0:19
I'll call to order the Monday, June 19th,
0:25
2017 City Council regular meeting and ask those
0:31
in the audience who would like to join
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the council and myself in the Pledge of
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Allegiance to please stand. I pledge allegiance to
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the flag of the United States of America.
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And to the republic for which it stands,
1:00
one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and
1:06
justice for all. Our first item of business
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is under special business this evening, agenda bill
1:18
7450. This is a presentation by Let's
1:24
see, I've got her name but I see she knows who she
1:30
is. Deb Tversky who has approaching her way to the mic who's
1:36
going to provide the council information on King County Prop 1 access
1:41
for all programs to support cultural organizations. This is an informational report
1:47
to the council. No action or direction will be provided this evening.
1:53
So with that, Deb. Thank you so much, Mayor and Council. I'm
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Deborah Torski. I'm the funding programs manager for 4Culture. And 4Culture is
2:04
King County's cultural service agency. We provide funding for arts, for heritage
2:10
and preservation, and we manage the county's public art programs and have
2:16
done so for the past 20 years. I'm here today to talk
2:22
about a program called Access for All that is going to be on the
2:27
August 1st ballot, the primary ballot, as Proposition 1. I sent you some advance
2:33
materials that you received in your packet. I hope you've had a chance to
2:39
review those and I'm happy to answer any questions. What I'd like to do is
2:44
just give a five minute presentation sort of about Access for All. I can walk
2:49
you through the finances of it. It is a complex piece of legislation and then
2:54
answer any questions that you have. I know you have a full agenda tonight so
2:59
thank you for putting me first on the agenda. I appreciate that. Access for
3:04
all stems from state legislation that was passed by the legislature
3:10
in 2015 called Cultural Access Washington. And that is legislation that
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derived from the prosperity partnership of the Puget Sound Regional Council.
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They began talking about the ideas that would bring jobs and
3:28
prosperity to this region in the mid-2000s, so around 2006 or
3:34
so. So they realized that the discussion about having a vibrant cultural sector was coming
3:39
up more and more as people were talking about what kind of employees they wanted
3:44
to have, what kind of businesses they wanted to attract to the region. And
3:49
so they started looking at other parts of the country and discovered that
3:55
in Denver, the Denver Scientific and Cultural District had been enacted in the
4:01
1990s, has been reenacted several times since then, and provides funding, a robust
4:07
source of funding for cultural and scientific organizations there. And they decided to
4:13
create Cultural Access Washington, modeled it on the Denver model. It took nearly
4:19
10 years to get through the legislature. What was thought to work in King
4:25
County is very different than legislators thought might work in Walla Walla or in other
4:31
parts of the state. And so the legislation was modified quite a bit. It
4:36
does require a tax levy. And so the discussion was, could it be sales
4:42
tax or property tax, one or the other? And it was determined that in
4:48
King County, only sales tax would be eligible. And it would be the minimum
4:54
tax raise, which is one-tenth of 1%. The legislature passed Cultural
5:00
Access Washington in 2015, as I mentioned. King County, during that time,
5:05
had twice passed ordinances or passed resolutions, I guess, in support of
5:11
the matter. And so in early 2016, the executive asked for culture
5:17
as the county's cultural service provider to take a look at what
5:22
it would mean to enact Act, Cultural Access Washington in King County.
5:28
Renamed Access for All. We began a series of outreach last
5:34
spring and summer, met with a number of groups throughout the
5:39
summer and over the fall to draft an ordinance and present
5:45
it and transmit it to the King County exec and council.
5:50
And that ordinance was further revised as council members became very active in
5:56
determining what they wanted to see happen in King County and it was
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passed on May 1st of this year. Access for all was placed on
6:07
the ballot. So what does it contain? It contains three basic parts
6:13
and every piece of Access for All is designed to increase
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every citizen's access to educational programs that are about arts, heritage,
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preservation, and science to support the work of nonprofits in bringing
6:30
their programs to the public to people young and old across the county.
6:36
The three pieces of the legislation are its public school access program and
6:42
then awards distributed to very large cultural institutions throughout King County, many of
6:48
whom are centered in Seattle, one of whom is just down the street
6:54
here, Village Theater, and very small organizations throughout the county. 4Culture
7:00
is noted as the organization that would provide the oversight and
7:05
the distribution of the funds, we would expand our mission to to
7:11
encompass the support of nonprofit science organizations like the Friends of the
7:17
Hatchery here so that they could also receive support. Science and environmental
7:23
organizations throughout King County would be added to the arts and heritage
7:29
and preservation support. So I think maybe the instructive way to go through this
7:35
is just to look very quickly at the dollars you have in the materials that
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were distributed, a revenue estimate and sort of a description of how the funds would
7:46
be used. If you think that would be useful, I can spend a couple minutes
7:51
on that. Yes, Deb, that would be great. And if you can focus on Issaquah.
7:58
potential grantees, that would be great. Sure. The one-tenth of 1%
8:04
sales tax would produce countywide. We estimate in 2018 about $68
8:10
million. Out of that, there's a small amount that comes off
8:16
the top for administration, that goes to 4Culture. That's 1.25%. And
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then the public school access program receives 10% of the money. and
8:28
that is to provide free transportation for schools who want to be able to take
8:34
field trips to cultural organizations throughout the county. We hear over and over again from
8:39
teachers, from school administrators that one of the biggest blocks to access, barriers, is the
8:45
cost of transportation. So Cultural Access Washington would then pay for the bus
8:51
transportation and for the drivers and for the funds for students that need
8:56
to have parents back in the classroom or need to have chaperones come
9:02
with them. All that would be handled as part of this program, and
9:08
there'd be a central sort of booking service for teachers to be
9:14
able to use to get their classrooms to cultural
9:19
activities, whether they're near here in Issaquah or in
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Bellevue or into Seattle. Then the next, and
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that provides about $6.7 million. The next level of
9:36
support is regional organization support, and those grants provide
9:42
funds for regional organizations. OUT OF THOSE FUNDS, THEIR DISTRIBUTION IS
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CAPT AT 15%. MOST LARGE REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS LIKE THE ZOO, THE SCIENCE
9:54
CENTER, VILLAGE THEATER HERE IN ISSAQUAH WILL RECEIVE CLOSER TO 10%, 8
9:59
OR 9% OF THEIR BUDGET, THEIR OVERALL OPERATING BUDGET. AND OF THAT,
10:05
HALF IS USED FOR THEIR BOTTOM LINE, FOR THEIR OPERATIONS, AND HALF
10:10
MUST BE USED TO INCREASE ACCESS. That's 20% that they have to spend on
10:16
that school program I mentioned, paying for their services to all those schools or going
10:22
out to the schools to give programs. And another 30% has to be spent on
10:28
taking their programs out to schools or to regions of the county that do not
10:33
have any cultural organizations or don't have any large organizations. or to make access
10:39
free, free for seniors or free for low income residents in their
10:45
communities. The remaining funds from Access for All are distributed to what
10:51
we call community-based organizations. And that's anyone with a budget smaller than
10:57
$1.25 million. That was the cutoff at which an organization was determined
11:03
to be either a community-based or regional-based, okay? The community-based groups throughout
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King County, 4Culture right now supports about 350 organizations, and that's in
11:15
arts and heritage and a few preservation groups. We know that when
11:20
we expand to encompass the nonprofit science organizations, we'll be adding many
11:26
more organizations that we don't currently support. So they will all receive
11:32
about 15% of their operating budgets. again with the idea that they're going to be
11:38
able to do educational programs to make their programs free and reduced and to track
11:43
all of that because we will be reporting all of that every year. Some
11:49
of these dollars will go to facilities, building facilities, to supporting programs
11:55
that are done by Boys and Girls Clubs and other social service
12:00
organizations that are like after school computer labs and other kinds of
12:06
arts and heritage programs. In Issaquah, Four Culture currently, over the
12:12
last 10 years, has provided $1.3 million. And that's to Village
12:17
Theater, to Art East, the Master Chorus Eastside, Sammamish Symphony, the
12:23
Issaquah Historical Society, Under access for all, it is possible that the Cougar Mountain
12:29
Zoo could also be eligible for some support. We know that probably the friends
12:35
of the hatchery will be and other arts and science small organizations here. And
12:40
we anticipate that the support going to Issaquah would be about $1.2 million every
12:46
year. So that's about a tenfold, that's an exponential increase. But it's not
12:52
really even the money that goes to those organizations, it's what they do, right, with
12:58
those programs. So questions from any of you? Are there questions?
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Well, thank you very, very much for such a comprehensive overview of
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King County Prop 1. Thank you for coming all the way to
13:17
Issaquah during the evening. Sometimes traffic can be a little tough. Thank
13:23
you very much. Bye-bye. We'll move now to audience comments. A few
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words about audience comments this evening. Citizen comments are an important part
13:35
of the public process. We take them seriously and factor them into the
13:40
decisions that we make. Anyone from the public who wishes to comment on
13:46
tonight's agenda items or other topics should do so at this time. Please
13:52
direct your comments to the whole council and not individuals. While this is
13:58
not a question and answer session, We will contact you to follow up if needed.
14:04
If you did not have an opportunity to include your email address on the sign-in
14:10
sheet, you may leave that information on the clipboard which will appear on the table
14:16
in front of me. When recognized, please come to the lectern and speak into the
14:22
microphone. State your name, address, and relationship to the city. Limit your comments to five
14:27
minutes. Submit any written comments to the city clerk. A visual timer has been placed
14:32
on the lectern. When it turns yellow, you are within the last minute of your
14:37
comment period. If you use the full five minutes, the timer will sound to indicate
14:43
the end of your allotted time. Personal attacks and obscene language, derogatory remarks and
14:48
disruptive behavior will not be tolerated. Again, citizen comments written and verbal are an
14:54
important aspect of the public process. The city takes those comments seriously and we
15:00
thank members of the public for taking the time to address us this evening.
15:06
And with that, I would imagine some folks have signed
15:12
up to speak. Yes, first is Tim Kimball. My name
15:18
is Tim Kimball and I live on Pinecone Drive. I'm
15:23
a resident of 21 years. Thank you members of the
15:29
City Council and the public for all being here this
15:35
evening. I appreciate the opportunity to speak. I wanted
15:41
to speak, I am speaking specifically to the proposed Bergsma development as
15:47
I'm assuming that a lot of folks are going to do this
15:52
evening. And I do have a presentation. I hate to go first,
15:58
but I promise I'll keep to it within my allotted time and
16:04
I'll try to make this informative and enjoyable as soon as I
16:09
bring up my presentation. Okay.
16:17
Over the last several months that we've been gathering for these meetings, you know, I've
16:22
kind of gotten to know a lot of my neighbors here in Issaquah, and many
16:26
of us have gotten to know one another, what we're all about, and talk about
16:31
the challenges we face as a thriving community. And it occurred to me that what's
16:36
missing from this discussion, in my view at least, is the voice of some of
16:40
our neighbors who simply can't be here this evening. Some of our neighbors are simply
16:45
unable to tell us the importance that this parcel of land plays in our lives.
16:51
I would invite you to look at this gem of
16:56
a park system that we have in our midst and
17:02
some of what it has to offer. Cougar Mountain Regional
17:07
Wildland Park with 3,115 acres of forested wilderness offers easy
17:13
access to residents of Bellevue, Issaquah, the Eastside, and its
17:18
38 miles of hiking trails, streams, creeks, waterfalls, An abundance
17:24
of lush vegetation, maple, cedar, alder, fern, Sitka spruce, Douglas fir,
17:30
and many that I won't mention. I'll name just a few.
17:36
And the home either full-time or part-time to a diversity of
17:41
residents who are unable to speak today. Some are small, like
17:47
Anna's hummingbird, an iridescent bronze to green species that breeds in
17:53
the Pacific Northwest. Too large, like the red-tailed hawk, the bald
17:58
eagle that roosts in the treetops. or the
18:04
osprey that relies on fish from nearby Lake Sammamish or Issaquah
18:10
Creek or the occasional small mammal. The ubiquitous squirrel, rabbits who
18:15
tend to be rather shy and admittedly can be a little
18:21
pesky, hence our need for the raptors, the coyotes to maintain
18:27
some balance. Coyotes are kind of shy too. These elusive creatures,
18:32
they I can hear their presence by their mournful howls or
18:38
their playful yips. I can only take credit for some of these photographs,
18:44
by the way, though these are all Issaquah photos. They're not stock images.
18:50
And I did see a bobcat, much like this, walk past my office
18:55
window just on Saturday. And just this morning, I was surprised to see
19:01
a black bear lumber by Bobcat. Absolutely true. Maybe some of my neighbors saw
19:07
it. Sniffing around, peering in my windows. I went and grabbed my camera and I
19:12
was just so excited. I was snapping, snapping. And I went and played it back.
19:17
I got nothing. But it looked very much like this one here. I haven't seen
19:22
one in years. Maybe it was because it was garbage day. I don't know. But
19:27
they're gentle giants and it just wasn't bothering anyone. We have silent, graceful creatures. Amphibians
19:33
that are well suited to the damp, cool, mossy bogs. These guys
19:38
produce quite a chorus on a rainy night. Bees,
19:44
butterflies, and a great many kind of feathered creatures.
19:49
Brightly colored, drab, domestic and migratory, common and uncommon.
19:55
Photographed this owl that was part of a, there
20:00
were two owls that were hanging around my house
20:06
for several days. Catching mice too, by the way,
20:11
which I kind of liked. Wrens and finches. and year-round
20:17
birds like the grosbeak. Many of these are shy creatures. You might not see them,
20:22
but they're out there in our neighborhoods, our backyards. Tim, I'm going to ask you
20:28
to summarize in the next five or ten seconds or so. I will. This is
20:33
a critical time in our community's future. If we continue to sacrifice land that we
20:38
need to thrive, we can't expect them to be part of our world. They don't
20:44
mix well with cars, trucks, and machinery. These creatures need trees to nest
20:50
and roost and raise their young. Thank you very, very much. And thank
20:55
you for that tutorial on the wildlife and our Cougar Mountain Park. All
21:01
right. Thank you. Next, we have Susan Neville. While Susan is approaching that,
21:07
I did neglect to announce that we have two public hearings this evening
21:13
that will be combined. And these public hearings are-- I related to
21:19
request a polygon. Where to go, Tim? Susan Neville, Pine Cone Drive. I'm
21:25
a 21-year resident of Issaquah. And if you've been following the progress of
21:30
the Bergsma-Winward DA agreement, you know the process has taken longer than usual
21:36
due to the complexity and location of the property. Over the last four
21:42
months, residents, city staff, and committee experts put a lot of time into
21:48
various meetings over 75 documented public comments, letters, and numerous emails.
21:54
During this time, the city planners have not changed their position regarding the
22:00
proposed DA agreement, and in addition, the Cluster DA, the city are still
22:06
advocating a thorough way access from TALIS to Newport Way. Today, you are
22:12
making the final decision. You, the city council, represent the checks and balances
22:18
in our system. The responsibilities are many. You have to be
22:24
the stewards of our forests and wetlands, uphold the Issaquah vision,
22:29
including responsible development, and be the main advocate for the Issaquah
22:35
residents. A few key issues to consider in the next few
22:40
hours regarding the proposal are honoring the Issaquah comp plan by
22:46
protecting our forested hillsides, the impact to Newport Corridor, TALIS, and
22:51
all Issaquah residents, and advocating responsible development. I would
22:57
like to show you the slide up here that
23:02
depicts the DA agreement exhibit 12 viewshed analysis. The
23:08
shot was taken from SR 900 and I-90 overpass
23:13
and the circle represents the proposed development as outlined
23:19
by the developer. What you didn't see in the
23:24
agreement is this slide. We took the specifications from the DA and
23:30
superimposed of development within the circled area. Some have said we were pretty generous
23:36
with the depiction of the green area, especially near Newport Way. I don't know,
23:42
does this work? Yeah. What is missing is the storm vault that would run
23:47
along the road across the length of the property and also the road that
23:53
will be coming from Newport Way all the way up to the development.
24:01
When you're considering this de-aggravement, ask yourself if this follows the
24:07
ESCOA comprehensive plan. The plan outlines provisions such as limiting clearing
24:12
and grading, protecting and preserving the tree canopy, and limiting the
24:18
size of development and number of buildings. Is the clearing and
24:24
grading in line with the comp plan? This area will displace
24:30
134,000 cubic yards of soil and vegetation. It's
24:36
going to take 8,000 trucks to remove the soil
24:42
or in better terms one truck every seven minutes
24:47
over a six-month period. Is building on steep slope
24:53
in critical areas such as this sufficiently being reviewed?
24:58
The 45 acres consisting of this area cover include
25:04
an Alderwood and Everett formations for 51%. This
25:09
formation is categorized as a very steep rapid runoff, high erosion
25:15
hazard with severe slippage potential. We do not know, based on
25:21
the DA agreement, if any part of the proposed 78 homes
25:27
are being built on these extreme alderwood or everett formations. Issaquah
25:32
cannot afford to use our hillsides as testing grounds anymore.
25:38
The geotech survey given for parcel 9 in TALIS said risk of slide
25:44
was slight and we are still dealing with the ramifications of that decision.
25:49
During the last four meetings, four experts in the field including three council
25:55
members voted no on passage of this DA agreement. And if the road
26:01
was to be rebuilt, all eight members voted no on a thorough way,
26:06
citing emergency use only. As I mentioned, the city council
26:12
members are our checks and balances. Picking the less of two
26:18
wrongs is not the answer. A vote of no on the
26:24
agreement is the right decision. Thank you. Thank you, Susan.
26:30
To be really clear that the people that are
26:36
representing the opposition to the road and the DA
26:42
agreement, if they would just raise their hand for
26:48
city council, because I don't know if everyone can
26:54
stay. And so that's a great way to share
27:00
your opinion. I'd ask that you not break into
27:05
applause. And if you really agree, you can raise
27:11
both hands. Next, we have Ted Gamelin. My name's
27:17
Ted Gamelin. I've had a condo up at Providence
27:23
Point, 4117, 221st Place. And as a chair of a
27:29
homeowners association standing committee, I represent some 1,400 senior citizens
27:34
who live at Providence Point. And I'll be followed by
27:40
somebody else who's in charge of my constituency at Providence Point,
27:45
or my purview. We are concerned about the project for realignment and signalization of
27:51
the intersection at Providence Point and Drive and 43rd Way, which is our main
27:57
entrance. And we appreciate the support that we've gotten from the City of Issaquah
28:03
through the bond proposal on the November ballot. And we note that of the
28:09
three proposals on that ballot, Our project was the only one receiving overwhelming
28:15
support from neighbors of the project. The safety at our main entrance has been
28:21
a major concern at Providence Point residents since the 1990s. At that time, King
28:27
County worked with a committee of residents of Providence Point on a series of
28:32
stopgap measures to improve safety. If you've been there, one outcome was
28:38
the construction of a rockery that improved the sight line for downhill traffic
28:44
to meet minimum county standards. At our entrance, you'll see the rockery on
28:50
the right, so the cars coming barreling down the road have at least
28:55
minimum sight line. Over the past 20 years, the
29:01
traffic along 228th Avenue and 43rd Way between Sammamish
29:07
and Issaquah has increased dramatically. That's a major corridor
29:13
between Sammamish and Issaquah. We average about two accidents
29:19
each year in the stretch of 43rd right in
29:25
front of our entrance. And recently one of these entailed a
29:31
serious injury. That may not sound by much, but what above and beyond
29:36
the accidents, I think what really is the problem here is that many
29:42
of our senior citizens find that entering 43rd Rue and seeing the traffic
29:47
coming barreling down on them is a frightening experience, a really frightening experience
29:53
for senior citizens. We continue to seek infrastructure support for the
29:59
upgrading of the traffic corridor between Sammamish and Issaquah. We urge the city
30:05
council to update the engineering design work already done for the intersection and
30:10
to seek other funding options for completion of the project. We appreciate the
30:16
resolution passed by this council on December 19th last year calling for the
30:22
Providence Point realignment and signalization project to quotes, be brought back to
30:28
the council along with analysis for options as well as recommendations.
30:34
And we are concerned that there seems to be no trace
30:39
of that resolution in the current budget proposal. We are hopeful
30:45
for the future. Thank you. Ed, thank you very, very much.
30:51
Jen Gray.
31:03
I'm not as tall as Ted. Jen Gray, 22417 Southeast 36th Lane,
31:09
Providence Point. I am the president of the Umbrella Association for Providence
31:15
Point, which is the master association for seven different villages with over
31:20
1,400 residents. And we are a 55 plus community and many, many younger people are
31:26
moving in who are still working and trying to get out of the Providence Point
31:32
to go to work and can't because of the traffic. And I just want to
31:37
say too that going up you have the sign that tells you how fast people
31:42
are going. It is unusual and rare to see somebody going 40 miles an hour.
31:48
It is not unusual to see somebody going 65 miles an hour. And that
31:54
increased traffic from Sammamish is just getting more and more difficult to get out.
32:00
And if you want to make a left turn, you are making a life
32:06
decision right there, making a left turn. At any rate, that being said,
32:12
In 2004, the city first worked on trying to find out what would
32:17
it take to put in a traffic signal. In 2007, there was completed
32:23
drawings for that traffic signal and alignment. And at that point, the consulting
32:29
engineer projected that it would cost $3.3 million. As we fast forward to
32:35
last year, we know that the bond issue failed and we were sorely
32:41
disappointed. That being said, it was my understanding that this year,
32:46
or this last year after the bond issue failed, that the first quarter
32:52
was going to be spent talking about the intersection between Target and Trader
32:58
Joe's. Okay, and the second quarter was going to be spent looking at
33:04
funding proposals for our traffic signal. And so I am here trying to figure
33:10
out where we're at now and what the proposal might be and when we
33:15
might expect to hear from the City Council and the City of Issaquah on
33:21
where we are headed for that traffic signal that is so dearly needed. Thank
33:27
you. Thank you very, very much. Fred
33:32
Nystrom. I can't wait to hear what's
33:38
in the box. Please introduce yourself. Good
33:43
evening. I'm Fred Nystrom. I'm the Executive
33:49
Director for Life Enrichment Options, or LEO.
33:54
And for the past 33 years, I've
33:59
lived at 391 Southeast Sycamore Creek Lane
34:05
in Issaquah. For most of you on
34:10
the council, you recognize that I have
34:16
a bias. And I have a heartfelt conviction
34:21
that we as a community must do more to create
34:27
the infrastructure that allows for low-income and working-place housing within
34:33
our community. We cannot just be a city for the
34:38
privileged. Like traffic, we have had endless debates about traffic.
34:44
housing and what can be done about creating a balance in the
34:50
housing program and yet we have not reached a conclusion on anything.
34:56
Tonight you have a proposal from Polygon Homes to add low-income housing
35:02
and perhaps a home like we provide for those with developmental disabilities.
35:07
And I say hooray for the Polygon proposal. We can debate
35:13
the merits of this program or this proposal rather for months and we
35:19
may at the end come up with some fine-tuned nuances to the whole
35:24
thing but I say why bother? Why bother doing that? As I recall
35:30
in our own municipal history, We developed a subcommittee program because you are all
35:36
basically overwhelmed with information that came to you weekly. So you decided we're going
35:41
to create some experts and they're going to serve on these subcommittees. Well, I
35:47
think that's a great idea. So now you have the Land and Shore Committee,
35:53
the subcommittee that did deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, dig deep into this proposal.
35:59
And in the end, when it came to a vote by the members,
36:04
the polygon proposal was approved, and it's here for your discussion tonight. I
36:10
urge you to keep within the established procedures and approve the work that
36:16
the subcommittee has already done on this proposal, and let's get it approved
36:22
and moving toward a solution. Now, Fred, this box, it is full.
36:28
of applications from families within this community that are looking for a
36:34
home for their child. Now you have the opportunity within your grasp
36:40
tonight to grant that wish for housing to five or six more
36:46
families. Please do it. Thank you very, very
36:51
much, Fred. And although there's a public hearing later
36:57
on your topic, we will take that into consideration.
37:02
Thank you. Justin Walsh. Thank you, Justin Walsh, 2196
37:08
Shiber Way. And full disclosure, a candidate for city
37:13
council position three currently unopposed. I am mindful with regards to
37:19
the Berksmouth development of the need to balance affordable housing and lack of housing in
37:25
this community with the need to keep our green spaces. I know it's a very
37:30
tough balancing act and I'm sure the council is considering that. I decided to speak
37:36
tonight on a different issue related to that development and it's related to the potential
37:42
for slides. In reviewing the development agreement, one thing I am not seeing is a
37:47
strong indemnification and a hold harmless clause within that development agreement to apply the lessons
37:53
we learned from TALIS to this new development. I would like to see something within
37:58
that development agreement that puts the onus back on the developer and allows a strong
38:04
recoupment of any costs for development. As we've seen in TALIS, the city has had
38:10
to expend additional funds to remedy the Thales situation and we'll probably have to
38:16
expend funds in the future to fully remedy the situation and whether we're able
38:22
to recoup those costs or not essentially is going to be left up to the
38:27
lawyers to battle it out under the TALIS agreement as it stands. So I think
38:32
a strong indemnification clause or working something into that to put that on us back
38:38
in the developer would be appropriate in this case to take the lessons we learned
38:43
from TALIS and apply it to this new development agreement. Thank you very much. Thank
38:49
you, Josh. Yes. You know. Justin, my apologies.
38:54
Thank you very, very much, and
39:00
thank you for stepping forward to
39:06
comment. David Boyce. Thank you for
39:12
letting me speak here. My name
39:18
is Dave Boyce, 496 Lingering Pine
39:24
Drive, Northwest. And what I am
39:30
here to talk about is the
39:36
Bergsma project and specifically emergency access. Living up in
39:42
Tallis and I see the new developments coming in at the
39:47
top and the remainder of the people are all forced to
39:53
exit with only one road. Even recently we found that there
39:59
was a reason to have that closed because of an accident
40:04
down on 900 and My questions would be even if
40:10
we get a road put in, are able to get
40:16
a road put in through the Bergsma project, then who
40:21
is it that handles that emergency access? Who's the gatekeeper?
40:27
What are their instructions? Who makes that decision? And if
40:32
we have something more cataclysmic, in the area and you've got
40:38
your police and your fire department and all of these different ones are committed
40:44
to what they need to do to resolve those issues. Who is it that
40:50
makes the decision and how does the, whether it's a key or electronic device,
40:56
I don't know what would be planned for that, but who is it that
41:02
makes the decision? What rules are they governed by? in trying
41:08
to make that decision. And first and
41:14
foremost is the import on the people
41:20
living in TALIS if they can't get
41:25
out. So anyway, that's my only comments.
41:31
Thank you very, very much. No one
41:37
further has signed up to speak. Ken
41:43
followed Geraldine. Ken Eastman, 2473 Northwest Stony
41:49
Creek Drive. I wanted to talk about Bergsma as
41:54
well tonight. I would comment that development agreements have a place as Sequoia
42:00
has some good ones, some successful examples. But I don't believe that the
42:06
development agreement for the Bergsma property is one of them. And I think
42:12
it's in the best interest of the city and the residents to pass
42:18
on that. For a variety of reasons, we get very little out of
42:23
the deal. We get a road to Talus that few want that
42:29
will destroy a quiet little neighborhood on the north side of our community.
42:35
It's claimed that there'll be acreage that'll be protected, but it's going to
42:41
be protected anyway because it's unbuildable, undevelopable. It's critical areas. We get sidewalks
42:47
that don't connect to anything. And we get a tiny amount of affordable
42:53
housing. And in exchange, we give environmental variances We double the housing
42:58
density from 40 to 80. We put more traffic on Newport Way and
43:04
already tangled up mess. So at the end it just seems to me
43:10
like this development agreement is a one-way deal. Little benefit to the city
43:16
and the residents. It develops on steep slopes where we have landslide exposures.
43:22
It's potentially another risky project that the city might have to jump in
43:28
and bail out. like we're seeing up at talus as a
43:33
previous speaker discussed it puts a huge scar on the side of northeast
43:39
cougar mountain our gateway our issaquah alps 88 000 cubic yards of export
43:45
have to be trucked through our streets that's statistic about the truck every
43:51
six minutes for six months we live through that in talus with a
43:57
lesser amount of export and it's miserable So at the end, this
44:03
really does look like a sweetheart deal for the developer with no regards to the
44:09
wishes or the better interest of our residents. It looks like another Talus Parcel 789
44:15
debacle, another Atlas, another Gateway. Same old, same old. Doesn't seem to fit the vision
44:21
of the city where we develop on the valley floor and we leave the hills
44:26
alone. If you vote for this, it'll be a vote. It will be viewed as
44:32
a vote for affirmation that you support the development on
44:38
these slopes. So I would just ask that you
44:44
reject the DA and let's work together for a
44:49
better use of this property. Thank you. And thank
44:55
you very, very much. Just for the TV audience
45:01
who can't see, there were two hands raised by
45:07
about a third of the audience here this evening.
45:12
Anyone else desiring to -- Geraldine? Okay. And Geraldine,
45:18
after her. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. members of
45:23
the council, fellow citizen. Thank you for the opportunity to stand. Could
45:29
you identify yourself, please? Yes, I will. First, thank you for the
45:35
opportunity to stand here in front of you today. My name is
45:41
Evelyn Galazo. I live in 2495 25th Avenue Northeast up at the
45:47
Highlands. I've been a resident of Issaquah for the last 15 years.
45:53
and I live at the Highland the last five years. Sorry, I have a cold.
45:59
I am the care provider at one of the adult family homes or group homes,
46:05
as many of you may know, that Life Enrichment Options owns called the Angela House.
46:11
I've been a provider of this home since 2012 with the help of my husband,
46:17
Paul, who is here tonight with me. We are currently caring for five young adults
46:22
with special needs who's been with us since we started. In fact, Mayor
46:28
Butler and some of the members of the City Council have been to our
46:34
home and met them. All five residents receive Medicaid funding from the Department of
46:40
Social and Health Services, or DSHS, where I get paid every month. Just so
46:45
you all know, this funding comes from both federal and state budget. The amount
46:51
that DSHS pays to care for, to a care provider like me is based
46:57
on the level of care that a resident needs. Higher needs equal higher pay.
47:02
In my case, all of my residents only require minimal care because some of
47:08
them are capable of doing things on their own. and yet they
47:14
are unable to live on their own. So as a result, I don't get paid
47:20
much for taking care of them, but I love doing my job, or I love
47:26
my job. I can't even afford to hire an everyday help such as someone to
47:32
clean our house or to cook, so I do it myself. So it's me and
47:38
my husband running this home, and it is a 24/7 job because we live in
47:43
the home with the residents. Now think about this for
47:49
a moment. If we're paying the rent for that house
47:55
up at the Highland, if we're paying the market rent
48:00
for that house, plus the cost of utilities, we would
48:06
have not been able to provide care and services to
48:11
these five residents that we have today at the rate
48:17
that DSHS pays. So where would they go and where would they live?
48:23
They would be with their families. This is the reason why to this day there
48:28
are still a great number of people with disabilities still living with their aging parents
48:34
at home. In the last 10 years, an average of about 20 kids graduating from
48:39
the transition class just in Issaquah district alone. And here's the fact, there's not a
48:45
lot of adult family homes or group homes out there that would accept them because
48:50
care providers will not be able to make a living caring for people with disabilities.
48:55
They would rather take elderly because they have higher needs. I know this because as
49:01
a member of Adult Family Home Council, I talk to many providers on a daily
49:07
basis who only accept elderly residents. And yet there's a lot of providers out there
49:12
that would rather care for people with disabilities. Thank goodness that there is an organization
49:18
such as Life Enrichment Options who stepped up to the plate, saw the problem, and
49:23
created a solution. It is founded and ran by parents with special needs kids
49:29
who work tirelessly advocating for the special needs population. My husband and I are grateful
49:35
that we got one of their homes because of LEO. They made it possible for
49:41
us to make a living caring for these residents that require minimal care by subsidizing
49:47
our rent, pays for utilities, and maintenance of the home. Currently LEO have three homes
49:53
serving a total of 15 residents who are all young adults that have
49:59
that are high functioning who would still be living with their families if
50:04
they didn't get accepted in the leo home so i'm asking the city
50:10
to to um require a group home in any of the options that
50:16
you guys are reviewing thank you so much everyone thank you very very
50:21
much and for your commitment to help those with disabilities geraldine
50:38
My name is Geraldine Carey. I want to thank the council again and the members
50:43
and the public for allowing public comment on things around the city. I'm up here
50:49
frequently and I'm addressing the Bergsma development because- Geraldine, did you introduce yourself? I'm sorry.
50:54
And your address please. Okay, my name is Geraldine Carey and I am a resident
50:59
of Issaquah for 40 years, lived in the same place. My driveway is
51:05
off Newport Way and my address is 955 17th Avenue, Northwest
51:11
Issaquah. I sent a letter to the City Council and the
51:17
Land and Shores Committee about the geological or geotechnical studies that
51:23
were done on the Bergsma property. And my concern is I'm
51:29
a... I'm not knowledgeable about a lot of things, but what I read was
51:34
that this property has a lot of potential for landslide, and it says the land
51:40
is stable as it is forested and a lot of old growth. And if you
51:46
remove all this old growth and the underlying root system that is on this property,
51:51
it says there's a lot of potential for a lot of earth movement. However, if
51:56
you do the right thing, you can probably prevent it. And I'm wondering what the
52:01
right thing is. I mean, what do the developers, what are they going to invest
52:06
in trying to stabilize the hill once they destabilize it? You know, one of
52:12
the things I read in the April 15, 2015 study was
52:18
it says RGI, which is Riley Group, reviewed the City of
52:23
Issaquah Municipal Code's critical areas regulation. The review indicates that the
52:29
site is mapped as landslide hazard area and steep slope hazard
52:35
area due to site topography, soil conditions, and slope gradients on
52:41
site. The site is subject to severe erosion and potential landslides when slopes
52:47
are cleared. And then another thing it says is much of the slope
52:53
is heavily vegetated with mature trees and undergrowth, reducing the potential of shallow
52:59
debris flow failures. And it says that this based on our observations,
53:04
the slopes appear to be stable in their current configuration and conditions.
53:10
So I urge the city council again to protect the city from
53:16
another condition like it tell us, we can't afford to use our
53:22
money to cover the developers and the land once they've made their
53:28
profit and run in the other direction. So I hope you will seriously check
53:33
out the slopes. Thank you. Meryl Dean, thank you very, very much. And for
53:39
those watching on TV at home, a dozen and a half or so double
53:45
hands went up for that. Is there anyone else who has not signed up
53:51
to speak who would like to speak this evening?
54:03
I believe I saw the person next to you desiring
54:08
to speak. So Tina, if you would work your way
54:14
up also so we can keep the flow going. Good
54:19
evening. My name is Julie Clark. I live at 915
54:25
Bear Ridge Court Northwest in Tallis. I would like to
54:31
start off by submitting 144 additional signatures on a petition that I have been
54:37
circulating opposing the connector road between Newport Way and Tallis which will bring the
54:43
total to 219 signatures to date. I will set this here and hand it
54:49
over when I'm done. Okay, I'd like to start by thanking the Land and
54:55
Shore Committee for all of the time they put forth in reaching and a
55:00
unanimous decision to recommend that if a road is built connecting Tallis with Newport
55:06
Way that it be for emergency use only. I'd also thank Land and Shore
55:12
for recommending not to approve the development agreement on the Bergsma property.
55:18
I, as others have stated, am concerned about the slide issues
55:24
and I received today an email from the City of Issaquah
55:29
that states this summer the City of Issaquah plans to make
55:35
repairs to Northwest Talis Drive and Shangri-La Way Northwest following the
55:41
Parcel 9 hillside movement in late 2015. The City of Issaquah
55:47
is going to be apparently paying for these repairs and moving utilities and
55:52
hoping to perhaps be reimbursed at some point. I know a number of
55:58
citizens had been opposed to the development of Parcels 7, 8 and 9
56:04
due to landslide concerns. It's interesting to me that today The email
56:10
is referring to this landslide as hillside movement. When in the
56:16
past I thought we had identified it as a landslide and
56:21
the Riley Group in the letter dated June 17, 2016 referred
56:27
to Tallis lot 9 landslide as a relatively large landslide. with
56:33
affected areas over 400 feet wide and 300 feet long and up
56:39
to 50 feet deep. And this was an area that had a
56:45
risk assessment of slight for landslides or erosion. Now we are looking
56:50
at a hillside for the Bergsma property with a hillside 40% grade
56:56
where we've already heard that there are There are areas
57:02
that have a high risk assessment for erosion and
57:08
slides. And so as I stated earlier, I would
57:13
like to oppose the development agreement. I would like
57:19
to ask the city council this evening to give
57:24
a no to the development agreement and And
57:30
after considering all of the time and efforts that have been
57:36
put forth by the SEPA hearing and the hearing examiner, the
57:41
more than five hours that the Development Commission where they also
57:47
said that there were concerns. And then the many, there were two
57:53
meetings of land and shore where they said no to the development agreement.
57:59
And so I urge the remainder of you, city council people to also
58:05
say no this evening. Thank you. Julie, thank you very, very much. And
58:11
you can drop the additional signatures off. Tina and little over a dozen.
58:17
People are getting tired perhaps. No? Oh my goodness. Orphists of
58:23
the House. Tina, you're on. Okay. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you,
58:28
City Council. My name is Tina Conforti, and I live on
58:34
1220 Oakwood Place, northwest Issaquah. I think tonight we hear both
58:40
sides, Tullis and Newport Way. We are very disagree
58:45
on this development, the Bergasma. It causes so many
58:51
problems in traffic impact. There is no roadway, so
58:56
the roadway will be the only one, the main
59:02
road on Newport Way. Newport Way has already an
59:08
impact traffic, enormous. Friday night, I was getting out from
59:14
my own residence area. It took me 10 minutes to make a
59:19
left turn. Cars were all the way past 54, almost up to
59:25
Mo 9, the apartment building over there. The traffic was all the
59:31
way down from almost Mo 9 to 9 Under. So how can
59:37
you see a project development without an alternative roads? I really
59:43
think the city of Issaquah before it makes a promise on a
59:48
new project, it needed to study first the safety for the landslide.
59:54
We have a beautiful month and the wildlife is really destroying the
1:00:00
wildlife once this development goes up there. We want to preserve the
1:00:05
wildlife. It's important to the city. It's important to the territorial. I
1:00:11
have a deep feeling. For what I leave, it's a beautiful view
1:00:17
of the mountains. Why taking away the view, why take the territorial way from
1:00:23
the wider life? I know they can't talk for themselves, but we do. So
1:00:29
I hope you take in consideration. Please vote no on this project. Nina, thank
1:00:35
you very, very much. And just about all of the hands went up and
1:00:41
a little bit of waving back there. Is it Susan?
1:00:54
Hi, thank you so much Mr. Butler, Mayor, Mr. Mayor Butler and
1:01:00
staff and city council. I really appreciate your listening. My name is
1:01:06
Susan Haas and I live at 19524 Southeast 24th Place in Sammamish
1:01:11
which is pretty close to Issaquah. It was also a legal clear
1:01:17
cut. That's how it started. And And my relationship to Issaquah is
1:01:23
I volunteer at the Issaquah Food and Clothing Bank and bagging snacks up
1:01:28
on Thursdays and I also am a vendor for the Recology Cleanscape store
1:01:34
in Gelman Village in Issaquah. So I think that, you know, I'm just
1:01:40
really encouraging you to block a couple of things. One is the Bergsma
1:01:46
development and one is the proposed demolition on Providence Heights, in whatever way
1:01:51
you can do. Because I think that climate change, I've noticed the effects
1:01:57
of climate change here in the past 20 years. It used to be
1:02:03
a sort of misty rain and now it's raining harder and harder.
1:02:09
and the soils are drying out a bit and the moss is not as, you
1:02:14
know, it's dying in some places. And I think that all those things if you
1:02:20
look out in the next hundred years or so, your decisions become so much easier
1:02:25
because you put it in perspective and you say oh well, boy if this is
1:02:30
a landslide issue now, wait for a hundred more years of climate change because even
1:02:36
if we turn around the greenhouse gas emissions and reduce them less, the amount that's
1:02:41
already in the atmosphere is still going to, even if that changed today, it's
1:02:47
still going to create quite a bit of climate change, unfortunately. So I think you
1:02:53
have a really amazing job of making diamonds. That's what I think. Because Issaquah has
1:02:58
a cool past. And my grandpa actually has a cool past. He was an he
1:03:04
worked for a froth coal company in Chicago. And right around the time I was
1:03:10
born in '69, that coal company folded because Chicago said, "We need clean air here.
1:03:16
We can't have coal burning anymore." That was a really hard decision they made. But
1:03:21
they did it, and that led to my grandpa spending a lot of time with
1:03:27
me, so that's great. I think some of the quiet things in this
1:03:33
like there is this Townsend's big eared bat who lives four miles from Providence
1:03:38
Heights campus. He's got the hugest ears, she too. You've ever seen, they're just
1:03:44
hilarious and that bat is a candidate for the state listing and so when
1:03:50
it's considered by the state it will either go on the sensitive list, the
1:03:56
threatened or endangered. The things we do, the things you do,
1:04:01
you have the hardest job in the world I think. Benefit the Mosses,
1:04:07
the Likens, the Townsends, Bigger, Bad and all the people who are in
1:04:13
support of you making these hard decisions. The development pressures are strong and
1:04:18
it's important to just funnel development exactly where you want it and just
1:04:24
say no to the rest. And I brought up diamonds because I think all these
1:04:30
different forces coming together, the need for public education, the need for the towns and
1:04:35
bigger bat to survive and provide us with biodiversity. you know it's like biodiversity is
1:04:41
like the structure that supports us. If we were sitting here meeting and people started
1:04:46
taking out the 2x4s and the you know rafters we'd sort of go whoa like
1:04:52
that matters. So it's the same with all these quieter things and I just want
1:04:57
to know you have I just want to say you have a lot of support
1:05:02
and I can use all these forces to to create a great diamond
1:05:08
of a town. Thanks. Susan, thank you very, very much and
1:05:14
thank you for your volunteer efforts at the Food and Clothing
1:05:20
Bank. Is there -- I guess I'll try sitting down. I'm
1:05:26
Bill Bergsma. I'm part of the Bergsma family. I've lived here
1:05:31
nearly 80 years. I live right now at Southeast Issaquah Falls
1:05:37
City Road. My grandfather came here in 1911 with four kids and ended up with
1:05:43
five more, a family of nine that grew up here in Issaquah. When his wife
1:05:48
died in 1946, he remarried to a lady who lived 50 years with the first
1:05:53
wife and over 25 with the second. She died at 99, he died at 96.
1:05:58
The kids that lived here, including my father, were in business here for many, many
1:06:03
years. He was the town milkman. He was the silent Santa Claus. He was kind
1:06:08
of Mr. Issaquah. You can see his life-size standing portrait on the poster over at
1:06:13
the museum. When he passed away in 1976, my grandfather, he
1:06:19
had sold the property on the valley to Rowley Enterprises and kept
1:06:24
the property on the hill for his kids. Well, after grandpa died,
1:06:30
all his kids have now passed away and the property's been for
1:06:36
sale since 1988 or late 1989. There was a sale in 1989
1:06:42
to a Chinese corporation who made an initial payment and then disappeared i don't
1:06:48
know if they talked with a planning council or they found a better deal somewhere
1:06:53
else Ever since that time, there's been battles with new people who wanted to come
1:06:58
in and buy and build some homes up there or townhouses or something. And this
1:07:03
is the first time we've been able to get past the planning department. But I
1:07:07
can tell you from my almost 80 years living or traveling down Newport Way there
1:07:12
to take care of my folks' house and my grandparents' house that was in the
1:07:16
middle of the three across the street from the development area. The only time there
1:07:22
was ever water that came off that hill and ran across the road was in
1:07:25
1996. And the only reason it did was because I think the city let a
1:07:29
gas line company come through and they put a crimp in the big corrugated culvert
1:07:33
that ran under the road so none of the water coming down the ditch over
1:07:37
there could get across. So it rolled over the road. I can remember as a
1:07:41
kid when they were cutting trees and rolling them down the hill and that wasn't
1:07:46
even a clear cut. We used to get the water for the farm out of
1:07:50
just a runoff and a holding tank up there. Well, I think the ground up
1:07:55
there would be very stable. I've hiked up there and I can remember a family
1:07:59
living in a little hole in the ground now where the landscaping company has been
1:08:04
for years. build a fort up there. There used to be a fortress up there
1:08:09
with cages and second story building. So I spent a lot of time running around
1:08:14
up there. The property is somewhat difficult and has all that slope, but there's never
1:08:19
been a drainage problem. There's never been a slide problem. The building project would never
1:08:24
be near as high as the one up at Talus. By the way, I discovered
1:08:29
a family who said they knew the Tallis family who had a small farm, Finnish
1:08:34
family. I never knew that growing up here, and I thought I knew all the
1:08:38
Finnish farmers and valley people up in that area. Well, I think that the family's
1:08:43
been here so long and has done so much, and it was tried for so
1:08:47
many years to get somebody to get something that would be approved that I kind
1:08:52
of feel like the last Indian on the totem pole here getting shot down at
1:08:56
every angle. But if we could have had something to get through the project 25
1:09:01
years ago, it would have been all done. And then I guess Taliesin, all of
1:09:06
us, 500 more going down the road a half mile would all be newcomers and
1:09:11
we could argue about them. But anyway, we lost two real estate agents to cancer
1:09:15
over these years trying to get something done through the city planning department. We've been
1:09:20
paying taxes on that for about 70 years. And it's getting more and more difficult
1:09:25
to do that. I was hoping at one time when the city was looking for
1:09:29
a cemetery that they would maybe want to make a little deal on that hill
1:09:33
and put a cemetery there. But they've got the other addition above the current one,
1:09:37
the old one, and that's fine. The wildlife will be there. If not, they'll move
1:09:41
up to my neighborhood on Issaquah Falls City Road because I have all those plus
1:09:45
cougar coming through my property and just had two fawns born the other day in
1:09:50
about an hour's period and took the two little ones, went running up the driveway
1:09:54
to stretch their legs. It's like living in a rainforest up there. I really think
1:09:58
that that property cannot do much damage. There's going to be traffic because all the
1:10:03
traffic we have problems with here for the last three decades is because the county's
1:10:07
let everybody build south of us. So everything is coming through. People from Maple Valley
1:10:11
and Enumclaw and everywhere. Heck, I've got relatives living in Cle Elum that moved over
1:10:16
there and still worked in Seattle because it was easier to drive from Cle Elum
1:10:20
or Easton to their work in Seattle and to navigate traffic
1:10:26
around here. I don't think that will change much in the near
1:10:31
future. Well, I guess enough of that. Thank you for your consideration.
1:10:37
We'd hope that we can do something. Thank you. Bill, thank you
1:10:43
very, very much for that little bit of history. Is there anyone
1:10:49
else desiring to speak this evening? Yes, please. Kaye Haynes, 2830 Northwest
1:10:55
Pinecone Drive.
1:11:02
Thank you for all that you've done in exploring this issue of the
1:11:07
development agreement so thoroughly. I really appreciate it enormously. I want to address
1:11:13
something that Mr. Bergsma said. I have tremendous respect for the Bergsma family
1:11:19
and I know their history in trying to develop this property. I know
1:11:25
they have certain rights and I respect that. I don't think the
1:11:31
development agreement is one of those rights and I'd like to say why I
1:11:36
oppose it. But I would like to raise a question for the city and
1:11:42
for future owners of property such as the Bergsma property. And my question is
1:11:48
why do we, if we are so committed to the comprehensive plan, and to
1:11:54
not developing the hillsides. And I sat through hours and hours of meeting with the
1:11:58
Central Issaquah Plan where we said build on the valley floor. We won't build on
1:12:03
the hillsides. That's where we need to build. I sat through so many months of
1:12:07
those meetings. And here we're building on the valley floor. Enormous number of units for
1:12:12
the people that live along Newport Way and we're building on the hillsides. We're destroying
1:12:17
hillsides. There must be a way out of this quandary that is a win-win situation
1:12:22
for everyone. Is there not a way the city and owners can get together and
1:12:27
take the vision of the city and work on alternatives when you have a parcel
1:12:32
of land as beautiful and as fragile as the Bergsman property? Is there not a
1:12:37
way to explore working with King County, City of Issaquah, the Trust for Public Land,
1:12:42
conservation groups. There are so many groups that are interested in conserving beautiful land. Can
1:12:47
we not find a way that serves the needs of the Bergsma family, serves the
1:12:52
needs of the city, serves the needs of the people of Tallis, and serves the
1:12:57
needs of the people along Newport Way? That would be my most fervent
1:13:03
hope. And that's the alternative to what we are planning to do in terms of
1:13:08
the destruction of 40% slopes, 12% grades that we're going to build, an enormous desecration
1:13:14
of the hillside. I know that is not the legacy the Burisma family wants. I
1:13:20
personally would like to see that known as the Burisma Parkland and not the Burisma
1:13:25
Cut. Okay, thank you very,
1:13:31
very much. And about two-thirds or more folks raised their hand.
1:13:37
Anyone else who is desiring to speak this evening? Steve, come
1:13:43
on down. Hi,
1:13:49
Steve Pereira, 170 Northeast Dogwood Street, about nine and a half years. So a couple
1:13:53
quick hits first. When I was walking here past the Issaquah Trolley at Rainier, I
1:13:57
saw somebody taking pictures of the trees and they told me that in the 1970s
1:14:01
when they got planted, the gardener was taking international trees. And I just thought that
1:14:05
was kind of a cool fact that maybe a lot of people don't know of.
1:14:09
So I just thought I'd kind of share that. It'd be great to get that
1:14:13
kind of information out there as part of public information. Second, the community needs the
1:14:18
assessment that is working on. I think that's a great thing. Please keep up the
1:14:22
great work. Appreciate that. Third thing, I think there was a great communication effort on
1:14:27
the East Lakes Mammish closure, both in advance and when it got completed early, so
1:14:32
kudos to that. Fourth thing was I went to the Issaquah, the fenders on Front
1:14:36
Street and I heard a couple people talk about how they didn't know this was
1:14:40
such a big deal and how they came like 7:30 or 8:00, tried to park
1:14:44
their car and found most of the good parts, spots already gone. So kudos for
1:14:49
leading that effort to all those who were involved. more lengthy topics. The Bergsmere property
1:14:54
for all the topics, all the reasons that have been listed, steep slope, loss of
1:14:58
habitat, I think should be shot down. I don't want to repeat and drag that
1:15:03
out further, but I have concerns with that. I also have some concerns. There doesn't
1:15:07
seem to be, or at least I can't recall an issue where it seems like
1:15:11
administration or would people have to come back to the city council as the post
1:15:16
of last resort to say why is this happening? I don't understand why the proposal
1:15:21
got put forward when it seems to be so strongly opposed. I don't know if
1:15:26
there's some way of the administrative and legislative branches working together to try to address
1:15:31
issues like that, but it just seems, I don't understand why when residents seem so
1:15:35
opposed to something, how something got this far along, got citizens so riled up. FEATURE
1:15:41
THOUGHT. LAST ISSUE WAS -- SO IT HAS
1:15:47
TO DO WITH THE DEVELOP -- NOT DESIGN
1:15:53
STANDARDS, BUT THE -- WHAT DO I WANT
1:15:59
TO CALL IT? THE ENERGY PLANNING FOR DESIGN
1:16:05
-- NOT DESIGN STANDARDS, BUT SO I GUESS
1:16:11
I'M PUNNING A BIT ON THIS. SO THE
1:16:17
CLEAN ENERGY STANDARDS OR DEVELOPMENT STANDARDS FOR BUILDING,
1:16:23
I DON'T THINK THEY GO FAR ENOUGH, AND
1:16:29
I DON'T THINK WE SHOULD JUST TALK ABOUT
1:16:37
trying to encourage them, but I think we should require energy savings in development of
1:16:42
both public buildings and private buildings, and we need to be more thorough in requiring
1:16:47
them. One thing I haven't heard is how we benchmark about other cities that are
1:16:53
trying to do this, and are we as strong in the requirement side? if
1:16:59
we just try to encourage folks in doing the right thing. I think we're going
1:17:03
to get the same thing with housing, affordable housing. We're not going to get what
1:17:07
we want unless we require that to happen. So please be more thorough in requiring
1:17:12
something more substantive. I absolutely love the benchmarking that they're talking about doing and developing
1:17:16
design standards, not design standards, but energy policies because that natural environment seems to be
1:17:20
a big thing that is about and I think that's a big piece of this.
1:17:25
With that, I think we also need to talk about canopy cover,
1:17:31
tree retention, which does take out a lot of the carbon that's
1:17:37
in the environment. Part of the policy also talks about connection to
1:17:43
the environment. So I think that there's some connection that we need
1:17:48
to put more tree retention in considerations as part of energy retention
1:17:54
policies. Thank you. Thank you, Steve. Anyone else desiring to speak? Dave
1:18:00
Kapler. Thank you. David Kapler, 255
1:18:06
Southeast Andrew Street. My first note, which I wrote before, it says 28 years, and
1:18:10
that's how long the Bergsma family, most of them well represented in the front row
1:18:15
here, have been trying to deal with this property. We all expected that we're involved
1:18:21
with the Talus, East Village Talus issue that there would be, this would be part
1:18:26
of that and the road would come down and Talus developers decided they didn't need
1:18:32
the additional units, were not justified by the cost of developing that road down to
1:18:38
Newport. In those days, they most probably could have done it with a 15% grade.
1:18:43
Now it's a 12% grade, which means a longer road and/or lowering the
1:18:49
site even more and that's why you get to get the housing site down
1:18:55
to the top of the road is where the 88,000 cubic yards is. Much
1:19:01
of that comes from that just lowering the property to match the road. The
1:19:06
property is a designated sending site which should tell us something about what should
1:19:12
happen at that site. So we're looking at current zoning allowing 40. The
1:19:18
development agreement doubles the number of units, goes to almost 80 or 80 really.
1:19:24
So we got a designated sending site and we're doubling the zoning or doubling
1:19:30
the number of units at least. I mean, I've been a big advocate of
1:19:35
trying to get things from this development if it happens, trails, natural growth protection
1:19:41
easement, likely some land dedication. But the whole concept is counter
1:19:47
to the Central Issaquah plan. There's going to be trucking impacts not only
1:19:53
in the city but for miles and miles of unincorporated King County potentially.
1:19:59
View impacts on our forested hillside assumption over the long term of a
1:20:05
steep slope stability issue. I would urge you to explore non-development
1:20:11
options, park options of that or far less options which could be
1:20:17
served by a different road than coming up from Newport. Thank you.
1:20:22
Thank you, David. And there's still quite an audience here and most
1:20:28
of them supportive of that. Connie. So my
1:20:34
name is Connie Marsh and I live on Squawk Mountain and I think our best
1:20:40
city use for the Burisma property is to get it put into conservation. Use number
1:20:46
two would be to understand if we have some sort of small access where
1:20:52
we could provide an extremely small number of larger parcels that potentially Talus
1:20:58
would be willing to accept having passed through their land I don't think
1:21:03
that's been considered this particular development agreement is too far off of the
1:21:09
mark so I would say no but what I don't understand is whether
1:21:15
their traditional plat is and that was not addressed in the agenda bill.
1:21:21
So it would be nice to have some clarification on whether they are
1:21:27
in the moratorium or not if the DA is not approved. Thanks. Thank
1:21:33
you, Connie. Brian?
1:21:44
Hi, my name is Brian Weinstein. I live at 285 Southeast Bush Street. I've
1:21:50
lived in Issaquah since the year 2000. It's rare that the brass ring of
1:21:56
opportunity comes along on the carousel of life here at Issaquah City Council Chambers.
1:22:02
And yet, that's what's happening this evening. I wish that the council could look
1:22:07
ahead on the agenda to the community survey about Issaquah because if you get to
1:22:13
that point, which unfortunately is after all the agenda bills and after all the public
1:22:18
comment this evening, you'll see that the number one thing that is valued above all
1:22:23
else in the city of Issaquah are our treasures and the number one treasure
1:22:29
is our forested hillsides, the trees and the environment. That's why we're all
1:22:34
here. And everything that I've heard tonight is also flavored by the fact
1:22:40
that we have already met our 2030 population goal, decades ahead of schedule.
1:22:45
So when I look at something like the Bergsma property, and we all
1:22:51
know, we all know It is not the place of the council to prohibit
1:22:57
somebody from doing what they would like to do with their private property. But it
1:23:02
is the place of council to come up with a policy of what is appropriate
1:23:07
use for that property. And I think like Connie said, something much, much smaller, maybe
1:23:12
less than a dozen homes on that piece of property might be something that maybe
1:23:18
the TALIS people would tolerate. And I use the word tolerate generously. Um, the other
1:23:24
thing that you're going to be discussing tonight is the transit orient development and
1:23:29
I've been looking at and quite honestly, that is a Rubik's Cube of land
1:23:35
deals that has as part of what it does is obliterating the last forested
1:23:41
grove of hillside on the plateau. It's going to go away. We won't
1:23:47
see it from Old Town. People who live on Squawk won't see it. People who
1:23:52
live over on Talus won't see it. It will be gone forever. And I think
1:23:57
that probably a better use for that treasure, rather than splitting it or selling it
1:24:01
or doing whatever you want to do to get transit-oriented development, would be to put
1:24:06
that into protected open space. So we can have trails there and look at Camp
1:24:12
Creek and we can continue to look at our trees like we've been promised, which
1:24:17
are our treasures in Issaquah. The fact that it's a sweetener in a transit-oriented development
1:24:22
is not needed because we already know the Polygon deal in the Highlands was done
1:24:26
without any of those concessions. And we're getting affordable housing and low-income housing and a
1:24:31
group home up there. So I think the city could probably go back and negotiate
1:24:36
that a little better The other thing that I'm afraid that Talus doesn't know that
1:24:41
is on an agenda bill this evening is the two and a half million dollars
1:24:45
of a gift that we're going to give potentially a developer for where the landslide
1:24:50
is. Um, and I use gift obviously in the broadest sense of the word, if
1:24:56
we're going to be looking at having to pay $2.5 million for the landslide remediation
1:25:01
up there, that really ought to become sort of like Issaquah's property and no longer
1:25:06
the developer's property because that's a big gift and that's going to be borne by
1:25:11
all of the taxpayers here. So what we're really saying, council, and here we all
1:25:17
are, is transparency before trust and slow down. What's the rush with all these decisions?
1:25:23
Allowing staff more time to think carefully about how these decisions benefit the people is
1:25:28
important. Allowing council the opportunity to consider policy implications of the ramifications and the cost
1:25:34
to residents. As my friend Ruth Keys used to say, the cumulative effects of how
1:25:39
you're changing our community. These should be your highest priorities. We all seek
1:25:45
transparency in what the city does for us, and here's a great opportunity to slow
1:25:49
down and understand all of this. You've been saying for a long time, wouldn't it
1:25:54
be nice if we had more community engagement? Well, here they are. They're all here.
1:25:59
And what we've been saying to you for a very long time is, do you
1:26:04
hear what we are saying? Do you hear us? And do you listen to us?
1:26:08
I think this is that opportunity where the brass ring is right here in your
1:26:13
grasp, and I sure hope you don't let it pass you by. Thank you.
1:26:19
Thank you, Brian, and that resonated with the
1:26:25
audience very much. Final call. Anyone else desiring
1:26:31
to speak this evening? Yes, sir. And then
1:26:37
following the gentleman, you're up. Notice he didn't
1:26:43
know who I was, and none of you
1:26:48
do. You're Bill's brother. I'm Bill's cousin. I'm
1:26:54
sorry. So I'm one of 22 cousins.
1:27:00
My name is Jerry Hendrickson. I currently live in Olympia, Washington. Interesting side
1:27:06
note, we came into town tonight, my wife and I, on Hobart Road.
1:27:12
And I was commenting as we were driving in. This road is no
1:27:18
different than it was 60 years ago. No, I hate this. I didn't
1:27:24
catch your name. Jerry Hendrickson. There's an email somewhere buried somewhere-- OK, Jerry.
1:27:30
And your address? --in your paperwork. My address, 3316. 29th
1:27:35
Avenue, Northeast Olympia, Washington. So being from Olympia, I grew up
1:27:41
here in the valley, graduated from high school, class of 60,
1:27:47
went to Washington State, go Cougs, and I lived in a
1:27:53
variety of places since then, but currently live in Olympia. And
1:27:58
in an ideal world, I would like to see that show
1:28:04
of hands that's been occurring behind me In the
1:28:10
1990s, it really would have been nice if there was a big
1:28:16
show of hands at the ballot box to preserve all of this
1:28:22
land on the hillside. I hear people talking about our hillsides and
1:28:28
our land and our wildlife, and I agree with all of that,
1:28:34
except it's really not yours. It's not mine either, except I have
1:28:40
to pay taxes on it. And... So, you
1:28:46
know, I don't have all the answers. I agree with what an awful lot of
1:28:52
the speakers have come up and said tonight. But to say that we're only going
1:28:58
to build on the valley floor and we're not going to touch the hillsides is
1:29:04
a wonderful idea. But what about the people who own and are having to pay
1:29:10
taxes on that ground? I have 22 cousins. Five of them have already passed away.
1:29:16
I just... Again, in an ideal world,
1:29:21
I would like what most of you would like for the Issaquah Valley,
1:29:27
even though I no longer live here. But if the thing you value
1:29:33
the most, as the previous speaker, I think, said, was the ecological surroundings
1:29:39
that you have, and I have to say they're nothing like what they
1:29:45
were when I was a kid. When I was a kid, you could ride
1:29:51
your bicycle down Newport Way on a whim and not worry about being picked off
1:29:56
because there were hardly ever any cars on it. But if that would be your
1:30:01
number one choice in an ideal world, there would be a bond in the city,
1:30:07
county, state, or someone would purchase these hillsides and they would stay the way they
1:30:12
are. That would be great, in my opinion. But in the real world... The money
1:30:18
for the things that we really want doesn't seem to be forthcoming.
1:30:23
So the capital system has to end up playing a part, unfortunately.
1:30:29
But that's the reality, as I see it, as sort of an
1:30:35
old-timer here, but yet sort of an outsider now. Final statement, as
1:30:40
one of the Bergsmans, I'd like to get out of the real
1:30:46
estate business. Jerry, thank you very, very much for coming all the
1:30:51
way from Olympia to... to share that with us. Final call, oh,
1:30:57
come on up please. - My name is Rachel Carrie Ryerson. I live
1:31:03
at 955 17th Avenue, Northwest Issaquah, Washington. And I've lived there for 36
1:31:09
years, all my life. And I'm here tonight to speak about the proposed
1:31:15
BRSMA development agreement. And my first point is that I think that the proposed cluster
1:31:20
housing development goes against what the City of Issaquah has laid out in their cluster
1:31:25
housing standard. The standard states, I'm sure you guys know, but I'll just reiterate, it
1:31:29
achieves the most, the maximum allowed density as established on the district standard table on
1:31:34
developable land while preserving critical areas and other pervious surfaces through lot size reduction. But
1:31:39
under the current proposed design, they're seeking variances because they're destroying critical areas. So I'm
1:31:44
not sure how that's in line with that. Secondly, it states it encourages affordable housing
1:31:49
through the provision of smaller lots. But as I understand it, with the proposed housing
1:31:54
development, there are only four units which are set aside as cottage, it's only two
1:32:00
cottage duplexes which are set aside for affordable housing. And my second point is that
1:32:05
I'd like to reiterate section six of the Issaquah Comprehensive Plan. which states under impacts
1:32:10
regarding neighborhoods, the proposed cluster of development will not have a substantial adverse
1:32:16
impact on adjacent properties, the character of neighborhood or community, traffic conditions, parking,
1:32:22
utilities, facilities, parking, utility facilities, and other elements affecting public health and safety
1:32:28
and general welfare. And I think that you can see by
1:32:33
the community's turnout who opposes this development that this isn't negative, this isn't
1:32:39
something that the community wants. And second, under that, under environmental impacts, the proposed
1:32:45
cluster development will not result in the destruction, loss, or damage of any scenic corridor
1:32:50
or Issaquah treasure as identified by the city's comprehensive plan. And when you read that,
1:32:56
it states that it's the lush, open, tree-covered mountaintops of Issaquah Alps, and that they
1:33:01
should be left in their natural state. And that's one of the treasures. And so
1:33:06
I'm not sure how stuffing a bunch of houses into something that's, the irregular code
1:33:11
for everyone else is in line with that city comprehensive plan. So in summary, it's
1:33:17
my belief that this cluster housing, excuse me, it's my belief that the cluster housing
1:33:21
standard is set forth as a compromise which is meant to benefit the city's growth
1:33:26
and the community that lives here. But as I see it, this cluster housing only
1:33:30
benefits the developers who are going to make a ton of money off cramming multiple
1:33:34
houses on a small piece of fragile land which has wetlands, critical areas, and steep
1:33:38
slopes at the cost of disregarding all the things set forth in the comprehensive plan.
1:33:44
Would you repeat your name again for the clerk and for me? I missed
1:33:50
it. I'm sorry. Rigel Carey. Did you get that, Patricia? Great. Thank you very
1:33:56
much. Mary? And my name is Mary Lynch. I reside at 2690 Northwest Oakcrest
1:34:02
Drive, Issaquah, Washington. And I just want to thank all the people that turned
1:34:07
out and spoke tonight, including the Berksmiths. I want to say is I hope you're
1:34:13
looking at the process and some points by both sides were brought up very clearly,
1:34:19
but what was really also to me is very clear is the city has not
1:34:24
been following its comprehensive plan. A lot of us for many years have been asking
1:34:29
for a good post for it to be done. had it been done this
1:34:35
piece of parcel would have been identified very early because if you go back and
1:34:40
look at the history this parcel was identified as a sending site for development rights
1:34:46
yet when they came to city staff this last go around what did city staff
1:34:51
do to encourage them to look elsewhere or do something different besides development because that
1:34:57
should have been an immediate flag that went up and say hey this
1:35:03
is a receiver a transferring site we should be looking at something different besides development
1:35:08
and that was not done nor have we done the post or do we follow
1:35:14
I don't really see that city staff clearly understands what the comprehensive plan do they
1:35:19
or do they use it as a litmus test or a guideline when they're planning
1:35:25
development and that's one of the major things and the reasons why I supported the
1:35:30
moratorium because I think there were flaws in it but I don't even think we've
1:35:34
been following it. So I can see why the Berks were frustrated. They go to
1:35:39
city staff and they're not getting the direction that they should be. But we are
1:35:43
a whole community and the whole community needs to benefit when we're going forward, not
1:35:48
just a few people. I've lost a lot of money in the stock market over
1:35:53
the years. Bad investment. Does anybody, does the city come and bail me out for
1:35:58
a bad investment? I would love to have some money for the stock that I've
1:36:03
lost. And I feel sorry, but that's what you're doing with a gamble. Land is
1:36:08
just the same gamble as a stock market. And you need to consider that going
1:36:13
forward. But please look at the process, please improve it, make sure city staff is
1:36:18
included early on, and please listen to the public. We spent a lot of hours
1:36:23
and have come to a lot of the meetings to get even a little bit
1:36:28
heard. And it's frustrating because we ought to be having more community meetings early on
1:36:32
in the process. And I was at the original one almost two and a half
1:36:37
years ago. and we stated these same things there. But it took us going to
1:36:42
the recent Land and Shores Committee to get heard. Because even when I went to
1:36:47
the other subcommittees, the commission meetings, they were frustrated because they really did not feel
1:36:53
that this development agreement was properly put together and reviewed. If you look at the
1:36:58
hearing examiner's report, they also said that the process was not really done like it
1:37:03
should and that's why there's problems with the hearing examiner report which i still haven't
1:37:09
heard any analysis from that on how the city's interpreting it differently than the hearing
1:37:15
examiner thank you mary thank you very very much yes please
1:37:20
My name is Mary Hammerly. I live at 1230 Oakwood
1:37:26
Place Northwest, which is in Summerhill. Summerhill is the first
1:37:32
development west of SR 900 on Newport Way. My request
1:37:37
to the council is this. We have zoning laws in
1:37:43
Issaquah. We have an Issaquah comprehensive plan. I have sat
1:37:48
through many, many of these meetings in the last several years and it seems
1:37:54
like we are the city of Issaquah is permitting development agreement after development agreement
1:38:00
that is not in compliance with the plan or our zoning laws. Why are
1:38:06
those laws there? Why are we are is the council granting variances to each
1:38:12
one of these developers? I'm sympathetic to where the Berks are coming from, but
1:38:18
they are not coming to you and saying, I want to build property that is
1:38:24
consistent with the current zoning laws that is consistent with anything else. They're coming and
1:38:29
saying they want a variance. Everybody wants a variance. Why does this city even bother
1:38:35
with zoning laws if we're not going to follow them? Thank you. Thank
1:38:41
you, Mary. And some folks are waving their hands back there.
1:38:47
Anyone else? Final call. Seeing no one, then audience comments are
1:38:52
closed. And we'll move now to council committee and regional reports,
1:38:58
beginning with Mariah. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just a short report
1:39:04
tonight. There is An upcoming meeting on Wednesday, June 21st for the
1:39:10
King Conservation District Advisory Committee. And on the agenda will be a review
1:39:16
and discussion of the 2016 annual report. And most of the time will
1:39:21
be spent on the program of work for 2018. And that concludes my
1:39:27
report. Thank you. Bill? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First report is on the Council
1:39:33
Infrastructure Committee. And what we covered mostly the last time was an update on projects.
1:39:38
And I want to share all those with you because there's some that I want
1:39:43
to make sure the information is shared, what's going on. First of all, I'd like
1:39:49
to thank that our WSDOT closure of East Lakes of Mammoth took five days rather
1:39:54
than seven. And that was excellent, although because it was not fun for those five
1:39:59
days. And other things with WSDOT was that on June 29th, there will be a
1:40:04
public meeting held with Tibbetts on the I-90 shoulder work. So again, encourage the public
1:40:09
to understand what's going on on the I-90 expansion of shoulder lane. That's June 29th
1:40:14
at Tibbetts Manor. Traffic calming. Some people have talked about that before. Just want to
1:40:20
let you know what's going on in a number of neighborhoods, not just have it
1:40:24
about Old Town, but we also talked about Highlands, Tallis, Black Nugget. There's other neighborhoods
1:40:28
where traffic calming is going on. And a lot of talk here about Newport Way.
1:40:33
There were two public meetings in the last few weeks. They were very well attended
1:40:37
and I think the public felt that they got a lot of ideas across and
1:40:42
a lot of sharing of ideas and they seemed to go very well and I
1:40:47
thank everybody who took their time. There was two three hour meetings. That's a lot
1:40:52
of time out of the public's time to attend those and so this shows they
1:40:57
really care and put a lot of work into those. Big one is we're working
1:41:02
on the Trader Joe's Maple Street Roundabout. Sharing some information here. Right now
1:41:08
it's in about 75% design and it's getting ready to go out to bid and
1:41:13
they're working on it about 75% and just they wanted to let us know that
1:41:18
currently it looks like at that point it's going to be over budget. So they
1:41:22
want to keep this project moving and we told them to keep it moving but
1:41:27
as they do that that will could probably cause mainly one touch with the council.
1:41:32
So the tentative schedule is that we advertise in the project on July 11th with
1:41:36
bids open July 25th. And to act on that fairly quickly after that, when we
1:41:41
get bids to find out what the bid actually comes in at, the council has,
1:41:45
of course, the option to do whatever they need. But a warning that it looks
1:41:50
like it might be over budget. We don't know how much yet. So sharing that
1:41:54
information as much as possible because it's kind of a one touch. Also, the next
1:41:59
thing I was talking about was Shangri-La. We talked about it a little bit on
1:42:04
TALIS. That project has expanded in scope because of some of the concerns of really
1:42:09
making it secure for our utilities, both dry and wet, that are under that road,
1:42:15
including some shoulder wall pilings and so forth. So the price of that has gone
1:42:20
up dramatically, like about $1.3 million. And that is currently out to bid. And the
1:42:25
bids are gonna be opened on the 22nd of June here. So the plan is,
1:42:30
again, we don't have time. If we wanna get that accomplished this year, there's not
1:42:35
a lot of time to go back and forth with, so it ends up a
1:42:39
one touch. It would then come back to council, I believe, the 6th of July
1:42:44
with how things are going from the 22nd to the next council meeting with 4th
1:42:49
of July and everything in there. So the main thing is to let everyone know
1:42:54
that that might be an increased cost by quite a substantial amount, and they'll keep
1:42:59
leadership informed of Curtis and myself. So we'll share that information as much as we
1:43:03
can as soon as we know it, but official time with council will be less
1:43:08
than normal. So that takes care of council report, infrastructure report. Then a few other
1:43:14
things I've been involved in these last few weeks. On the sixth, I was
1:43:20
at affordable housing issue symposium in Bellevue, as were some other folks. Eastside Fire
1:43:25
and Rescue, I was there for Eileen on the 8th of June. And then working
1:43:31
not only as a council person but also for SCA and EMAC, I was at
1:43:36
the Cascade Water Alliance Earthquake Resiliency. Again, some other folks were at too, really talking
1:43:42
about the things we need to prepare for in case of those major catastrophic events,
1:43:47
particularly serious earthquake. Trying to get folks to work on the planning stages now so
1:43:53
we're ready when if and when those things happen um also on the 13th of
1:43:58
june as the regional transportation system initiative and as many others and again working to
1:44:02
get the region involved and working together to work on some of our traffic problems
1:44:07
on regional roads so we hopefully can get some of the traffic off our local
1:44:12
roads and every city has that same concern not just isaac on the 14th i
1:44:17
was at the emergency management advisory committee meeting. What's happening there is interesting enough is
1:44:22
not super important, but their funding, a lot of which comes from the federal government,
1:44:26
we thought we had a budget for that. It was reduced. And now when we
1:44:31
finally got final dollars, reduced again. So the items that are being spent worked on
1:44:35
keep getting reduced from the federal level. And so that just brings less money to
1:44:40
all of us locally to our planning efforts for emergency management. Again, ties back to
1:44:45
some other things. So just want some support on that and be aware of that.
1:44:50
Also on the 14th, the Eastside Human Services Forum on Opiate and work on that.
1:44:55
And then this Wednesday the 21st, I'll be at the Regional Transit Committee working on
1:45:00
their development work plan and also looking at some of their on-time performance issues as
1:45:05
well as their zero emission buses that they're getting more of. And on the 22nd
1:45:11
Thursday, I'll be at the Associated Cities of Washington as ISQA rep for their general
1:45:16
meeting. So I'll be on all that day down in Vancouver and I'll represent as
1:45:21
well. Ends my report, thank you. Thank you, Bill. Paul? Bill did all
1:45:27
my work. I have no report. No report either. You were at many of
1:45:33
those things that I was at, right? Pola? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The Council
1:45:39
Services and Safety Committee met Tuesday, June 13th, and we had... We had a
1:45:45
senior center update, then we had three bills, all three of which are
1:45:50
back on regular business here this evening. Agenda Bill 7352, 2017 second budget
1:45:56
amendments. Agenda Bill 7419, interlocal agreement with Eastside Fire and Rescue for tactical
1:46:01
emergency medical support. And Agenda Bill 7438, PSE Green Direct Power Service Agreement.
1:46:07
The Sound Cities Association Public Issues Committee met last Wednesday,
1:46:13
sorry, yes, and we discussed, had a lively discussion on
1:46:18
a number of topics, but of particular interest was the
1:46:25
Transmitted Veterans, Seniors and Human Services levy. It was transmitted from the executive's office
1:46:31
at 12 cents per thousand. There is discussion on whether the county council will
1:46:37
go with that recommendation or go with a different number. There's been discussion of
1:46:42
10 cents per thousand. So there was both a pre pick meeting and then
1:46:48
a discussion in pick this one is coming through fast enough, it has to
1:46:54
be fully ready to go, I believe August 1 which actually precludes pick taking
1:47:00
a formal position on it. but we have asked our member cities
1:47:05
to have any feedback that they want to transmit forward
1:47:11
to SCA staff. That can be in turn forwarded to to
1:47:17
the right folks at the county. So if fellow council members have any particular feedback
1:47:23
on that one that they would like me to send back up through the SCA
1:47:29
mechanism, please do let me know. Then we discussed other things, but nothing that quite
1:47:35
had the, and interest of that particular measure. GMPC is still
1:47:40
a ways off, but the E911 Strategic Plan Scoping Leadership Group is
1:47:46
meeting tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. when we will receive the draft
1:47:52
of the technology group report and also consider various leadership or oversight
1:47:58
options going forward for the new technology rollout. This concludes my report.
1:48:04
Thank you. Mayor Liu. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The June 8th Cascade Water Alliance Resource
1:48:10
Committee meeting was canceled. On June 8th, there was an Eastside Fire and Rescue Board
1:48:16
meeting. We had a legislative update and some information on an upcoming King County Medic
1:48:22
1 levy. Most of the other items were dealing with financial matters and the budget
1:48:28
for next year. The Finance and Admin Committee for Eastside Fire and Rescue will meet
1:48:34
on June 28th. There is no agenda yet. The next Eastside Fire and Rescue Board
1:48:39
Meeting will be July 13th and there will be no August Board Meeting. On June
1:48:44
16th, I attended the Chamber of Commerce Board Meeting at in the Eagle Room at
1:48:49
City Hall, and most of the updates I provided that day had to do with
1:48:54
mobility and also the large culvert project that Council Member Ramos was speaking about, and
1:48:59
an update on some of the moratorium work items. And that concludes my report. Thank
1:49:05
you. Council President Goodman. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The Land and Shore Committee had a
1:49:10
special meeting on June 7th. And the one item that we took
1:49:16
action on that night was a sustainable building action strategy, which
1:49:21
is on the regular agenda for tonight and with a recommendation
1:49:27
to approve. And then we had our typical standing item on
1:49:32
moratorium and we had a brief peek inside the tent regarding
1:49:38
the parking analysis and That will be coming back through various channels. And
1:49:44
then we also talked about the Old Town Sub Area Plan and that we
1:49:49
had a lot of questions and that is staying in committee. The Land and
1:49:55
Shore meets again on July 6th, Thursday, 6:30 p.m. here in Council Chambers and
1:50:01
the agenda has not been set yet. Thank you. For the mayor's
1:50:06
report, there will be an executive session held this evening for
1:50:12
the purpose of discussing pending and potential litigation for RCW 42.30.110,
1:50:18
one, I. This item is expected to take approximately 45 minutes.
1:50:24
No action is anticipated to follow an open session. Bill
1:50:30
commented on the Regional Transportation System Initiative. A
1:50:35
little more background on that. I also attended
1:50:41
that with Mary Lou. And in early 2017, the--
1:50:47
I'm just going to call it the RTSI-- was launched by
1:50:53
King County and Sound Cities Association with support from the Puget
1:50:59
Sound Regional Council to develop partnerships to address our regional transportation
1:51:05
challenges. Monthly meetings are being held this year with technical experts
1:51:11
to define the regional road network and--
1:51:16
This was our first meeting of the group with
1:51:22
elected officials. At last week's meeting, local elected officials
1:51:28
reviewed their work done to date by the RTSI
1:51:34
Technical Committee, developed a better understanding of regional transportation
1:51:39
priorities, in each community and confirm that
1:51:45
we should work together on these challenges
1:51:51
moving forward. Issaquah will remain engaged in
1:51:56
this process and period. Bill mentioned that,
1:52:02
Bill mentioned that. Bill mentioned that. Bill attended many
1:52:07
meetings that I attended and has already reported, so there is
1:52:13
no need for me to comment further. So with that, Committee
1:52:18
and Regional Reports is complete and we'll now move to the
1:52:24
consent calendar. Have the accounts payables and payroll for June the
1:52:29
19th, 2017 been reviewed? They have. Thank you. I'd ask the city
1:52:35
clerk to read the consent calendar into the record, please. The consent calendar
1:52:41
was distributed to council in advance for study. If authorized, council action will occur by
1:52:46
single motion regarding the following items. Item A seeks approval of the accounts payables and
1:52:51
payroll of June 19th. Item B seeks approval of the minutes of the regular meeting,
1:52:56
and here the agenda should read of June 5th. Item C, AB 7249,
1:53:02
discuss creation of a transportation mobility board, seeks direction to proceed.
1:53:07
Item D, AB 7436, King County roads property remediation, seeks to
1:53:13
award bid. Item E, AB 7440, transportation advisory board, seeks referral
1:53:18
to council infrastructure committee. This concludes the reading. Thank you. Does
1:53:24
any council member to desire to remove any item from the consent
1:53:30
calendar and consider it under regular business?
1:53:36
Council President Goodman. I would move to adopt the consent calendar
1:53:42
as presented. Second. Moved and seconded. All those in favor signify
1:53:48
by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed, the consent calendar is approved
1:53:54
unanimously. Before we open the public hearing, a change to the
1:54:00
order on our regular business. We're moving up item Agenda
1:54:05
Bill 7419, interlocal agreement with Eastside Fire and
1:54:11
Rescue for tactical emergency medical support. That will
1:54:17
be, I'm guessing, a relatively short presentation. And
1:54:22
so here we go. Commander Bob Porter and
1:54:28
representing Eastside Fire and Rescue. DEPUTY CHIEF RICHARD
1:54:33
BURKE: Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and City
1:54:39
Council and community members. My name is Bob Porter. Like he said, I'm
1:54:45
a support services commander for the Issaquah Police Department. I'm also the Special
1:54:51
Operations Team Commander, which is a tactical team that we operate. Currently, our
1:54:57
interlocal agreement with Eastside Fire is operating very well. We have a
1:55:03
strong partnership with Eastside Fire and we've worked with them for many years. We work
1:55:08
with these guys on a daily basis and we really appreciate the strong partnership that
1:55:14
we have with them. The police department, like I just mentioned, has a special operations
1:55:19
team which is comprised of officers from our department who respond to emergency situations including
1:55:25
search warrants, barricaded subjects, and other high-risk situations. Eastside Fire has firefighters
1:55:30
that are currently practice and train and respond to these incidents with our
1:55:36
team. They are embedded into our team for monthly training and other operations.
1:55:42
This allows for a quicker response for medical aid than the standard practice
1:55:48
of having an aid car respond from a station. This new interlocal agreement
1:55:54
that was prepared is a housekeeping issue. After reviewing our current
1:55:59
ILA, we observed that the role of the Eastside Fire Tactical EMS
1:56:05
Firefighters was not identified. This agreement outlines protocols for training, incident response,
1:56:11
planning, and is clear on mutual aid protocol. By its creation, this
1:56:16
will strengthen our liability stance. It protects both agencies because it identifies
1:56:22
roles and responsibilities of each agency. Also by doing
1:56:28
so, Eastside Fire will be able to provide and identify their paperwork including L&I,
1:56:33
insurance, and other documents required when their firefighters are in the role for training
1:56:39
and response planning. In addition, there are no additional costs to the City of
1:56:45
Issaquah or Eastside Fire. It's a standalone agreement and each agency is responsible for
1:56:51
its own costs. And the bottom line for us is
1:56:57
that it further strengthens our partnership between the City of Issaquah and Eastside Fire
1:57:03
and Rescue. Does anyone have any comments? Are there questions? Is this coming back
1:57:09
from the Services and Safety Committee? Tola? Thanks, Mr. Mayor. With that, I'd like
1:57:15
to move to authorize the Mayor to enter into and execute the interlocal agreement
1:57:21
with Eastside Fire and Rescue for tactical emergency medical support as presented. Second.
1:57:26
It's moved and seconded. Discussion or questions? Tola. So as already stated, there
1:57:32
isn't any change in financial responsibility. There's no liability change. We don't incur
1:57:38
any additional liability for the city. The committee wanted to bring this back
1:57:43
to the full council merely because we consider it an important feature of
1:57:49
the public safety here in the city. Thank you. Additional questions or discussion?
1:57:55
Seeing none, then all those in favor of approving Agenda Bill 7419, the
1:58:01
interlocal agreement between the City of Issaquah and Eastside Fire and Rescue signify
1:58:07
by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed, that carries unanimously. Thank you very much.
1:58:13
Thank you. We will now move to the next item. Move to
1:58:18
a public hearing on agenda bill 7352. Those, the
1:58:24
same rules apply that I read for audience comments
1:58:30
earlier in the evening. Jen Olsen, our director of
1:58:36
finance for the staff report. Thank you Mayor,
1:58:41
Council Members. Tonight's public hearing is a continuation from an earlier meeting in June
1:58:47
with regards to the second budget amendments for 2017. the budget appropriation adjustments
1:58:53
necessary to cover expenditures and revenues were not anticipated at the time of
1:58:58
the adoption of the 2017 budget, nor in the first amended 2017 budget
1:59:04
ordinance. Public hearings are required for budget amendments when there is a change
1:59:10
in the ending fund balance or anticipated change in the ending fund balance,
1:59:15
and so this public hearing is continued tonight. The current level of
1:59:21
budget appropriations are a little over $136 million that is proposed to increase
1:59:27
to $142 million. Exhibit A included with the ordinance provides a level of
1:59:33
detail about the funds affected and the anticipated ending fund balances. There is
1:59:39
a proposed decrease in all of the ending fund balances of about $3.8
1:59:45
million. Over the course of A few months there are identified
1:59:51
adjustments to appropriations that either come through council directed agenda bills
1:59:56
as well as the administration identifies operating revenues and expenditures that
2:00:02
had not been anticipated. So, with that, I would
2:00:08
be happy to answer any questions about the proposed budget
2:00:13
amendments. They include operating revenues and expenditures. They include adjustments
2:00:19
to the scope in capital projects. They include adjustments to
2:00:24
professional services. And in the public or the budget amendments
2:00:30
were referred to the council services and safety committee on June 13th. There was some
2:00:35
additional information that was requested from the committee which included a comparison to current financial
2:00:41
policy reserve targets and that was provided as an addition with the agenda bill for
2:00:47
your review. With that I would be happy to answer any questions about the budget
2:00:52
amendment. Are there any questions at this time? Mayor Lue. A clarification and
2:00:58
a question. So tonight we had heard about some other expenditures that might be
2:01:04
coming. They're not included in this adjustment. So the funding for the additional amount
2:01:09
to repair TALIS infrastructure and create the wall, that is not in here. That's
2:01:15
correct. It's not included. I think somebody also had asked about Providence Point earlier this
2:01:20
evening, and that is not in here. That's correct. If there's any additional amendments, they
2:01:25
would be coming to the council in a third budget amendment. Okay. And then the
2:01:30
question was, on the line item that says professional services DSD, there are... There are
2:01:35
two listed that way. One is $375,000 which has to do with the development agreement
2:01:41
and is that our contribution to the installation of the light at that location? That
2:01:46
is correct. Okay. And then the second one, contracted limited term services for planning, building
2:01:51
and engineering divisions. Is that contracted assistance that we use for the permitting department that
2:01:57
we recoup through permitting? There could be parts of it that would be recouped.
2:02:03
Okay. So it's not all recoverable? That's correct. Do you know roughly if it's majority
2:02:08
of it's recoverable or is that extra -- is that consultant time that's not recoverable?
2:02:14
I don't have an answer to your detailed question. Okay. Thanks. Okay. Bill? One more
2:02:19
question. Just keep the numbers straight for me. Because I see 6 million, but it
2:02:25
looks like 4 because that's because 2 million in revenue has gone up. Is that
2:02:30
correct? So it's a $4 million difference, but -- Because of that balance? Am I
2:02:36
reading that correctly? What document are you referring to in the numbers specifically? On the
2:02:41
agenda bill itself, it goes from $136 million to $142 million. There's a $6 million
2:02:46
difference. And you said that, and then you said there's a $4 million difference. And
2:02:50
so I'm looking at revenues look like they went up $2 million as well. So
2:02:55
I'm trying to So it's a $4 million difference from in the any
2:03:01
fund balance. That's correct, 3.8 million is approximately. Approximately 4 million because revenues
2:03:07
have gone up as well. That's correct. Okay, thank you. Any other questions?
2:03:13
Seeing none, then I'll open the public hearing at 9:04 and ask if
2:03:19
anyone has signed up to speak. I will point out that two
2:03:25
Two previous speakers under audience comments. No, that
2:03:31
was not this one. Excuse me. Anyone desiring
2:03:37
to speak to the second budget amendments?
2:03:45
Are you okay? Well, he's big. But
2:03:51
he's bruised now, so it'll be fine.
2:03:57
No, I'm kidding. So... Frankly, there's not much
2:04:02
point in speaking to try to change anyone's mind because I think that these are
2:04:08
fairly well approved already. But I do want to express a concern with the consistent
2:04:14
overruns. And I haven't really heard how we're going to solve the consistent overrun problem.
2:04:20
Is there a plan or do we have adjustments we're making that are
2:04:26
department by department so that these changes aren't so big and consistent. Every
2:04:32
time you come to a meeting there's an overrun. And so what's the
2:04:38
plan, man? Okay, thank you. Thank you. Mary? And my name is Mary
2:04:43
Lynch and I reside at 2690 Northwest Oak Crest Drive, Issaquah, Washington. And
2:04:49
I just want to support what Connie was saying and also remind you it's been
2:04:55
at least two years ago they attended some of the budget planning meetings and what
2:04:59
city staff said especially on construction projects and when it comes to transportation that those
2:05:04
bids need to get out early in January and that's when the best dollars are
2:05:08
if you wait till the end of the year they're going to be bigger and
2:05:13
so I don't see that reflective in the cost estimates that are going forward And
2:05:18
so what I heard revealed at the meetings last week, well, we got it out
2:05:22
late so it's higher than planned. Well, if you know you're gonna issue it late,
2:05:26
you know it's gonna be higher and that ought to reflect the cost. We also
2:05:30
know we're in a construction boom around here. That ought to be reflected in the
2:05:35
cost. I've done capital planning, and when I worked for my managers and the president
2:05:41
of the companies, I wasn't allowed cost overruns. We had to project it correctly with
2:05:46
a contingency, and we were not... very ever rarely allowed to go back. And we
2:05:51
had, we were talking multi-million dollar projects and big things going on and environmental things
2:05:55
going on. So we need to get a better handle on how we plan things.
2:06:00
And the thing that bugs me is I also heard some other ones last week.
2:06:04
The 62nd one's probably gonna go over. We don't know how we're gonna fund that.
2:06:08
Trader Joe's I think is over even what you're seeing here in this amendment. We
2:06:13
haven't identified the skate park and how we're going to provide for the roads and
2:06:17
the sidewalks that need to bend there. And so there are a lot of things
2:06:21
that were cut out of this year's budget that we already know we need for
2:06:25
next year's. So we're going to need a lot of that expenditure or a lot
2:06:29
of the extra revenue that we're making. And we're spending it without really prioritization. So
2:06:33
as Connie was saying is I think we need to really get a handle on
2:06:37
where we're going to overrun. What we're going to approve and what may need to
2:06:41
be delayed because it's really lower on the priority list than our infrastructure that we
2:06:46
really need right now. And I still haven't seen anybody address the PFAS capital budget
2:06:50
that we need from that system. I've sent in, it's been over a month ago
2:06:54
and I've not seen that come up in any meetings. So there's other projects that
2:06:59
we know we're going to have to do and I haven't seen it on a
2:07:03
line item and anybody address it. So I'm really concerned about. Yeah, we maybe need
2:07:09
to approve this tonight, but where are all the other spendings
2:07:15
that we have to do or capital infrastructure that we have
2:07:20
to do and haven't done and identified? Thank you. Anyone else
2:07:26
desiring to speak? Anyone else? Third and final call. Seeing no
2:07:32
one then, the public hearing is closed at 9:08. This is
2:07:38
coming back from Services and Safety, TOLA. Yes, thank you Mr.
2:07:44
Mayor. I move to adopt ordinance number 2798 amending the 2017 budget
2:07:49
as set forth in ordinance number 2791 and amended in ordinance number
2:07:55
2795 concerning revenues, expenditures, and fund balance for various funds for the
2:08:00
year 2017 and authorizing the finance director to make the necessary adjustments
2:08:06
and approving prior expenditures. Second. Moved and seconded. Questions or discussion?
2:08:14
Seeing none, all those in favor of adopting
2:08:20
ordinance number 2798 signify by saying aye. Aye.
2:08:25
Opposed? That carries unanimously. Moving now to our
2:08:31
next public hearing. This public hearing is for
2:08:37
the ninth major amendment to the Issaquah Highlands
2:08:42
two-party development agreement and first amendment to the
2:08:48
WSDOT Park Point TDR Development Agreement. Keith
2:08:54
Niven, Director of Development Services Division and
2:09:00
Economic Development will be making a presentation
2:09:05
on both of those agenda items. So
2:09:11
Keith, welcome. Thank you Mr. Mayor, City Council, Keith Niven, Development Services and
2:09:17
Economic Development. So this evening we have two different agenda bills but they're connected so
2:09:22
we're going to talk about them together. It's a public hearing for both so I'm
2:09:26
going to do a quick presentation and then we'll allow for any public comment that
2:09:31
there might be. So I wanted to kind of go through the conversations. These agenda
2:09:37
bills have been in process for quite some time. And so kind of giving kind
2:09:43
of the structure for what we're talking about tonight, I think would be helpful for
2:09:48
those who haven't been following it quite so closely. So Polygon Northwest, who's the applicant,
2:09:54
purchased 100 transfer development rights, TDRs that were left over from Park Point. So
2:10:00
the city made a concerted effort to preserve property on Tiger Mountain that was
2:10:06
called Park Point. And from that, we then transferred the development rights to other
2:10:12
places within the city. And these 100 TDRs are the final pieces of that
2:10:18
land preservation project. Polygon asked the city, once they purchased the TDRs, to allow those
2:10:24
TDRs to be located in Issaquah Highlands on property that they own. That action,
2:10:30
per the development agreement for Issaquah Highlands, requires council action and council approval. And that's
2:10:35
really why we're here this evening, is to see if the council will support that
2:10:40
request. So the city reviewed the impacts of those additional units and determined that they
2:10:45
can be accommodated by the existing infrastructure. That was the first hurdle to get over.
2:10:51
Once we cleared that hurdle, the second conversation, the second part of the conversation was
2:10:56
about whether or not there would be any affordable housing that would come with these
2:11:02
additional housing units that would go into the Highlands. And Polygon Northwest, the applicant agreed
2:11:08
that they would provide some affordable housing. And so that's really where we started having
2:11:13
conversations about what would be the right amount and level of affordability should those units
2:11:19
be. And so tonight I'm here to kind of mostly walk through those two
2:11:25
proposals. There's two proposals that were discussed fairly at length at committee. So
2:11:30
proposal number one is Polygon would build 38 affordable housing units and a group
2:11:36
home in Westridge. And Westridge, I'm going to find my mouse here, there we
2:11:42
go. So Westridge is this neighborhood right here. Ninth Avenue sits right here. That's
2:11:48
the Safeway. Swedish Hospital sits here. This subdivision is under construction right now. And
2:11:54
so this is the property that they own, which is the Westridge neighborhood. And this,
2:11:59
and it does show up good. So this blue area right here is the area
2:12:05
that they have proposed to put those 39 affordable housing units. So when you
2:12:10
break out those affordable housing units, 14 of them would be at
2:12:16
80%. And AMI stands for area median income. 17 would be at
2:12:22
100%, 7 would be at 120%, and 1 would be at 80%.
2:12:28
So that's the construct of the 39 units under proposal number one.
2:12:34
So because these taking out this land which they had intended for
2:12:40
market rate units. would take some land away from the builder. They had actually proposed
2:12:45
then to move the units that would have been here and there were 11 single
2:12:51
family homes that were originally planned for this area. Those would then be placed on
2:12:56
property that the city owns called Parcel D and that would be in exchange for
2:13:01
the value of all this affordable housing that would come with it. So there's quid
2:13:06
pro quo there. And that is summary of proposal one proposal to basically the the
2:13:12
council committee said well let's you know parcel D and putting that into the mix
2:13:18
makes things fairly confusing and so and complicated and so what would a proposal look
2:13:24
like if we took partial D off the table and the city retained partial D.
2:13:31
until it decided what it wanted to do with that property. And so what Polygon
2:13:36
offered as a second proposal was to put 10 affordable housing units units in what
2:13:42
they're calling Westridge North, which is this blue area right here, which was
2:13:48
a townhouse project that they're currently working on. It was originally slated for
2:13:54
100 units. And so under this proposal, they would bump that number up
2:14:00
to 110 and the additional 10 units they proposed at 60 percent AMI
2:14:06
for the affordability level of those 10 units. So Here we've got
2:14:12
two proposals. They're both good. You know, it's it's we're going to get some
2:14:17
affordable housing, maybe more at different varying levels, or we can get maybe less
2:14:23
at a lower level and not include a city on piece of property. So
2:14:29
There's not a bad choice. I think there's two good choices and I think the
2:14:34
council will probably have some comments over which one of these two proposals might seem
2:14:40
like a better option ultimately. So when we get to a motion, and I've kind
2:14:45
of put these together, because the agenda bills, the motions are actually connected. So depending
2:14:50
on which proposal you want, we'll need to then go back through this and figure
2:14:56
out which of these two motions we want to make at the end,
2:15:01
assuming that you guys want to make a motion. So with that, I'm
2:15:07
going to go ahead and stop. And if you have any questions before
2:15:13
I leave. Stacy. Thanks. And there's at the committee level and in the
2:15:19
materials, there was information about the value of parcel D. Yes. So yes.
2:15:24
So this is an excerpt from a memo. One of the questions that
2:15:30
was asked was, what's the value of parcel D and parcel D is approximately
2:15:36
1.1 acres of land. It's relatively flat for Izaquah standards and so what we
2:15:42
did was we basically looked at some comps that are in the market right
2:15:47
now. So some are for sale, some we contacted some builders who we have
2:15:53
relationships with to see what they were paying for raw land and so The
2:15:59
summary is basically, you know, the range here, which is listed at the
2:16:05
bottom. You know, it's basically, you know, it can be anywhere up to
2:16:10
like 1.7 million per acre for raw land. But generally the median on
2:16:16
this sample that we proposed was a million dollars an acre. So that
2:16:22
would make the value of parcel D somewhere around 1.1 million dollars.
2:16:34
Other questions of Keith at this time? This is coming back from
2:16:39
Land and Shore. I have a question actually. Is that okay for
2:16:45
a question? Call for questions. So Keith, just back in the city's
2:16:51
history then, so we're talking about a $1.65 million parcel. Before you,
2:16:56
city land as part of one of these deals, or is this
2:17:02
the first time we're putting city land on the table? We almost
2:17:08
always put city land on the table. So we put city-- we own the
2:17:13
property that the Y is on and that Z home was on. And it
2:17:19
actually has affordable housing. It's one of the 10 units of Z home. We negotiated
2:17:25
in talus for a buy down on the property where rosecrest sits so
2:17:31
typically we've negotiated a discount on the land that's part of the way
2:17:37
you get to the affordability piece. besides putting money into kind of
2:17:42
the development to help bring the price down. So it's usually
2:17:48
a land and money beyond that, depending on the level of
2:17:54
affordability. So sometimes When the the rental for rental at like
2:17:59
80%, typically there's not much that needs to go into that to achieve
2:18:05
that that's that's closer to market to start with. But when you get
2:18:11
ownership at 80% so all of these things. Because we're talking ownership on
2:18:17
either of these two proposals, it's really a rare thing to get from
2:18:23
an affordability standpoint. We did achieve that with a habitat project up in
2:18:28
the Highlands and with some condo projects that D.R. Horton built up in
2:18:34
the Highlands, but there's really not many. And a second question.
2:18:40
Did the city consider or go out for proposals for track D with any of
2:18:45
the housing groups or nonprofits that are out there? We have not yet. So part
2:18:50
of it is, you know, we need to make a decision about what we want
2:18:56
to get there. If it's to go test the market, without any additional public subsidies
2:19:02
with just the land, that will get us one set of proposals,
2:19:07
right? If on the other hand, we want to get something that
2:19:13
is similar to a habitat project, which is more at 50% AMI,
2:19:19
information that we got through this conversation showed that there was approximately
2:19:24
$70,000 from ARCH that helped get that affordability down to that 50% per unit.
2:19:30
So if we wanted to get say that lower level of affordability, then we would
2:19:36
have to make a decision to also put some, get some cash to put in
2:19:41
with the land. - From the city or from other sources? Just to make the
2:19:46
deal work. - Either or, right? So either the city separately or from ARCH. -
2:19:52
Okay, thanks. - Paul followed by Mariah. Keith, the map you're
2:19:57
showing here, you've got it color coded where the -- this is proposal 1
2:20:03
with the 38 plus 1. Did you go to the next map, proposal 2?
2:20:09
So where are you showing the 110 units? That parcel is not included in
2:20:15
the first map. Right. So what happens is, um, so under
2:20:20
proposal one, this area of yellow, um, that represents those 11 homes that
2:20:26
polygon has said, if we put affordable housing there, they would like to
2:20:32
move those units up to parcel D. Under this proposal, then that strip
2:20:38
of land reverts back to being those single those 11 single family homes. And
2:20:43
what they've done is the density on this townhouse project gets a little denser
2:20:49
to get those additional 10 units into the same footprint as the other. Could
2:20:55
you go back one slide? So proposal one does not
2:21:01
include the development of that where the 110 units are in
2:21:06
proposal two? So proposal one is just putting affordable units here.
2:21:12
There will still be 100 market rate units here.
2:21:18
Okay, so your diagram, it's not just the color-coded areas
2:21:24
that are being developed. No. It's the yellow, the blue,
2:21:29
and the grids. Thank you, yes. Sorry for the lack
2:21:35
of legend. Thank you. Mariah? So with proposal number one,
2:21:40
the affordable units, they are all together, clustered together, and
2:21:46
do they share, are they part of a larger group
2:21:52
area or do they share amenities? Are they completely separated? I
2:21:58
just wanted to know more about Blue area on the affordable
2:22:04
units. Absolutely. So so, you know this this area here this block Is part
2:22:10
of a neighborhood. It's all part of Issaquah Highlands. They will all be part
2:22:15
of the Issaquah Highlands Community Association At least that's my understanding and so, you
2:22:21
know, they they share by being part of that HOA they then share the
2:22:27
amenities across the whole urban village and So so it is it is it will
2:22:33
have its own identity. So it will be a stacked flat building and except for
2:22:38
the Leo House, which will be Leo House next to a stacked flat building in
2:22:44
this neighborhood. But it's really, you know, the whole goal of intermixing affordable housing within
2:22:49
Issaquah Highlands. is that they are in a neighborhood surrounded by market rate units,
2:22:55
and their kids will play with the kids across the street, and that's the
2:23:01
intent. And we've done that elsewhere in the Highlands. You know, Lauren Heights is
2:23:07
a great example on 24th. which is basically has market rate units
2:23:12
all the way around it. But it's a 50 unit affordable housing
2:23:18
project that us and Arch helped put together with shelter resources. So
2:23:24
I don't know if I answered your question. Okay, awesome. Stacey? Heath,
2:23:30
can you clarify that you said the city almost always gives land
2:23:35
as, donates land as part of, development that has
2:23:41
affordable you can you list those? Um so the so
2:23:47
it's either so the city is either giving land or has
2:23:52
negotiated the rights to those projects as part of a development agreement. So, for example,
2:23:58
with the Highlands and Talas, there was an obligation for a certain number of units
2:24:04
to be at a certain AMI. Okay. And so as part of that, we negotiated
2:24:10
that as one of the community benefits that we get out of the development agreement
2:24:16
and in exchange, the developers got higher densities or other things for that. So the
2:24:22
city, we are not always the landowner in the case of the why we were.
2:24:28
We actually negotiated that piece of property from Port Blakely communities. But for
2:24:34
most of the other times, we're negotiating some other
2:24:40
development benefit to get that affordable housing in at
2:24:46
a lower level than it otherwise might come in
2:24:52
at. Okay, thanks. Other questions? So this is coming
2:24:58
back from Land and Shore. Stacy? Yes. It's
2:25:03
coming back from your committee. It is. I wasn't at the committee last
2:25:09
time that I was at that committee. So, um, and, um, so the
2:25:15
recommendation that's in the packet, um, the, the recommendation that came from Land
2:25:21
and Shore two to one, um, is not one that I'm going to
2:25:26
be supporting. So I won't actually make that motion.
2:25:32
You didn't hear it? No. So I wasn't at Land and Shore the last time
2:25:37
that this, so I was at the last Land and Shore meeting, which is a
2:25:41
special meeting, the time before when the Polygon's proposal was before Land and Shore and
2:25:46
the recommendation came out of the committee without me there as a two to one
2:25:51
support. I actually don't support that recommendation, so I'm not gonna make the motion. If
2:25:56
somebody else wants to make a motion. I have a question. We haven't held a
2:26:01
public hearing yet. Oh, sorry. There we go. We're going to need to make a
2:26:07
motion. So if there are no additional questions, we'll open the public-- I'm sorry. I
2:26:12
have one. Oh, go ahead. Keith, can you help me? Sorry. I thought I snuck
2:26:18
away. One last question. Can you help me just with the math? What's bigger, 39
2:26:23
or 10? I believe I can answer that one. So I want to
2:26:29
be clear. So 39 seems bigger than 10 by a lot. But I
2:26:35
want to be clear that If we go with the 10, at some
2:26:41
point we can dial up another project on parcel D. And there was a sketch
2:26:46
that I provided to the committee for consideration. So just to see land capacity, given
2:26:52
the fact that basically all of this is single family housing. So doing a four-story
2:26:58
apartment building on top of parking garage seemed like that was probably not going to
2:27:04
make us a lot of friends so what I looked at was what about duplexes
2:27:09
so these this is about the intensity of the habitat proposal so under a land
2:27:15
plan like this maybe another 14 can come out of that so so maybe it's
2:27:20
24 to 39 but it still seems like 39 is more thank you
2:27:28
And then just one more. If an area like the 39 is stacked flat, you're
2:27:33
talking about affordable housing units. So I assume when we get an agreement like that
2:27:38
with a developer that we use ARCH or one of those that work for us
2:27:43
to assure that those units would be, you know, well built up to the standard
2:27:48
of everything else and not look like affordable housing units and that kind of nature.
2:27:52
So it's It's not, right? So I'm assuming that. I'm assuming that too. Would
2:27:58
you like to hear from Arthur Sullivan? He is here if you would like some.
2:28:04
Sure. Arthur, are you hiding around the corner? This is my trick to get away.
2:28:09
Did you hear Council Member Ramos' question? Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Council. To
2:28:15
your question about how these are monitored. Would you introduce yourself, Arthur? We all know
2:28:20
who you are. I'm sorry, Arthur Sullivan, program manager. You're on TV also. Okay, Arthur
2:28:25
Sullivan, program manager of ARCH. I would comment that the city has been using ARCH
2:28:30
for 20 plus years to administer all the affordable housing programs in your city, both
2:28:34
through funding as well as through land use provisions. Up in Issaquah Highlands, you have
2:28:39
design guidelines that need to be followed by any development. In addition to the properties
2:28:44
that Keith mentioned, there are several ownership projects that have been built by market rate
2:28:48
builders that have a very large portion of their units as affordable units, and I'm
2:28:53
not sure you would be able to tell the difference unless someone pointed them out
2:28:58
to you. And then we'll be there to enforce the affordability provisions and resales and
2:29:03
going into the future to income-qualified buyers. Thank you.
2:29:09
Additional questions of Keith or Arthur? Seeing none then, I'll open
2:29:15
the public hearing at 9:29 and ask if anyone has signed
2:29:21
up to speak. The individual who signed up to speak spoke
2:29:27
under audience comments. So we actually had
2:29:32
two individuals that spoke to this topic
2:29:38
under audience comments, which indeed is permissible
2:29:43
because you can speak at any topic
2:29:49
under audience comments. Anyone desiring to speak
2:29:55
this evening? Yes. Elizabeth? Elizabeth Mopin, 100
2:30:00
Big Bear Place, Northwest. I don't
2:30:06
see 120% of area median income or 100% as
2:30:12
being really affordable housing. I'm not sure what definition
2:30:18
we're using here. And even 80% doesn't happen to
2:30:23
be in the area where we have the greatest
2:30:29
need. The greatest need, the area where we
2:30:35
have one house for every four people needing
2:30:40
housing in that category is between 60% and
2:30:46
the bottom. So keep that in mind as
2:30:51
you're balancing how much affordable housing you're getting.
2:30:56
Thank you. Thank you, Elizabeth. Anyone else desiring
2:31:02
to speak? Yes. Justin. uh thank
2:31:08
you mayor butler again for the record justin walsh 2196 scheiber and council candidate for
2:31:13
position three i'm happy to see the integration of affordable housing within the neighborhood i
2:31:19
think that goes a long way to reducing the cycle of poverty my question is
2:31:24
more designed to keith and a consideration for council is whether there were any options
2:31:30
considered that would provide both 60 percent ami along with the leo house um i
2:31:35
i think you know i echo the concern that we really need to make affordable
2:31:40
housing units affordable not just to those that can hit 100 or 120 percent of
2:31:45
ami i also have a question as to what the financial breakdown is between the
2:31:50
two options i.e the dollar value of what we're getting versus what we're giving up
2:31:55
in the parcels i don't think that's been adequately addressed with those two things i'll
2:31:59
leave that for council to consider thank you Thank you. Connie,
2:32:05
I see you slipping around the corner. Nobody
2:32:10
was in the way this time. Connie Marsh
2:32:16
again, Squawk Mountain. The pot is not sweet
2:32:21
enough yet. It is close. Without taking parcel
2:32:27
D, they would go for 14 at 60%
2:32:32
in a Leo style house. If
2:32:38
you include parcel D, you need to have, say,
2:32:44
80% of the affordable housing, 80% and under, and
2:32:50
20% 60 and under, because you have too high
2:32:55
of affordable housing, I don't know, value in there.
2:33:01
So we need more affordable housing for lower incomes.
2:33:07
on either of those. Okay, thanks. Thank you. Anyone else, uh, desiring to speak? David.
2:33:13
David Kepler, 255 Southeast Andrews. I wasn't going to speak, but I think Connie's suggestion
2:33:19
makes a lot of sense. It seems like there's room for that, um, in the,
2:33:25
uh, the western parcels because they were going to do more than that before. But,
2:33:30
uh, Leo House is important and I think a few more of the 60% would
2:33:36
be justified. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else desiring to
2:33:42
speak? Yes please. My name is Julie Adamek and I live
2:33:48
at Laurin Heights Apartments up in the Highlands at 1667 24th
2:33:53
Place NE. And I've been working for the school district for about five years
2:33:59
and I would love to be able to buy a home up in the Highlands.
2:34:05
And I'm just here to say I would love to see more of the 60%
2:34:10
rather than the higher numbers because I, like I said, I work for the district.
2:34:16
I am not a teacher. I'm like a teacher's aide, but I do know many
2:34:22
teachers who can't even afford to live in the east side, Issaquah, Bellevue. So I'm
2:34:27
just here to support more of the more affordable. And also I'm curious, I read
2:34:33
in an article somewhere that the HOA dues on these would be the same as
2:34:38
all the other homes in the Highlands, which is $340 a month. I
2:34:44
would love to see those HOA dues a little bit lower than that, if
2:34:50
possible, to make it even more affordable. But I would just be grateful to
2:34:56
see more. And if it can't be lower, I'm just grateful to see that
2:35:02
they're even considering putting in the affordable units to buy. Thank you. Thank you,
2:35:08
Julie. Anyone else this evening? Yes, sir. Good evening, Council, Mayor. Nick Abdel-Nor, Polygon
2:35:14
Northwest. You can get a sense in just 10 minutes, there's-- A
2:35:19
lot of pieces, a lot of opinions. I'd like to say that working with the
2:35:24
administration Land and Shore Committee for the last nine months, We have earnestly tried to
2:35:30
put our best foot forward and tried to address everyone's needs, objectives. We
2:35:36
provided three options in total, just so we're all on the same page.
2:35:41
There was one that included building on parcel 39 and then also track
2:35:47
D and we provided a third option for you. We're here this evening
2:35:53
for your consideration, ultimately a decision this evening. hopefully from the
2:35:59
full council to move this forward and also
2:36:04
to fulfill the TDRs that are originally from
2:36:10
Park Point. So here for any questions as
2:36:16
well in addition to Keith. Thank you. Thank
2:36:21
you. Anyone else desiring to speak? Geraldine. Geraldine
2:36:27
Carey, 955 17th Avenue, Northwest Issaquah.
2:36:33
I guess I agree with the people who say 60%, although I don't know
2:36:39
what that means because years ago we bought our house for $62,000. And I
2:36:45
can't imagine people trying to move here who have to pay 400, 500, 600,
2:36:50
$700,000 for a place to live. I want to know why you can't build
2:36:56
affordable housing that has less in it so that people who want to live here,
2:37:02
who work here, can live in it. I mean, to me, I just don't get
2:37:07
it. I think the builders ought to take into consideration that a lot of people
2:37:12
can't afford $300,000 because they don't have the income. And I think that this city
2:37:18
needs to start saying to the developers, you need to lower the cost of your
2:37:23
building costs. developments because it's just outrageous. You know,
2:37:28
I mean, I, I think it's a shame that
2:37:34
you, the developers think that $600,000 is affordable. I
2:37:39
mean, it's, to me, it's just, it's a crime.
2:37:45
Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Seeing no one
2:37:50
else, this public hearing is closed at 9:38 and
2:37:55
with that,
2:38:07
Additional questions of Keith? What is your pleasure?
2:38:13
Keith, what you put up there is different
2:38:18
than what I see in the packet. So
2:38:24
this is the motion that's connected between the
2:38:29
two agenda bills, not the two different alternatives
2:38:35
within each agenda bill. So there's actually a
2:38:40
pair in each agenda bill that covers both
2:38:46
proposals. So hopefully it's the same if you pieced them
2:38:52
together from the two agenda bills. I see. Which is why
2:38:58
I did this because it's not very easy to make a
2:39:03
motion that covers both pieces. Okay. So this one, so just
2:39:09
to be clear, this one, proposal one is the 39 and
2:39:15
parcel D. Motion, or proposal two is the 10 units and
2:39:21
no parcel D. Understood.
2:39:27
And because we really only take action on one motion at a
2:39:32
time, even though you've got two within the proposal, we're going to
2:39:38
be addressing one at a time, I assume, as a matter of
2:39:44
point of order. Okay. I think that's really the appropriate way to
2:39:50
do it. Okay. Okay. So I'm going to make -- I'd like
2:39:55
to make a motion. I'd like to approve resolution 2017-08. Exhibit
2:40:01
D-1.1, approving the ninth major amendment to the Issaquah Highlands Development Agreement to
2:40:07
conditionally allow 100 TDRs to be constructed in Issaquah Highlands with 38 affordable
2:40:13
units plus one group home with the city conveying Tract D to Polygon
2:40:19
Northwest. Second. Moved and seconded. Discussion? Mary Lou. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
2:40:25
In Land and Shore Committee I was the dissenting vote on this and so I
2:40:29
wanted to just kind of jump in with some general comments maybe to start the
2:40:34
discussion off. In looking at this proposal and in looking at the second option that
2:40:39
was prevented I really wanted to make sure that we were in line with what
2:40:44
our comp plan said in terms of affordable housing and the intent that was shown
2:40:49
in the Issaquah Highlands Development Agreement. And the issues that I just could not overcome
2:40:55
with this proposal in the current motion was that I really believe that the city
2:41:01
and its citizens and its residents want to see integrated, not separated, affordable housing. And
2:41:07
this option creates two buildings or one or two buildings of affordable housing in one
2:41:13
area And the other option, which we're not considering right now, integrated 10
2:41:19
units at 60% AMI throughout the buildings. And so I just don't think
2:41:24
that this current proposal does that. Our comp plan also talks about up
2:41:30
zones, and it's In reading that language, it says that the council can consider requiring
2:41:36
it within the up zone. It doesn't say in addition to the up zone. It
2:41:41
really states in the up zone. And so for me to say, Yes, it's okay
2:41:47
to up zone by 100 TDRs and we'll get affordable housing by up zoning the
2:41:51
up zone. That just doesn't meet what the intent of our comp plan is at
2:41:56
all. I agree with some of the comments that I heard here earlier from citizens
2:42:00
that it should be in the requirements for the development and it's not in addition
2:42:05
to it. There is already a 10% requirement in the urban core of the central
2:42:10
Issaquah plan, and there was a 30% requirement in the Issaquah Highlands Development Agreement. To
2:42:15
me, within the 100 TDRs, the range of what should be affordable is between 10
2:42:21
and 30%. So the other option that we're not considering, to me, is the low
2:42:26
bar that we would go for, because that is currently what we have. But Issaquah
2:42:31
Highlands Development Agreement said 30%. I'm really stuck on the city contribution and the
2:42:37
1.65 million dollar parcel. Just doing a little bit of simple math, it shows that
2:42:42
for each of those units we would be getting in the up zone to the
2:42:48
up zone, we're contributing $47,000. We are not getting it at our greatest need. We
2:42:53
are getting it at 80, 100, 120, which also you could argue is a need.
2:42:58
There is a chart that was included in the agenda bill. I'm not sure if
2:43:03
Arch prepared it or staff prepared it, but it showed where our need is and
2:43:08
it's at 30 and 60, just like it was stated tonight. And so if we're
2:43:13
really going to tackle this problem, if we're really going to build a balanced housing
2:43:18
stock, we need to remember that when we're looking at what these proposals are. I
2:43:23
support the second proposal, which was 10 units at 60% AMI. This is a needed
2:43:28
category in a housing stock that is really hard to get, and it's integrated. The
2:43:34
one thing I would ask is that we have a builder who has been successful
2:43:39
in town with his projects and also with partnering with the city and community groups.
2:43:43
i would ask that maybe consideration in the second proposal if the council decides to
2:43:48
go that way we have the land and we have a good builder if there
2:43:53
is a way to partner with an organization and polygon and the city to construct
2:43:58
at least one group family home on track d and allow the city to retain
2:44:03
ownership and go out for proposals on the rest i think that would be a
2:44:08
a better deal than either of the ones we're looking at and I think
2:44:14
it would meet what we're trying to achieve in our comp plan and in
2:44:20
other policy language that we have in the city. So that's where my head
2:44:25
is right now. Thank you. So this is I think a tough one because
2:44:31
as you already heard earlier, the little preview, I won't support the motion, but
2:44:37
it's not because I -- have an issue with affordable housing or a Leo
2:44:43
house. I mean, we need affordable housing. We need it badly and we need more
2:44:48
Leo houses, more accommodations like Leo houses. And those are fantastic accommodations. I've got both
2:44:54
affordable housing units and a Leo house just one block from my house. And I'm
2:45:00
thrilled that we're all neighbors. I have three reasons that I have an
2:45:06
issue with this, however. The first one is one of the things that Mary
2:45:12
Lou mentioned, and that is the subsidy that's in the form of the parcel
2:45:18
D, track D. And it's not just land, it's a subsidy. And
2:45:24
it's, as you heard, depending on how many units there are,
2:45:30
is something over $40,000 subsidy per unit. And this is new
2:45:35
for us, as you've heard tonight from Arthur and also from
2:45:41
Keith, that maybe there's one property that the city has donated
2:45:47
the land And I'm not sure exactly how that happened if
2:45:53
we negotiated it from Port Blakely. But the rest of the affordable
2:45:58
housing that we've gotten in Issaquah has been through other partnerships with
2:46:04
ARCH. I think this would create a very, very concerning policy if
2:46:10
we decided that we were going to subsidize each unit of affordable
2:46:16
housing by over $40,000. if not thousands more affordable housing units
2:46:21
in Issaquah. And if that was our policy, 500 units subsidizing
2:46:27
at what I calculated was $43,000 a unit, that's $21.5 million.
2:46:33
That's not sustainable. And I'm very concerned about setting precedent that
2:46:39
we are going to subsidize affordable housing units directly from the
2:46:45
city of Issaquah by that much. That would be the standard
2:46:51
and that's very concerning to me. The second concern I have is
2:46:56
that the WSDOT agreement specifically says we're supposed to be marketing this
2:47:02
land. That's the contract that we signed with WSDOT and we haven't.
2:47:08
And also of a but a little bit lower of a concern is that increasing
2:47:13
the density in the highlands, that's not where we have said that we want to
2:47:17
increase the density. So we would be adding many more units in an area which
2:47:21
is not where we've said that we want the density. I don't have an issue
2:47:26
with the 100 TDRs. I think that is the final part of a deal, a
2:47:30
very good deal that we made years and years and years ago. I don't have
2:47:34
an issue with that. I would support the second one,
2:47:40
the 10 affordable housing units at 60%, but
2:47:45
I would also like to see a Leo
2:47:51
House included in some fashion. Thank you, Mr.
2:47:56
Mayor. this has been on a very interesting journey
2:48:02
back in january nobody wanted the 100 tdrs so it's a pretty
2:48:08
big step for us now to be talking about the difference between
2:48:13
39 or 38 single family homes for sale plus the group home
2:48:19
the leo home versus potentially 10 and then maybe 14. And so
2:48:25
I actually enjoy this conversation because we're, and though there are different levels of affordability,
2:48:31
we all know, we've heard 60, we know about 80, 100 and 120. There is
2:48:36
need across the entire spectrum. There's no doubt about that. and and uh for
2:48:42
uh for me to come forward initially in in favor of this option to get
2:48:48
the uh 39 units really was uh that numbers game that that that the the
2:48:53
39 as as um my uh Councilmember colleague to my left, you know asked about
2:48:59
that question which is larger 39 or 10 I mean the point being that we
2:49:05
are we now that we Seem to generally accept that the hundred additional TDR units
2:49:11
do fit In terms of in the highlands in terms of their their impact Is
2:49:17
can be handled by the infrastructure. There's a few minor changes Regarded to transportation now
2:49:22
that we've accepted that and the question comes down to is there are there
2:49:28
terms for 39 units or 10 units and I did find compelling we haven't talked
2:49:34
too much this evening yet about the financial analysis done by by Arthur from Arch
2:49:40
regarding the we saw the number up here Keith you put it up there your
2:49:45
own assessment came up with the value of of that land of parcel D
2:49:51
or track D, whichever we want to call it, as around $1.65 million. I don't
2:49:57
know that you put up there as well also the assessment of the public benefit
2:50:03
for the additional nine, the additional affordable homes. that Arthur had done. I don't know
2:50:08
if you have that information. I just wanted to be very clear that part of
2:50:13
my own assessment was that there was a, okay, so you have it. You haven't
2:50:18
worked out the numbers there. It's not accumulated here. So when we talked about this
2:50:23
committee, remember we were just talking about the delta of nine units. And did the
2:50:28
nine units work out to be an adequate swap for the land? But now that
2:50:33
we're talking about, it's not it's not 39 or nine its 39 or 10
2:50:39
so now you could look at all these and do the math to figure out
2:50:45
okay so so for those who are unfamiliar with how this works because these are
2:50:50
for sale units You know, a for sale unit at 80% AMI, that's $180,000
2:50:56
below what that market rate unit would sell for. So if you look at
2:51:02
that and say, okay, that's value that somebody who can't afford that unit can
2:51:08
now afford that unit because it's discounted substantially below what market offers. None of
2:51:14
these homes would be affordable for the people that are moving in them if
2:51:19
they get built. So these are satisfying a need for people looking to live in
2:51:25
this community that cannot afford these units at market. Okay so thank
2:51:31
you and thanks for that filling that in. The point I was making was that
2:51:36
there is an analysis of the value of the land versus the public value of
2:51:42
the affordable units and you'd have to work out the numbers up there but based
2:51:48
upon what you just said Keith it's some number it's not maybe not
2:51:54
the full 14 maybe it's 10 at 80 ami at 100 180 000 per um
2:52:00
that's that's the public value of of those units and then so we can continue
2:52:05
and and add those numbers up and get a public value so so the idea
2:52:11
uh so that was part of the that's part of my assessment as well
2:52:17
is that by including track nine or parcel D, excuse me, parcel D or track
2:52:23
D as we sometimes call it, that there is a public, there's a demonstrable public
2:52:29
benefit in terms of the value of the affordable homes. And so that played heavily
2:52:34
in my mind. The other thing too is that the potential of maybe getting 14
2:52:40
units on track D if we don't go with this option, There definitely would
2:52:46
be some required public subsidy to get those done as well. And I've learned over
2:52:52
the years that when we do have a developer who's willing to do it without
2:52:58
any additional public monies, then that's a unique opportunity. And the proposals as they are
2:53:03
shaped, something interesting is happening here this evening as well. It sounds like we're even
2:53:09
starting to think we can horse trade. We've come this far, there's been so many
2:53:15
committee meetings and there's been these proposals coming and new ones evolving. And yet here
2:53:20
at the time we're supposed to take action, we're even now considering, I'm not saying
2:53:26
that's bad. We're now considering maybe some other terms of maybe getting the group
2:53:32
home, the LEO home in the second option. I like that conversation
2:53:37
because the LEO home component was very important to me as well.
2:53:43
And just like I said in the committee meeting back then, earlier
2:53:49
in the month, if we could have got in the option B
2:53:55
that we're considering or what you're calling proposal one, units
2:54:01
at lower levels of affordability like 60%, it would look even better. But
2:54:06
the number of 38 plus one and including that plus one being the
2:54:12
Leo home and believing also that there's a, in the financial analysis that
2:54:18
shows the value of Track D versus the public value of the affordable
2:54:24
housing with no additional subsidy. Those are the reasons I'm in support of
2:54:29
this proposal. - Bill followed by Tola. - Thank you. So it
2:54:35
sounds like we're all talking a little more than just the item above. We're
2:54:41
all sharing items. You're sharing across the two proposals. So I'm gonna start at
2:54:46
my base thought, which is that the 100 TDRs coming in. And so that's
2:54:52
perfectly good place to start. As itself, it would be, 100 but affordable housing
2:54:58
would have to be part of that and if you went by the Issaquah Highlands
2:55:03
thing it would be 30% which I would see that coming in as a 70-30
2:55:07
100 units 70 market rate 30 at affordable and that's that's the way I would
2:55:12
look at it. So what happens after that is that's my baseline okay then we
2:55:16
start changing the picture a little bit and we start looking at what else we
2:55:21
can do on top of that okay so that changes the Now you're in a
2:55:26
negotiation and you're trading things, you're paying for things and you're getting different values and
2:55:32
it gets complicated when you start doing that. And when you put in track B,
2:55:38
which is cash value that's that has a cash value to it that is a
2:55:44
piece of city of isaac wild property and we're saying we're willing to trade that
2:55:48
for something and we haven't done 100 appraisal on it and so forth we've gotten
2:55:52
some approximate you know realtor comparisons and so forth but so so we gave it
2:55:57
a value of 1.6 not the the best way to do things but okay so
2:56:01
if we start there um and then we look at the two options you know
2:56:06
and i think neither of them are quite good enough of a deal are we
2:56:11
getting enough public benefit from either one? And that's the question to us right now
2:56:15
is it's proposed A or B, you know, which one is better than the other
2:56:19
one and where is the city and the community getting the best benefit? And I
2:56:23
think both of them are heading in the right direction, but they're not quite good
2:56:27
enough because there's a whole lot more units being added here into the mix, right,
2:56:31
as well as the city property. So as I try and So as I try
2:56:37
to look at all these things and weigh them, what makes things important? Ownership, different
2:56:42
than rental. Ownership is a big deal. We don't have a lot of ownership in
2:56:47
the affordable housing side. So that is a definite benefit to me. Having not to
2:56:52
work a big deal like Arch does to get affordable units built where they have
2:56:57
to find the land, find how many different partners they have to put together, different
2:57:01
grants, different tax credits, all these things that take time and a lot of willing
2:57:06
partners to make that work. A question I have, how long we been sitting on
2:57:10
track D and we haven't built the 14 units on there yet? So it's not
2:57:14
an easy thing to accomplish. It takes a lot of effort and a lot of
2:57:18
supporting partners. So we're not getting there by ourselves very easy. Here's an advantage of
2:57:23
someone who would do it now without having to bring in all those other partners
2:57:28
and so forth. That's an advantage for me as well. And there's other things that
2:57:33
maybe aren't so great, but I would hesitate to say I would put these two
2:57:39
together and that would sweeten the pot for me And as someone mentioned, it's over
2:57:44
$40,000 a unit if you get 39 units of the $1.6 million for track D,
2:57:50
and you subsidize the 39 units. That's about $40,000 a unit, someone said. If you
2:57:56
put the two together, which means you do the 39 units as proposed on that
2:58:01
piece there, you build the 110 on the other piece, so you get 10 at
2:58:07
60%. and you get your 38 at 80, 100, 120 plus Leo House. We're supposed
2:58:13
to get all of this, and then that makes, to me, more sense in that
2:58:18
trading of parcel track B, and that, to me, comes down to about $34,000 a
2:58:24
unit of subsidy from the city. Now, I don't know if Arthur could mention this,
2:58:29
but I don't know how many places you can get affordable housing built for $34,000
2:58:35
a unit of subsidy with that. So with all that weighed
2:58:41
and still keeping it as is and trying to keep it simple,
2:58:47
not too much more complicated, I would like to say let's put
2:58:53
the two together and require both instead of just one or the
2:58:58
other. So I want to talk about the difference between affordable housing
2:59:04
and workforce housing. There's been some talk about what does 80 to
2:59:10
120 percent of AMI mean. My understanding is AMI currently is
2:59:16
about $96,000 for 2017. So to my calculations, and I'm
2:59:22
but a mechanical engineer, not a realtor, but that looks
2:59:27
something like between 77 and $115,000 a year, which using
2:59:33
a reasonable threshold is something like 370 to 560 as
2:59:38
a price point. There's about 25 pieces of property, well,
2:59:44
25 homes for sale currently in the city at that
2:59:50
price point. So 38 is a non-trivial increase in what's
2:59:56
currently available on the market. And to my way of
3:00:02
thinking, that's, a cop and a teacher or a teacher
3:00:08
and a painter at Boeing, or it's an engineer. That
3:00:13
to me really feels like workforce housing. It's a conversation
3:00:19
we've been having for a long time, and you get
3:00:25
to a point where I I get that there are folks that can't afford
3:00:31
that 80% point, but I just feel like there's not a lot that's currently available
3:00:36
in the city for folks where you've got a teacher and a cop or an
3:00:42
engineer or somebody like that because our price point now on the east side, the
3:00:47
average house value is $880,000. I mean, when we were talking about Bergsma and we
3:00:52
were talking about, or when we are talking about the potential for this cluster development,
3:00:58
we're talking about, well, instead of having houses at 1.5 to 1.8, you might get
3:01:03
some houses at 1 million. And that's considered a success at market rate. And that
3:01:08
is the unfortunate reality of where we're living. So for me, getting 39 units at,
3:01:13
you know, between, let's say, 370 and 560, that's a big deal. that really substantially
3:01:18
improves the ability of working families to get access to all the things
3:01:24
that we love about issaquah so that's why i'm going to be supporting
3:01:30
this bill tonight thank you uh so i would agree with uh paul
3:01:35
when he talks about this has come a long ways since we first
3:01:41
started talking about this on on land and shore just in regard to
3:01:46
the tdrs uh This is a really difficult one
3:01:52
for me because how strongly I feel about more affordable
3:01:58
housing coming in, the Leo home, and to Tola's point
3:02:03
in regard to the workforce housing and the need for
3:02:09
that. But I am very concerned about Track D and
3:02:15
the what was talked about in terms of the subsidy or
3:02:20
potential policy that might be a precedent. So I think that that's something
3:02:26
that we'll have to look at. But I think that in terms of,
3:02:32
and also there's been so many great comments like the combination of the
3:02:38
two which that were feasible, that sounds like a great benefit, but I'm
3:02:44
going to support this evening because while
3:02:50
it is complicated and I can see both sides, just
3:02:56
having that affordable housing and workforce housing is just something
3:03:01
that we very much need. - Any additional discussion or
3:03:07
questions? - I guess I'd like to propose an amendment
3:03:13
if you could put those parts back up there. Can
3:03:19
we do that? It always proposed an
3:03:25
amendment. So I would like to combine proposal
3:03:30
one and proposal two. Or-- So you want
3:03:36
me to suggest? Sure. You can do that.
3:03:41
Combine proposal one and proposal two. It's not
3:03:46
going to let me do it that way.
3:03:52
So it could read-- Conditionally allowing 100 TDRs to be
3:03:58
constructed in Issaquah Highlands with 38 affordable units plus one group home with the city
3:04:04
conveying Track D to Polygon Northwest and an additional 10 units at 60 percent AMI.
3:04:10
So you're basically adding the 10 on top of the 39, right? Yes. And we
3:04:16
don't need to state where they are or whatever. So that's going to be in
3:04:22
a separate agreement. Yeah. Okay. You want me to read this whole thing?
3:04:30
Legal counsel
3:04:35
and can
3:04:39
we do
3:04:44
this? I
3:04:49
believe it
3:04:53
can be
3:04:58
done. heard the city administrator say we're good so there
3:05:04
was uh that's what we had a quick conversation there was more uh development rights
3:05:09
on that track d um than so i wanted to make sure that those 10
3:05:14
units could be incorporated without you want to speak to that quickly so right now
3:05:19
doing the math um you've got 39 plus 10 is 49 there's 50 units on
3:05:24
track d so we think we have one left over right There is an
3:05:30
amendment proposed. I've not heard a second. Second. I'll second.
3:05:36
So, Mariah, you came up first. So discussion on the
3:05:41
amendment. Mary Lou? Thank you. Bill, I like what you're
3:05:47
doing. And I know you've spoken frequently about we leave
3:05:53
too much on the table. So I understand why you're
3:05:58
doing what you're doing. We are currently at about 10 percent affordable housing units
3:06:04
in the city according to the chart that was in the agenda bill and our
3:06:09
our aspirational goal is 40 percent. We're not going to get there if we subsidize
3:06:13
every single one of those units. In order to get to 40 percent now we'd
3:06:18
have to build six the next 6 000 housing units in town almost two times
3:06:23
the size of Highlands and we'd have to contribute to it to get there. So
3:06:27
for me I agree with Councilmember Goodman It's precedent setting. If this city wants to
3:06:33
change direction and get this housing stock, we're going to have to do it with
3:06:39
developers, not for developers and not subsidizing developers. So I... I think what you're doing
3:06:44
is a good idea, but I can't support it because it ought to be coming
3:06:49
out of the allocation they already have. We shouldn't be paying into this pot. I
3:06:55
disagree with giving them Track D and I disagree with upzoning and upzone. Both of
3:07:00
those I'm still stuck on. So I won't be supporting the amendment. Mayor Redekop: Stacey?
3:07:05
I agree with Mary-Lou. In terms of the subsidy, we have
3:07:11
talked about the multifamily tax exemption and had one, I
3:07:16
think, fairly substantive conversation. I can't remember if it was
3:07:22
land and shore work session, but I think it was
3:07:28
work session, where I thought it was encouraging because it
3:07:34
doesn't cost as much as one might intuitively think. And so
3:07:39
the idea that we would be setting this sort of a precedent
3:07:45
by subsidizing with land valued at 1.65 million dollars before we finished
3:07:50
our housing strategy, which includes affordable housing, I just can't support. We
3:07:56
should be looking at the other ways that we could sweeten
3:08:01
the pot, make it happen, subsidize in other ways. And
3:08:07
to me, this just doesn't work. It doesn't, it just
3:08:13
doesn't pencil out in the long run. Additional discussion on
3:08:19
the amendment. Paula. So I am generally loath to do
3:08:25
things quickly at the last minute. And one of the
3:08:31
questions I have is whether This stated, I mean it's not
3:08:37
a bad idea. I just I normally like to measure twice and cut once
3:08:42
and we're sort of cutting and potentially and seeing how it goes and so
3:08:48
my question would be whether the applicant would Build at our suggestion. This suggestion has
3:08:54
been made something that we'd like to see. So one of the pieces of information
3:08:59
that I'd want to know. I mean, it's no good as if we're offering something
3:09:03
that somebody wouldn't actually build at. So that would help me understand this a little
3:09:08
bit better. I don't know if I'm ready to vote for it in favor of
3:09:12
it, but it's certainly a piece of information that is necessary, if not sufficient. Keith.
3:09:18
I don't even know how you speak to this. This is
3:09:24
the problem with building the airplane as you were flying the
3:09:30
airplane through the air, which is not normally how it's done
3:09:36
for many reasons. So he's checking. Yeah. So if -- so
3:09:41
this is an if/then. If the council is willing to support
3:09:47
the proposal 1+2, the applicant is willing to do that as
3:09:53
an outcome. But there were they want to get an outcome
3:09:59
tonight, I think is part of it's been I think Councilmember Batiste was on
3:10:05
Land and Shore when we started this conversation with Polygon. And so it's been
3:10:10
a while. So I think trying to get conclusion on this tonight is definitely
3:10:16
a goal for the applicant. That is very helpful. Thank you. So say again
3:10:22
what you began with. What I began with is
3:10:28
it's an if-then. If the council's willing to
3:10:33
support a resolution this evening, the applicant's willing
3:10:38
to agree to the additional 10 units as
3:10:44
was proposed by Councilmember Ramos. So discussion on
3:10:49
the amendment. Any additional discussion? All followed by,
3:10:55
I think, Bill to Eve Wannekens. I'm assuming
3:11:00
that the 10 would still be added to
3:11:05
that same that you had up in your
3:11:11
slide four, if you can just go to slide four.
3:11:17
- Yes, I got a nod from the applicant, yes.
3:11:23
So going now, which, so not that one. So that
3:11:28
one would have the 39 and this one here would
3:11:34
have the 10. So it's truly a merge of the
3:11:40
two proposals. - Thank you. - And so,
3:11:47
Would you read the proposed amendment one
3:11:53
more time?
3:12:09
Okay, so the suggested amendment to the motion is approve resolution 2017-08,
3:12:15
approving the ninth major amendment to the Issaquah Highlands Development Agreement to
3:12:21
conditionally allow 100 TDRs to be constructed in Issaquah Highlands with 38
3:12:26
affordable units plus one group home with the city conveying Track D
3:12:32
to Polygon Northwest plus an additional 10 affordable units at 60% AMI.
3:12:40
Okay. Bill? So I wanted to answer Tola's question. Is 49 bigger than
3:12:46
39? But I guess I want to address more so your two concerns
3:12:52
over there because I think that they're legitimate and it's how you look
3:12:58
at that. And so do you back off and do the 110 in
3:13:04
which, according to things you said, Mary Lou, that's still upzoning the upzone?
3:13:09
No, it's 10 within. 10 within, which we don't have a proposal
3:13:15
for. Yeah, we do. The second proposal is 10 within the 100. No, it's
3:13:21
10 plus. It's 10 plus? It was 10 plus. Yeah, so both these proposals
3:13:27
are upzoning the upzone. So we don't have anything that stays within. Our comp
3:13:33
plan or our vision or our Issaquah Highlands Development Agreement philosophy. Right. So we're
3:13:39
not... What's gotten to the council through committee has never gotten to staying within the
3:13:45
zone, yep zone, and not going beyond it. - We're not doing what we say
3:13:50
we're gonna do. - So with that, that's not an option unless we really drop
3:13:55
back and regroup and really start at scratch again, okay? And then the other thing,
3:14:00
I'm not quite sure I'm understanding the subsidizing stuff because I think cities and all
3:14:05
the various nonprofits, all affordable housing is subsidized in one way or another, 'cause you
3:14:11
have to pay for it some way. And I think it's been done various ways,
3:14:16
and this is one, and this is really saying to me, it's a deal. It's
3:14:21
a proposal, and now a counter proposal, is that 49 units worth the $1.6
3:14:27
million? I mean, that's to me, it's a simple cash transaction. And how
3:14:33
is that benefiting the community? And this is something that we could get
3:14:39
now. It would come quickly. And I'm afraid that if we sit on
3:14:45
track D, We'll be sitting on track D for quite a while and it'll be
3:14:50
not being utilized and we use some other subsidies to build on it because we're
3:14:53
not the city is not going to build units on there out of our own
3:14:57
money. So somehow some money is going to come from somewhere from arts or you
3:15:00
know, the various habitat and manage some things going to have to come to do
3:15:04
that and that's going to take a while. Meanwhile, we're not having housing. So that
3:15:08
is worth a lot of benefit to me. And so I hear your
3:15:14
concerns and I just I'm getting to the point of that benefit of
3:15:20
49 now starts to take me to the other side. So that's that's
3:15:25
so we've got an amendment. There's been a lot of spirited discussion on
3:15:31
that space. Final round of comments and unless there's Yeah. And so,
3:15:37
um, so yes, I have concerns about the subsidy and for the precedent that
3:15:43
that sets. And again, um, if you were to subsidize, first of all, the
3:15:49
city has never directly subsidized affordable housing. with that kind of money.
3:15:55
That is a lot of money. We need hundreds, if not thousands
3:16:00
more. Like I said before, that's tens of millions of dollars. There
3:16:06
are other ways to bring affordable housing. And also it adds what
3:16:11
looks close to be 50 more units in the Highlands. I don't
3:16:17
think that was part of the study. And maybe it's a minimal
3:16:23
difference. But it's 100 TDRs plus, what is this now, 50 more, 49
3:16:28
plus one? So those units, remember, are part of the wash pot. They're not
3:16:34
added. They were already up there. We've just moved them. So they're not more.
3:16:40
They've just moved. Hold on. Right. So, so I hadn't stated whether I was going
3:16:45
to be supporting this amendment or not. Uh, I will be supporting this amendment. I
3:16:50
think that, uh, eight years ago I said what propelled me as a politician. We
3:16:54
don't like to talk about being politicians, but we are, we're not. And, and, uh,
3:16:59
we have visions for this city. And what has always been center for me is
3:17:03
workforce housing and living wage jobs, always from the beginning for eight years to today.
3:17:08
And it still is. And getting 48 workforce housing units here in the city, I
3:17:12
think is important. I think it'll have an effect. It'll allow working families that otherwise
3:17:17
wouldn't be able to afford to live in Issaquah to be able to live in
3:17:22
Issaquah. That's a win and I'm going to support this.
3:17:30
Thanks. So to be able to get all the paperwork done that
3:17:36
meets the council's intent, if you made an addition to your motion
3:17:42
that would direct the staff to effectuate the changes in the development
3:17:48
agreements and the resolutions as reflected if this motion passes, then we would
3:17:54
be able to make sure that we would get the work and reflect the legal
3:17:58
documents such that would accomplish your goals this evening. So if that was added to
3:18:03
that, we would be able to do that. Otherwise, I don't think we would be
3:18:07
able to get that done tonight. We're looking at the resolutions and the agreements and
3:18:12
want to make sure that they're correct and that they reflect the
3:18:18
council's intent. So if it could be part of your motion that
3:18:23
you simply, you approve this and direct the staff to make the
3:18:29
appropriate changes in the resolution and the development agreement drafts, we will
3:18:34
make sure that that gets done to effectuate
3:18:40
that intent so that the
3:18:46
mayor can sign the resolution
3:18:51
and get the-- - So
3:18:57
read what that would look
3:19:03
like. - Can you get
3:19:08
Keith to type it in
3:19:14
there? - Yeah, I'll type
3:19:20
it. Let me get rid
3:19:26
of something we don't need
3:19:31
maybe. Jim, is this saying
3:19:37
kind of what you want
3:19:43
it to? - Listener and
3:19:49
develop. - Keith, if we're
3:19:54
taking the two things as
3:20:00
separate motions, then in the
3:20:06
top one, you've already You've already
3:20:11
changed it to the 38 affordable units plus one group home and the
3:20:17
additional 10 affordable units, correct? Yes. So that reflects what the council's intent
3:20:23
is. And the second one I upped it from 38 to 48. So
3:20:28
in the first one, I would suggest, since we're taking these as separate
3:20:34
motions, sorry to be drafting at the- in the
3:20:39
first one to put your, to say
3:20:45
and direct up in the first one.
3:20:50
- Oh, you want it up here?
3:20:56
- Yeah, and direct the staff to
3:21:02
make the appropriate changes in the resolution
3:21:07
and development agreement to reflect this motion.
3:21:13
- Mr. Mayor, can I ask Keith
3:21:18
a question? - Yeah, hold off just
3:21:24
a second, please, because-- - Jim, did
3:21:29
I get that? - I read the
3:21:35
amendment - Well, the development agreement's in the separate agenda bill.
3:21:40
So the development agreement is actually in the next agenda bill, not in this
3:21:46
one? Is that? - Well, there's the ninth major amendment. - So right, the
3:21:52
ninth major amendment, 72-15, and then the development agreement's actually in 74-17, right?
3:21:59
So this what this would say I believe is approving the ninth major amendment to
3:22:05
the Issaquah Highlands Development Agreement to conditionally allow 100 TDRs to be constructed in Issaquah
3:22:10
Highlands with 38 affordable units plus one group home with the city conveying track D
3:22:16
to Polygon Northwest plus an additional 10 affordable units at AMI and direct the administration
3:22:22
to effect the appropriate changes in the resolution to reflect this motion. Thank
3:22:28
you. Did you have a question, Marilyn? Yeah, a
3:22:34
question on the development agreement language itself. Is there
3:22:39
a scheduling on how the build-out occurs and when
3:22:45
the affordable housing units get built? Yes. What is
3:22:50
it? It's -- Arthur, are you still here?
3:22:57
Do you remember the timing sequence or Nick, do you remember the timing sequence without
3:23:03
me looking it up for building the affordable units?
3:23:09
It's in the packet. I just have to figure out where it is in the
3:23:14
300 pages that I sent you guys. Sorry. I guess my concern is whether or
3:23:18
not the motion, I would want to amend the motion to state how and when
3:23:23
they're built so that they're not the last pieces built. It says that now. So
3:23:28
it says they're in step with the rest of the neighborhood and that basically parcel
3:23:33
D goes last. So the conveyance of D basically comes at the end. So what
3:23:38
way the discussion that we have is amended the amendment
3:23:44
and we've not voted on either one. So would someone
3:23:50
amend the amendment to reflect the language that was added
3:23:55
up there? I move to amend the amendment language as
3:24:01
added and just stated by Keith. Second. Second.
3:24:07
All those in favor of approving? Oh,
3:24:13
Mariah. I'm sorry. So I have another
3:24:18
question. Go ahead. Keith, could you address
3:24:23
what both Council President Goodman spoke about
3:24:29
in terms of the subsidy of housing
3:24:34
and precedent? Could you speak to that?
3:24:40
So it's a conversation that's coming to you guys soon. As we
3:24:46
bring forward the housing strategy, part of that is going to be
3:24:52
a for lack of better terminology, a group of tools that the
3:24:57
commissions and the staff and Arthur have worked together to bring forward because there's no
3:25:03
one solution for affordable housing that basically the brunt of getting more affordable housing has
3:25:09
to be borne by everybody has to be borne by developers. And part of that
3:25:15
will be to increase maybe the inclusionary zoning that we have currently within the city.
3:25:20
Part of that may be would be the city and the city might streamline
3:25:26
permitting for accessory dwelling units or something like that. And then part of
3:25:32
it might be on the existing taxpayers, which it is already in that
3:25:38
we are an arch city. We pay annually into arch to get more
3:25:44
affordable housing in the arch communities, which includes the city. but there
3:25:50
will be a subsidy to get affordable housing and and the city if the city
3:25:55
wants a bigger share of affordable housing we're going to have to do that in
3:26:00
one way or another sometimes we can negotiate that so a developer might want something
3:26:05
and the city can negotiate that and it may not cost us anything out of
3:26:10
pocket but other times we'll actually have to make a contribution to get either the
3:26:16
land bought down or to get the cost of the construction to go down and
3:26:20
that may be multifamily tax exemption. There's but there's a number of tools that I
3:26:25
think we're coming forward to the council to talk about because you guys have expressed
3:26:30
a desire to get more effective in providing more affordable housing. But it's going to
3:26:35
come at a cost both to the public sector and the private sector most likely
3:26:40
if we're going to be successful. I don't know if I answered your question. I
3:26:46
think you did. And so we're voting on what we're voting on today. And then
3:26:51
we're going to be looking at a variety of different tools of how we would
3:26:57
go forward. And I did just want to make a statement to Councilmember Goodman's point,
3:27:02
because I think it was on target. And that is, so these numbers that were
3:27:08
provided by ARCH that show, you know, $180,000 of benefit or $70,000 of benefit, you
3:27:13
have to take into account the subsidy for parcel D. So the $43,000 and change
3:27:18
or whatever that number is, these numbers really should go down by that. But there's
3:27:24
still a value there for each of these units. It's just not as big as
3:27:29
this because we're putting in a piece of property, if that makes sense. Just
3:27:35
a second. Mariah. Thank you, Keith. You're welcome. Yes. So
3:27:40
in the draft housing strategy which we haven't seen yet,
3:27:46
is there proposals to use up zoning, up zoning to
3:27:52
get housing, meaning that we are looking at that as
3:27:57
an option? I don't think that that is one of the tools that
3:28:03
we are suggesting because I think right now we believe that there's enough zoning capacity
3:28:08
in the city to accommodate our housing for quite some time. So up zoning, it's
3:28:14
hard to up zone when you already allow a 10 story building, right? And most
3:28:20
of what we're talking about is central Issaquah. So the mechanism we're talking about
3:28:25
tonight isn't even one we're considering in our proposed housing strategy? It is not.
3:28:31
Okay and then I guess the second question would be is the housing strategy
3:28:37
looking at options to fill in the most needed market sectors? Meaning it does
3:28:42
matter where we have the bigger gaps. It's not just get anything you can
3:28:48
get. It's where is the greatest need? So yes, so
3:28:54
there is the greatest need, but there's
3:28:59
need across all income strata. Yeah. Thanks.
3:29:05
Okay. Sure. Trying to find in the paperwork are the
3:29:11
10 units that just got added were those for sale units or
3:29:17
they did it for sale. So they specify that in the in
3:29:23
the development agreement. Yes. Thank you. All those in favor of amending
3:29:29
the amendment signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed. Nay. That
3:29:34
Passes four to two with
3:29:40
Goodman and Pauley voting in
3:29:46
the negative. So now back
3:29:52
to the amended motion. So
3:29:58
now back to amended amendment.
3:30:04
All those in favor signify
3:30:10
by saying aye. Aye. Right.
3:30:16
Now back to The amended,
3:30:22
excuse me, all, and those opposed?
3:30:28
Carries, four to two with Polly
3:30:34
and Goodman voting in the negative.
3:30:40
Now back to the amended resolution.
3:30:46
All those, Paul, you want to
3:30:52
speak to that? I do.
3:30:58
A couple points of clarification, good conversation. Keith, it's my understanding that the city donated
3:31:03
the land to the construction of the Y, right? Yes, we did. So the idea
3:31:08
of subsidizing affordable housing through a land is, we have done that before, so this
3:31:14
isn't completely precedent setting. We did it at TALUS as well with half price. I
3:31:19
think that's important. I want to make sure that that dialogue is out there and
3:31:25
that that's correct. And the other thing is that I think the development agreement
3:31:31
in the Highlands doesn't specify like per transaction that there has to be a
3:31:37
30 percent. The development agreement in the Highlands says that of the applicable units
3:31:42
that 30 percent of total in total has to be affordable. And you provided
3:31:48
some data. that shows that before the polygon consideration
3:31:54
at all of the additional 100 TDRs that using the
3:32:00
base number of 3250 housing units that Highlands was already
3:32:05
above the 30%, just slightly above that. And I just
3:32:11
did a quick calculation that you add these additional TDRs
3:32:20
the 100 units plus these affordable units. And it takes the
3:32:25
Highlands and that base level will be at about 31% affordable
3:32:31
as a result of this change. - Of total housing stock?
3:32:37
- I didn't do the calculation. - No, I'm just using
3:32:42
the numbers that were provided in the agenda bill. The total
3:32:48
number of the Iskwala Highlands base There apparently were a
3:32:54
couple amendments to this that for some reason affordable housing was excluded, which I don't
3:33:00
understand. So I just wanted to make those points that where this takes us in
3:33:06
terms of the development agreement, both in terms of percent of homes that are affordable
3:33:11
and also the precedents related to using land. Paula? Mr. Mayor, I move for a
3:33:17
five-minute recess for a bio break.
3:33:20
I
3:33:33
don't
3:33:45
know
3:33:58
how
3:34:11
long
3:34:23
this
3:34:36
process
3:34:49
is
3:35:01
going
3:35:14
to
3:35:27
take.
3:35:39
It
3:35:52
seems
3:36:05
like
3:36:17
it's
3:36:30
taken
3:36:43
a
3:36:55
while.
3:37:08
So
3:37:21
I
3:37:33
would
3:37:46
really
3:37:59
appreciate
3:38:11
a
3:38:24
second
3:38:37
for--
3:38:49
Second.
3:39:02
Why
3:39:15
don't
3:39:27
we
3:39:40
take
3:39:53
10
3:40:05
minutes
3:40:18
and
3:40:31
please
3:40:43
be
3:40:56
back
3:41:09
in
3:41:21
your
3:41:34
seats
3:41:47
at
3:42:00
quarter
3:42:12
till
3:42:25
11:00.
3:42:38
Lights
3:42:50
come
3:43:03
back
3:43:16
on.
3:43:28
We
3:43:41
are
3:43:54
back
3:44:06
after
3:44:19
a
3:44:32
short
3:44:44
recess.
3:44:58
And we are considering an amended resolution that
3:45:03
is up on the board. And Keith, read
3:45:09
it since we took a little break and
3:45:15
just refresh our memories what the amended resolution
3:45:21
is. So Mr. Mayor, since it's been a while, can you remind me, are
3:45:27
you referring to 72-15 or 74-17? I'm referring to the one that we vote on
3:45:33
first. Okay, so the one we've already voted on was 72-15. And that one. Oh,
3:45:38
we haven't voted on. On the main, we've only voted on. On the main motion.
3:45:44
Oh, you just voted on the amendments. Amendments. Now I'm tracking.
3:45:49
It's late. All right. So the main motion is move to
3:45:55
approve resolution 2017-08, I believe. Thank you. Exhibit D, well, it's
3:46:01
going to change. Exhibit D-1-1 as amended. Approving the ninth major
3:46:07
amendment to the Issaquah Highlands Development Agreement to conditionally allow 100 transfer development rights
3:46:13
to be constructed in Issaquah Highlands with 38 affordable units plus one group home
3:46:19
with the city conveying track D to Polygon Northwest plus an additional 10 affordable
3:46:25
units at 60% AMI and direct the administration to effect the appropriate changes in
3:46:31
the resolution to reflect this motion. Thank you. Discussion on the amended Just
3:46:37
to sum up where I am this evening, I actually appreciate Councilmember Ramos' effort greatly.
3:46:43
And I think at the end of the day we will end up with a
3:46:49
good project, with a good outcome and with good benefits. My concern still is that
3:46:55
this is not in alignment with our comp plan. And yes, it's something good, but
3:47:00
I wonder if the housing strategy that we adopt in several months if the
3:47:06
scenario would fit under there or not or would still considered be not good enough.
3:47:11
And so even though I think you've come up with a much better deal than
3:47:16
what was originally on the table, and I thank you for that, I'm still not
3:47:21
sure that I can support this tonight. - Additional discussion.
3:47:27
With that, all those in favor of approving
3:47:32
Resolution 2017-08 as amended, signify by saying aye.
3:47:37
Aye. Opposed? Nay. The motion carries 4-2 with
3:47:43
Pauline Goodman voting in the negative. Now, Keith,
3:47:48
what's next? So next is the companion agenda bill, which is 7417,
3:47:54
which is the amendment to the wash dot agreement and the specific
3:48:00
development agreement for Polygon Northwest for affordable housing. So the way this
3:48:06
motion reads now would be approved resolution 2017, I assume, dash 08,
3:48:12
09, 09. I can do the math. and it will be
3:48:18
Exhibit C as amended, conditionally approving the first major amendment to WSDOT
3:48:24
Development Agreement, transferring the affordable housing benefit to Issaquah Highlands in conjunction
3:48:30
with the ninth major amendment to that agreement and conditionally conveying parcel
3:48:35
D to Polygon Northwest and approve resolution 2017-10.
3:48:42
Exhibit D as amended, directing the administration to execute the affordable housing development
3:48:48
agreement with Polygon Northwest for the construction of 48 affordable housing units plus
3:48:54
one group home and direct the administration to effect the appropriate changes in
3:49:00
the resolutions. There's two to reflect this motion. So moved. Second. And a
3:49:06
second. Discussion? All those in favor
3:49:12
of approving resolution 20.09.2017-10 signify by saying
3:49:17
aye. Aye. Those opposed? Mary Lou, did
3:49:22
you? Yeah, nay, sorry. Motion carries four
3:49:27
to two with Pauli and Goodman voting
3:49:33
in the negative.
3:49:41
I have good news for everyone that came this
3:49:47
evening to see what happens on the Bergsma development.
3:49:53
And let me, and we are going to move
3:49:58
up following that the agenda bill 7332 count us
3:50:04
in 2017 report because we've got King County here
3:50:10
to help us with that one. So
3:50:16
now moving to agenda bill 7110
3:50:21
the Windward-Bergsma development agreement. Keith, I
3:50:26
think you're still up. I'm still
3:50:32
here. So, okay. Thank you, Mr.
3:50:37
Mayor, City Council. Switching sides of
3:50:43
the city. So Bergsmah Windward Development
3:50:48
Agreement I have a fairly short presentation. So for those of
3:50:54
you who are not that familiar with the proposal, it's to develop 46
3:51:00
acres with 78 single family homes and eight affordable cottages. They have asked
3:51:06
to use the city's clustered housing development allowance which is IMC 1807-420.
3:51:12
There's road improvements on Newport beyond that required for the traditional
3:51:18
plot. Open space land is being suggested to be given to
3:51:24
King County to include in the Cougar Mountain Wildland Park connection
3:51:29
to regional trails And we've talked a lot about whether or not there's a
3:51:35
street connection to TALIS. It's been quite the lightning rod. Development Commission talked about it
3:51:41
as emergency access only. And Land and Shore Committee also voted 3-0 that if there
3:51:47
is a connection, it should be emergency access only. So that's kind of the
3:51:53
highlights. I apologize for this map. I was hoping to have two that actually look
3:51:59
the same so you could tell what's different as opposed to one that's colored and
3:52:04
one that's black and white. So the one that's colored on the left is what
3:52:10
this property would look like under a traditional plat. And what's on the right is
3:52:15
what it would look like under the clustered approach. So there's some nuances. The applicants
3:52:20
provided a table of differences in terms of the amount of open space and some
3:52:26
of that's speculative on whether you could actually build these lots that are out here
3:52:31
on the edge. But this part of it, where this yellow part, pretty much matches
3:52:37
up where this area is. So in terms of the footprint of the subdivision, whether
3:52:43
it's clustered or not, it's probably going to be about the same footprint. The difference
3:52:48
is you've got twice as many lots. And so that was a conversation that we
3:52:54
had at Land and Shore, which was, all right, well, they've asked for a development
3:52:59
agreement, and kind of the scale seems a little bit out of balance. It seems
3:53:04
like they're getting another 40 lots, and what we're getting didn't seem like it balanced
3:53:09
out. So that's my assessment of why it kind of ended up where it
3:53:15
did at Land and Shore, which was a vote of three
3:53:21
to zero to deny it. This is that chart. It's in
3:53:26
your packet. Talks about differences between the traditional plat and the
3:53:32
clustered plat. This is one of the pieces that didn't get a lot of
3:53:38
attention, but it's worth a conversation. So under the proposed development agreement, and I hope
3:53:43
the graphic shows it does, good. So what the staff have negotiated with the applicant
3:53:49
is actually quite an extensive amount of improvements on Newport Way. We've negotiated what's typical
3:53:55
with the development and you can see the property boundaries are this white
3:54:00
dashed line. So basically from here to here, what's traditional in platting says
3:54:06
that you build your half street of improvements. So they would normally just do
3:54:12
their half street on the south side of Newport. What we've talked to them about
3:54:17
is we have needs for more than that. And so what they've agreed to do
3:54:23
is to actually build the full half street improvements on the north side, which connects
3:54:29
to Riva. So you can see Riva's right here. So Riva would then extend those
3:54:34
further to the west. and they would build a sidewalk on the south side. So
3:54:40
from all the way from SR 900 to the King County Trailhead, which includes their
3:54:45
access point, which is somewhere in here, there would be a sidewalk on the south
3:54:51
side of Newport as well. So this is a significant amount of benefit to the
3:54:56
city if the city were to want to support this development agreement. I'm not saying
3:55:01
we do, I'm just saying there's things to think about. One of the things that
3:55:07
the applicant provided after the Land and Shore Committee meeting, because they heard some of
3:55:13
the concerns expressed by Councilmember Pauley, and that was that really all they're proposing is
3:55:19
really expensive houses on the hillside and that's not consistent with the intent of the
3:55:25
clustered provisions. And so they made an effort to try and address that and that's
3:55:31
what this table is, is basically they've agreed to you know, because price points
3:55:37
are hard thing to necessarily regulate, especially if ultimately they're not going to be the
3:55:43
builder and they may or may not be is to actually condition the sizes
3:55:48
of the homes that would be put so they basically have a maximum building
3:55:54
envelope within each lot that would correspond to a commitment that they might make
3:56:00
as part of the development agreement. So this is something that they propose. The
3:56:06
council hasn't seen this before the packet on Friday. And so this is it's
3:56:12
I think what it what it shows is a commitment from the
3:56:18
developer that they're willing to have a conversation about trying to improve the
3:56:23
balance of the development agreement if the council wants to continue having that
3:56:29
conversation. And so even though I think we heard from quite a number
3:56:34
of community members that they would like this to just be done. I think
3:56:40
part of what understanding what that means is it doesn't mean that that that
3:56:46
land stays forested hillside. It means that tomorrow the applicant comes in with this
3:56:52
plat on the left because they can. And so I think one of the
3:56:59
one of the reasons why we do development agreements is because there's a way to
3:57:05
potentially look for opportunities for community benefit beyond what standard development gives you. And I
3:57:10
don't know if we'll ever get there, but one thing that I think the administration
3:57:16
is going to ask the council to consider is to send this back for some
3:57:22
more conversations to see if maybe a better
3:57:27
deal can be struck. So that's
3:57:33
the extent of my presentation. I'm
3:57:38
happy to answer questions if you
3:57:44
have any. I'm going to stop
3:57:50
talking. Questions? A very thorough briefing
3:57:55
of all of the issues related
3:58:01
to this. This is coming back
3:58:07
from Land and Shore. So I
3:58:13
can introduce this one. This was at the Land and Shore Committee that our committee
3:58:18
chair, Council Member Goodman, could not attend. So the three committee members listened to some
3:58:24
public comment and the staff presentation and 3 and 0 voted to deny the development
3:58:30
agreement. The reasons were varied. So when we get to moving the motion, the committee
3:58:36
members that were there can weigh in. The proposal
3:58:41
that Keith just mentioned in his presentation is new information. The committee
3:58:47
did not have that, did not discuss it, and so maybe once
3:58:53
the motion has been made, it might be appropriate for the council
3:58:59
members to weigh in on whether or not they want to consider
3:59:05
the new information. With that, I'll make a motion. I'm going to
3:59:11
move to approve resolution number 2017 - 11 denying
3:59:16
the proposed windward Berks my development agreement Second, which I
3:59:22
will just clarify is not the staff recommended motion Paul
3:59:28
so in an evening of precedence have we ever Approved
3:59:34
a resolution to deny something that is it seems like
3:59:39
this this I guess it's a question It's a point
3:59:45
of order question. We don't have a resolution denying in
3:59:51
the packet so interesting set of, I'm
3:59:57
sorry. Interesting circumstances. And then. And Keith, I
4:00:03
do appreciate the additional information that you provided.
4:00:09
It's, I think there's a lot more to
4:00:14
it as well, but the speaking for myself
4:00:20
to deny. Yes, there's currently a resolution to
4:00:26
deny in the agenda materials. Yeah. Oh, the
4:00:32
one I'm reading says adopt. It's exhibit A-2. What number
4:00:38
in the packet is that? Page in the packet? 316.
4:00:44
No, no, no, no, no, no. So we'll get that
4:00:50
figured out. I will, since I have the floor real
4:00:56
quickly, I will say that I don't know that anything
4:01:02
on the left is going to happen. I do know
4:01:08
that if we approve it tonight that a lot of
4:01:14
land would be pulled off the hillside and, and,
4:01:21
Back in 2015 when we had movement elsewhere on Cougar Mountain, at that
4:01:26
time I began to think why would we ever build any of our
4:01:32
steep slopes again? The public risk and the public cost is pretty high.
4:01:38
So that was a major part of my consideration in not approving this
4:01:44
going forward. Stacy. I have a question for Keith. So you said the
4:01:50
one on the left, the traditional, this is denied. the applicant
4:01:56
can turn around and apply for traditional. And what's that
4:02:02
process? So that process ultimately goes to the hearing examiner
4:02:08
for approval. And so right now, I mean, so we actually pushed them to develop
4:02:14
a plan for the traditional plat. They didn't have one. So we basically so they've
4:02:19
got an application that's pretty close to being ready to submit if they wanted to.
4:02:24
So that's so that one on the left, you know, whether it would come in
4:02:29
that way or not, they could submit it basically whenever they were ready to submit
4:02:34
it. And that goes to the hearing examiner, not to the
4:02:40
development commission, not to the city council. Just to the hearing
4:02:46
examiner for approval. Paula. So the applicant has the right to
4:02:51
build what's on the left in the same way that the
4:02:57
people that built Talus built Talus. Three quarters-- Talus is what
4:03:03
it is, and this plot is what it is, because three
4:03:08
times that land got saved in perpetuity as green.
4:03:15
We should dispense with the idea that there's something else we can do with this.
4:03:20
This is the something else and it's because we preserved a large amount of Cougar
4:03:25
Mountain and amen to that. In terms of whether we consider I continue to
4:03:30
believe that there is not enough here to justify that development agreement. I
4:03:36
think that I agree with members of the public who think that the
4:03:42
cluster would look denser and I think that You know it puts more
4:03:47
traffic on the street where we've heard a lot of concerns about all the development
4:03:53
that's going up and down Newport and for four parcels with a total of eight
4:03:59
clustered houses, it just doesn't rise to the level of community benefit that would require
4:04:04
a development agreement. There were questions in the public about Why do we
4:04:10
do all these development agreements? We don't. Most development that occurs in the city just
4:04:15
occurs under zoning, and we have good zoning. But sometimes we... agree to do something
4:04:20
because there's community benefit and and the three of us on a particular day in
4:04:25
Landon Shore decided that for the three of us there wasn't the the benefit here
4:04:29
and I continue to not believe that there is I appreciate that the developer talked
4:04:33
a little bit about what some of the distribution might be like on some of
4:04:38
the other pieces but that's still all going to be You know, I mentioned earlier
4:04:42
the average house on the east side is $880,000, and I don't believe a single
4:04:48
one of these is going to go less than 880,000, except for maybe the eight
4:04:54
clustered units, right? So, you know, I continue to not support making a development agreement
4:05:00
here, but I'm at peace with the idea that if somebody wants to put 40
4:05:05
units in that property, that's certainly within their legal rights. That's how we do things.
4:05:11
Other questions or discussion? Mary Lou? So this one has been before committee for quite
4:05:16
a long time and it has generated a lot of community interest so I'm in
4:05:21
agreement with the other two committee members from that night. My primary reason for not
4:05:26
supporting the development agreement is that I believe that that tool in our toolbox was
4:05:31
meant to get us affordable housing not just a couple of units of affordable housing
4:05:35
but affordable housing similar to a cottage standard where you build smaller units on smaller
4:05:40
lots so I So I don't think it's an appropriate use of that standard. And
4:05:46
it does come with a series of negatives that we have heard over
4:05:52
and over about in terms of traffic. Okay, Siri's recording me. That's interesting.
4:05:57
In terms of traffic, in terms of impacts to forested hillsides, slide hazards.
4:06:03
So I am not in support of the development agreement at all. Additional
4:06:09
questions or discussion? Mariah? So I am also not in
4:06:15
support of the development agreement. And for many of the
4:06:21
reasons that Councilmember Pauley just pointed out in terms of
4:06:27
the cluster housing, I think that this is not what
4:06:33
we have on the right is not the intent.
4:06:38
And even as we look at the chart that talks about the sizing
4:06:44
of the houses, that still didn't help me think about that in a
4:06:50
different way. And so I won't be supporting this this evening. Additional
4:06:55
questions or discussion? Tola? I have a question. So the council
4:07:01
has been amply clear that whatever gets built needs to have
4:07:07
no more than emergency access coming off of TALIS. So where
4:07:13
is the process if tonight this development agreement goes away, as
4:07:19
it appears? How does that feedback from the council regarding having only
4:07:25
emergency access, how does that propagate forward through the approval process if
4:07:31
they go build what's on the left? So as you can see,
4:07:36
so here's the connection to TALIS on the clustered version, and here's
4:07:42
what they're proposing under the traditional plat, which is no connection to
4:07:48
TALIS. So it will stub at their property line right here. Well,
4:07:53
there we go. Follow-up on what Tola had said. So the
4:07:59
TALIS development agreement will also expire shortly and it did include a provision in
4:08:05
it that there could be a future possible road connection. So is there no legal
4:08:11
way to make sure that that provision continues with council's intent in some form other
4:08:16
than just them not showing it on a drawing? So they're going to, well, okay.
4:08:21
Let me make sure that I understood what you said because I'm probably going to
4:08:27
answer something different. So they're going to stub a street here, right? And then we
4:08:32
own this property. Yeah. This is city owned. And then here's Talus and here's public
4:08:38
street. Right. So if you want if council ever wanted to connect these for
4:08:44
emergency access or for non emergency access, it's building a capital project through on
4:08:49
city property. So we would we would control that outcome. And we just
4:08:55
have to decide if we want to take that sign down
4:09:01
that says future street connection that every now and then gets
4:09:07
overgrown by bushes, so to speak. Thanks. That does help. Other
4:09:12
questions or discussion? All those in favor of adopting resolution number
4:09:18
2017-11 denying the proposed Windward-Bergsman development agreement signify by saying aye.
4:09:24
Aye. Those opposed? That carries unanimously. I
4:09:29
think that wraps things up
4:09:35
for you this evening. We're
4:09:40
now going to move to
4:09:45
agenda bill 7332, count us
4:09:50
in 2017 report. And. This
4:09:55
one? I see. Okay. You
4:10:00
are set. Cool. Yeah, you
4:10:06
bet.
4:10:08
Yep.
4:10:15
Yeah,
4:10:23
let's
4:10:30
push
4:10:38
it.
4:10:46
Okay,
4:10:50
agenda
4:10:54
bill
4:10:59
7316,
4:11:03
sustainable,
4:11:07
no. One
4:11:13
count. I'm sorry. That's okay. Mark, how are you this evening? I'm good. Thank you.
4:11:19
I can see you want to get started, so we're going to do that. Great.
4:11:25
This is taking a comprehensive look at regional homelessness in Seattle, King County. You're on.
4:11:31
All right. Thank you very much, Council. I have to say I appreciate the dedication
4:11:37
of of city councils when I go across this county and on Monday nights, I
4:11:41
know across the county people are meeting and there are lots of citizens that are
4:11:45
dedicated as well, but thank you for all that you do. I wanted to talk
4:11:50
tonight and I'll sort of be fairly brief and kind of get to questions knowing
4:11:55
that the night has gone on long. So each year in King County we do
4:12:01
a count of people experiencing homelessness. This is a requirement of HUD but more importantly
4:12:06
it's a sort of a wake up call to everybody each year to see this
4:12:12
number and see how many people are living outside and a call to action as
4:12:17
well around the responsibilities that we all have to make change and to solve homelessness.
4:12:22
And so I want to talk both about the issues and the scale and the
4:12:26
scope and how regional it is, but then also some of the solutions. And again,
4:12:31
I'll be brief. We changed some of our methodology this year to be more comprehensive.
4:12:36
We tried to get boots on the ground or cars with volunteer teams in the
4:12:42
middle of the night or in the early dawn hours as it was here in
4:12:47
Issaquah. in each of the census tracts. The county has 398 census tracts. We got
4:12:51
into 396 of them. We didn't cover every inch, but we're going to look to
4:12:55
improve next year. We think we have one of the most comprehensive counts in the
4:13:00
country. And we do a general street count. That's that team's out in the middle
4:13:04
of the night. We also do some specialized counts and try to attract places where
4:13:09
we might get some youth and young adults to come and we can do some
4:13:13
surveying with them. We also count the number of people in shelter and in transitional
4:13:17
housing, which is temporary housing that's considered, people are still considered to be homeless. And
4:13:22
then we did an extensive survey this year. And so I'm just going to highlight
4:13:26
some of the top level, top level results that we found. I guess I'll say
4:13:31
one more thing about the methodology changes. We hired people who had experienced homelessness to
4:13:35
lead the teams and paid them $15 an hour to do that. And then we
4:13:40
also paid them to do surveying of the we ended up surveying eleven hundred
4:13:46
other other people experiencing homelessness throughout the county. So we had a team out from
4:13:51
from Izaquah. I know some of you were involved in that. I appreciate that you
4:13:56
did that. We had people out really all over. We had seven different formal headquarters
4:14:01
and then some smaller ones in Vashon and here and and even out in like
4:14:06
Black Diamond and Maple Valley up to Skykomish. We counted all over. We counted 11,643
4:14:11
people experiencing homelessness that night in January. More than half of them, 5,485, were living
4:14:17
unsheltered. And I'll share a little bit more about the different circumstances that they were
4:14:22
in. You can see that many people were in shelter and transitional housing, more than
4:14:28
6,000. And that number stayed about the same. It's really kind of a They're full
4:14:34
and so what we do is we're really counting the people that are in those
4:14:39
shelter beds and transitional units. We did have an increase in the number of emergency
4:14:45
shelter beds last year countywide of 350 or something. This is a further
4:14:51
breakout. You just saw the numbers there on the left side in orange. And then
4:14:56
in the unsheltered, I think it's important to note that of that 5,485, 2,300 were
4:15:02
in vans, cars, and RVs. We actually did some surveying in the month after of
4:15:07
the count to find out sort of on average how many people were in an
4:15:12
RV, a car. a van or in a tent and then use that multiplier went
4:15:17
back to the overnight count where we're not often able to see how many people
4:15:23
are in those situations. This is the way we broke
4:15:29
out the county into six different regions. And Issaquah was in the northeast
4:15:34
there. You probably know exactly where you put the pin dot. And you
4:15:40
can see that homelessness was really throughout the county. really in almost every census
4:15:46
tract throughout the county and that the majority were in Seattle. The second largest section
4:15:52
was really in Southwest County, kind of along I-5 toward the south part of the
4:15:58
county. And then 119 in the northeast part of the county. And really the northeast
4:16:03
and the southeast we hadn't counted in any significant way before, just in a really
4:16:09
spotty way. This is also sort of a breakout
4:16:15
of different subpopulations. So we look at how chronic homelessness is people with disabilities
4:16:21
that have been longer term homeless. About a quarter of the people experiencing homelessness
4:16:27
are longer term homeless and different strategies are really necessary for different populations. About
4:16:33
11% had served in the military, were veterans in our community and living in
4:16:38
our community. And then 24% were families, about 900 families with about 2,800 people. And
4:16:44
then 13% were unaccompanied youth, so they were either under 18 or they were in
4:16:50
the 18 to 25 age range. I'm gonna jump now to just some of the
4:16:56
survey results. So we did this survey, something like 20 questions that we asked after.
4:17:02
And again, we paid people experiencing homelessness to go out and do these surveys. These
4:17:07
are some of the numbers that we saw. I think it's important to note that
4:17:13
most people, 77%, had been in housing here in King County when they became homeless.
4:17:18
So the myth that people are moving here for the services or people are moving
4:17:23
here, but yet they are moving here for a lot of different reasons. Yes, sir.
4:17:28
So King County is what about a third of the state's overall population 40% something.
4:17:33
I'm not sure it's about 2.3 million for the county. I'm not sure what the
4:17:38
state is. Sure. Let's say it's a third for the sake of argument. But it's
4:17:43
77% of the generated homelessness. Why? Oh, I'm sorry. Let me restate what this data
4:17:49
shows. So of the 1,100 people that we asked, where were you housed when you
4:17:55
became homeless? 77%. They were housed here in King County when they became homeless. And
4:18:00
then the other 14% were from elsewhere in the state. As far as overall homelessness
4:18:06
numbers, I'd have to go and look at that. But King County is 45% to
4:18:11
50% of our homelessness population. census statewide. I see. Does that make sense? This wasn't
4:18:17
a count statewide. It was just a King County count. And it was just a,
4:18:21
yeah, this count was. The State Department of Commerce collects the counts from each county
4:18:26
and then rolls that up and they release those numbers about a month ago. A
4:18:30
related question is the City of Seattle is about a third of King County and
4:18:35
yet it was about, from your earlier slides, about 75% of the homeless population. That's
4:18:39
right. So what are the factors that lead to that? Yeah, the factors that lead
4:18:45
to that are multiple, I think. It's a very, very complex issue
4:18:51
that requires complex, I think, solutions. Seattle is the least affordable in the
4:18:57
end you had a lot of discussion about sort of land use tonight and very
4:19:02
little land very little land very little housing supply and people are as far as
4:19:06
vacancies like the all the units are really are really full and all the land
4:19:11
is really most of the land is really occupied So I think land and housing
4:19:16
costs really factors in. One of the things that we've seen is that
4:19:22
in 2008, 2009, 2010, across King County, as the housing market vacancy rates
4:19:28
went up and costs, rental costs sort of plateaued, homelessness plateaued as well.
4:19:33
We didn't see increases in homelessness. We saw slight decreases. Big cities have
4:19:39
higher rates of homelessness as well. I think that's true nationwide. I'll get a little
4:19:45
bit more into the solutions and happy to have that discussion. Further results are that
4:19:51
homelessness disproportionately impacts people of color. We've known this. I think it's always important to
4:19:56
point it out. It's something that we are also looking at really closely at AllHome
4:20:02
where we're focused on homeless response once someone does become homeless. Do our programs have
4:20:08
equal outcomes once a person comes in? Are we able to get people housed at
4:20:14
the same rate whether they're black or white or Native American? And we're looking really
4:20:19
closely at that. Our rates are pretty similar, but we are seeing that Native Americans
4:20:24
are the least likely to get into housing as well. And so that's something that
4:20:30
we're focused on. When asked if they would take affordable housing, this is a question
4:20:35
that was asked to people that were living in shelter or unsheltered, 92% said they
4:20:40
would take safe, affordable housing if it were offered. They need to get back into
4:20:45
the market the most important thing and as I said 77% had been in housing
4:20:49
here in King County So they have been housed in this county for the most
4:20:53
part and then about 75% said rental assistance or affordable housing was the solution so
4:20:57
it sounds real obvious but those those are the those are things that we always
4:21:01
like to point out people have been in housing and they want they want to
4:21:05
get back and As far as solutions and where we're headed, we last
4:21:11
year in King County, 7,500 households that were homeless at some point during the year
4:21:17
moved into permanent housing, into some kind of housing. It could have been with their
4:21:23
friends or family. It could have been a shared housing situation if they were a
4:21:28
single adult or a young adult. they got back into housing. Sometimes that was in
4:21:34
another place. It wasn't necessarily here in King County. And that was a 50% increase
4:21:39
in 2013 and that's because we're really focused countywide, our nonprofits and funding entities on
4:21:44
really providing more flexible rental assistance, getting people the, what they're saying is they need
4:21:49
rental assistance. We're trying to get that to them. Building more shelter is important. We
4:21:54
need to have shelter. We also need to have places for people to go to
4:21:58
get out of shelter. And so that's what we've been focused on. And that's getting
4:22:02
us to some better results. But the simple math of it is the 11,000 people
4:22:07
experiencing homelessness last year and I mean on January 2017 a year before that it
4:22:12
was it was ten thousand six hundred or so we're seeing that number go up
4:22:18
even as we're housing more and more people and the costs of housing stagnant wages
4:22:24
even though we've seen increases in the minimum wage that that gap between what people
4:22:29
earn and the cost of housing is leading to people experiencing homelessness and then statewide
4:22:35
we have we have some of the the lowest levels of funding for behavioral health
4:22:40
services in the country and and that's having an impact day to day in the
4:22:45
streets particularly I think in places like Seattle where you have the mental hospital, you
4:22:51
have the emergency room, you have the King County Jail, all of those things are
4:22:56
there and really part of that. I would say that and I just would love
4:23:02
any questions or comments that you have at this at this late hour. But you
4:23:07
know, the solution really involves all of all of King County and involves the decisions
4:23:12
that you made tonight and discussions that you had tonight about affordable housing. It involves,
4:23:17
you know, residents really supporting when when when communities aim to put a shelter in
4:23:22
a community, supporting that, embracing it, trying to make it work. trusting that it can
4:23:27
work if they get involved. There's a lot of different things that entities can
4:23:33
do. We've seen recently some really inspiring action from the corporate sector, from Paul
4:23:39
Allen supporting a $35 million housing project for homeless families in King County, I
4:23:44
mean in Seattle, in South Seattle, as well as Amazon offering up and building
4:23:50
office space for shelters for homeless families. lots of good things happening and lots
4:23:56
more work to do in order to really address the scope and the scale
4:24:02
of this problem so that I'm not back here next year in June 11
4:24:08
o'clock at night talking about this again. So thank you and welcome any questions.
4:24:14
Questions? Mary Lou followed by Paul. So this was a change in the process from
4:24:19
the year before so Count Us In will be it will be using the same
4:24:23
format next year to collect the data and present it like you've done this year?
4:24:28
We do intend to we we're looking to make a couple of improvements we want
4:24:32
to make sure that the teams that we have enough volunteers out there to count
4:24:37
the areas we know that including here in Issaquah some of the the areas that
4:24:41
the teams needed to count were pretty large and there wasn't enough time to get
4:24:44
out there and it's a it's a we want to make sure we we have
4:24:48
good coverage throughout the county um we think with this year we had a little
4:24:52
bit less time to kind of pull it all together and make the switch than
4:24:55
we had in years past and there was the switch where people that people needed
4:24:59
a lot of information and communication about so we we do intend to stick with
4:25:02
overall the same methodology i just wanted to say i've I did it this year
4:25:07
and a couple years ago, and I thought that the format in this last year
4:25:13
was awesome. Oh, great. It would be great to move forward with that again and
4:25:19
get comparable data. I thought the way you collected it was really interesting. Thanks for
4:25:24
participating. Yeah. Paul? Could you explain the hire on your slide right there? Yeah. Yeah.
4:25:31
So we say that the most important thing that somebody can do as they listen
4:25:36
to a presentation like this is they want to know how to take action is
4:25:42
to rent to somebody or to hire somebody. Many people are landlords. They're not just
4:25:48
the big property owners, but they might, many of you perhaps own another unit. Renting
4:25:53
to somebody who's experienced homelessness or to a young adult, we have a host home
4:25:58
program where families in Seattle and across King County are on the east side, Friends
4:26:04
of Youth is operating this program. are taking in someone who has been homeless. That's
4:26:09
a condition that they're in, not necessarily who they are, and bringing them into their
4:26:15
home for a short period of time to rent to them to get them stabilized.
4:26:20
So that's one thing. As far as hiring, 30% of people in this survey said
4:26:26
that job loss was the thing that led to their homelessness, it was their primary
4:26:31
reason. And then another 30% said that they were working uh living unsheltered and working
4:26:37
um and actually two-thirds had worked or had worked or were currently working or had
4:26:42
worked in the last few months and so people need need jobs they need they
4:26:47
need a foothold to get out of of the situation that they're in i will
4:26:52
say um you know a large percentage um of folks have some significant barriers to
4:26:58
getting into jobs and getting into housing and some of it is some of it
4:27:03
is chemical addiction. Some of it is behavioral health issues. There are some real reasons
4:27:09
and some real issues. Sometimes people need to get a lot of help before they're
4:27:14
ready to take on that that next step. You mentioned the disproportional representation of
4:27:20
people of color in particular. And you just kind of hinted around that. I
4:27:26
mean, people are noting that. They've said that. But what actions are being taken
4:27:32
to try to deal with that in particular if it's such an obvious thing
4:27:37
from all around and not just this area as well? Yeah, we're trying to...
4:27:43
really raise awareness around it. I think that from my purview, what we're focused on
4:27:49
is if once somebody is homeless, how can we get them housed? And so I
4:27:54
think there are many causes of homelessness that that lead to higher rates of homelessness
4:28:00
among African Americans and Native Americans that are historical and are embedded in our institutions.
4:28:06
What we're trying to do within the homeless services system is not be another one
4:28:11
of those systems. We're trying to ensure that African Americans have as good of outcomes
4:28:17
as whites in our system. And they actually do, they have better exit rates to
4:28:21
permanent housing in King County. Native Americans have worse outcomes than whites, and so we're
4:28:26
really focused on that population and trying to figure out why and what we can
4:28:31
do better. - Great, thank you. I appreciate you continuing that work in that arena.
4:28:36
- Thank you. Mark, I
4:28:42
want to thank you for hanging with us
4:28:48
this evening and for providing that update. You
4:28:54
bet. Thanks a lot. Thank you much. Bye-bye.
4:28:59
Moving now to Sustainable Building Action Strategy, Agenda
4:29:05
Bill 7316. David Fujimoto, Director of our Office
4:29:11
of Sustainability. While David is getting set up,
4:29:17
We are not going to be talking this
4:29:23
evening about the citizen survey results. We'll push
4:29:29
that out to our next meeting. Great. Hold
4:29:35
them. All right. So I know. Thank you. I'll try and be quick. I'll roll
4:29:40
through my slides pretty fast since I know we're starting to get to that. Everyone's
4:29:44
excited to hit that golden hour and carry us over to the next day. But
4:29:47
I'll see if I can avoid that outcome as much as possible or at least
4:29:51
not contribute to it. Um, again, David Fujimoto, director of the office of sustainability, um,
4:29:56
the sustainable building action strategy, uh, is arose out of a council goal, uh, about
4:30:01
a year and a half ago, uh, where the city council in, I think thinking
4:30:06
forwardly about the development that was coming down the road, uh, asked us to consider,
4:30:11
um, how the performance of the buildings as the community grows. And so they asked,
4:30:16
set this council goal and set the wheels in motion. So we've been following a
4:30:21
process through the last about year and a half. working with an interdepartmental team doing
4:30:26
a body of work looking at our policies and our codes. We brought on a
4:30:31
consultant. We have an internal team across different departments. We checked in with stakeholders and
4:30:36
partners in the region, took a look at how we stood relative to some of
4:30:41
the best practices that are out in the area. We did some work with some
4:30:46
developers and received some feedback about some of the initial strategies and ideas. And we
4:30:51
also checked in with council through several points of contact with Land and Shore as
4:30:56
well as a work session. So we're now at that very last end stage, hopefully,
4:31:00
should you choose to adopt this strategy to be able to move forward. And then
4:31:06
this is a slide I shared with the Land and Shore Committee, but just thinking
4:31:11
about and stepping back a little bit and thinking about the context of the strategy
4:31:16
is really putting thinking about sustainable building as kind of looking at the performance of
4:31:21
the built environment. So generally there's not a lot. You all spoke tonight about one
4:31:26
of the few remaining green space development projects left in the city. Barring that and
4:31:30
maybe a few other small pieces of land. There's not a whole lot more in
4:31:35
terms of green space and the city's done a ton of work on thinking about
4:31:39
how to protect and preserve natural open spaces. So turning to thinking about the built
4:31:43
environment and how we do that and lining up a number of these pieces about
4:31:48
good architecture and design, high performing buildings, heard some conversation about equity and affordable housing,
4:31:54
infrastructure to meet those needs. And so really about design that's responsive to the community.
4:32:00
And sustainable building is really about good design. It's really about addressing the performance of
4:32:05
the building itself At the same time, the context of development and the moratorium is
4:32:10
an opportunity to align some of these community goals. And this is that piece about
4:32:15
building performance. Our comprehensive plan also speaks to this. This is a
4:32:21
piece that's been a part of our comprehensive plan for a number of years. And
4:32:26
it talks about regional leadership and it talks about that notion of economic and social
4:32:31
and environmental and balancing and tying those pieces together, looking to exceed standards and really
4:32:36
trying to achieve some of those benefits of growing in a sustainable way. And the
4:32:41
comprehensive plan language actually even talks about putting in place measures to ensure that we're
4:32:47
achieving at a minimum levels of sustainability. The development of the Sustainable Building Action Strategy
4:32:53
involved a whole variety of steps, some of which I spoke to before, taking a
4:32:59
look at this notion of regional leadership and what does it mean for us as
4:33:05
a jurisdiction and how do we contribute and operate in a regional context. Because a
4:33:10
lot of times we don't like to reinvent the wheel, we can see what works
4:33:15
in other communities and vice versa. And so Issaquah has been at that forefront in
4:33:19
a number of areas in the past with some demonstration projects and some leadership in
4:33:23
codes and policies. And so this is really an intent to carry that forward. We've
4:33:28
also took a look at a number of our existing plans and strategies to make
4:33:33
sure that this lined up and didn't create new, wasn't necessarily recommending the creation of
4:33:38
new but actually better implementation of existing. meeting some of those goals, and then also
4:33:44
this approach about using a variety of different components. There's education and marketing and there's
4:33:49
some incentives and a broad range of different approaches in order to move the marketplace
4:33:55
forward. And then also think specifically about Issaquah and some of the key building typologies.
4:34:00
So ultimately there's five themes and 21 actions that were identified through the strategy.
4:34:06
These are some of the things that it ultimately addresses when it comes down to
4:34:12
it. Thinking about transportation associated with the built environment, greenhouse gas emissions is a really
4:34:17
important topic and one that we know needs to be addressed more and more at
4:34:22
the local level. And so there's a whole range of things, some tied directly to
4:34:28
our identity as a community, whether that's our forested hillsides or our streams in our
4:34:34
Lake Sammamish here in town. But it's really kind of tying these pieces together.
4:34:40
And ultimately, I think you've seen this slide before, it's about an action-oriented roadmap. So
4:34:45
it's about this strategy itself lays out a number of measures that would be implemented
4:34:50
over time in order to get us to realize some of those benefits of a
4:34:55
sustainable building approach. So it talks about leadership, it talks about building some of our
4:35:00
internal capacity, improving our processes, lining up with the public sector so that we have
4:35:05
common goals wherever possible. using a variety of approaches as I mentioned before. So there's
4:35:11
incentives as well as new measures that can be incorporated and also just some basic
4:35:17
pieces about improving information or access to information to help motivate changes to our building
4:35:23
stock. Through our conversations with Land and Shore,
4:35:28
there were and through some feedback from council as well as from the community members
4:35:33
and developers, we received a number of different comments and we worked through those. I'm
4:35:38
not going to go through these in detail, but those are addressed in the memo
4:35:43
that's also attached to the agenda bill.
4:35:49
And then also as a part of the packet is a proposed resolution. It does
4:35:54
basically three things. It adopts the action strategy itself, talks about some early actions, which
4:35:58
I'll cover briefly, and then it also provides for a report on progress so we
4:36:03
can do that check-in and refinement as needed within the first year and a half
4:36:07
of adoption of the strategy. Some of the early actions that were identified were the
4:36:13
city's sustainable building policies. This is the municipal policy that applies to our own buildings
4:36:18
and sets in place a pretty, sets a good bar for our work and uses
4:36:24
that as a foundation for thinking about how do we work with others in our
4:36:29
community to align with those some of those policies. That's the essentially the next two
4:36:34
pieces. City itself doesn't have a lot of projects coming down the pipe, but there
4:36:39
are a lot more from the public and private sector. We're also looking at the
4:36:45
design criteria as a part of the sub area planning work that's underway. And then
4:36:50
there's also a piece on looking at our existing code on transportation management plans, which
4:36:55
could use some tweaks and adjustments and some additional clarity as well. And then finally
4:37:01
one piece that's not here but was incorporated into the strategy was renewable energy for
4:37:06
municipal facilities. And that actually is an early action that we're able to take some
4:37:11
steps forward on. It's actually the next coming agenda bill about the power purchasing agreement.
4:37:16
So that's actually a good news measure that we're able to jump on right away.
4:37:23
And with that, oh, and real quick, so some of the benefits, you know, there's
4:37:28
a whole range of things that are, that sustainable buildings offer to our communities, from
4:37:34
comfort to improved amenities, also applies to the building trades themselves as they're constructing the
4:37:39
buildings. There's these connections to locally sourced materials I had mentioned previously. For Terra talks
4:37:45
a lot about cross-laminated timber and the connection of kind of rural economies that are
4:37:50
more, kind of forestry based and how we can in the urban environment
4:37:56
start to incorporate new technologies into our building construction and provide for that
4:38:02
local economy as well. I spoke before about some of the climate impacts
4:38:08
and then also just looking at aligning and building partnerships with others in
4:38:14
our community. And with that, let's see if there's any questions. - Love
4:38:20
that picture. This is... Coming back from land
4:38:25
and shore and so with that, Stacy.
4:38:31
I would move to approve resolution number
4:38:36
2017-12, adopting the sustainable building action strategy.
4:38:41
Second. Moved and seconded. Questions or discussion?
4:38:48
Bill. I'd just like to compliment you on particularly addition and listening to the council
4:38:53
on some of the suggestions, particularly in the area of solar and renewable resources. And
4:38:58
the next thing we'll be talking about, getting those early movements and stuff on there.
4:39:02
I really appreciate the work you did on that and working with me. And so
4:39:07
thank you. Other questions or discussion? All those in favor of
4:39:13
approving resolution number? Sorry. I just wanted to echo what Councilmember Ramos
4:39:19
talked about in terms of all the hard work that's gone into
4:39:25
this. I had one question about, so is 18 months, was that
4:39:30
the first time that you'll do sort of a check-in on
4:39:37
where everything is at and what you might want to change. So that's that was
4:39:43
incorporated into the resolution just to ensure that we had a check-in point. Certainly we
4:39:48
could come and provide an update at Land and Shore or another committee as time
4:39:53
progresses and agendas allow but we want to ensure that as we start to get
4:39:58
into early actions and kind of kind of the first steps that we did have
4:40:03
a place to say okay well how are we doing on the overall strategy are
4:40:08
we still pursuing the right approaches uh have things changed as the moratorium lifts for
4:40:13
example uh so that's uh it seemed like you know a year might be a
4:40:18
little bit too soon but you know within the first year and a half so
4:40:23
great thank you a question and a comment uh question david when this was proposed
4:40:28
as a council goal I know one of the motivations at the time by
4:40:34
the proposer was that Issaquah demonstrate leadership and I wondered if you could just
4:40:40
in your own words just kind of summarize how this plan does that.
4:40:46
um sure so i think you know part of the council goal was demonstrating leadership
4:40:51
in the region and that's going to be kind of a fuzzy thing to define
4:40:56
and you know the strategy by itself doesn't demonstrate leadership but the actual adoption of
4:41:01
the different measures collectively will for the vast majority of them they've been implemented in
4:41:06
some shape or form by various jurisdictions and so it's really the collection of them
4:41:11
and thinking about how they all fit together which you know, provides kind of an
4:41:16
opportunity for saying, "This is how a community is choosing to move forward and to
4:41:20
identify some of those benefits." So I think it really does do that. It connects
4:41:24
with a lot of the regional efforts, whether it's the King County Cities Climate Collaboration
4:41:29
or the Regional Code Collaboration, some of the work that's happening at the state level
4:41:33
with the Department of Commerce. There's a lot of kind of pieces that tie into
4:41:37
work that's being done by others that helps to reinforce some of those benefits. All
4:41:43
right, thank you. And I wanted to comment that I think the breadth
4:41:48
of this material, its depth, it's very comprehensive. I think you and your
4:41:54
staff deserve recognition for this full body of work. And I think the
4:42:00
way you've prepared it and presented it to us, while we've been having
4:42:06
so much fun with all these land use actions, you and your team
4:42:11
just stayed right abreast and continued working on this. It
4:42:17
is very comprehensive. It is actionable. much of it is measurable
4:42:23
I'm really looking forward to think certain parts of it I know that a lot
4:42:28
of it is voluntary and I think where there are some ways of getting people
4:42:34
especially homeowners involved one particular piece in here that just that is interesting to me
4:42:39
is is this idea of benchmarking it's just one of the many different things but
4:42:44
I know that it takes a while to build up a database like that and
4:42:49
going in and actually getting measures and then be able to
4:42:55
compare your results with maybe a larger body of work can result in very, you
4:43:01
know, people taking direct action. And I look forward to seeing just, and that's just
4:43:06
one element of this plan. I look forward to see how that evolves and how
4:43:11
I think that that's, again, just one of many ways that we can have, this
4:43:17
will have a real impact. So thank you for your work. Thank you. Mary
4:43:22
Lou. Yeah, I just wanted to say thank you to the team. I think
4:43:28
you really met the intent of the goal that the Council set, maybe even
4:43:34
exceeded it. It's a really great document, and you had to compete with a
4:43:40
lot of other items. So thank you for being patient with us. All those
4:43:46
in favor of approving Resolution Number 2017-12, Adopting the Sustainability Action Strategy, signify by
4:43:52
saying aye. Aye. Opposed? That carries unanimously. Our last action item
4:43:58
this evening, Agenda Bill 7438, PSE Green Direct Power Service
4:44:04
Agreement. David? Oh, okay. So likewise, I'll try and go
4:44:09
quickly on this one. So as I mentioned before, there
4:44:15
was a strategy for renewable energy for municipal facilities. And
4:44:21
this is an action that's all about actually moving that
4:44:26
piece forward. so green direct is a program of puget sound energy it's a
4:44:32
new tariff it's one of very few that exists in the country probably about a
4:44:37
dozen or so or half a dozen or so and it's actually been vetted through
4:44:43
the washington state utilities and transportation commission and it basically is a new power op
4:44:48
or power supply option for electricity only um it only changes that piece of it
4:44:53
so it doesn't affect anything else related to our relationship with puget sound energy they
4:44:58
continue to provide our services per usual and and you might be familiar with something
4:45:03
like green power which is more of a residential product there's a commercial version of
4:45:08
it as well this is very different from that that's that's technically uh kind of
4:45:12
a surcharge or additional charge you might pay for uh in order to kind of
4:45:17
buy into a renewable power source this is as I said before, it's actually a
4:45:22
charge and a credit. So it's actually, if you look at the portion of your
4:45:27
bill that is associated with the energy supply, this is simply replacing that energy supply
4:45:31
with kind of a standard market supply with one that we're designating from a renewable
4:45:36
energy source. So it does differ quite a bit, provides an opportunity for taking a
4:45:41
look at pricing a little bit differently because it's a long-term contract. And longer term,
4:45:46
this is kind of the first offering, but longer term we believe that there's going
4:45:51
to be opportunities for actually thinking about the resource where it comes from. So in
4:45:56
this particular case it's coming from a wind farm in southwest Washington and Thurston and
4:46:01
Lewis counties. In the future it could be large-scale solar, for example. So a
4:46:07
little bit about why this is important. The electricity fuel mix for Puget Sound
4:46:13
Energy, this is from 2015. And again, this, apologies, this happened in services as
4:46:19
well. And I did fix it. But so the gray part is actually coal.
4:46:25
The blue is hydro and red is natural or the kind of lighter red
4:46:30
is natural gas. And so coal is actually about 36, 37% of the electricity fuel
4:46:36
mix. So the kind of the power supply or the source of fuel to generate
4:46:41
electricity is primarily coal. And so in the Northwest, we generally think about hydros being
4:46:47
our predominant source. And that's actually not true when you look at our utility providers.
4:46:52
So PSE provides about just over a third from coal. And from an overall carbon
4:46:58
pollution and emission standpoint, that's pretty significant. So
4:47:03
as I mentioned before, there's both a charge and a credit. This is a char-
4:47:09
it's this particular project is in southwestern Washington. We are looking at a basically a
4:47:14
longer term power purchase agreement with Puget Sound Energy. And so what we're talking about
4:47:20
in as I'll talk about more is our recommendations for a 10-year contract. It starts
4:47:25
with a fixed price in 2019 and has a 2% escalator on it. And there
4:47:31
are some other pieces related to it. There's something called renewable energy certificates. Those are
4:47:36
basically the kind of the green attributes of the power because that's what we're seeking.
4:47:40
They're going to retire them for us. And it's unique in that we can choose
4:47:45
the accounts where we want this to apply. So we can say we want to
4:47:50
apply to building A and infrastructure B. And we do it on an account by
4:47:55
account basis, which is very unique. There's There's not an upfront capital cost that we
4:48:00
incur. We're basically able to kind of pick and choose and substitute the supply. So
4:48:05
also equally important, it doesn't include any of the other kind of service costs associated
4:48:10
with the utility service, whether it's transmission, billing, meter reading, customer service, and those types
4:48:16
of pieces. So there's the charge for the renewable option, and then there's the credit,
4:48:21
which is kind of the standard PSE fuel mix, which is the pie chart I
4:48:26
showed before. This is kind of a mock-up of an example. Don't
4:48:32
pay too much attention to the numbers because they're not -- they don't actually reflect
4:48:36
this current offering. But as you can see, there's basically different components to the utility
4:48:41
costs that we see. And so what happens in this case is you see both
4:48:45
that credit and that charge. So we actually get the credit back from the kind
4:48:50
of standard fuel mix, and then we get charged for the renewable fuel mix in
4:48:54
this case. Because we're taking a look at a long-term purchasing
4:49:00
agreement, part of how this plays out is depends on what the scenarios look like
4:49:05
in terms of the future energy cost for the standard fuel mix versus the energy
4:49:09
cost for this. We know that this is fixed starting in 2019 with a 2%
4:49:14
escalator. The part that we don't know is what happens to electricity fuel prices, in
4:49:19
part that depends on whether you're bullish or bearish about what's going to happen. We've
4:49:23
seen renewable energy costs go down quite dramatically over time. But then for kind of
4:49:29
standard fuel mix, there's a variety of different things to look at. Puget Sound Energy
4:49:35
has something called the integrated resource plan, which looks out into the 20-year horizon. That
4:49:41
has about a 6% increase. There's also something called the energy information plan. Association, which
4:49:47
looks similarly, comes at about a 2.4 percent increase. If you look backwards over
4:49:53
the last 15 years, the average price increase for PSE has been about 2.4
4:49:58
percent. In thinking about some of
4:50:04
those rate comparisons, there are kind of three different options here, plus the --
4:50:10
or, excuse me, four, plus the green direct. Green direct is kind of the
4:50:16
dashed green line up here. And basically, the point is, is that, The rate would
4:50:22
start out a little bit higher, but then depending on how it performs relative to
4:50:27
market prices, you could be above or below the market and actually be in a
4:50:32
cost saving, if you will, relative to the market. Puget Sound Energy also produces
4:50:38
from Puget Sound Energy over a longer time frame of about 20 years. Green Direct
4:50:44
is the green line. And they use different projections here, 1.5, 2.5, and 4% increase.
4:50:50
And so, you know, if rates were to go up by 4% on average, there'd
4:50:56
be a substantial savings actually with Green Direct in this case.
4:51:03
As I said before, we're allowed to kind of pick and choose based on our
4:51:07
different facilities, but because it's a long-term agreement, we would want to make sure that
4:51:12
those facilities are in place in 10 years. And so we took a look at
4:51:17
those accounts and worked with parks and public works operations and took a look at
4:51:21
kind of those facilities that met those criteria. It is important to note that Puget
4:51:26
Sound Energy is very flexible about the program actually. And so if we were to
4:51:30
have a building, for example, to go offline or a signal, we could actually transfer
4:51:35
that account to a different account. They just want to make sure that we have
4:51:39
total accounts in place. If we implement energy efficiency measures, those actually don't count against
4:51:44
us either or onsite renewables. So a lot of flexibility built into the program. When
4:51:49
we look at some of the numbers on this, this is for as it starts
4:51:54
in 2019, The rate would be the green direct charge that's indicated here,
4:52:00
the 0.05111 per kilowatt hours. The energy credit is estimated because we
4:52:06
don't know exactly where prices will be in 2019, but that's an
4:52:11
estimate. So in that first year, estimated net costs are 0.00181 per
4:52:17
kilowatt hour. The city in total uses about 400 or spends about
4:52:23
$471,000 per year on electricity. We're proposing that we would designate
4:52:29
this for about 99 accounts, which is about 70% of our
4:52:34
total electricity demand. And the net cost of that is between
4:52:40
$6,300 and $8,500 in that first year.
4:52:46
Real quickly, there's a variety of public and private folks who are working on
4:52:52
renewable energy and see this as important to their future plans and overall portfolios.
4:52:58
It's a pretty wide-ranging group. The key to all of this is the utility-based
4:53:04
programs, which like Green Direct, and so we're seeing some more engagement on that
4:53:09
front. And also by a number of cities. This is a limited offering. I don't
4:53:15
think I mentioned this before, but they can, Pew, Pew's Energy has about 75 average
4:53:20
megawatt hours through this program. It's about the electricity of about 30,000 homes. So they
4:53:24
have a limit. that they're going to be reaching so we're coming in really close
4:53:29
to kind of the finish you know they're kind of tying that up it looks
4:53:33
like we'll be in a good position if we're able to move this forward but
4:53:37
a number of other folks that are participating several that are considering So
4:53:43
just to wrap it up, our recommendation is that we focus on our existing buildings
4:53:48
and infrastructure, about 99 accounts. It's about 70% of our total electricity. We do, we
4:53:53
did not include a number of buildings that we have question marks about, but those
4:53:58
could be assessed in the future. And we could also assess some buildings that are
4:54:03
better, have better disposition potentially for solar, which would be something we want to take
4:54:08
a look at and see if we could secure funding. um, and i
4:54:13
think that's it oh so benefits real quick renewable power from the northwest we talked
4:54:19
about some of our climate and carbon goals this helps us to get some of
4:54:24
those pieces in place there are very low administrative costs associated with this particular supply
4:54:30
because it's all going through puget sound energy's transmission and also provides some options to
4:54:35
incorporate solar in the future and then finally it's a first action step for our
4:54:40
sustainable building strategy And I spoke a bit
4:54:46
about timing. Thank you, David. This is coming back to us from Services and Safety.
4:54:52
Tola. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I move to authorize the Mayor to enter into and
4:54:58
execute the Green Direct Service Agreement with Puget Sound Energy for a 10-year term for
4:55:04
the referenced City accounts. Second. Moved and seconded. Questions or discussion?
4:55:12
No. Yeah, I just I really like this as a first step. It's we just
4:55:18
passed the action strategy and and this is like, you know, immediate action after that.
4:55:23
If this is looking at two thirds of our electricity use into renewable power, that's
4:55:28
an amazing chunk to take off right at the bat. And with the other goal
4:55:33
we have in that of 15% or greater in solar, it leaves us a window
4:55:38
there to that goal of getting all renewable by 2025. We're moving right there for
4:55:43
it. So I want to be a leader again in this field, and this is
4:55:48
a great first step in doing that. Good. Other questions or comments?
4:55:54
Paul. Real quick, and if we act fast, we can get
4:56:00
both taken care of in the same day. All those in
4:56:06
favor of Authorizing the Mayor to enter to and execute the
4:56:11
Green Direct Service Agreement with PSE Energy for a 10-year term for
4:56:17
the reference to the account signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? That
4:56:23
carries unanimously. Anything for the good of the order?
4:56:28
Seeing
4:57:30
none
4:58:31
then,
4:59:32
we'll
5:00:33
now
5:01:35
move
5:02:36
into
5:03:37
executive
5:04:39
session
5:05:40
which
5:06:41
will
5:07:43
take
5:08:44
about
5:09:45
15
5:10:47
minutes.
5:11:48
We
5:12:49
are
5:13:50
back
5:14:52
in
5:15:53
regular
5:16:54
session
5:17:56
after
5:18:57
extending
5:19:58
the
5:21:00
existing
5:22:01
15
5:23:02
minutes
5:24:04
to
5:25:05
25.
5:26:07
Is there any other business to come before the council? Then we are adjourned.