm guessing
that we have we have we had a little bit
more in our packet going through with
updates to the uh
to our schedule and whatnot that we can
talk about
director dollywood sure um
where is my
um let me share um
my screen again and see if i can
pull up a schedule
so this is in your packet and
this is our attempt at revising it
to make it more understandable i still
feel
um got some comments um on the
readability and understanding of this uh
so we'll continue to kind of work on
that part
uh katie cody who is um the main lead
consultant who's not here today um
you know we'll take the feedback to her
but basically what
uh we heard from all of you last time
was no more than two um uh
boards and commissions at at one meeting
um
reserving some of the time when you're
actually deliberating
to uh for just ppc alone so that you can
kind of get into the nuances of the code
and and are able to
vet out some of those things so the way
this is laid out is these first
six uh circles in the beginning
are the gaps analysis and policy
guidance so
the first one is going to be on the
natural environment
critical areas steep slopes lighting
shoreline
so those topics and this first one will
be
a joint meeting with the environmental
board
the second one we're going to try and
tackle the gaps analysis for community
space standards
green necklace open space standards
landscaping and trees and that
meeting will be with a joint meeting
with the parks board
then the next three meetings are going
to be
on zoning uses uh parking circulation
building design neighborhood specific
standards
uh and such and then the the
third one uh the the fifth one uh
is an affordable housing kind of a
leftover pieces of the zoning and
development standards uh that don't fall
into those two larger categories
which is the affordable housing transfer
of development rights
archaeology other miscellaneous things
urban design and such
so that takes us to the last meeting
on the gaps analysis which will be on
the procedures and administration
so general processes what procedures we
want to have in our land use code
cpa policies wireless communication
facilities
concurrency standards and
possibly the definition section so that
will be the six series of meetings
uh some with joint meetings the last one
just by ppc
itself um on the gaps analysis
then after all of that is done we will
uh you know as we kept as we start
tackling each one of them we'll be
uh starting the drafting the code
language piece so the next
six series of meetings are again with
the same
uh policy board um the the same two two
boards at the time
meetings and we'll be presenting a first
draft with the actual code language and
this is where we really want to hear
from the public too
you know obviously we want to hear from
them over here but this is it'll be an
opportunity for the formal public
hearings
on each of those six larger groupings
but there'll be substantive comments
because they'll be actually written in
code
language and then the last series are
going to be
after you've heard from the public in
the for the first draft
and we've you've had a chance to review
it in the last
of these six series of meetings you'll
be deliberating on those topics
and after your deliberation we will call
all the pieces together as one big huge
[Music]
title 18 code and then we'll hold a
public
second public hearing on that entire
cumulative
topic but throughout this process
is what the public engagement piece is
going to continue
and that's the sub consultant to uh
katie
bds and they're figuring out
you know we want to go to the community
but we want to make it make it
meaningful for their time
and our time to to have speci you know a
conversation uh discussion and all of
those pieces so that will continue
throughout with focus groups one-on-ones
and open houses but that piece i think
um
is still kind of being looked at after
this meeting today and getting some
direction on how the gaps analysis will
work i think that'll help
formulate uh the the more public
outreach piece
so that's on the schedule um just a
briefing
i don't think we were really looking for
much there and now i need to get you all
to see
each other and where did
let's my
sorry about that i'm trying to not
minimize but
exit out of my share my
are you able to un oh there it is i'm
not i'm sharing
there you go it disappeared on the top
of my computer
it was flying away um so that's sort of
the
the the schedule piece and then what we
also want to talk to you about
is we had discussed doing a site visit
at the last meeting
we want to pick a sample of four or five
projects that we want to actually take
you out
and and show you know here's what was
allowed
here's what the zoning was here's what
the standards are and really because
you'll be getting into the
deep dive they're taking a deeper dive
in the code but what does it really mean
on the ground
and some lessons learned what worked
what didn't work
so i think we're looking at july 15th
so more information to follow in terms
of the logistics of which those top
places we want to check out you know
have a conversation about
um and uh but timing would be in the
evening i think is what we heard so
possibly 4 30
to 6 30 or 5 to 7 or something like that
um and and if you know if you can mark
your calendars for july 15th and if you
have a conflict uh let kristen know
do you have any other things on the
schedule kristen to share with them
i uh so pbc schedule no i don't but
you'll see that we filled it out
um by the way's through 2022 so you're
going to be pretty busy and that doesn't
include any comp plan amendments it
doesn't include any housing information
it doesn't include
lots of things that you all still have
to do so um eat well
stay healthy and we'll get through it
[Music]
thank you both yeah so a field trip that
sounds amazing
love field trips always have now i'm
looking at my script
senior planner lisa where are we are
there any council updates i see you have
a question too so
well scheduled technically schedule
comes later so i can do it then
i do not have any council updates um i
don't know
if minnie has any updates
uh no i think lucy can probably talk
about
the sign code where that's headed i
think do you want to say something about
the sign code
lucy
uh yes i was thinking that the um
commission might be interested in that
um after the uh sign code
uh left you're able work uh
it went on to a study session with the
council
um they had a lot of questions um
and some desires so um it was
sent to the ad hoc committee for
some guidance and feedback we have been
preparing various chapters
partly it's in reorganizing the
information
part of it for user friendliness
but also part of it is to stream
streamline some of it so
we are hoping to bring that back to
another study session at the end of july
thank you so my script is um
i'm a little lost on my script to be
quite honest
i think senior planner lisa do we call
for general public comment one more time
sounds right right we do okay
so would now be appropriate certainly
good
okay i'd like to open this up for
general public comment and ask senior
planner lisa if we have anyone who would
like to speak
i guess we do and i have one person
who'd like to speak connie martian if
anyone else would like to speak please
raise your hand
or send me a comment in the comment box
it's it's me again um so
hopes and dreams for this meeting i
i i i'm still not clear on
on what you all are gonna do with the
chart and
how that discussion is going to flow
through that's a big gray haze
in my mind um it doesn't feel structured
and i don't understand how
information is going to feed into it um
well i liked this sort of organic
discussion it does seem
like if you're going to be having the
same type of a thing
with another committee too it needs
more structure so that everybody gets a
chance
to say and the conclusions can come out
and everybody knows what they're talking
about which sounds really hard
in a two-hour meeting on very technical
subjects
because when i read some of those
meetings you're having with the
environmental board
who knows basically nothing because
they're just
so new that's that looks very
overwhelming
and so um i i
please give some thought on creating
a form that that
gets people educated earlier and allows
for more of the great discussion and
back and forth which is where i think
the progress
is really made and i don't think you can
have both at the same meeting because it
takes so long to absorb the information
so that then you can comment so i don't
see how
you can have one meeting with another
board and expect
effective results i just don't see i
think it will make people want to cry
who are trying to
do their best it's just too hard
so i can't
i i can't see success now
if you can pre-educate everybody before
you have the meeting
in in some method you might be able to
do it otherwise i think you have to have
two meetings
because nobody likes to get the
information
then to have to come to a conclusion
without having another meeting
to actually have your questions answered
right
just like tonight's meeting how many
questions were there that you're going
to have to come back
and and you can't you can't but in your
chart
you're expecting people to be able to do
that in those meetings
and i don't think that's fair to the
community so i know i am the debbie
downer of the group right
but i have watched this happen for 25
years
and we need a new code we need it to be
great and we need
the community's input to get something
that the community
understands and supports and um
i i don't i
i i can't see it working given what you
provided
today but i thought you guys were
awesome great conversation
i appreciate you you all um
trying to think on your feet as best you
can and
enjoy man you do your research i love
that
bye
senior planner lee sin any other people
signed up to speak
yes ann fletcher has raised her hand so
ms fletcher i'm going to make you a
analyst
and you are now a panelist and i have
unmuted you and you can turn on your
camera if you would like
okay i think i think that work can you
hear me
oh great no i i won't take much time
but i have been hanging in there through
the whole discussion
um i found it it i really do find it
very interesting
and i wanted to let you know how much i
appreciated
all that has gone into this from both
the staff and from all of you
commissioners
uh i'm i'm uh very impressed
and uh i would like to say
that i found this meeting more
interactive
um than some of the other ppc meetings
that i've been to or just
commission and board meetings in general
um
where where there was a a an invitation
after somebody had done something for a
response and then another invitation
for for somebody from the staff to
respond back to either the public or to
the commissioners and i
found that that was more free flowing
than i've seen and
i think that is a good omen
if we can continue that in this process
i think we will get there i'm very
hopeful
that this is what we need to get a good
title 18.
so i just wanted to point out that i
noticed that i hung
in there with you and i'm with you all
the way and thank you very much
senior planner lisa are there any other
people
signed up to speak
i don't see anyone else but if you'd
like to speak there's only one
other person out there if you'd like to
speak
raise your hand or let me know in the
chat
no no one else is raising their hand to
speak
well i know i'm only acting chair but i
do want to say thank you to everybody
who made public comment tonight it is
deeply valued i know sometimes we don't
show emotion because uh
again we're a little bit of the jury so
sometimes it's presented as evidence but
um i think like i said i know we all
internalize it so it's important to hear
from the public
and we do appreciate you guys staying
with us throughout the meeting
i think we're getting towards the end so
right now i believe the obligation i
have is to ask
senior planner alison again if we have
any other business or announcements
no i just i just wanted this is kristen
leason senior planner apologizing keep
forgetting to say that um
i just wanted to note um we realized in
order to make it through
from what we could tell um on our
schedule we needed to add a meeting so i
just wanted to make sure december 2nd
would not typically be on your calendars
so i wanted to make sure that i left it
highlighted but be sure to put that one
on your calendars because we will be
meeting on a non-regular
date then
is that still a thursday it's just the
first thursday
yes it's the first thursday yeah
excellent
okay well um i think we're towards the
end so
if does anybody else want to say
anything does anybody else want to speak
for the good of the order
well then i will just is joy is that a
hand is that a hand i see
please thank you commissioner joy lewis
i do have something a little bit strange
that came across in the last couple
weeks that i wanted to put
to staff and see if i'm far off base and
i want to give matt the opportunity to
completely make fun of me and be like
this is not a thing but
um i was reading in um in wapo about um
fulton versus the city of philadelphia
and um the recent supreme court decision
and i couldn't help but think about all
the little places in our code where we
say
and the executive director will decide
oh and that goes to the executive
director
and i basically have this question of of
our staff
and of our legal counsel to say um based
on this recent decision
are we in a little bit of hot water
right so
um i'm curious too to be able to have a
review right right we're looking right
now at title 18 in all these different
buckets
but what i'm curious to see is how many
times in the code
do we have defer to the executive
director right like in parks for
instance
executive director has the discretion to
decide this right we had a comment
tonight from ken who made a really good
point about
hey is there a safety valve is there a
way to be able to kind of
not get bogged down into the
administrative process but
my mind actually was kind of at a
different place is to say if we are
constantly giving this kind of
out of having um an executive director
be able to decide
are we then opening ourselves up to
litigation
again
i think um yeah so the whole title 18 is
gonna we're all gonna be working with
the city attorney i mean right now we're
at a very policy level
and and trying to get you know what it
is uh going forward but it will be
vetted out by the city attorneys from a
legal perspective but
the good point in a lot of times these
land use litigation is very expensive
uh and we want to get it right in terms
of all the
all the legalese that goes with it it
you know it's one
one thing about making sure people can
understand it but also
making sure that it stands the test of
the courts um
so we will we'll have that filter and
we'll be working with the city attorney
on it
uh in terms of i am not a big fan of the
director shall decide unless there's a
specific criteria because then
whoever's in the director position it
can vary
and you know we don't want to have
arbitrary and capricious decisions and
we want to have
we are consistent we treat everyone the
same and and everything comes out so
i i i certainly won't be wanting
uh things in the code that are too
wishy-washy like that
to begin with but but i'm not familiar
with the details of the court case
you're referring to but i'll read up on
that and
and and address it sure so i guess my
question is like a twofold right is to
kind of do a double check
and to see um you know if i'm completely
off base and this doesn't um have
anything to do with us right um
to when we check with council and to say
um i think it would be interesting to
have a high level review
to say how often do we have this written
in right how often are we using it
because
in my mind i was remembering all these
little places where we've had it in the
past so it's curious as we move forward
to see
how many places that we do have that i
just think that's a big bird's eye view
that we may need to think about too as
we're as we're looking at these little
buckets it's a great way to piece it
apart
since it is so big but there are a
couple things that may need to have
a big overarching um macro view and this
is just one that stuck out to me in the
last couple
uh weeks so thank you for for thinking
about it
please please tear me down yeah i'll
obviously defer to council who thinks
about these things but it shouldn't have
any impact
um the the first amendment cases trigger
something called strict scrutiny which
is
where the city got in trouble um for the
vast majority of delegation of those
kinds of administrative things i think
many hit it on the head it's it's an
arbitrary capricious standard which is
significantly less
onerous than strict scrutiny which
basically says that the government can
do it
any other way they have to do it and
particularly when you get into things
like
free speech and religion that's where
the court really has a hammer ready to
come down but on
routine things generally speaking a
court's not going to want to wade into
how a municipality delegates certain
administrative functions within within
itself so i'd be shocked if council
comes back and says we have to worry
about this one
how do you like that our in house legal
expert
doesn't get any better than that so does
anyone else have anything for the good
of the order
i want to thank everybody tonight i want
to thank my colleagues for being so
gracious with me and i really want to
thank our wonderful city staff
um director dollywall manager
leeson manager sloman thank you you guys
uh
phoning a friend being able to hold my
hand as we walk through this thank you
very much
and ultimately just i hope you all have
a wonderful weekend i hope all of you
guys are able to find
a cool place to hunker down until
tuesday
and ultimately we will see you guys here
relatively shortly but having said all
that
and with there being no further business
i adjourn this meeting of june 24th
the planning policy commission at 904.
thank you
you