0:36
I'll call the January 17th, 2017 regular council meeting to order and ask
0:42
those in the audience who would like to join the council and me in the
0:45
Pledge of Allegiance to please stand.
0:51
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the
0:57
republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible,
1:03
with liberty and justice for all.
1:10
Our next order of business is audience comments
1:16
and citizen comments are an important part of the public process. We take them
1:22
seriously and factor them into the decisions that we make. Anyone from the
1:28
public who desires to comment will have the opportunity to do so this evening. Please
1:34
direct your comments to the whole council and not individuals. While this is not a
1:39
question and answer session, we will contact you to follow up if needed. If you
1:43
did not have an opportunity to include your email, please provide that information
1:49
on the clipboard at the front desk. And recognize, use the lectern and
1:55
speak into the microphone. State your name, address, and relationship to the city. Limit
2:01
comments to five minutes. Submit any written comments to the city clerk.
2:07
The visual timer has been placed on the lectern. When it turns yellow, you are
2:11
within the last minute of your comment period. If you use the full five minutes,
2:15
the timer will sound to indicate the end of your allotted time.
2:21
Again, citizen comments written and verbal are an important aspect of the public process.
2:27
The city takes them seriously and we thank members of the public for taking the
2:31
time to address us during meetings. As information
2:38
We will also be having a public hearing this evening on agenda bill 7215,
2:44
the ninth major amendment to the Esquad Highlands two-party development agreement, dash Polygon Northwest
2:50
requesting a major modification for transfer of development rights. That
2:56
public hearing will be held after
3:02
we deal with the consent calendar. So with that, I would ask if
3:08
anyone has signed up to speak. Yes, David Kapler.
3:22
To get what I need here.
3:31
Whoops, one one I think. This cord is short.
3:37
First of all, David Kapler, 255 Southeast Andrews Street. Good, thank you.
3:44
Oh, you gotta do it down there, that makes sense. Thank you. First of all,
3:50
the senior center, it's great working. The city has done a tremendous job there. The
3:55
staffing, the improvements, the painting, the cleaning, the furniture,
4:01
everything, and the programming is just great. It's just wonderful. Very, very positive place to
4:06
visit. Second item, on your agenda item tonight, and consent agenda 7290
4:13
talks about the contract. My concerns here are related to my comments I
4:19
made, I think at the last meeting, about how the East Lake Sammamish Trail
4:26
comes to Gilman Boulevard and trying to cross Gilman Boulevard and trying to have things
4:31
that will draw people on the East Lake Sammamish Trail to the southern part,
4:37
the south of I-90 part of central Issaquah and beyond to the south.
4:43
My concern is the picture here of the tunnel.
4:49
If you're in that tunnel and there's a problem, you're going to be completely out
4:54
of any visual or sound awareness. And how are we going to deal with the
5:00
safety of people in that tunnel? The tunnel also appears on this slide here on
5:06
the left. And you can see from both slides that show the tunnel, it's all
5:10
forested around there. There's no other development near it. It's just a long ways away.
5:16
Any sound that a person having a problem in there would make would not be
5:20
heard by anybody nearby. And I think we need to get assurance that somehow
5:26
the safety of that tunnel, if we have to have a tunnel, is going to
5:30
be assured. Thank you. No one
5:36
further has signed up to speak. Is there anyone else desiring to speak
5:43
on any other topic rather than the one that will be covered under the public
5:49
hearing? Connie? Hey, I'm Connie
5:54
Marsh at 1175 Northwest Gilman Suite B11.
6:00
Soon not to be there. And I want to talk about Gilman Boulevard for just
6:05
a second. I see that that popped up basically first thing again in
6:11
this year after you had delayed it from the budget session. And I'm unwilling to
6:16
have that go forward until you actually get the meetings put in place as to
6:22
what the vision for Gilman Boulevard should be from the visions going through this
6:28
for the central LISQUAL plan. Because I don't think streets should be mandated
6:34
by engineering. I think streets and what they should look like should first
6:40
be mandated by the community that's going to use them and what they would like
6:44
to see and how they would like it to work. So I would ask that
6:48
you delay that until the community meetings have been held for that
6:54
area. Thanks. Thank you.
7:00
Is there anyone else desiring to speak on any other
7:06
topic other than the subject of the public hearing? Anyone else desiring to speak?
7:11
Anyone desiring to speak? With that, audience comments are closed and we'll now
7:17
move to committee and regional reports, beginning with
7:23
Ariam Teest. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The
7:29
Eastside Human Services Forum Board meeting will be tomorrow morning. working
7:35
on the 2017 legislative agenda, budget approval, and work plan. And I'll have more
7:40
information once we get through that meeting. That concludes my report. Thank you. Thank you.
7:45
Bill Ramos. On the 11th, I had a meeting with the EMAC, Emergency
7:51
Management Advisory Council. And basically the takeaway from that is from
7:57
the Cascadia Rising exercise last year, they've basically come out of there with three major
8:03
issues dealing with more policy and all that level versus technical stuff. So
8:09
that's, and I'll get more on that later, but that's what they'll be working on
8:13
predominantly this next year, really working on trying to communicate how policy works through those
8:18
major disasters. On last Friday the 13th, I was at the Eastside
8:24
Transportation Partnership, and they've got, talked about our legislative agenda. I brought that to you
8:29
about a month or so ago. trim down a little bit and finalize a little
8:34
more. We'll talk a little more about that in good of the order. So that
8:39
passed at that time. And tomorrow I'll be at the Regional Transit Committee meeting and
8:44
that is in a different spot than usual normally as any King County Council Chambers.
8:48
It will be at Union Station tomorrow at 3 o'clock if anybody's interested. So there's
8:53
change in location on that. That concludes my report. Thank you, Paul Winterstein. Thank you,
8:58
Mr. Mayor. The Council Infrastructure Committee, our next meeting is this Thursday, January 19th here
9:03
in Council Chambers. It will be televised live online and on the Issaquah City TV.
9:09
On the agenda will be three items pending approval of tonight's consent agenda and three
9:13
other items. On the consent are agenda bill 7290, a review and
9:18
recommendation of the proposed winning bid for the construction of the 62nd Street extension.
9:24
and agenda bill 7308 which is funding for phase one of a Gilman Boulevard corridor
9:30
study for the ultimate purpose of improving safety for all users, improving accommodations for non-motorized
9:35
users and developing standard consistent redevelopment standards. And finally
9:41
agenda bill 7309 which is funding for safety and usage improvements on Maple
9:47
Street at the intersection of Trader Joe's and Target parking lot entranceways. The three
9:53
other items on the agenda are continuation of the discussion about enhancements to the complete
9:58
streets program and potential projects for 2017, including
10:04
on Second Avenue, south of the high school where Rainier Trail
10:10
crosses Second Avenue. And a continuation of the discussion about the formation of a transportation
10:16
mobility board. And finally, status updates on notable water, sewer, storm water, and
10:21
transportation projects. The Eastside Fire and Rescue Board of Directors, we met last
10:27
Thursday on January 12th at EFR Headquarters on Newport Way. The notable items on the
10:32
agenda were that the chief, one was the chief reported that EFR and Fire District
10:37
10 have retained joint representation for advice and defense on matters concerning PFAS.
10:45
The board approved a 3.87 increase in the top step only of the
10:51
deputy chief position pay scale. And finally, the board approved a performance-based bonus plan
10:57
for deputy chiefs. This program will be implemented starting in 2018.
11:03
And then my final committee report is from the Puget Sound Regional Council Growth Management
11:09
Policy Board, or the GMPB. We met last Thursday, or excuse me, back on January
11:15
5th, almost two weeks ago at PSRC headquarters in Seattle. Notable items on the agenda
11:20
included, we received an update on the regional center's framework update project.
11:26
There has been a working group developing a proposal and this will come in front
11:30
of the GMPP in just a couple months. We will be considering changes to the
11:35
regional center's program, which our City Regional Growth Center is part of. These changes will
11:41
affect future center designations and the funding formula for transportation projects.
11:47
The update will also provide input to the region's Vision 2040 and Transportation 2040
11:53
guiding documents that will be updated in the near future. For all these reasons, the
11:59
Regional Center's framework update project is critical to Issaquah and our citizens both now and
12:03
for a long time into the future. I will be bringing issues about the update
12:09
back to this council for discussion in the future. And then the other issue we
12:13
discussed, the board had a great discussion about conditional certification of the comprehensive plans of
12:19
certain small cities including Snoqualmie and North Bend. The board did make a recommendation to
12:24
the PSRC Executive Council for how the cities can achieve full certification
12:31
of their comprehensive plans without going through a full amendment process, which is lengthy and
12:37
costly. The small cities appear to accept this alternative and this development I think is
12:42
really good for the region and for our neighbors in Snoqualmie and North Bend. That
12:47
concludes my report. Thank you, Tola Martz. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council Services and Safety
12:52
Committee did not meet in January and assuming we keep to the 2016
13:00
recurrence schedule, our next meeting will be on Tuesday, February 14th. Sound Cities Association Public
13:06
Issues Committee met first meeting of the year Wednesday, January 11th, and there were no
13:12
action items other than approval of the annual meeting schedule. The King
13:18
County Growth Management Policy Council has not listed first meeting yet, it's typically in February,
13:24
but they don't have those dates up yet. The regional E911 group is gonna meet
13:29
next, sorry, this Thursday, January 19th from nine to 11 in the Chinook building in
13:34
Seattle. And we're gonna get a status on the technology group draft. There's a technology
13:38
group, a finances group, and a governance group. And the technology is the one that
13:43
has the most heavy lifting to do. And so we're gonna find out how that's
13:48
going ahead of a, I believe, March 30th deadline for the draft of that technology
13:53
plan. So we're excited to hear about that. And I'll just mention, Council Member Winterstein,
13:58
I'm thrilled to hear that GMPB came up with a good solution. GMPC wanted to
14:03
give a recommendation to our friends in GMPB and couldn't remotely come close to a
14:08
consensus on what that recommendation would be. So I'm thrilled to hear that our neighbors
14:11
to the east have a solution that they think is workable. That concludes my report.
14:15
Thank you. Eileen Barber. Thank you. So far
14:21
most of my meetings have not started yet. I am serving on Y-Ret 8 and
14:26
our first meeting will be on tomorrow. And also we'll be joining Paul
14:32
Winterstein on Eastside Fire and Rescue and also on Services and Safety so I'll be
14:37
joining on that. And I have no other report. Thank you. I'll be back next
14:42
month. Thank you. Mary Lou Pauly. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Land and
14:48
Shore met on Thursday January 5th. One of the items AB 7050 amending DSD
14:54
fees will be on regular business this evening and after a staff presentation if
15:00
there is some additional information that I can add about committee conversation I'll do it
15:04
at that time. AB 7270 comprehensive plan amendments. This was a
15:12
one of a series of discussions about a series of amendments from carrying over from
15:17
2016 on the comp plan. The conversation at this meeting focused on a discussion of
15:23
the growth management targets through the year 2031 and a discussion on the number of
15:28
housing units that the city will be, will have
15:34
capacity to build during that time. And discussion about how projections of that growth rate
15:40
should occur. for additional future units in future years.
15:49
One of the big points of discussion that other council members not on land and
15:54
shore may want to start thinking about is how do present,
16:00
how do current limits on the number of units Let me read this again,
16:07
sorry. How do we prevent or limit over building before transportation improvements catch up?
16:12
We spent a significant amount of our meeting talking time about that and so that's
16:17
a question that will come up when the whole package comes before land and shore.
16:22
There were questions on where we are now in terms of number of units built
16:25
by this year, by 2018 and as far out as 2031.
16:31
So we only got part way through exhibit E of this package and it's going
16:35
to be referred to the February Land and Shore meeting. Next agenda bill was AB
16:40
7215, the ninth major amendment to the Issaquah Highlands Development Agreement. There will be a
16:45
public hearing on this this evening. Some of the questions considered by the committee were
16:51
can purchased transfer of development rights be used elsewhere in the city, such as the
16:56
central Issaquah area. Should the transfer of development rights receiving site map be reviewed by
17:02
council based on the approval of the central Issaquah plan after the creation of that
17:08
map? There were no decisions made at the meeting and the conversation has been continued
17:13
to the next Land and Shore which will be on January 8th. AB 7219. 18th.
17:19
Sorry, 18th. What did I say? 8th. January 18th, thank you. AB 7219.
17:26
an agenda bill on the draft development agreement for Gilman Lofts. There was questions and
17:31
public comment about improvements that were proposed to the Three Trails Crossing area on Gilman
17:37
Boulevard. There was concern expressed from property owners adjacent to the site that currently
17:43
permitted projects and proposed C-curb constructions will impair and harm
17:49
businesses on that street. There were no decisions made at the meeting that was also
17:54
referred for continuation at the January 18th Land and Shore meeting tomorrow. There were requests
17:59
from council members for additional information on C-curb construction, traffic light proposal, et cetera.
18:07
And that's it. Our next meeting will be tomorrow and we will have the continuation
18:12
of AB 7215, AB 7210 and the comp plan AB 7270.
18:19
And that completes my report. Thank you. Council President Stacey Goodman. No report. And for
18:25
the mayor's report, briefly there will be an executive session held this evening for the
18:30
purpose of discussing pending slash potential litigation per RCW 42.30.110
18:38
paren 1 paren I. The item is expected to take approximately five minutes. No
18:44
action is anticipated to follow in open session. We are
18:50
now accepting allocations or applications for open
18:55
positions on the city's boards and commissions. Our boards and commissions cover a broad range
19:01
of topics, including arts, economic development, environmental issues, growth,
19:08
and even international diplomacy through our sister city
19:13
relationship with Sundal, Norway, and Shefshawa, Morocco. To
19:19
learn more and apply, go to isaqwa.gov backslash apply.
19:28
The application deadline is 5 p.m. February the 15th, 2017.
19:35
Now the word application sounds like you're not really
19:41
applying for a job and it doesn't require an awful lot of information.
19:46
Just your willingness to serve and a little bit about why you think you would
19:52
do a good job on that board or commission and any relevant experience that you
19:57
think that might contribute to that. So I would encourage not only those in the
20:02
audience here but those watching on TV to
20:09
go to our website, look at that and see where you might help the
20:15
city in the work that we do. And with that, that
20:20
concludes my report, and we will move now to the consent
20:27
calendar. And I'd ask if the payables and payroll for January the 17th have been
20:33
reviewed. We have. Thank you. And then I would ask the city
20:39
clerk to read the consent calendar into the record, please. The consent calendar was
20:45
distributed to Council in advance for study if authorized Council action will occur by single
20:49
motion regarding the following items. Item A seeks approval of the accounts payables and payroll
20:54
of January 17th. Items B and C seeks approval of the minutes of the regular
20:59
meeting of January 3rd and the special meeting of January 4th. Item D AB 7126
21:04
Mount Hood pump station replacement seeks acceptance of project. Item E AB 7266
21:10
local hazardous waste management program grant seeks acceptance of grant. Item F, AB-7275, 2017-2018
21:18
Waste Reduction and Recycling Grant, seeks acceptance of grant. Item G, AB-7290,
21:24
Bid Award, North Issaquah Southeast 62nd Street Extension Construction Contract, seeks referral to Council
21:30
Infrastructure Committee. Item H, AB-7305, 2016 Maintenance Overlay Project,
21:36
seeks acceptance of project. Item I, AB-7307, IT Surplus Equipment, seeks authorization. Items J and
21:41
K, AB 7308, Gilman Boulevard Improvements, SR 900
21:48
to Issaquah Creek, and AB 7309, Trader Joe's Target Maple Street Intersection Interim
21:53
Improvements, seeks referral to Council Infrastructure Committee. This concludes the reading.
21:59
Thank you. I would ask, does any council member desire to remove any item from
22:04
the consent calendar for special consideration?
22:12
Council President Goodman. I would move to adopt the consent calendar as presented. Second. Moved
22:17
and seconded. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed, that carries
22:23
unanimously. Moving now to our public hearing
22:28
agenda bill 7215, 9th major amendment to the Esquadalas Two-Party Development
22:34
Agreement. With that, I would call Keith Niven, our director of
22:41
Development Services forward for a staff report and update
22:58
Good evening, Mr. Mayor City Council Keith Niven Director of Economic Development and Development
23:04
Services so this evening I'm gonna I give a fairly short presentation
23:11
regarding the proposal for adding 100 transfer of development rights into Izzaqua
23:16
Highlands and we'll go from there. So I
23:22
thought I'd start with just a little bit of background for those maybe in the
23:26
audience who don't know what a transfer of development right is. So transfer of development
23:30
rights or TDRs as they are called is one smart growth tool used to manage
23:36
land development. TDR is the exchange of zoning privilege from areas desired to be
23:42
preserved such as critical areas and open space to areas better able to accommodate higher
23:47
densities. The section on the left here is from the city's transfer of
23:53
development rights code and I highlighted Item C specifically,
23:59
which says, and this section is the intent of
24:06
the TDR program within the city. And item C says, increase density in specific parts
24:12
of the city that are best suited to accommodate urban densities and to accomplish city
24:16
goals for increasing the opportunities for transit service, open space, and increased efficiency of
24:22
urban service provision. So this kind of sets the background for our TDR program. and
24:29
why we support transfer of development rights. So moving from there, what we're here
24:35
to talk about this evening is basically this proposal by Polygon Northwest
24:41
to add 100 transfer of development rights to Issaquah Highlands. Polygon Northwest owns the
24:49
Does it look light yellow? Well, the lighter yellow area on the map
24:55
here. And to give you an orientation, you can see Safeway right here sitting in
25:00
between Highlands Drive and 9th. Discovery Drive is down here at the south end.
25:07
This gray area over here is the West Highlands Park neighborhood. This gray line at
25:12
the top is High Street. Swedish Hospital sits down here
25:19
and kind of the subdivision that's under construction kind of at the south end is
25:24
called Westridge South. So where did these TDRs come
25:30
from? So these 100 TDRs came from a deal that the
25:36
city brokered a few years ago to preserve Park Point. Park Point was
25:42
the third urban village in the city that never happened. And it never happened
25:48
because we transferred the development rights off this 101 acres and
25:54
the 100 units that Polygon purchased were the last 100 units off
26:00
those. So why Izaquois Highlands? As you
26:06
can see, this map here on the left hand side, the red
26:12
areas are the TDR receiving sites in the city. The green areas are the
26:18
TDR sending sites. And why Izaquah Highlands? Izaquah Highlands is identified as a
26:24
TDR receiving site as you can see from the map. The land is already graded,
26:28
flat, there are no trees to cut down, and there's adequate infrastructure to support the
26:33
added density. So what is the decision process and why are we here?
26:40
We're here because Izakwa Highlands is governed by a development agreement primarily. The TDR process
26:46
itself does not require a council action so long as it's consistent with the existing
26:53
sending and receiving site map. But because this is a development agreement, it identifies that
26:59
adding additional residential units requires the city council to approve a major
27:04
modification. So that's really the decision that's in front of the city council is to
27:10
whether or not to approve the major modification request for
27:16
the Issaquah Highlands development agreement. So as you can see on the left hand side,
27:20
there's basically kind of the process. So the city received this request in June of
27:26
last year. And then the Urban Village Development Commission reviewed this
27:32
request and provided a recommendation to the City Council on the 6th of December.
27:38
The SEPA determination of non-significance was issued on the 13th of January.
27:45
And it's currently in its comment and appeal period of 21 days. We're having this
27:50
public hearing tonight. As was mentioned earlier, agenda bill 7215 is still in the
27:56
Land and Shore Committee and there'll be a meeting tomorrow night to continue the conversation
28:00
on that. And we anticipate that at some point it will come out of committee
28:06
with a recommendation to the full council and that may be as early as the
28:11
6th of February. So that concludes my presentation this evening. Thank you, Keith.
28:20
We'll now open the public hearing. And just a reminder that the
28:26
same rules that I established at the beginning for audience comments apply this
28:32
evening. When recognized, please come to the lectern, speak into the microphone, state your name
28:37
and any relationship to the city along with your address. And with that,
28:44
I'll open the public hearing at 729.
28:51
Fred Nystrom. Is anyone signed up to speak? Yes. He's not here, is he? Okay.
28:57
Okay, so we've got AJ McGaulie.
29:11
Hi, my name is AJ McGaulie. I live at 18707 Southeast Newport Way.
29:18
I'm a recent arrival to Issaquah, having moved here this last spring. My
29:23
interest in this development of the Highlands is just interest in my community and wanting
29:29
to see smart growth and productive growth in the community. I believe the
29:35
additional units are welcome as someone who just navigated the housing market and purchased a
29:39
home this past spring. I am keenly aware of the need for additional housing, so
29:43
I think it is great that the City is still open to continue to develop
29:47
and grow. I believe the consolidation of the additional housing into the town center of
29:53
the Highlands is good. I think that is smart urban design and it is better
29:56
to be building the units in the town center cores as opposed to in a
30:01
more subdivision type development at the edge of the Highlands as it is currently in
30:05
the current Highlands plan. However, I do have
30:11
two concerns about the proposal currently from Polygon around the affordable units.
30:20
Well, my concerns are around the location of the affordable units. I believe Keith mentioned
30:24
this in his presentation, but in the proposed bill, the affordable units,
30:30
the 25 affordable units that are included in the proposal will not be located with,
30:36
will not be co-located in the town center with the 500 units that will be
30:41
built on the on the primary site, but they will instead go into a city
30:45
property that's kind of further on the edge of the Highlands, still within the Highlands,
30:50
but not nearly as close to the town center, closer to a 15-to-20 minute walk
30:54
to 9th Avenue, 9th Avenue to the bus stations there. My concerns on that are
30:59
twofold. First off, those who will be living in the affordable units will be much
31:03
less likely to have access to cars and will be more likely to depend upon
31:06
transit. And as 9th Avenue is the primary transit corridor for a metro and sound
31:10
transit, I think it's important to locate the affordable units as close to transit as
31:15
possible. Given that the proposed development is literally right next to 9th Avenue, I think
31:20
that that would be very reasonable. And the second one is I think the segregation
31:25
of the affordable units into a kind of distinct site all by itself is not
31:29
healthy for the community. I think it's important to integrate the affordable units into the
31:34
existing community structure as opposed to building them in a way that kind of carves
31:38
off and says, okay, this is a market rate development, this is an affordable rate
31:42
development. I would like to see a proposal that kind of blends the
31:48
developments, has the same number of total units, same number of market rate units, portable
31:52
units, but blends them in a way that kind of allows for the creation of
31:59
one neighborhood as opposed to kind of two distinct communities that may not mingle because
32:03
of decisions made in terms of architecture and urban design.
32:10
That's all comments I have for now. Thank you. AJ, thank you very, very much.
32:17
David Kapler.
32:27
David Kapler, 255 Southeast Andrew Street. TDRs are of course dear to my heart
32:33
and getting the TDRs off of Park Point is something we worked on for over
32:39
20 years. So I'm glad to see that. I'm also working, encouraging the
32:45
county to acquire other properties very close to Issaquah or adjoining Issaquah. and the
32:51
TDRs are an important aspect of making those purchases potentially more affordable
32:57
to the county. So I'm quite a fan of that. 100 units
33:02
expansion in the Highlands, you know,
33:08
has some things going for it. The park and ride is definitely important. The services
33:13
that are available, retail type services, some degree employment as well
33:19
with the hospital especially. What's lacking are parks and
33:25
schools for that area and that's a complicating problem. If we
33:31
knew the school district was looking at the former Bellevue College site as
33:37
elementary school site, middle school site, that could be helpful to make this more workable.
33:42
There is,
33:49
Tony won't be thrilled, but there are some trees close to here that are not
33:54
in the viewshed of the Mountain Sound Greenway that a
34:01
few could be sacrificed for some park west of this property, but
34:07
not a lot. The other is the mathematical issue.
34:13
I figure if there's, talking about 130 units, we're talking about 30% of
34:19
those being affordable, that gets to 39 units. And putting them, like the previous
34:25
gentleman said, putting them all in one place and not mixing them is the wrong
34:30
thing to do. I also have concerns about a group home being equivalent to five
34:36
dwelling units, which was part of the mathematics here. I live across the street practically
34:41
from the group home at Second and Andrews and that home does generate a little
34:47
bit more traffic than some homes and all. But the residents don't have vehicles, it's
34:52
the people that work there that have the vehicles and other people that come to
34:55
provide services. It's hard for me to imagine that equaling
35:02
five dwelling units. Thank you. Thank you, David.
35:11
Fred Nystrom.
35:18
Well, we moved you down the list, Fred, because you weren't here when your name
35:23
was called.
35:59
Good evening. My name is Fred Nystrom. I have for the last 33 years lived
36:04
here in Issaquah 391 Southeast Sycamore Creek Lane and have been a
36:09
past member of the Policy Planning Commission. And
36:15
well, I want to speak on the addition of the 100 housing units.
36:21
Some may see this as a power play from a greedy developer. I take a
36:26
very different position on this. because of my long-term perspective here in the community
36:32
and past involvement. Let me take you back to the 1990s. I
36:38
don't know how many of you were here at that point, but we had a
36:42
situation where we had some Canadian developers come into town and buy a big hunk
36:47
of land behind Issaquah High School that stretched on up the hill. I believe its
36:51
name was Park Point. It was gonna be a major
36:57
impact on us. Not only were they going to be scraping the hill and building
37:03
hundreds of homes, but there was no arterial access to this piece of property. So
37:09
all the traffic that was gonna be generated was gonna come down those tiny little
37:15
undersized streets next to Clark Elementary. And it
37:21
created a fair amount of outrage and comment within the community. Now this developer
37:27
had the right to proceed and he had the correct zoning, but
37:34
the city was, had a difficult time challenging those rights.
37:40
And they finally, after about a year of angst and community
37:46
meetings and conversations, came up with a program that had been used very
37:52
successfully in numerous other communities. and it's called a transfer of density,
37:59
or developmental density, if you will. And developers like Polygon
38:05
were solicited and asked if they would put money into a pool so
38:11
that the density that was allowed on the Park Point property could be transferred
38:17
somewhere else. And lo and behold, they did. They put up a cool $1 million
38:25
And they did this to help Park Point to go away.
38:31
And they did it so that they would have a projectable way to have
38:37
space to develop in the future. Now, I can't imagine
38:43
the faith and trust that Polygon put in for this, but they wrote that check
38:49
for a million dollars because, and they did it because There was an
38:54
agreement that was fair, it was above board, and it served a positive community
39:00
purpose. Now it's time that Polygon receives
39:06
their ability to utilize the density transfer that they
39:12
legally and morally are entitled to. To solicit money
39:18
decades ago and have that benefit and then to deny or slow down or
39:23
modify that permit is sort of the worst
39:29
types of a bait and switch operation, which I don't think is the way the
39:34
council likes to see themselves. And furthermore, it would
39:40
really cool down the ability to use this tool in the future for other good
39:45
community benefits. Polygon was part of the solution. on
39:51
twenty years ago and it that kept us kept that hill in the beautiful
39:56
natural shape that it's in now one other key point
40:03
my daytime job on the executive director of life enrichment options and we represent people
40:09
with disabilities and they are the lowest of low income and we have been building
40:13
homes for them polygon helped build our very first home over on croston and
40:22
We know that the city has been working to pressure developers to
40:28
include low income housing in the community and it has been a failure.
40:35
Atlas apartments, everybody's been hearing about Atlas apartments, zero low income housing. The
40:40
group on the that's coming in, I don't even know their name yet on Newport
40:44
way zero. On the other hand, Polygon has come up and stated right
40:50
up front that they are with these 100 units, they're gonna make space for low
40:56
income housing. They've set a standard. And this is an example
41:02
of them continuing to put the community needs first and they need to be respected,
41:08
supported and thanks for their commitment to our community. Thank you. Thank you,
41:14
Fred. No one further has signed up to speak.
41:22
And then followed by.
41:30
Good evening, council members. My name is Dewana Koloskova and I am the attorney for
41:34
Polygon Northwest. I've met some of you over the years and I actually have the
41:39
pleasure of telling you that my mother was the Issaquah planner involved in some of
41:45
the discussion that you just heard back in the 1990s. Mr. Butler, you might recall,
41:50
Anna Koloszek. I am here to follow up on correspondence that I submitted to you
41:56
all earlier today. And my plea to you is actually pretty straightforward in that I,
42:04
In reviewing the major modification that is before you, we simply request that you review
42:09
that on the basis of the existing comprehensive plan policies, the
42:14
adopted maps before you, and the existing city code that's in place. I
42:20
understand at the Land and Shore Committee that there was some discussion as to what
42:25
the council might be interested in, but for purposes of this major modification, those comprehensive
42:31
plan policies and the acceptance of this site as a receiving site
42:37
is well borne out by those policies and an appropriate location
42:44
for purposes of the proposal. And I think it's also
42:50
appropriate to highlight that Mr. Niven and staff have done a good job of identifying
42:57
multiple comprehensive plan policies that this application that this major modification is
43:02
consistent with oftentimes we might submit to you an application that implements maybe
43:08
one maybe two policies and we kind of argue that's consistency here we have quite
43:13
a number of comprehensive plan policies and good practical reasons for
43:19
supporting the major modification So with that, I would respectfully
43:25
ask that the council apply the adopted policies, the adopted city code and the adopted
43:30
maps, which include this property as a receiving site. Thank you very much. And we
43:36
are available if there are questions. Alana, thank you very, very much. Steve.
43:52
Connie, welcome back. Again, Connie Marsh, 1175 Northwest Gilman
43:57
Boulevard, Suite B11. So there are some things
44:03
about this proposal that take it out of the typical
44:09
comprehensive plan policies that were just discussed. And that is the
44:15
switch of the affordable housing, not necessarily low income housing, that they want to put
44:20
on the city parcel that is quite some distance away from this parcel uphill.
44:26
and quite a distance away from the transit center. I am not going to repeat
44:32
the absolutely perfect presentation that came out of the first speaker. I totally agree with
44:37
that. And I think that the proposal should mix the affordable housing in each area.
44:43
I'm not particularly against them using the city parcel to get what we need for
44:48
affordable housing, though I would like to increase that to 50 units unless they agree
44:53
to actually put in low income housing. because We need low
44:59
income housing more than the three tiered program that the Issaquah Highlands has existed on
45:05
for a long time. The other thing that is missing in this section of the
45:09
Issaquah Highlands is anything in the range of public parks. You have small parks from
45:14
the different developments, but basically there is no public park and I can't believe Dave
45:20
actually put trees up to cut down to create parks. Really? But we do need
45:25
to have of. parks there because soon we will be doing
45:31
the prost and we will immediately be out of consistency as soon as the
45:37
Highlands is done, then we will be deficit in that area for public parks. So
45:42
you do have the leeway in changing a development agreement to address these external
45:48
issues. It's part of a broader negotiation that goes way, way, way far
45:54
outside of any policies that we have presented for transfer of development rights. Please don't
45:59
be constrained by that. Thank you. Thank you, Connie.
46:09
Mary, welcome. My name is Mary Lynch and I reside at 2690 Northwest Oak
46:15
Crest Drive. I just want to say I concur with what Connie and David had
46:19
said before. I also would like to say as far as a policy change, I
46:23
would hope that the City Council has on their agenda is to change and review
46:28
the transfer development right policy so it is in alignment with what the central area
46:32
plan means so that this does not happen, even come before the council again into
46:37
an area where the density is not supposed to happen or increase. I also would
46:42
hope that you would look at this area and it's total holistic. You've got Lakeside
46:48
that's gonna have a lot more units. You have a lot more things going up
46:50
there that I really do not think the city has looked at the infrastructure for
46:53
that area. Not only parks, schools, transportation,
46:59
and services. How are you gonna service these additional people? As Connie
47:05
mentioned, I really think we need more low income, not just affordable, and I would
47:10
like to see that with the transfer of development rights, that whatever happens, happens on
47:15
the Polygon property, or they give 100, or something back to this other property
47:21
because land is of value and there's a lot that can be done with that
47:25
land and maybe the city could trade it off and build higher affordable or higher
47:30
homes there and get land someplace else where it makes more right to put low
47:36
income housing because that is one of the things we really need to have. But
47:40
I think the city is not looked at with the moratorium you're looking just at
47:43
the central area plan but I think you need to step back and for the
47:46
highlands and really look at what is going to happen up there. You already are
47:50
overcrowded in the schools you're busing out of there traffic is horrendous there you don't
47:54
have a park the park and ride is totally full you don't have transportation up
47:57
there so to the density without looking at a holistic approach
48:03
to infrastructure I think is really wrong and that you should do that before you
48:09
approve this to go forward. Thank you. Thank you, Mary. Is there anyone else desiring
48:14
to speak? Yes, please.
48:24
I'm Lindsay Walsh at 1769 28th Avenue Northeast in Issaquah. I'm a Highlands
48:30
resident. I will speak out mostly in support of this idea. I
48:36
think some of our strengths in the Highlands are our density and also the mixed
48:41
income levels that we have already in place that have really worked out very well
48:47
for us. I think I will speak to what our first speaker, AJ, said when
48:52
he mentioned that the Highlands was our town center. I think we really
48:58
need to, again, look at this central Issaquah plan and say, hey, that's where our
49:03
TDRs should be going. We need to build more of our density there. As much
49:07
as the Highlands is a strength from the density, we still have that central
49:13
Issaquah plan that we should be putting more and more attention to. Additionally, I would
49:20
third or fourth the idea that our affordable or preferably low
49:26
income housing should be there on high street where it is closer to the transportation.
49:31
That's going to be our most benefit. And so I think we really should push
49:36
the developers toward that way if there is any possibility.
49:42
Thank you, Lindsay. Anyone else desiring to speak?
49:49
Yes.
50:01
Good evening. My name is Amber Kernow and I reside at 24540
50:08
Southeast 46th Terrace. But as of two weeks ago,
50:15
I used to live in Forest Ridge, which is the neighborhood that's
50:21
adjacent to the city parcel that we're talking about tonight. And Mr. Nivens didn't talk
50:27
about it. And I was wondering why, but I'm pleased to
50:33
know that there are some folks in the public talking about that tonight.
50:39
And though I have moved Five minutes away, I'm very interested in this issue because
50:45
I was one of the original owners in Forest Ridge. I used to
50:51
live on 14th place and that is the street that's on the ridge
50:57
And there are lots of kids and there's lots of density already on that street.
51:03
There's a lack of parking already on that street. On Falls Drive, which
51:09
wraps around the other side of Forest Ridge, high density, lack of parking.
51:16
There's also speeding issues already because a lot of folks at the top of
51:22
Issaquah Highlands use Falls Drive as a go around for park
51:28
drive. I don't blame them, but no one in Forest Ridge likes the fact
51:34
that people speed through this residential neighborhood. Now this one acre
51:40
parcel that we're talking about is a view property. I just
51:46
sold my home for a million dollars and I have I had 4,200
51:52
square feet, okay, and the view is spectacular.
51:58
It's my opinion that the city is not using this one acre
52:05
in a deal with Polygon for the highest and best use of this land.
52:12
Now, I get that there's a deal here. I understand that Polygon has built a
52:18
lot of homes. Polygon built my former home. They're a good builder. They're part of
52:23
this community. However, as my former
52:28
esteemed citizens and neighbors just talked about,
52:36
Low income housing or affordable housing within this one acre parcel
52:42
on abutting forest ridge which is already crowded
52:49
is problematic. It's problematic for traffic, for land values,
52:55
for the ability of these new potential residents to
53:01
utilize the services of the highlands and metro so forth.
53:08
It's down the hill and it's up the hill to the park and ride. Look
53:13
at our weather tonight. It gets dark at 4 o'clock, so many months of the
53:17
year. It's not a very practical solution. Why the city and
53:23
Polygon would agree to put this affordable housing up in this
53:28
neighborhood when there aren't the services, there's not the infrastructure, there's not a park that's
53:34
big enough to hold an extra 100 children or 50 children or even
53:40
that. It's going to change the nature of the neighborhood,
53:47
in my opinion. And I'm very concerned about that.
53:54
I'm concerned about and believe that there needs to
54:00
be a lot of due diligence by the city to
54:05
implement and to agree on a deal with Polygon for something like this. I don't
54:11
know why it's not this these extra units in addition to the 100
54:18
are not closer to the town center. I don't understand that. What's going to happen
54:23
with all the construction equipment that comes in in this little neighborhood? Where are they
54:27
going to park? I just don't see it happening.
54:37
I am opposed to the city agreeing to
54:44
to have Polygon build your affordable housing in exchange
54:50
for the additional 100 units that they want to build in Westridge. Thank you.
54:58
Thank you, Amber. Anyone else desiring to speak?
55:13
Hi, my name's Steve Pereira. I live at 170 Northeast Dogwood Street here in Isrago
55:17
for about nine years. A process question to start with. Is it general audience comments
55:23
and specific time allotted later for topics, specific topics, or is it just general topics
55:29
at this point? This is a public hearing as I announced before. Audience comments
55:35
were the first item of business after the Pledge of Allegiance. And this is
55:41
a public hearing on the 9th Amendment to the Issaquah Highlands Development Agreement. So. My
55:47
apologies for being late. I will reserve my comments just for the specific topic at
55:52
hand and save the others for future time. Thank you. I'm here in regards to
55:58
the proposed 100 units developed by,
56:04
in the Issaquah Highlands. What I really like and excited about having served on or
56:09
been involved in the homeless or housing situation is a commitment by the developer to
56:14
build 100 lots or 100 units for development. One of the things I like in
56:20
having attended these meetings is that I learned a lot about Issaquah having been a
56:24
relatively short timer here in those nine years. While I'm excited about the 100 units,
56:29
I'm not excited about them being put on a city-owned lot that might have the
56:34
opportunity to be developed for a housing unit on its own. The 100
56:41
units on a view property also doesn't sound like the best development deal. I'd like
56:45
to see the 100 units built in Iskwa as a way of getting affordable housing.
56:50
I'd like to see that included in the developer's land, though not as a separate
56:55
agreement because we're not having a lot of low income housing developed. I just think
57:01
there's also better way for 100 units to be allotted for land based
57:06
on a smaller lot size than what's being proposed. So while I'm excited
57:13
for the 100 units and 100 low income housing, I'm not in favor, in the
57:18
Highlands, I'm not in favor of those 100 units being built in the
57:24
city owned property. I also don't know that based on this current infrastructure
57:30
that there's, with traffic and infrastructure, there's room in the central
57:36
Isabel Plan with arterial traffic for 100 additional traffic routes or vehicles. So because of
57:42
that, I don't think they should be built in the central Issaquah plan. I think
57:45
they should be developed in the highlands where traffic structure is much more
57:51
robust than it is. It seems to be here in the central Issaquah plan or
57:56
the Issaquah Valley floor. Thank you. Thank you, Steve.
58:04
Yes, please come forward. It didn't work.
58:16
Good evening. Thank you for allowing me to go last, maybe. My name is Bernadette
58:20
Curran. I'm at 1689, 14th Place, Northeast, Issaquah Highlands, Forest Ridge
58:26
area. So everyone, I think, pretty much is saying the same thing tonight. The
58:32
public part of land that they're talking about putting the low income or reduced income
58:37
housing doesn't make sense on many levels. The fact that
58:43
there isn't easy access for anyone who's going to live there to get to public
58:48
transportation, to go food shopping, et cetera, et cetera, you know, that's kind of one
58:54
side of the coin. Other side of the coin as being a person who lives
58:58
up there, I can tell you right now, you leave the house at say nine
59:02
o'clock, nine oh five in the morning, the traffic just to get down to park
59:07
which is about, I don't know, maybe half a mile from where the intersection is
59:12
at, it is completely backed up with cars because people drop their kids off in
59:16
the morning, they come down College Drive, they all go down to Starbucks, and it's
59:21
already a mess. To think about adding additional homes there
59:27
is just going to completely complicate that whole matter even worse. I
59:33
can't imagine, As Amber was saying earlier, what it's going to be like for the
59:38
bulldozers, the type of construction trucks that are going to be in the area. There
59:43
is no room for them to park now. So it's going to get even worse.
59:48
As a resident, that upsets me. I will also say I know
59:54
that from the, I believe it's Arch is the home for the
1:00:00
disabled people that are going to be there. I would like to know if there's
1:00:04
gonna be a study or something said that we know the members who are gonna
1:00:09
be living there don't have any kind of past crime or prior convictions. There's schools,
1:00:15
there's little kids in the neighborhood. How do we know that the people who are
1:00:19
gonna be there and walking around the neighborhood are not at all gonna be a
1:00:23
menace to the neighborhood and to the citizens that are in the area? So
1:00:30
again, I think you can probably hear my frustration There's many levels on why that
1:00:35
piece of land doesn't make sense to put the affordable home. I'm really hoping that
1:00:40
the council will hear everyone's feedback this evening and reconsider it.
1:00:46
So thank you again for the time. Thank you very, very much, Bernadette. Is there
1:00:52
anyone else desiring to speak this evening? Yes. Yes, sir. Please approach the mic.
1:00:58
Thank you. My name is Bill Mitzel. I live at 1914 Northeast Killian Lane. 14
1:01:04
years. This is about four to five blocks from the subject property we've been talking
1:01:10
about for the low or reduced income housing. I can confirm as walking
1:01:16
that neighborhood weekly what they've said about the parking
1:01:21
situation, about the folks from higher up in the Highlands taking that as a shortcut
1:01:26
for traffic. to avoid Park Drive and that it doesn't make
1:01:32
sense for that use based upon the way the transit is currently. There's no bus
1:01:38
route there. It's a long walk and or drive and most of
1:01:44
them probably would not necessarily be driving. You want to be where at least you
1:01:48
could walk a bus stop maybe not have to walk to the transit station but
1:01:53
at least be within walking distance of a bus stop and that is not anywhere
1:01:57
there the grocery store would be a good 10-15 minutes away and that's
1:02:03
problematic. I do have one request that you look at one fact
1:02:10
in making this decision. It's been said that the infrastructure is in place
1:02:16
in the central Issaquah Highlands. I object to that. It is not
1:02:22
in place if the schools are not in place. It might be in
1:02:28
place, the infrastructure might be in place for employers, for businesses, because that doesn't
1:02:34
impact schools. But if you're opening up to homes, apartments, et cetera, schools
1:02:40
are part of the infrastructure. If you're gonna have people living five minute walk from
1:02:45
a school, But after it's built, they find out later that, oh, they're zoned out.
1:02:50
They're going to have to be bused down to Clark or somewhere else. That's not
1:02:54
good. So it's part of the schools are part of the infrastructure, just like the
1:02:59
transportation is. Thank you. Thank you, Bill. Anyone else desiring to be
1:03:05
last? Anyone else? Third and final call. Anyone else
1:03:11
desiring to speak this evening? Seeing no one then the
1:03:17
public hearing is, the opportunity to speak
1:03:24
this evening is over and the reason I said that I'm not sure whether the
1:03:29
public hearing will be continued or actually closed. So with that.
1:03:49
Mr. Mayor, move to refer AB 7215 to the January 18, 2017 Council
1:03:55
Land and Shore Committee for further review and recommendation, returning to the full Council on
1:04:00
February 21, 2017. Second. Moved and seconded. With
1:04:06
respect to the public hearing, I would ask the Council if you
1:04:12
desire to keep that open or to continue the public hearing
1:04:19
following the Land and Shore meeting. Mr. Mayor? I would recommend that we keep
1:04:25
the public hearing open. I think as we've heard tonight, this is a very complicated
1:04:30
proposal that's in front of us. So I actually think we will deal with maybe
1:04:36
some additional public comments tomorrow evening at Land and Shore, which is also a televised
1:04:40
meeting. But I think the best idea would be to leave it open. Mary Lou,
1:04:45
thank you. With that, I will not close the public hearing this evening, and we
1:04:50
can now discuss the motion that is before us. Paul, did you, is there something
1:04:56
you want? No, I'm just stroking my chin.
1:04:57
Okay. Stacey?
1:05:03
Well, as a member of Land and Shore, I wasn't at the last meeting, but
1:05:07
thanks for, right? For filling in for me? But I
1:05:13
would be interested if any council members have questions that they want to specifically address
1:05:19
tomorrow night at the meeting, tonight would be a good time to put those forward
1:05:22
if you have them. I would second that comment. It would be very, very helpful
1:05:26
so that staff has an opportunity to prepare and to provide
1:05:32
information that would be helpful as the committee discusses this and works towards a recommendation.
1:05:42
Are there questions at this time that anyone is aware of? I just wanted
1:05:48
to just say, so during our last Land and Shore meeting, we did have Council
1:05:51
Member Ramos substitute in for Council Member Goodman, and I wondered if there was anything,
1:05:57
you will not be attending the next meeting, if there's anything that you heard tonight
1:06:00
that triggered additional questions since you did get to participate in the first one. Is
1:06:04
there anything else you wanted us to discuss tomorrow? I think we talked about most
1:06:07
of them there. So I'm okay with that conversation continuing from where it left off.
1:06:13
Okay, thanks. I guess I can ask tomorrow night, but I'll ask right now just
1:06:18
so that Keith has the benefit of having a 24 hours notice. I would be
1:06:22
a little bit curious about the numbers. I mean, we hear very generally
1:06:28
speaking concerns from people about the build out in the highlands and it's more than
1:06:31
we expected and the schools are crowded and on and on and on and there's
1:06:34
more traffic. So what are the facts? about what was originally entitled and maybe what
1:06:40
we've done in terms of expansion areas and additional ERUs and I
1:06:46
think some explanation of where we were and where we are would be appropriate.
1:06:55
Okay. That's very, very helpful. Yes.
1:07:04
Also for Keith, there was discussion during the comprehensive plan amendment portion of our meeting
1:07:09
last time about where we are with our current targets in terms of the
1:07:14
units, residential units that were going to be built by 2031. And so
1:07:21
this also is a piece of that story. I think in our packet for Land
1:07:24
and Shore, I did see that there was some information through the conclusion of 2016,
1:07:29
but there are many, many other residential projects in the pipeline for 17 and 18.
1:07:33
And I guess I'd kind of like to know, at 2018, where are we going
1:07:38
to be and what does this additional 100 units do to that capacity number?
1:07:45
Thanks. Keith, you could just nod your head and I will report to those watching
1:07:49
on TV. Do you have clarity around those two questions? That was a
1:07:55
thumbs up. Any additional discussion on
1:08:01
the motion? All those in favor of
1:08:06
referring agenda bill 7215 to the January 18th, 2017 Council Land and Shore Committee
1:08:12
for further review and recommendation returning to the full council on February
1:08:18
21st, 2017 signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed? That carries
1:08:23
unanimously. Moving now to regular business. Agenda bill 7314.
1:08:32
Legislative agenda proposed amendment reference small cell
1:08:38
deployment. And with that, I see
1:08:43
Scott of Ogden Murphy Wallace coming to the microphone. Please identify yourself for our
1:08:50
audience. And I believe you have a PowerPoint presentation for us this evening.
1:08:56
By way of introduction, this is an emerging issue that we just learned
1:09:02
about, but it's an issue that has been around for a little while, and this
1:09:07
is designed to be a primer on regulating small cells in the right of way,
1:09:12
and whether this should be added to our legislative agenda.
1:09:21
While the technical difficulties are being ironed out here, Mayor, Council, my name is Scott
1:09:25
Snyder. I'm an attorney at Ogden Murphy Wallace. In addition to serving as your
1:09:31
city attorneys, Issaquah has joined a consortium of 25
1:09:37
Puget Sound and Eastern Washington cities to address the small cell
1:09:44
build out and deployment that's going to be going on now and really over the
1:09:49
next three years. This is a small cell and as we'll discuss,
1:09:55
it's not really small. Small cell is a
1:10:01
microwave antenna that supplements the macro towers, the large 120
1:10:07
foot lattice towers that cell companies use to distribute their signal.
1:10:15
If you watched as I did way too much NFL football over the weekend, you
1:10:19
probably saw the ad that described Verizon's five-year-old network as
1:10:26
really old in dog years. Over the past
1:10:32
three years, the amount of data that's transferred has tripled. It has
1:10:38
been doubling about every three or four years. As you know, smartphones are not
1:10:44
for making telephone calls anymore. They're for watching movies, taking pictures,
1:10:50
and the amount of data that is used is astronomical. The
1:10:56
cell companies, you'll remember the ad I was talking about was criticizing Verizon. Verizon's in
1:11:01
the midst of rolling out hundreds of millions of dollars in deployment to build
1:11:07
small cells. Small cells are a way of of eliminating
1:11:13
dead spots. It used to be you were worried about dead spots with your phone
1:11:18
on a dropping a call. Now it's you don't want to miss the last part
1:11:22
of a movie on your way to school perhaps. The.
1:11:30
Your city and 25 others began the process about a year ago
1:11:36
of updating your codes. One of the realities here is
1:11:42
that the right-of-way has traditionally been used by wireline companies, telephone companies,
1:11:48
cable TV companies. They build poles, they hang wires. It's been a linear
1:11:54
process. Your city, like many other cities with whom we work, over the past 10
1:12:00
years have been active, or 20 really, have been actively pursuing undergrounding,
1:12:06
getting those utilities down, which works great for wireline,
1:12:12
but if a microwave tower to be effective has to be above ground. The Federal
1:12:18
Communications Commission has identified those utility poles in the
1:12:24
right of way as a necessary resource. Under federal law, cities can't discriminate
1:12:31
can't refuse entry into their cities for small cell deployment, and they have to provide
1:12:37
access to the right-of-way on a non-discriminatory basis. Part of the
1:12:44
reality, the business reality these days, is Verizon in
1:12:50
that build-out that I mentioned are really building out the 4G network. While we're all
1:12:56
aware that 5G is promised and advertised, It's two or three years out. The
1:13:02
Federal Communications Commission has not sold the frequency. There's no way to know what the
1:13:07
equipment is looking like, will look like. What we're discussing is
1:13:13
how the cell carriers will distribute those
1:13:21
facilities throughout the community. Part of the reason that we began
1:13:26
our work and you joined the consortium was the realization
1:13:32
that 75 conditional use permits using the same structure
1:13:38
that cities have used for macro towers to identify hundreds
1:13:44
of small cells and get them approved in the 150
1:13:51
day period that the Federal Communication Commission allows or the 120 day
1:13:59
that state law requires would be very difficult and has the potential to swamp most
1:14:04
cities' systems. The city of Kirkland, the city of Spokane,
1:14:09
Kenmore have all updated their codes. Spokane has made small cells
1:14:16
an outright permitted use. Other cities have adopted streamlined components and
1:14:21
we're actively working with your public works engineering and planning department
1:14:29
to look at the permitting options. How are you going to accommodate something that while
1:14:35
you may have public hearings where your citizens have concerns about the aesthetic environment, but
1:14:41
probably every one of those citizens will have in their pocket or their purse the
1:14:45
device that's driving the need for it. The reason I'm here tonight though, in addition
1:14:50
to queuing up this issue that you'll be dealing with over the next months, perhaps
1:14:56
up to six months, I was to alert you that Verizon has introduced
1:15:02
nationally in last count 21 states legislation
1:15:08
that's very preemptive in nature. Would remove most city
1:15:14
traditional control over the right-of-way as the trustee of the right-of-way as it
1:15:20
relates to small cell deployments. It's targeted to help
1:15:25
Verizon get their new network deployed,
1:15:31
but it has a number of features that are referenced in the menu,
1:15:37
in the memo that I provided in your packet. You know, a particular concern
1:15:44
are provisions such as making and outright permitted use
1:15:50
in every neighborhood in your city. Ignore, there is a tip of the hat to
1:15:55
historic districts and residential districts, but shorelines
1:16:01
environments, downtown business districts, undergrounded neighborhoods.
1:16:07
Your city is unique in being very far along in a program
1:16:13
of undergrounding and telling a citizen in a community that may at his or her
1:16:19
own expense have paid to have their community undergrounded that now
1:16:25
cell companies have the right at their discretion to install a microwave
1:16:31
facility. That's gonna be a tough sell. A few pictures
1:16:37
and I want to thank the city of
1:16:43
Bellevue for the photographs. We're using them in a different context. Thank you.
1:16:49
Don't touch the mouse. Thank you.
1:16:57
As you can see, these are the portions of the antenna structure
1:17:03
The antenna can be at the top of the pole or in what's called the
1:17:07
communication zone, which is the middle part of the pole below the
1:17:13
power lines and above the cable at the bottom.
1:17:19
There's typically a box. The state statute currently defines the small cell, the
1:17:25
antenna, as something that's as a device that's three cubic feet or smaller.
1:17:32
and the related facilities as 17 cubic feet or smaller. The
1:17:38
legislation that I've mentioned in its original format would also prevent cities from
1:17:44
using aesthetics considerations, requiring concealment technology,
1:17:50
basically getting involved in any meaningful way in the permitting process. As a member
1:17:56
of the consortium and as the attorney that's representing the consortium, we've been working
1:18:02
actively with Victoria Lincoln of the Association of Washington Cities.
1:18:08
You have a lobbyist. I know that the city of Bellevue is actively
1:18:14
opposing the legislation. Tacoma and Seattle are involved both as public
1:18:20
utilities and as permitting agencies. The item
1:18:26
got dropped in the hopper in the legislative process very late.
1:18:33
It was not on the radar at the time that the AWC committees first met.
1:18:39
So we're here to alert you to what's going on and for you to
1:18:45
make a policy consideration about whether you would like to instruct your to become
1:18:51
involved in the process. AWC's position to date is no
1:18:57
preemption. We've been working, we, the consortium, have been working with
1:19:03
Ms. Lincoln to put together model ordinances. The consortium members are looking
1:19:09
at both franchise-based and planning-based approaches.
1:19:17
The, you know, one of, Verizon sales pitches to the
1:19:22
legislature is we're in active competition in this state for money.
1:19:29
I don't think anyone is for the deployments. And I'd suggest that none of
1:19:35
the 25 cities that I've been working with have any desire to stop the deployment.
1:19:41
They want to make sure that the deployment occurs in a way that is meaningful
1:19:46
in terms of each community's particular structure. and that as it comes
1:19:52
in, that cities work actively to expedite the process for an inevitable rollout,
1:19:58
but that we not lose traditional powers that communities have held under your
1:20:03
state constitution since the 1896 as the stewards and trustees of the
1:20:09
public right of way. Mayor, I'd be happy to answer questions or provide more detail.
1:20:15
I've got, oops, I keep doing that. I have lots of pictures.
1:20:22
Are there questions of Scott? Looks like you
1:20:28
did a pretty good job of explaining where we're at. Or I bored everyone into
1:20:32
submission, yes sir.
1:20:40
Stacy? Well, I'll make a motion. maybe there's a discussion after that. I would
1:20:46
move to direct the administration to amend the city's 2017 legislative agenda, adding the following
1:20:51
language, and it's in the packet, but I'll read it for those folks who don't
1:20:54
have the benefit of seeing it. Land use slash telecommunications. Issaquah would oppose
1:20:59
legislation on the development and build out of, quote, small cell, unquote, telecommunications
1:21:05
networks that would unduly preempt local authority. However, the city is open to supporting legislation
1:21:11
that retains flexibility and takes more of a model ordinance approach. Second. Moved and
1:21:17
seconded. Discussion or questions?
1:21:25
Seeing none then, all those in favor of the motion to direct the administration to
1:21:31
amend the city's 2017 legislative agenda as described by Council President
1:21:37
Signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed, that carries unanimously. Thank you, Scott.
1:21:44
Thank you, Mayor, and I'll look forward to speaking with you again about amending your
1:21:48
ordinances over the next months. Thank you. Moving now to agenda bill 7050,
1:21:56
amending development services department permit fees. Keith
1:22:02
Niven, director of Development Services for a
1:22:08
staff presentation. Keith, welcome back. Thank you.
1:22:18
Okay, nightcap of a double header. So last time I
1:22:24
was in front of y'all was December 12th at a council workshop.
1:22:30
That was like 30 minutes ago.
1:22:37
Last time I was in front of you talking about development services fees was last
1:22:41
year, December 12th, at a workshop. And we talked a lot about where
1:22:47
we are and why we're doing this. And I just want to touch on that
1:22:50
for a brief bit before I go through kind of what we talked about at
1:22:53
Land and Shore. The development services department is
1:22:59
responsible for both long range planning and permitting for development within the city.
1:23:06
And over the past couple years the city has been operating in the red. In
1:23:11
other words what we had budgeted for permit revenue and what we actually took in
1:23:16
annually did not meet our targets. In 2015, the
1:23:22
city council appropriated $50,000 for the city to hire a consultant to look at our
1:23:27
fees and to assess how the department was doing in terms of its
1:23:33
cost recovery. And in a very brief summary, what I would tell you is
1:23:39
the department has basically three work groups. One would be kind of analogous to planning,
1:23:45
one would be engineering, and the other would be building. So of those three divisions,
1:23:50
Building was operating at about 100% cost recovery. Planning was operating at 37% cost recovery.
1:23:56
In the engineering group, the consultant couldn't really determine at what level they were operating
1:24:02
for cost recovery. So with all of that, we put together
1:24:08
a proposed new fee schedule for you. And we've been going through conversations at the
1:24:14
Land and Shore Committee. And really, the conversations have focused
1:24:20
on these four items, degree of cost recovery, whether
1:24:26
there's a target or a minimum or a reserve that's created. What would be the
1:24:32
impact to smaller projects by potentially increasing the permitting fees?
1:24:37
And then a question was asked on the December 12th workshop, what is the accuracy
1:24:42
of forecasting? Is there a way to predictably understand where you
1:24:48
should set that target if you're gonna set one. So I'm gonna start with degree
1:24:52
of cost recovery and what we talked about in December was kind of a proposal
1:24:58
to hit 75% cost recovery and this is actually a two part, I think,
1:25:03
conversation. One is how much of the department is cost recovery and there's a certain
1:25:08
number of positions that I think what we would say
1:25:14
arguably is a function that is not development service related, it's more long range
1:25:19
planning and admin. And then there's, what percentage of the remaining
1:25:25
department is cost recovery. And I provided basically some different levels. We talked
1:25:31
about 75%. Here's an 80, 90, and 100. And based on the $6.2 million
1:25:37
budget for the department, the numbers in the right column is how that works out
1:25:43
in terms of percentage. What we also talked about was peer cities and what are
1:25:47
other cities doing in terms of cost recovery. So there's a list here on this
1:25:50
slide of some of those other cities. And based on the ones that we
1:25:56
surveyed, the average is 75% cost recovery, means 73%.
1:26:04
Target or minimum, this is a conversation about if we make a budgeting assumption,
1:26:10
say, of 80% cost recovery, and I'm going to pick that number for a reason,
1:26:14
we'll see in a moment, that would basically be $4 million. So if we target
1:26:20
$4 million through the budgeting process for revenue for this department, what happens if you
1:26:25
don't meet that target? And we talked about whether or not you develop a
1:26:31
reserve so that if there are permitting or dead points that you wouldn't
1:26:37
have to immediately potentially get rid of staff because that's our most
1:26:43
significant operating cost, obviously. And so that was, I think, a significant
1:26:48
part of the conversation that we had at the last Land and Shore meeting. Impact
1:26:54
on small projects. So what I did with this was basically the first column is
1:26:59
different types of permitting projects from home remodels to
1:27:05
new bigger projects like gateway which is the apartments on Newport to say a small
1:27:10
commercial remodel and if you look at the columns basically there is land use site
1:27:15
work and building permits as we talked about the three divisions and what the existing
1:27:20
permit fee was in 2016 or is today and what is being proposed and how
1:27:25
that changes. Bless you. My assessment of this is if you look
1:27:31
at it, there's really a very small change to Gateway. And what I think we've
1:27:36
seen is that the smaller projects are really where some of the bigger increases are
1:27:42
coming. But it's partially because those are the ones being mostly subsidized right now with
1:27:47
the existing fee structure. And then lastly,
1:27:53
we came away with a recommendation from committee. which has been slightly, I think, revised.
1:28:00
I think what's coming out of committee is to one, approve the fee schedule. Two,
1:28:05
is to set the permitting revenue target at 80%, which would be $4 million for
1:28:10
the 2017 budget. Three, it's coming to an agreement with the
1:28:16
excluded positions, which are the three long range planning positions, the counter service manager and
1:28:22
the director. Although that was a two to one conversation, we can kind of pull
1:28:26
that apart if we need to. And then the fourth item was to not enact
1:28:30
the new fee schedule until the 20th of February. And part of the reason for
1:28:35
that was to give some of the folks that are either thinking about submitting for
1:28:41
permits or an adequate amount of amount of time to actually get in before the
1:28:46
new fee schedule is enacted. So that concludes my
1:28:52
quick presentation. If there's questions or if Mary Lou, if you'd want to add anything
1:28:57
else. Mary Lou. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just add a couple of things. Thanks for
1:29:01
the summary, Keith. That was really good. This is a long and complicated agenda bill.
1:29:07
A couple of things that I wanted to add is Under the committee's recommendation on
1:29:12
cost recovery target, we were all happy to see that it increased from 75% to
1:29:17
80%. However, I think Bill would also like to speak to a suggestion that he
1:29:23
made about in the future in terms of potentially looking at moving
1:29:28
towards 100% cost recovery. So that was not unanimously supported, but it was an idea
1:29:34
that Bill had put out on the table. Also happy to see that one of
1:29:39
the administrative positions that had been previously excluded had been added back in. The comment
1:29:45
about the two to one vote, both Councilmember Batista and
1:29:51
I agreed with the positions that were proposed in the agenda bill. Bill, do you
1:29:56
want to talk about your thoughts on why the director position should also be included
1:30:01
in cost recovery? Because that can't. Whenever you want to fit those in, you want
1:30:03
to. I'll go down my list and let you talk to both of those. Thanks.
1:30:08
That's great. There was a general consensus to establish a cost recovery
1:30:13
reporting plan. Administration reviewed that recommendation after Land &
1:30:20
Shore finished. And there are a couple of changes that they would like to make,
1:30:24
and I'll make a few comments on those at the end. The second one that
1:30:28
the committee recommended but administration would like us to pause on is that the committee
1:30:33
did believe establishing a reserve for smoothing out the peaks and the valleys in terms
1:30:37
of permit processing is a good idea. And one of the other questions that came
1:30:43
up is there is a change in the table in the way fees are collected
1:30:47
for negotiations of a development agreement. It's on a per acre basis. It used to
1:30:52
be time and material. And there was concern by the committee that there should be
1:30:58
some reporting, if development agreements are being negotiated, there should be some reporting out during
1:31:04
the year to verify whether or not that is a good change in how we
1:31:08
collect that fee. The committee supported the ordinance having a 30
1:31:15
day implementation period which puts it at mid February. There also was an ask of
1:31:20
staff that due to the significance of some of the increases in fees, that there
1:31:26
be an attempt made to inform residents and developers that have been into the permitting
1:31:32
center, are in process or about to submit, are notified of these increases, similar
1:31:38
to what was done when the moratorium came into effect and there was an outreach
1:31:43
process to make sure that people in that loop somehow were notified. The staff is
1:31:49
recommending some changes to land and shore recommendations and it has to do with the
1:31:53
financial aspects. And I think both Bill and Mariah, it would be great if you
1:31:59
would comment on the staff's changes as well. The changes are that we will be
1:32:04
as a council discussing some financial policy, long range planning items
1:32:10
this year. And rather than create another new reserve at this time,
1:32:16
Staff recommends that in our conversation on long-term planning, we talk about reserves in
1:32:22
general before we start creating another reserve. And that seems to make sense to me
1:32:26
as long as we do get to the end point at some point within the
1:32:30
next 12 to 18 months of looking at a reserve for development
1:32:34
services recovery, cost recovery. And then the reporting was
1:32:40
another item that had come up from administration. In terms of financial reporting, the committee
1:32:44
had asked for quarterly reporting. And based on the information that can be
1:32:51
collected from our current financial system, the director of finance would like to
1:32:57
come back and find out exactly what that reporting looks like to confirm that it
1:33:01
is possible to report in the manner requested. So again, I think that's a reasonable
1:33:04
request leave it in the agenda bill but defer it until the finance
1:33:10
director has time to confer with land insurers to what that might look like. And
1:33:15
Bill, would you like to comment on, I'm sorry Mr. Mayor, but I think both
1:33:19
the committee members would probably like to add something. Mariah sort of raised her hand
1:33:23
before so why don't you start Mariah and then we'll move to Bill. Well, I
1:33:29
think that it does make sense what the administration has talked about in terms of
1:33:34
coming back with more information, but do definitely wanna see
1:33:40
us talk about the reserve fund and the quarterly reporting. I think
1:33:46
when we were discussing the reserve fund and the different options that may be
1:33:52
out there, one of the comments that I made during committee is that It doesn't
1:33:56
seem to make a lot of sense to me to have a model where
1:34:03
as things dip down that you have to look at potentially laying off
1:34:08
staff. And from a strategic perspective when looking at,
1:34:14
when looking across sort of a personnel or a human resources plan, the amount of
1:34:19
time that it takes to to then recruit, to
1:34:25
train, and all of those sometimes hidden and sometimes not hidden costs that go into
1:34:31
all of that, not to mention morale, and just looking at that from
1:34:37
that perspective, the reserve fund seemed to make a lot of sense to me, and
1:34:42
we also talked about that if there were overages where more
1:34:48
money was made that that would be in the reserve fund and then potentially the
1:34:52
rest of that would come from the general fund. So I just wanted to point
1:34:55
out some of the things that we talked about in terms of the reserve fund
1:34:59
and why we had gone down that road. So I'll look forward to getting more
1:35:04
information about that. Bill? I'll kind of
1:35:10
start at the top I guess. You had some questions there. I think we orient
1:35:15
a little bit. The set of being for 80% cost recovery,
1:35:21
I think that's basic to one of my questions, and that is I'm not sure
1:35:26
why we want to set 80% cost recovery on something. It seems to me if
1:35:30
you're looking at cost recovery, you should normally look at 100%. That's what cost recovery
1:35:34
is. I'm not saying that we're always gonna plan to have a 20% of somebody
1:35:39
else cover the cost of that part of business. So I think This would be
1:35:45
a great first step. I would support stepping ahead with these new fees now, but
1:35:51
I'd say we should look at the next step, which is working towards 100% recovery,
1:35:56
because this is a program I think that should cover its own costs. It's one
1:35:59
of our largest pieces of our budget in so many ways, so I think that's
1:36:05
what we should look at, and that should be the next step, because why should
1:36:12
everybody else subsidize this program? That's what it gets down to on that. To follow
1:36:17
with that, I think the next thing I'll address is the two to one vote
1:36:21
there on item three is what positions should be excluded. And to me,
1:36:28
all the positions that aren't dealing with development should be excluded. So the long range
1:36:32
planning, the comprehensive plan, those kinds of folks, which are on there, all of them
1:36:36
except the director. As I talked to, director
1:36:42
at the time. In the development side, there's what, 22 out of 26 of
1:36:48
your employees are in the development side, four are in the long-term planning side. So
1:36:54
that obviously is the major part of the department. So why the director would not
1:37:00
be part of that, because if you had a department of four people, that would
1:37:03
be a whole lot simpler thing to do and you wouldn't need to have a
1:37:06
highly skilled person as our director to manage four people versus to manage 26. So
1:37:12
I think that position should also be excluded, or should not be
1:37:18
excluded, excuse me. Keep that wording right. So there will only be four, or three,
1:37:23
three rather than four. So that again is just trying to keep the cost where
1:37:27
the costs really are.
1:37:34
The reserve, I had another question on that. So as you look at the target
1:37:38
80 versus 100 percent, the reserve, when you're only trying to gather 80 percent,
1:37:45
a reserve doesn't make a lot of sense. In a sense, you're going to subsidize
1:37:48
it anyway. And where the reserve, how are you going to get the reserve? To
1:37:52
me, the devil's in the detail. If the reserve comes from the general fund, then
1:37:56
that's not a reserve. That's just what you'd pay it with anyway. So there's no
1:38:00
point in that. If you look at something, the reason for reserve is to level
1:38:05
out things as some of the things mentioned from the human resources side to treat
1:38:11
our employees right. We don't want to have a department that's fluctuating all over the
1:38:14
place. We want to build things up so that when years are low, that's okay
1:38:20
because the years are high and we would balance that out. And that's a good
1:38:23
idea because as I mentioned before, you have no way of knowing what business is
1:38:27
coming in the door, right? And you can't control it like other folks can a
1:38:32
little bit more so, but you cannot. And we don't want to have you sitting
1:38:35
at the whim of who's coming in the door and who's not. So some way
1:38:39
to balance that is good. How you do it, but if you do it with
1:38:43
just say one of the proposals is setting aside $100,000 of general fund money to
1:38:47
build up a pot of reserve. Well, I don't see a reason for that because
1:38:53
if we're just going to pay it next year for $200,000, then we would have
1:38:56
paid over two years versus one. That didn't make sense to me, but if you
1:39:00
built it up with money that came in into the department because of a higher
1:39:07
year, then that would cover you on the lower years. That would make sense to
1:39:10
me on the reserve. And that would also take care of
1:39:17
protecting our employees, keeping good, well-trained folks when they're ready to do the work so
1:39:22
they can do good quality work, not just the work. Point of order. I do
1:39:27
have a motion and there's a lot of different topics being discussed. I think it
1:39:31
would help if there is one proposed in the packet and
1:39:38
the actual movement, the language of that, it's not clear to me whether or not
1:39:44
it embraces this additional talk, this conversation about reserve and what positions are in or
1:39:49
out. So it's a little bit unclear on what questions we're considering right now.
1:39:58
Mr. Mayor, I would move to adopt ordinance number 2792.
1:40:05
Mending section 3.64.010 of the Issaquah Municipal Code and the Land Use
1:40:11
and Site Work Fee Schedule adopted by such section, directing that the fee schedule be
1:40:16
set forth in the Issaquah Municipal Code in full and establishing an effective date of
1:40:21
February 20, 2017. I'm not really sure if I should be reading the other.
1:40:29
I think that's it. Second. Moved and seconded discussion on the
1:40:35
main motion or there have been a number of
1:40:41
items that need to be further discussed
1:40:47
over time and those are clearly listed in the agenda bill. What Mariah and
1:40:53
Bill have spoken to is their thoughts and
1:40:59
views on that. And so I see this really as
1:41:05
several, one motion and future work to be done on
1:41:11
topics one through four listed at the bottom of the agenda bill.
1:41:18
Did I get that right? I would also, Mr. Mayor,
1:41:24
possibly recommend additional language be added to the motion that addresses the,
1:41:31
on page 115 at the bottom, there are four points that land inshore, four additional
1:41:36
recommendations from land inshore, but number two and number three are gonna be deferred. And
1:41:40
so what might make sense is to amend the motion saying that
1:41:46
creation of a development services department reserve fund and the,
1:41:53
Reportly reports out to Council's Services and Safety Committee will be deferred
1:42:01
until further consultation with the administration. Just to make sure that only one and four
1:42:06
are included. Okay, so I heard an
1:42:12
amendment offered to clarify steps going forward that would
1:42:18
include items one and four. deferring one
1:42:24
and... I mean, two and four and deferring one and,
1:42:31
no, deferring two and three
1:42:37
and going forward on one and
1:42:39
four. Want to try to put that
1:42:45
in words? I thought I did. Okay.
1:42:53
I would move that we amend the original motion to include the following language at
1:42:58
the end of the motion. Creation of a development services department reserve fund
1:43:05
and quarterly reporting to the council services and safety committee will be deferred until
1:43:10
further consultation with administration. Make sense? I would suggest
1:43:17
that you include the language of what you want to include, not exclude. Okay, it's.
1:43:22
The existing motion doesn't include that language. It is, it doesn't include it, but the
1:43:27
agenda bill does include it. The agenda bill already talks about the 80% cost recovery.
1:43:36
But it's not in the, it's not in the proposed ordinance.
1:44:01
Let me take a crack at it. Adopt ordinance number 2792 amending
1:44:07
section as stated in the original motion
1:44:13
and setting the cost permitting, set the permitting cost
1:44:19
recovery revenue target at 80% of non-excluded cost
1:44:25
and excluding the following positions from the permitting cost recovery
1:44:31
revenue target. And those positions are listed here.
1:44:38
Is that the intent? Yes. Second. The seconder?
1:44:44
Accepts the amendment. Okay. And
1:44:50
that's a friendly amendment. Back to the
1:44:56
amended motion. Additional discussion or
1:45:01
questions? Stacy? Thank you. Keith, can you remind me what
1:45:08
the rationale for excluding the director's position? So right now,
1:45:16
the rationale is that the director's position spends a lot of time
1:45:23
at meetings like this, dealing with policy issues.
1:45:28
And, you know, it's the actual right now, so right now, it's not
1:45:34
a great time to do a slice and see what I'm actually spending my time
1:45:38
on because I'm spending time on actual permit issuance because I'm missing staff. We have
1:45:42
vacancies. But during when the department is fully staffed, the director is really
1:45:48
doing mostly policy work associated with the department. Some of that's
1:45:55
development related. Some of it's long range planning related. And so as we talked about
1:46:00
this at committee, if I was to try and put a percentage
1:46:06
of the director's time that dealt with development related things versus policy related
1:46:12
things, it would be hard for me to guess what that number
1:46:18
might be. So we kind of left that conversation at that point, and that's kind
1:46:23
of when the vote happened. I mean, for example, these fees, you could say
1:46:29
it is development related, but it's really policy related getting the department to run at
1:46:34
its budgeted kind of operating cost. So
1:46:40
it's not clear for me that it should be not excluded. Okay, thank you. And
1:46:45
then I had a follow-up, not a follow-up to that, I have a second question.
1:46:49
There was, can the city, and this is probably a question for Jim Haney,
1:46:57
Can the city seek 100% cost recovery?
1:47:04
Or are there, the reason I'm asking is because, or are there
1:47:11
parts of work that DSD does that cannot be included in these?
1:47:18
The city can seek and can require 100% cost recovery for
1:47:25
costs that are related to actually processing permits. So
1:47:31
obviously it's an art as Keith indicated as to determine what
1:47:37
some positions spend on actually processing permits versus doing
1:47:43
policy work and so forth. But you can recover 100% of your costs legally.
1:47:49
So the best example would be King County's DDS where they do
1:47:55
charge, they keep track of time and they bill it out that way.
1:48:01
It's a structure we don't have here now. It was similar to what we did
1:48:05
with the major development review team which when I ran that work group within the
1:48:10
city, we had two admin staff just to work invoicing. And so
1:48:17
it adds layers of staffing requirements within the organization. So we can go there. It
1:48:22
does require, I think, a structural change for us to get there. And we talked
1:48:26
about this a couple of years ago at Land and Shore, and I was one
1:48:31
of those who was asking about the structure to be able to do that. And
1:48:36
at the time, I was told we don't have that ability now, but we will
1:48:40
with our new system. And so is that true, that we would have that?
1:48:46
I would have to defer to somebody else on that question. Can
1:48:52
you... Thank you, Mayor.
1:48:58
Dial a friend. I'm unable to answer that right now at this time, but that's
1:49:04
something that we can look into and bring more information back to the committee and
1:49:08
the council. Okay. I would like to know, because I was told at that time
1:49:12
that we would have that ability with this new system. and so I would like
1:49:17
to know if we will actually have it. Thanks.
1:49:25
Paul? Yeah, regarding the 80%, so the way I'm interpreting this
1:49:31
is we, those positions that are part of the cost recovery calculation,
1:49:38
we are effectively saying that on average they
1:49:44
spend 80% of their time doing this work and about roughly 20% it's
1:49:52
more for the public good, not specifically to help some type of engineering or development
1:49:57
effort. And so, At least that's the way I'm interpreting it. And if we
1:50:03
had a labor tracking system and everybody did punch in their hours,
1:50:09
and we're saying we think roughly that for every 40 hours that
1:50:15
these, to use a 40 hour work week, that these employees are clocking 32 of
1:50:21
those, are actually
1:50:27
for the actual items related to fees and another aid are roughly not. They're
1:50:33
doing some other overhead or public service. Is that how we got it 80? I
1:50:39
don't wanna put any words in your mouth because I'm wondering why not 75, why
1:50:42
not 90, why not 100? I would go at it from two different directions. One
1:50:48
is yes, I would guess with you that of a total work week, 32 out
1:50:54
of 40 hours doing either permit review or answering permit related queries
1:51:00
is probably a good average across the department. The other piece is
1:51:07
looking at, so we did some projections based on the proposed fee schedule on what
1:51:13
revenue would be reasonable given kind of a normal workload. And
1:51:19
that gets us at about, my guess would be 3.8 million, right? So 3.8, 4
1:51:26
million, so 4 million is 80%, 3.8 would be just shy. So
1:51:31
part of it, and in the past the council has been very concerned over increasing
1:51:38
fees too much at any given time. And so what this represents, I believe,
1:51:44
is both kind of hitting the target of what staff are really doing
1:51:50
and putting the fees at a level that I think is reasonable but gets the
1:51:55
department at a much better cost recovery rate than where we are right now.
1:52:02
So we pushed it a long ways and I think Council Member Ramos' proposal to
1:52:07
get to 100%, I'm not pushing back against, but I think that should be more
1:52:13
of a progression based on, so you asked me a long time ago, how do
1:52:17
I know that these fees are right? And what I would tell you is, I
1:52:21
don't think we do know that. I think what I can tell you is that
1:52:26
of the three work groups, building was in the right spot, This takes
1:52:32
planning from 30%, 37% cost recovery to what I would think would be somewhere
1:52:37
between 80 and 100. And the engineering group, I still don't know the answer to
1:52:42
because the fee study done by the consultant didn't give me any indication of where
1:52:46
it was. So we had to kind of shoot in the dark based on what
1:52:49
we thought we should do. So if you were to ask me is this proposed
1:52:55
fee schedule much better very much better than what's in existence, I would say yes.
1:53:01
Is it gonna potentially get us to a point where we're beyond 80% cost recovery?
1:53:07
I think that's a possibility, and if so, I think that's part of that ongoing
1:53:10
conversation about if we are in the right spot, and if we are potentially
1:53:16
recovering more than 80% of our cost, then let's move the target upward, right? Or
1:53:21
let's progress it, and let's look for more operational savings to actually get to a
1:53:25
higher percentage. So I'd answer it kind of both
1:53:31
ways. I think it's the right number from both what staff is doing now and
1:53:35
also I believe it's an achievable target for the
1:53:41
department for this first year of a new fee schedule.
1:53:47
So one of the things when I look at fees or really anything taxation
1:53:52
or revenue generation for city is can I go look somebody in the eye and
1:53:57
explain it and feel comfortable with that explanation and I'm very comfortable with 80% and
1:54:02
I'll tell you why. I'm lucky enough to have employees that work for me and
1:54:08
fully billable for them is 140 hours a month and that is 80.8% of the
1:54:11
actual 2080 hours per
1:54:16
year that exist in a 40-hour work week. And so that is reflecting that people
1:54:21
take vacations, they take sick leave, they have to come before council and
1:54:27
answer questions, et cetera, et cetera. And so if I was sitting down with
1:54:33
a resident or a business, I would feel very comfortable explaining that. So I feel
1:54:37
comfortable about this target. Thank you. Other questions or comments?
1:54:43
Paul, do you have another one? I think we're still talking about the amendment to
1:54:45
the motion. And the second part that was added, number four in the packet, it
1:54:51
does say explicitly, it's the one that says exclude the following positions from the permitting
1:54:55
cost recovery revenue target director, long range planners, planning division, excuse me. And then it
1:55:00
says parenthetically three positions. I guess that could change over time. It could go to
1:55:06
two, it could go to three. And so I interpret the three positions just as
1:55:12
a count of the current number of positions. But the intent of this would be
1:55:16
to always exclude long range planning division. That's my interpretation of this. And I'm just
1:55:21
wondering if my colleagues agree with that. I
1:55:27
see no one shaking their head with the opposite. All right, just wanted to make
1:55:32
that clear. Other questions or comments, Bill?
1:55:39
The way you brought this up with the 80% in my mind has never been
1:55:43
discussed that way previously. So it was 80% of the cost of doing
1:55:49
business, not 80% because 20% is other business. It was these
1:55:55
positions are 100% doing this work, including those kinds of costs that
1:56:00
cost an employee to have benefits and and all those things are wrapped into that
1:56:06
100% of cost. It was never, we're only doing 80% because that's all they do
1:56:12
and 20% is towards, I don't know, whatever else they do. So it was just
1:56:17
a decision to claim, try to get only 80% of the true cost, not
1:56:23
the way you guys are both looking at it, I guess, and that's just what
1:56:26
I wanted to clarify. You've never presented it that way that I've heard before. Okay.
1:56:35
So I think we talked about it a little bit at the December 12th workshop,
1:56:39
and I think part of the discussion when a suggestion was to go to an
1:56:42
enterprise fund that there were costs associated with staffing that represented
1:56:48
more of a public benefit than was developer related. But that's my recollection, which may
1:56:53
not be accurate. I'm just saying I think we might have just touched it a
1:56:56
little bit. Going towards enterprise fund, which is a whole other level. Exactly. Right.
1:57:04
Other questions or discussion? Mariah? I
1:57:10
just wanted to make sure that this particular issue didn't fall off the plate. We
1:57:16
had talked about it at January 5th land and shore and Mary Lou had alluded
1:57:22
to this. But when we were talking about the fee impacts and development agreements, we
1:57:27
had talked about the issue of moving to per acre fee structure.
1:57:34
And we had considered at that time giving the director
1:57:40
discretion between an hourly rate and
1:57:46
the per acre fee structure. And I'm wondering if a good place to put this,
1:57:50
I'm not sure if it makes sense, so this is a question for you, with
1:57:53
the quarterly reporting that maybe that could be something that we could talk about whether
1:57:58
that is working well or whether that discretion needs to be in there because that
1:58:04
is not something that came forward in terms of the recommendations.
1:58:11
Keith, can you pull up the table where you had the new fees? Because I
1:58:13
thought you had a note at the bottom or we're going to add a note
1:58:16
at the bottom about that item. I did. So
1:58:23
I'm going to ask Tisha, is the packet up?
1:58:33
So the conversation was, I'm not sure if I'm close enough to the mic. So
1:58:39
the conversation at committee was we were dramatically changing how we were going to charge
1:58:44
for development agreements. And although we don't see very many of them coming down the
1:58:49
pike, there could be some. And going to a completely different
1:58:55
measure, right now it's the old fee schedule is hourly and we're
1:59:00
going to a per acre basis. And part of it is to get a more
1:59:04
predictable fee up front. Plus it takes the staff out of having to do
1:59:12
accounting of their time, which we talked about earlier. But it also, we put a
1:59:16
note on the table at the end. It's footnote three to the new fee schedule,
1:59:21
which allows the director to adjust the fee if it's believed that
1:59:27
it's not going to be commensurate with the amount of work done. So and the
1:59:33
to kind of give you an absurd way that that might play out is if
1:59:37
Lake Sammamish State Park if the state parks came forward and said we want to
1:59:41
do a development agreement just because of the vast amount of land in the state
1:59:46
park that would be a huge fee that the department would take in that would
1:59:51
probably be well in excess of the amount of staff cost associated with that. So
1:59:55
so we did add a footnote three to the table. which would allow the director
2:00:00
to kind of make an administrative decision when an applicant came in for a development
2:00:06
agreement specifically if we believe that the complexity or the land wasn't going to
2:00:12
land us at a spot where we would be recovering our fees at an expected
2:00:18
level. Did that answer your question, Maria? Yes, thank you.
2:00:24
Paul? I was just going to make a point of order. We haven't finished about
2:00:28
the amendment to the motion. And I think this topic goes back to the main
2:00:32
motion. I believe the main motion has been amended to
2:00:38
include items. We did, but we didn't vote on the amendment.
2:00:46
All those in favor of amending the main motion
2:00:53
by including Items 1 and 4
2:01:00
signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed?
2:01:06
The amendment passes. We're now talking about an amended motion. Mary Lou?
2:01:12
Thanks. Just a question for Mariah to make sure I understand. When we talked about
2:01:17
it in committee, we had said that during quarterly reporting or whatever kind of reporting
2:01:21
we were going to get about financials, we would have a special pull out of
2:01:26
the development agreement time material. Now, this new motion no longer has
2:01:32
the quarterly reporting because it's deferred. Was your question about do we still get some
2:01:37
sort of feedback on whether or not we have an appropriate measurement for development agreements
2:01:42
since we're not going to have quarterly reporting? Well, maybe just to add it in
2:01:46
as it's deferred and when we're talking about that, I just wanted to make sure
2:01:50
that that wasn't missed.
2:01:58
No additional amendment. Additional questions or discussion? Paul?
2:02:05
It wasn't that many years ago that we revised and tried the same thing.
2:02:11
I know some of the history is there. Some of these
2:02:17
changes are pretty significant.
2:02:25
I'm glad to see, I know when we budgeted for 2017, we assumed maybe the
2:02:30
start of these on February 1st. So it's with a little bit of angst, but
2:02:35
I think the point that Mary Lou, you made earlier about just notifying people who
2:02:39
are in the process of this change, give them,
2:02:47
especially if they're smaller businesses or individuals that might be affected by this. So this
2:02:52
defer to February 20, because of the significance of these changes,
2:02:58
I think does give hopefully those opportunity for some that otherwise maybe wouldn't be able
2:03:04
to proceed the opportunity to apply ahead of time.
2:03:10
And so I'm glad that, I hope we don't have to keep doing this every
2:03:13
three or four years. We did defer the reporting, it's absolutely
2:03:19
critical, but I also understand how difficult it can be. We wanna be able to
2:03:23
get accurate numbers that we believe and trust. And I know the back end systems
2:03:28
have to be in place for capturing that data and for them to be able
2:03:31
to extract it and understand it correctly. So we'll get there and it's gonna be
2:03:36
good when we get there. It'll be great.
2:03:42
And so, and I'd also would wanna throw out there for
2:03:48
discussion, again, the item that we didn't include. I think we do have the long-term
2:03:53
ad hoc finance committee and maybe the reserve fund for this. I looked at the
2:03:59
kind of the charter for that. It's actually in our packet. It doesn't talk explicitly
2:04:04
about this type of financial policy, but it certainly seems to me to be within
2:04:08
the spirit and the intent of that group. So
2:04:14
if the finance department wants to, has asked us to pull back on establishing the
2:04:20
reserve funds so that they can get better prepared and maybe present us some additional
2:04:25
information. I think if that would, that issue, if we wanted to put it through
2:04:30
a committee, I think the finance committee might be, I would suggest that because I
2:04:36
think there's a couple attributes to end the purpose of this that we haven't had
2:04:40
a lot of discussion about but we were just scratched upon. when we did meet
2:04:45
one time last year in the Finance Committee is that and that's doing multi-year planning.
2:04:49
And so this idea of a reserve, this idea that we would try to smooth
2:04:52
out the bumps really is saying we need to establish a policy that for
2:04:59
the finance of some operation that looks in multiple
2:05:04
years. And we don't have a history of doing that. And so that's just a
2:05:09
suggestion that we can take up at another conversation. But I do
2:05:15
look forward and I think we should have that conversation about a reserve. That's all.
2:05:21
Thank you. Additional questions or discussion? Seeing
2:05:27
none then, all those in favor of adopting ordinance number 2792 amending section 3.64.010
2:05:35
of the Issaquah Municipal Code and the land use and site work fee schedule
2:05:42
adopted by set section directing that the fee schedule be set forth in the
2:05:48
Iskawa Municipal Code in full and establishing an effective date of February 20, 2017
2:05:56
and set the permitting cost recovery
2:06:01
revenue target at 80% of non-excluded costs per end $4 million for 27
2:06:09
and excluding the following positions from the cost, from the permitting cost recovery
2:06:16
revenue target, the director, long range planning division, parent three positions, and the
2:06:21
counter services manager signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed,
2:06:28
that carries unanimously. Our next item under regular business is agenda bill.
2:06:39
107306, capital budget policy. And our director, Jen Olson, is
2:06:44
approaching the microphone to provide a
2:06:50
summary of the administration's recommendation for going forward
2:06:59
to establish our capital budget policy. So Jen?
2:07:07
Thanks for sticking around. Thank you, Mayor Butler, City Council members.
2:07:13
We're going to talk a little bit more about policy, but just a brief presentation
2:07:18
before we get started with a section of our financial policy. And I
2:07:24
appreciate the council waiting to talk more about comprehensive financial policy because I think that
2:07:30
that's important rather than piece sections of that financial policy because
2:07:36
they interrelate to each other. And so I think that that is a better practice.
2:07:42
So I appreciate that. So tonight, this agenda item, the purpose of it is to
2:07:47
kick off the capital budgeting process for future years, as
2:07:53
well as the upcoming capital improvement planning process for 2018 through 2023.
2:08:06
At the last council meeting, there was a proposal and a motion
2:08:12
to address the placeholder document for the 2017 CIP.
2:08:19
But with the idea that the capital budget process would be improved. And so what
2:08:25
the administration wants to do and work with the council is and
2:08:31
identified a pathway forward or a timeline that would update the budget policy first,
2:08:37
then improve the capital improvement development process, and of course add in better engagement with
2:08:43
the community. and along with the agenda bill
2:08:49
was a proposed timeline for the conversations about the
2:08:57
policy capital budget policy as well as timeframes for the capital
2:09:02
improvement planning and I know that this is hard to read at this point so
2:09:07
I have a slide that did not
2:09:15
Yeah, I like that presentation. There you go. That was lean.
2:09:23
Well, that's the draft version. It is the draft version. It started off and I'm
2:09:28
not sure if I can get access to.
2:09:38
That's what I've got to go out and find.
2:10:12
you
2:10:20
so the dates that have been identified to have the conversation about the capital budget
2:10:24
policy are tonight's kickoff and consider the motion to
2:10:32
move the discussion to the council committee of the whole on January 24th February 13th
2:10:41
the conversation would be at the council work session a proposed march 6 public hearing
2:10:47
on the capital budget policy updates march 13th then back to the council for
2:10:53
work session and a proposed adoption of the policy via resolution is
2:10:59
slated for april 3rd wanted to
2:11:05
provide a few just real broad overview kind of best practices when we're talking about
2:11:11
financial policy and you might hear me as a broken record when we start to
2:11:14
talk about other sections of the financial policy the the current capital budget section
2:11:21
of the financial policy was included with the agenda bill to get you familiar with
2:11:25
that current language but when we're talking about financial policy overall best practices we want
2:11:31
to make sure that we consider that financial policy is comprehensive and it's a base
2:11:36
of guidelines for decision making and strategic intents. And what that means is that
2:11:42
the financial policy should really be in support of strategic plans and
2:11:48
those comprehensive plans and perhaps master plans. But we'll talk about the master plans when
2:11:54
we get into the capital and improvement planning in those stages.
2:12:00
Financial policy, there is always the delicate balance of, in your policy,
2:12:06
having the difference between flexibility versus control. And so if a
2:12:12
policy is too controlling, then that often handcuffs or hog ties or whatever you want
2:12:17
to call it, the administration or management with regards to how to deliver creative solutions.
2:12:23
So flexibility at the policy level is very important for you to consider. The other
2:12:29
best practice in financial policy is that there is a difference between policy versus procedures.
2:12:37
statement of principles and goals are typically in policy versus the administrative
2:12:42
day-to-day directives and that level of detail of those procedures and then
2:12:48
finally then the financial policy discussion should be based around a collaborative process and that's
2:12:54
what the administration has brought forward in the proposed timeline for talking about policy as
2:13:00
well as the capital budget development
2:13:06
proposed policy is in is in the final stages of a review by administration
2:13:12
and the goal is to have this or it will be provided with the agenda
2:13:17
packet for the council committee of the whole some things that you can look forward
2:13:23
to in your discussions will be objectives, the capital budget
2:13:29
objectives in this particular section to be added,
2:13:35
a revised CAP timeframe, so that's the number of years that you want to include
2:13:41
in your capital budget, a comprehensive criteria and project ranking set of
2:13:46
guidelines. And this will likely be the hot topics and
2:13:52
probably have the most discussion when we start with what those criteria
2:13:59
weighting certain criteria heavier than another set of criteria and so on and so forth.
2:14:06
The upcoming proposed policy will have some revised project sources which are
2:14:12
funding and uses which are cost revisions identified in policy.
2:14:18
There will be some proposed threshold guidelines with regards to what makes from a dollar
2:14:24
level, what makes the capital budget from year to year. And then some
2:14:30
enhanced public engagement efforts in the policy. So with that, The proposed
2:14:36
motion with the Council tonight is to refer this agenda bill to the following meetings
2:14:41
for review and recommendation and returning to the full Council for final actual action
2:14:47
on April 3rd. And so with that, that ends my presentation. I'd be happy to
2:14:52
answer any questions. Thank you, Jen. Are there questions before
2:14:58
someone entertains a motion?
2:15:06
a motion Stacy oh you look like you're I was just gonna say so moved
2:15:12
I would move to refer agenda bill 7306 to the following meetings for review and
2:15:16
recommendation January 24th February 13th March 6th March
2:15:21
13th returning to the full council for final action on April 3rd 2017 thank you
2:15:26
moved and seconded are there questions or discussion at this time
2:15:33
Stacy just looking forward to this So am I. So much.
2:15:39
Seriously. I think that's probably a uniform opinion of just about sitting to my right
2:15:45
up here. All those in favor of referring the agenda bill to the following meetings
2:15:51
for review and recommendation as outlined in the motion
2:15:58
and returning to the full council for final action on April 3rd, 2017, signify by
2:16:03
saying aye. Aye. That carries unanimously. Moving
2:16:09
now to good of the order. Does anyone
2:16:15
have anything this evening? Bill, I think you had something. You want to do that
2:16:19
now? Yep. Okay. So I apologize for the timing, but I sent out this morning
2:16:26
So, Ms. Patricia, thank you for forwarding it to the council. So you'd have something
2:16:29
to look at from the Eastside Transportation Partnership and their legislative agenda. If you got
2:16:34
a chance to glance at that today, great. If not, I'll just basically hit a
2:16:39
quick highlights for you. And basically, it's a 10-point legislative agenda for the Eastside Transportation
2:16:44
Partnership. And the main things are item five and six, which is five is I-90,
2:16:50
I'll just read it from here. It says we urge full funding for improvements to
2:16:54
increase the capacity of I-90 interchanges at Front Street and SR 900 in Issaquah and
2:16:59
the reconfiguration of I-94 or five-year interchange to improve overall traffic flow. We have our
2:17:03
two main intersections in that top list. And the second item of six was SR18,
2:17:08
State Route 18. The mobility and capacity of this corridor between I-90 and South King
2:17:12
County must be improved by redesigning the I-90 and State Route 18 interchange and
2:17:18
constructing an additional lane between I-90 and the Isquahobart Road. So I think two of
2:17:23
our main points of interest to get traffic functioning around here are in there.
2:17:30
And I think that's, of most concern to us. If there's other questions or anything
2:17:35
you looked at or you want to? Mary Lou? Sure. I guess
2:17:41
I'm not as familiar with exactly what's entailed in the I-90 Front Street Improvement Package.
2:17:48
But we already have an issue where the volume of traffic coming off I-90 onto
2:17:52
Front Street is in excess of what we can handle in terms of it shuts
2:17:57
us down between 2.30 and 6.30 every day. So how Does that package
2:18:03
put more traffic on Issaquah City streets with the reconfiguration or
2:18:09
what does it do to the benefit of Issaquah's internal circulation? To me, it just
2:18:14
takes, instead of Issaquah asking for the analysis on the interchange and the
2:18:20
work we want to do to make that better, it just gives another group supporting
2:18:24
that basically from a regional perspective, not just from us. This is just kind of
2:18:29
like our, legislative agenda on what we want to push, it just has a bigger
2:18:34
grouping of folks. Great. So for that particular project, though, how does that
2:18:40
benefit Issaquah's internal circulation issues that we already have?
2:18:47
I would say directly to your question, I don't know as I answer that. It's
2:18:51
looking at going to be at the interchange. Just as a refresher, moving Washington forward
2:18:56
included for an interchange justification report for
2:19:03
the Front Street I-90 interchange between SR 900 and
2:19:08
Sunset to look at the traffic flows and the
2:19:15
impacts of those as a first step towards federal funding
2:19:21
or funding for the next step, which would be beginning the environmental
2:19:28
documentation and design of the project. So we've already funded, the
2:19:34
Washington State Legislature has already funded the interchange justification report.
2:19:40
That was an early effort and that effort is underway, it's just
2:19:45
beginning right now. So I'll fill out
2:19:51
maybe a little. What this does is just an acknowledgement that the state a good
2:19:56
thing that this is important for us and it's an important first step is how
2:20:02
I would summarize it. Do I have that right Bill? Yeah and it's just and
2:20:06
it's again bringing more we've been pushing on that and it's again to me a
2:20:10
regional backing of continue going to look at these hot spots that are
2:20:16
causing regional flow issues that we as Issaquah can't on our own right right i
2:20:22
guess i think i i think the question is simpler what i'm asking is simpler
2:20:26
if the interchange currently handles 30 000 vehicles a day is the interchange
2:20:32
justification report looking at changing the capacity to 50 or 60 000 vehicles a day
2:20:37
like what what is the point of improving that intersection to get more cars off
2:20:42
the highway to drive through issaquah is that where we're headed i think so BUT
2:20:48
I THINK IT'S ALSO TO, NOT NECESSARILY MORE CARS, BUT TO HANDLE THE ONES THAT
2:20:52
ARE THERE BETTER. WELL, SO FEED INTO THE CITY STREETS. INTERCHANGE
2:20:57
JUSTIFICATION REPORT WILL MAKE SOME ESTIMATES OF,
2:21:03
IT WILL DOCUMENT EXISTING TRAFFIC AND ESTIMATES OF FUTURE TRAFFICS. AND LOOK AT THE
2:21:09
INFRASTRUCTURE NEEDED TO SUPPORT THOSE INCREASED TRAFFIC DEMANDS. GREAT.
2:21:15
COMING OFF OF THE HIGHWAY INTO ISSAQUA. ALSO GETTING ON. BOTH WAYS. AND GETTING ON.
2:21:24
HOLA. SO I RECALL A NUMBER OF YEARS AGO TALKING ABOUT THIS.
2:21:30
AND THIS IS, I'M SORRY, WAS IT 17 OR 18? 17, RIGHT? FRONT AND Yes,
2:21:35
17. 17. So I remember seeing a potential configuration that had everything coming into
2:21:41
one signalization area, and I was incredulous, but I
2:21:47
remember very specifically being told the expectation is that having one complicated
2:21:53
signalization area is actually better for cross flow traffic going north to south so that
2:21:58
my infamous trying to get to land and shore and i was at home depot
2:22:02
and i had an hour and i didn't get there in time a an updated
2:22:07
uh interchange my understanding is would actually improve that situation at least that was what
2:22:11
i was told a few years ago so i think it isn't just getting traffic
2:22:15
off the freeway although i too would want to make sure that we understood in
2:22:20
that it wasn't just THAT WHATEVER HAPPENED AT EXIT 17 WASN'T JUST GOING TO BE
2:22:23
FOR THE BENEFITS OF FOLKS ON I-90, BUT FOR INTERNAL TRAFFIC FLOW AS WELL. AND
2:22:28
THAT STUDY THAT YOU SAW THAT LOOKED AT SPECIFICALLY THE FRONT STREET INTERCHANGE RECOMMENDED AN
2:22:34
ADDITIONAL CROSSING OF I-90 AT
2:22:40
12th AVENUE. AND THE INTERCHANGE JUSTIFICATION REPORT LOOKS AT NOT JUST EXIT 17,
2:22:50
but it looks at from 15 to 18. SR 900 for that and
2:22:56
would identify any additional projects that might help the traffic flow.
2:23:03
And one of those is the potential additional crossing of I-90 in
2:23:09
the vicinity of 12th Avenue. Thanks. Paul? So we're
2:23:15
discussing, so this has already been adopted by Eastside Transportation Partnership?
2:23:21
Yeah, and there was some question because it didn't, many people didn't get to bring
2:23:24
it back, the final version. So they looked at that as best they could.
2:23:31
As the draft came out like a century earlier, the concepts haven't changed any, but
2:23:36
there's definitely some wording change. Basically, mainly shortening it
2:23:42
up a lot and making it succinct and trying to get so that everybody, agree
2:23:48
on that such as you know I say the wording here didn't really say to
2:23:51
do something new it just said urge full funding of the projects that are basically
2:23:55
already lined up that people have lined up so it's again just encouraging the funding
2:24:00
of what has happened or is planned and to speed up some of that funding
2:24:04
is like an I night are the SR 18 and 90 interchange is really many
2:24:09
years out so just trying to get that moved up closer just because there's more
2:24:13
folks dating there behind it So this is
2:24:20
all academic, but I think the, I'm not aware of anything being on the legislative
2:24:26
docket this year for actually funding improvements. It's actually
2:24:32
executing the project that's already been funded, which is the justification report. It'd be great
2:24:37
if it actually said that. I mean, it's kind of looking back and saying, yeah,
2:24:41
really do that thing you already funded, complete that energy age justification report.
2:24:48
There's just a little bit of possibility for some confusion because I'm not aware of
2:24:53
anything being funded to make actual improvements. It's more of the study so that we
2:24:59
can propose, it's a multiple step process. Again, it's kind of academic if it's already
2:25:05
been adopted, but our constituents and our representatives in Olympia
2:25:11
might find it a little bit confusing.
2:25:19
Any other comments? Stacey? Well, I don't have any comments on that. Oh, any other
2:25:24
discussion on the ETP? So
2:25:30
was that approved, Bill? Yes, with those who were there, with one abstention. The Senate
2:25:36
Majority? Yes, there was. And there was one abstention because one city said they couldn't
2:25:40
vote because it hadn't gone through their council, but everybody thought they were good enough
2:25:45
with that. Thank you. This will be brief. The last page of the packet or
2:25:50
the last two pages of the packet lists the committee assignments and and other local
2:25:56
and regional assignments for council members for 2017. For the benefit of the public, I
2:26:02
will just say that that those assignments for the most part are made annually by
2:26:08
the assignments appointments by the council president after
2:26:15
about where they would like to serve, where they think they would best serve, what
2:26:20
the community needs. And so that's what this list is in the last two pages
2:26:24
of the packet. I would add that's not on here that the appointments for 2017
2:26:30
for the ad hoc long-term finance committee, I think is what it's called,
2:26:37
our council members, Polly, Martz, and Winterstein. And I, I think, Even though that's not
2:26:43
technically a council committee, I think it should probably be reflected in this next year
2:26:50
on the survey that we send out and also on this spreadsheet for
2:26:56
transparency reasons. We can do that. We will do that. Next
2:27:02
year, I don't know that I'll be doing that, but that's why I'm saying it
2:27:07
out loud. That's all I had. Anything else for good of the order?
2:27:13
Seeing none then, we will now move into executive session. The purpose of
2:27:18
discussing pending and potential litigation per RCW 42.30.110
2:27:25
paren 1 paren I. The item is expected to take approximately five minutes. No
2:27:30
action is anticipated to follow an open session.
2:34:15
We are back in session at 935. Is there
2:34:21
any other business to come before the council? Seeing none, then we are adjourned. Some
2:34:26
of us are adjourned.
2:34:33
And some are.