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City Council Regular Meeting

Monday, December 18, 2017

7:00 PM · 5h 21m · Council Chambers, 135 E. Sunset Way, Issaquah WA
Watch on YouTube ↗ Agenda PDF ↗ Minutes PDF Transcript .txt
Topics tracked across meetings:
Amending School Impact Fees AB 7640 ›››› 1/5
City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 18, 2017 → City Council Regular Meeting · Aug 6, 2018 → City Council Regular Meeting · Sep 4, 2018 → City Council Regular Meeting · Oct 15, 2018 → City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 3, 2018
View full lifecycle → Next: City Council Regular Meeting · Aug 6, 2018 ▶
2018 First Budget Amendment AB 7605 ›› 1/3
City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 18, 2017 → City Council Regular Meeting · Sep 4, 2018 → City Council Regular Meeting · Sep 17, 2018
View full lifecycle → Next: City Council Regular Meeting · Sep 4, 2018 ▶
Central Issaquah District Visions AB 7344 ›››››››››››› 5/13
Planning Policy Commission · Mar 9, 2017 → City Council Regular Meeting · Mar 20, 2017 → Planning Policy Commission · Nov 30, 2017 → City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 4, 2017 → City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 18, 2017 → Planning Policy Commission · Jan 25, 2018 → Planning Policy Commission · Feb 15, 2018 → Planning Policy Commission · Feb 22, 2018 → Planning Policy Commission · Feb 28, 2018 → Planning Policy Commission · Mar 8, 2018 → Planning Policy Commission · Mar 22, 2018 → City Council Regular Meeting · Apr 2, 2018 → City Council Regular Meeting · May 21, 2018
◀ Prev: City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 4, 2017 View full lifecycle → Next: Planning Policy Commission · Jan 25, 2018 ▶
Amendments to IMC and Central Issaquah Standards Regarding Inclusionary Zoning Requirements for Central Issaquah AB 7507 ››› 3/4
City Council Regular Meeting · Oct 26, 2017 → City Council Regular Meeting · Nov 6, 2017 → City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 18, 2017 → City Council Regular Meeting · May 7, 2018
◀ Prev: City Council Regular Meeting · Nov 6, 2017 View full lifecycle → Next: City Council Regular Meeting · May 7, 2018 ▶
End of Talus Development Agreement AB 7524 ››› 2/4
City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 4, 2017 → City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 18, 2017 → City Council Regular Meeting · Jan 11, 2018 → City Council Regular Meeting · Mar 19, 2018
◀ Prev: City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 4, 2017 View full lifecycle → Next: City Council Regular Meeting · Mar 19, 2018 ▶
Transportation Benefit District AB 7250 ›››››››› 8/9
Planning Policy Commission · Jun 15, 2017 → Planning Policy Commission · Jun 22, 2017 → City Council Regular Meeting · Jun 22, 2017 → City Council Special Meeting · Jul 6, 2017 → City Council Regular Meeting · Jul 17, 2017 → City Council Regular Meeting · Aug 7, 2017 → City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 4, 2017 → City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 18, 2017 → City Council Regular Meeting · Jan 16, 2018
◀ Prev: City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 4, 2017 View full lifecycle → Next: City Council Regular Meeting · Jan 16, 2018 ▶
Architectural Fit & Urban Design AB 7342 ›››› 5/5
City Council Regular Meeting · Aug 31, 2017 → Planning Policy Commission · Aug 31, 2017 → City Council Regular Meeting · Sep 18, 2017 → City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 4, 2017 → City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 18, 2017
◀ Prev: City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 4, 2017 View full lifecycle →
Amending School Impact Fees AB 7462 ›››› 5/5
City Council Regular Meeting · Aug 1, 2016 → City Council Regular Meeting · Oct 2, 2017 → City Council Regular Meeting · Nov 6, 2017 → City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 4, 2017 → City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 18, 2017
◀ Prev: City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 4, 2017 View full lifecycle →
Establishing a Multi-Family Housing Property Tax Exemption (MFTE) Program for Proposed Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Parcel AB 7488 ››› 4/4
City Council Regular Meeting · Aug 1, 2016 → City Council Regular Meeting · Sep 18, 2017 → City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 4, 2017 → City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 18, 2017
◀ Prev: City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 4, 2017 View full lifecycle →
Personnel Policy Manual Changes Resulting from State Sick Leave Requirements AB 7508 › 2/2
City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 4, 2017 → City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 18, 2017
◀ Prev: City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 4, 2017 View full lifecycle →
Amending 2018 Property Tax Levy AB 7525 › 2/2
City Council Regular Meeting · Nov 20, 2017 → City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 18, 2017
◀ Prev: City Council Regular Meeting · Nov 20, 2017 View full lifecycle →
Lake Sammamish State Park Partnering Agreement AB 7493 › 2/2
City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 4, 2017 → City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 18, 2017
◀ Prev: City Council Regular Meeting · Dec 4, 2017 View full lifecycle →
Section
Topic
3. SPECIAL BUSINESS
3a
Certificates of Appreciation Hear Presentation AB 7526
packet pp.5
▶ Watch from 1:02 Open packet at p.5 ↗
Staff report:
Administration / Executive Department:
7. CONSENT CALENDAR
7a
Accounts: Payables and Payroll of Dec. 18, 2017, $6,060,003.19 ID 0178
Carried 7-0
packet pp.7–124
Topics: Budget
▶ Watch from 39:49 Open packet at p.7 ↗
Staff report:
Pursuant to 42.24.080 RCW, I, Jennifer Olson, Auditing Officer for the City of Issaquah, Washington, present all claims against the City by persons furnishing materials, rendering services or performing labor, or for any other full or partial contractual purpose and obligation. Such claims have been prepared for audit and payment on an authenticated form and in the manner prescribed by the state auditor. The claims are just, due and unpaid obligations against the City of Issaquah and are certified to be paid after approval of the Issaquah City Council.
Roll call:
Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by PAULY
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein
7b
Minutes: Council Committee Work Session, Nov. 13, 2017
Carried 7-0
Approve · packet pp.125–126
▶ Watch from 40:19 Open packet at p.125 ↗
Staff report:
CONSENT CALENDAR b) 11-13-17 Council Committee Work Session Minutes Page 7932
Roll call:
Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by PAULY
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein
7c
Minutes: Special Council Committee Work Session, Nov. 15, 2017
Carried 7-0
Approve · packet pp.127
▶ Watch from 40:50 Open packet at p.127 ↗
Staff report:
CONSENT CALENDAR c) 11-15-17 Council Committee Work Session Minutes Page 7934
Roll call:
Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by PAULY
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein
7d
Minutes: Special Council Committee Work Session, Nov. 27, 2017
Carried 7-0
Approve · packet pp.129
▶ Watch from 41:20 Open packet at p.129 ↗
Staff report:
CONSENT CALENDAR d) 11-27-17 Council Committee Work Session Minutes Page 7940
Roll call:
Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by PAULY
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein
7g
Issaquah Police Officers Association (IPOA) Collective Bargaining Agreement (2016-2019) AB 7400
Carried 7-0
Approve Contract; Adopt Ordinance · packet pp.141–186
Topics: Land UsePublic Safety
▶ Watch from 41:51 Open packet at p.141 ↗
Staff report:
Administration / Human Resources Department:
Roll call:
Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by PAULY
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein
7h
Amendments to IMC 2.06.120, Public Meeting - Executive Sessions AB 7504
Carried 7-0
Adopt Ordinance · packet pp.187–191
Topics: Land Use
▶ Watch from 42:21 Open packet at p.187 ↗
Staff report:
Administration / City Clerk's Office:
Roll call:
Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by PAULY
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein
7i
Personnel Policy Manual Changes Resulting from State Sick Leave Requirements AB 7508
Carried 7-0
Approve Resolution · packet pp.193–208
▶ Watch from 42:51 Open packet at p.193 ↗
Staff report:
Council Services & Safety Committee / Tola Marts, Chair:
Roll call:
Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by PAULY
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein
7j
eCityGov Alliance Interlocal Agreement AB 7519
Carried 7-0
Adopt Ordinance · packet pp.209–244
Topics: Land Use
▶ Watch from 43:22 Open packet at p.209 ↗
Staff report:
Council Services & Safety Committee / Tola Marts, Chair:
Roll call:
Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by PAULY
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein
7k
Eastside Transportation Partnership Agreement AB 7520
Carried 7-0
Approve Schedule; Refer to Council Land & · packet pp.245–253
Topics: Transportation
▶ Watch from 43:52 Open packet at p.245 ↗
Staff report:
Page 245 of 1162 CONSENT CALENDAR k)
Roll call:
Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by PAULY
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein
7n
End of Talus Development Agreement AB 7524
Carried 7-0
Approve Schedule; Refer to Council Land & · packet pp.307–344
Topics: Land Use
▶ Watch from 44:23 Open packet at p.307 ↗
Staff report:
NEW CITY COUNCIL AB 7524 - AGENDA BILL Consent City Council Regular Meeting - 18 Dec 2017 Calendar
Roll call:
Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by PAULY
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein
7o
Amending 2018 Property Tax Levy AB 7525
Carried 7-0
Adopt Ordinance; Approve Resolution · packet pp.345–350
Topics: Land UseBudget
Previously discussed: City Council Regular Meeting · Nov 20, 2017
▶ Watch from 44:53 Open packet at p.345 ↗
Staff report:
Administration / Finance Department:
Roll call:
Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by PAULY
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein
8. PUBLIC HEARING
8a
2018 Budget AB 7393
Conduct Public Hearing · packet pp.351–376
Topics: Budget
Open packet at p.351 ↗
Staff report:
Administration / Finance Department:
9. REGULAR BUSINESS
9a
Lake Sammamish State Park Partnering Agreement AB 7493
Carried 7-0
Approve · packet pp.387–401
Topics: Parks
▶ Watch from 45:24 Open packet at p.387 ↗
Staff report:
UPDATED CITY COUNCIL AB 7493 - AGENDA BILL Regular City Council Regular Meeting - 18 Dec 2017 Business
Roll call:
Moved by MARTS · seconded by BARBER
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein
9c
Central Issaquah District Visions AB 7344
Carried 7-0
Refer to Various Meetings · packet pp.687–712
Topics: Land Use
Previously discussed: City Council Regular Meeting · Mar 20, 2017 Planning Policy Commission · Nov 30, 2017
▶ Watch from 45:35 Open packet at p.687 ↗
Staff report:
In 2012 — to protect Issaquah's existing neighborhoods and natural environment — the City adopted the Central Issaquah Plan (effective April, 2013) to guide the long-term evolution of our community's existing commercial core into an urban center. The Plan includes 10 Districts within Central Issaquah, each with a specific vision. During a July 2016 check-up on the Plan, the City assessed whether projects that have been built, approved or are currently under review, met the community's vision for Central Issaquah.
Roll call:
Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by WINTERSTEIN
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein
Amendment considered (1):
Amend the motion to adopt Ordinance No. 2813 with the updates and corrections set forth in the staff memo [dated Dec. 8, 2017]. . Carried 7-0
Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by PAULY
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein
9d
Architectural Fit & Urban Design AB 7342
Adopt Ordinance · packet pp.713–849
Topics: Land Use
Previously discussed: City Council Regular Meeting · Aug 31, 2017
▶ Watch from 45:47 Open packet at p.713 ↗
Staff report:
UPDATED CITY COUNCIL AB 7342 - AGENDA BILL Regular City Council Regular Meeting - 18 Dec 2017 Business
9e
Amendments to IMC and Central Issaquah Standards Regarding Inclusionary Zoning Requirements for Central Issaquah AB 7507
Carried 7-0
Adopt Ordinance · packet pp.851–879
Topics: Land Use
Previously discussed: City Council Regular Meeting · Oct 26, 2017
▶ Watch from 45:59 Open packet at p.851 ↗
Staff report:
On Sept. 18, 2017, after much work by Planning Policy Commission, Human Services Commission, Economic Vitality Commission, focus groups and community outreach, City Council adopted Issaquah’s Housing Strategy Work Plan. The Strategy describes how the City intends to, over the next 5 years, actively and positively influence the existing housing stock as well as that being built in the City through nine strategies. The purpose of the Strategy is to improve the likelihood that the City will be successful in meeting the long-term aspirations of the Comprehensive Plan; and, the needs and housing desires of those choosing to live in Issaquah.
Roll call:
Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by PAULY
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein
9f
Expiration of Temporary Moratorium Related to Certain Permit Applications - Continued AB 7506
Carried 7-0
Adopt Ordinance · packet pp.881–939
Topics: Land Use
▶ Watch from 46:10 Open packet at p.881 ↗
Staff report:
UPDATED CITY COUNCIL AB 7488 - AGENDA BILL Regular City Council Regular Meeting - 18 Dec 2017 Business
Roll call:
Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by PAULY
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein
Amendment considered (1):
Amend the ordinance to include inclusionary zoning as an outstanding item justifying continuation of the moratorium. . Carried 7-0
Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by PAULY
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein
9g
Establishing a Multi-Family Housing Property Tax Exemption (MFTE) Program for Proposed Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Parcel AB 7488
Carried 7-0
Adopt Ordinance · packet pp.941–1101
Topics: HousingLand UseTransportationBudget
Previously discussed: City Council Regular Meeting · Aug 1, 2016
▶ Watch from 46:22 Open packet at p.941 ↗
Staff report:
UPDATED CITY COUNCIL AB 7462 - AGENDA BILL Regular City Council Regular Meeting - 18 Dec 2017 Business
Roll call:
Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by PAULY
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein
9h
Amending School Impact Fees AB 7462
Carried 7-0
Adopt Ordinance · packet pp.1103–1152
Topics: Land UseBudgetSchools
▶ Watch from 46:33 Open packet at p.1103 ↗
Staff report:
UPDATED CITY COUNCIL AB 7250 - AGENDA BILL Regular City Council Regular Meeting - 18 Dec 2017 Business
Roll call:
Moved by BETTISE · seconded by MARTS
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein
9i
Transportation Benefit District AB 7250
Carried 5-2
Approve
Topics: Transportation
▶ Watch from 46:45
Roll call:
Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by WINTERSTEIN
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Mary Lou Pauly, Paul Winterstein
Opposed: Tola Marts, Bill Ramos
3371 segments .txt ↗
0:30 ↗ I call to order the December 18th, 2017 regular council meeting and ask those who'd
0:36 ↗ like to join the council and myself in the Pledge of Allegiance to please stand.
0:44 ↗ I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the
0:50 ↗ republic for which it stands, one nation under God,
0:56 ↗ indivisible,
1:02 ↗ with liberty and justice for all. Under special business this evening, we have several
1:08 ↗ certificates of appreciation. And the first is for
1:13 ↗ Eileen Barber, who, would you join me at the...
1:35 ↗ Eileen, here is a certificate of appreciation from the city of Issaquah expressing
1:41 ↗ its appreciation for your dedicated dedication and service as
1:47 ↗ council member for position number three from January 2006 to
1:52 ↗ December 2017. And so this is for
1:58 ↗ you and just a couple of general comments.
2:05 ↗ You have been very, very active not only locally, but regionally at a number of
2:10 ↗ different things. You've been active on the council, but also with the chamber. And when
2:16 ↗ I think of Salmon Days, I think of you and the many, many hours that
2:22 ↗ you put into making that such a success. And
2:28 ↗ the salmon love you also because of your work in Waira Aid
2:34 ↗ and restoration of salmon habitat. So as a former businesswoman,
2:40 ↗ as a city council member, as a member of the chamber who
2:46 ↗ you've given a pretty significant portion of your life, I want to express my
2:52 ↗ appreciation for your service to our community. Congratulations.
3:13 ↗ I asked Eileen if she'd like to say a couple of words and she said
3:17 ↗ two. I hope it's more than thank you. Well that's the two words.
3:23 ↗ You know it has, gone by so extremely fast. I can't believe the time
3:29 ↗ that I've served on this council. But it's just one of those really
3:35 ↗ great communities that we all live in. And I think it's great because of all,
3:39 ↗ look at the people that are here this evening to help us work through all
3:45 ↗ of our issues and show your desires of what you want to see this community
3:50 ↗ be. And I think it's still that charming, wonderful, beautiful little city that I came
3:55 ↗ to in 1975 with my family in tow and started the business of Ben
4:01 ↗ Franklin's store. And I just wanna thank everybody that's listening tonight and everybody that's here
4:06 ↗ tonight, and thank you so much.
4:16 ↗ I'd like to invite Mayor
4:22 ↗ Mary Lou Polly, and I'd like to introduce her as my
4:30 ↗ successor as your mayor of this wonderful city.
4:37 ↗ Mary Lou has served with distinction on the development
4:42 ↗ commission for a long, long time, and has been on the city
4:48 ↗ council for several terms. And so Mary Lou, you are about ready to
4:54 ↗ step into the best job there is
5:00 ↗ because we've got wonderful citizens who love this
5:06 ↗ place as much as you do. So it's gonna bring you a lot of joy
5:10 ↗ and personal satisfaction, I guarantee. Thank you, Fred. And it's my
5:16 ↗ great pleasure to present a certificate of appreciation to our mayor. This
5:21 ↗ certificate of appreciation is hereby awarded to Fred Butler in recognition of your many years
5:26 ↗ of extending service to the citizens of Issaquah as our mayor from January 2014 through
5:32 ↗ December of 2017. And I just wanted to say a few words about Fred's long,
5:38 ↗ long, long history of service to our community. He spent 27 years in the military
5:44 ↗ as a US Army Corps engineer. When he left the Army and retired, he went
5:50 ↗ to Seattle Light and became the chief engineer through 1996 when he retired and came
5:55 ↗ to Issaquah. I met Fred probably a few months after he got here because he
6:01 ↗ was looking for stuff to do, and he immediately put his hand up and he
6:04 ↗ got himself on the Development Commission and UVDC or planning policy? Planning policy.
6:10 ↗ Planning policy. So right away, his first foot in the neighborhood, and he's already out
6:15 ↗ there volunteering. He has served on council for over 14 years, and he's participated as
6:21 ↗ a regional leader for Issaquah at Sound Transit, Cascade Water Alliance, Mountains to Sound
6:27 ↗ Greenway, and a lot longer list that I couldn't possibly read. So on behalf of
6:31 ↗ everyone here tonight, Fred, I want to thank you for your long service, your years
6:35 ↗ of service, and all your accomplishments in town. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mary
6:38 ↗ Lou. Good luck.
7:04 ↗ Looks like I still have some work to do. I hope because we've got a
7:07 ↗ pretty packed agenda this evening. Our next item is audience comments and a couple of
7:13 ↗ words about audience comments. They're an important part of the public process. We take them
7:19 ↗ seriously and factor them into the decisions that we make. Anyone from the
7:25 ↗ public desiring to speak this evening will have an opportunity to do so. I would
7:30 ↗ point out that we do have two public hearings this evening.
7:37 ↗ And if you would like to speak to the 2018 budget or the
7:42 ↗ expiration of the temporary moratorium related to
7:48 ↗ certain permit applications, that would be the most, that would be the appropriate
7:54 ↗ time to do that. Please limit your, comments to five
8:00 ↗ minutes. When your name is called, come to the lectern, speak into the microphone,
8:06 ↗ and when you are within one minute
8:12 ↗ of reaching the end of the public comment period, a yellow light will go on,
8:17 ↗ and when it goes off, I'd ask that you summarize. So personal attacks,
8:26 ↗ Oh, I'm not even gonna go with that, because we've got such wonderful citizens here.
8:29 ↗ And other venues where I chair meetings, I have to say that, but not here.
8:35 ↗ So again, personal comments, written and verbal, are an
8:41 ↗ important aspect of the public process. We take them seriously. And I'd like to thank
8:46 ↗ the public for taking the time to come and share your thoughts with us. With
8:52 ↗ that, I would ask if anyone signed up to speak. Yes, Kaylee Jake.
9:02 ↗ Good evening, council and mayor. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to give you a
9:07 ↗ quick update on the Teen Cafe. We had our second public meeting two
9:13 ↗ weeks ago, and it went wonderfully. We discussed the four sites that we had been
9:18 ↗ looking at, and there was unanimous consensus around the 235
9:25 ↗ building. So we're very excited about that. And I wanted just to update you with
9:30 ↗ our next step would be to start lease negotiations. And so the
9:36 ↗ city and I, through the Services and Safety Committee, will start to do that. And
9:43 ↗ Just a quick reminder that Friends of Youth is our fiscal sponsor. So they'll be
9:48 ↗ negotiating that lease with the city. So we're starting to work on that. So the
9:51 ↗ next time I'll join you will be when we have a lease for your approval.
9:57 ↗ So hopefully that'll be in February sometime. And so what? Would you identify yourself,
10:03 ↗ please, for those who don't know you and are watching on TV? I'm here every
10:07 ↗ week, I feel like. My name is Kaylee Jake. I'm at 24706 Southeast 30th Street,
10:12 ↗ Sammamish 98075. And I'm the director of the Teen Cafe. Kaylee, thank you very, very
10:18 ↗ much. Thank you. Nathan Bossler.
10:31 ↗ Hello, council and everybody else. I'm Nathan Bosler, 600 Northwest Locust Street,
10:37 ↗ Issaquah, Washington. I've taped and produced hundreds of council meetings, but I'm very excited to
10:41 ↗ finally be at public comments. So thanks for allowing me to share my voice. I'm
10:45 ↗ here tonight representing the business community of Issaquah. If you don't know, I am Nathan
10:49 ↗ Bosler with CASA CEO and co-founder. We've done business here since 2007
10:55 ↗ in Issaquah. In the last year, we went from four employees to 10 employees. And
10:59 ↗ obviously, I can't stay late to speak on behalf of the moratorium, so I appreciate
11:03 ↗ you when they talk about it now. But this next year, we expect to double.
11:07 ↗ And that's a very exciting growth for business, for our community, and for our city
11:11 ↗ as well. And we like to stay very involved with our city as well. So
11:15 ↗ I appreciate all your involvement and all your faces from events with the Chamber. And
11:18 ↗ I'm also representing the Chamber, the board, I sit on the Chamber board as well,
11:21 ↗ and business community members in Issaquah. But I'm here to ask that you guys, I
11:26 ↗ know you're working very difficult in getting the moratorium lifted so that we can continue
11:30 ↗ with business and growth in Issaquah. I know everyone's anxious to do that, but I
11:33 ↗ just ask that we really focus and look at the potentials of stifling growth in
11:38 ↗ business and opportunity here by extending it. And I know that six months is the
11:42 ↗ default time period, and it can be lifted within that six month period, and I
11:46 ↗ understand how that all works, but I just ask that we, I don't know, try
11:50 ↗ to expedite it as quick as possible. We're trying to build a new building here
11:53 ↗ in Issaquah so we can expand and add space for 10 to 15 new employees
11:57 ↗ coming into the beginning of 2019. And we're plans to expand with the CECOM building
12:02 ↗ over on Gilman. So I would just be very disappointed if this sort of stuff
12:07 ↗ got halted, not just for our business, but as you know, there's a lot of
12:10 ↗ businesses calling from across the state, inquiring about opening up a healthcare office in this
12:14 ↗ new building and opening up new educational complexes and whatnot as these new businesses evolve.
12:19 ↗ place to grow and we're here as the chamber is the voice of that business
12:24 ↗ community to help you to tell what others are trying to do and grow and
12:29 ↗ I'm just here to echo that and I know you're all working very hard and
12:33 ↗ I know that you're here at serving the highest volunteer opportunity possible but please please
12:38 ↗ please let's look at try to get that moratorium lifted at least not for just
12:43 ↗ to business owners, that would be fantastic. So we can continue to grow our companies,
12:47 ↗ bring on local employees coming from whether it's Bellevue College or students already from Gibson
12:52 ↗ Ecker interning. I mean, there's a big buzz in business growth here. And what I
12:55 ↗ want to accentuate too is this business climate has really happened virally. as you know,
13:00 ↗ just through the Issaquah vibe and through people in Issaquah just talking and helping grow
13:04 ↗ virally. And that's something that is nearly impossible to do and that we have that
13:08 ↗ momentum going. And so I just ask that you really look diligently at not slowing
13:14 ↗ that down in any way, shape or form, whether that means, you know, excelling it.
13:18 ↗ I know you guys are very busy with everything else, but please just understand the
13:22 ↗ growth, the need for business here. I am asked all the time, why Issaquah? You
13:26 ↗ know, your business is growing. Why did you choose Issaquah? Well, I was born in
13:30 ↗ Sammamish and my heart belongs here in the Issaquah area. And I don't ever wanna
13:34 ↗ leave. I love the small community, the access to big city and big opportunity. And
13:39 ↗ you know, we're 30 minutes from SeaTac so we can get anywhere in the world.
13:42 ↗ And that's something that we're lucky to have. So I won't waste any more of
13:45 ↗ your time. I just wanted to voice, I love business here in Issaquah. I love
13:48 ↗ my city and I hope that we can continue growing here in Issaquah, cause the
13:52 ↗ sky's the limit. So thank you very much. And yeah, thank you again. Thank you,
13:56 ↗ Nate. Brian Weinstein.
14:13 ↗ My name is Brian Weinstein. My address is on file. I'd like to congratulate Councilmember
14:18 ↗ Barber and Mayor Butler for their service to the city. Maybe a few
14:24 ↗ people know that the mayor and I had an election once together,
14:30 ↗ running for city council. And at no time during that election or any time
14:36 ↗ subsequent, have I ever questioned the mayor's sincerity or his commitment to service to
14:42 ↗ this community? And I will be sad to see you go, but happy that you
14:47 ↗ will be enjoying life after your service here the city so
14:53 ↗ congratulations to you um i'm here to talk about a couple of things i'm going
14:57 ↗ to sort of loop them all together the big one is the agenda bill regarding
15:02 ↗ the school impact fees provided by the issaquah school district i had sent an email
15:06 ↗ to council earlier over the weekend indicating that there's a math error in the calculation
15:12 ↗ i think that was forwarded on to the issaquah school district and at some point
15:15 ↗ they will be providing a corrected formula for you The main question that I continue
15:21 ↗ to have and still has not been answered despite also reading the
15:27 ↗ very detailed memo from the city attorney is the school district provides an additional discount
15:33 ↗ beyond what is required by law. The source of this discount, how
15:39 ↗ it is calculated, under what policy, under what procedures it is given is nowhere to
15:44 ↗ be found. So as a taxpayer, I question why that is being given. From a
15:49 ↗ policy standpoint, the city council needs to consider who is throttling growth within the
15:55 ↗ city of Issaquah. Is it the school district by giving a generous discount for
16:01 ↗ multifamily or single family build out? Or is it as should be a matter of
16:06 ↗ policy that belongs to the Issaquah City Council? Despite the fact that there is an
16:10 ↗ interlocal agreement between the two government entities, this still should be a
16:15 ↗ subject of concern for both. What concerns me is if that discount were rolled back
16:21 ↗ into the actual calculation that the school district used to get to its figures
16:27 ↗ prior to that discount. Essentially, there would be no students in the next several years
16:33 ↗ in the Issaquah School District, which we know is not going to be the case
16:37 ↗ and goes against the very rationale that the district has proposed and why they are
16:41 ↗ producing this revised impact fee. Vis-a-vis, there's gonna be more build-out, therefore, there are going
16:47 ↗ to be more students that will be attending school. So by giving this discount, they're
16:51 ↗ actually reducing the amount of money that would be needed for the build-out of these
16:56 ↗ very students. I will pass to the city clerk a calculation that I've made
17:02 ↗ just by way of example, and I don't know the exact numbers, but there's approximately
17:08 ↗ 400 units at Gateway. Comparing the non-discounted disc
17:14 ↗ school impact fee to what the discounted school impact fee would be potentially there's 5.7
17:21 ↗ million dollars being left on the table add to that atlas and there's an additional
17:26 ↗ 4.9 million dollars left on the table so the difference between what the school district
17:31 ↗ would charge without the discount and what they're charging with the discount on these two
17:37 ↗ build outs of large residential units within issaquah the difference is over 10
17:43 ↗ million dollars that's a lot of money i think the city council
17:48 ↗ taxpayers and the school district owe each other an answer as to how that
17:54 ↗ discount came to be why it exists and what we can expect for the future
18:00 ↗ i will pass this in i hope you have a chance to look at it
18:03 ↗ thank you very much thank you brian
18:12 ↗ Jen Gray.
18:22 ↗ Good evening. I am Jen Gray, 22417 Southeast 36th Lane.
18:28 ↗ And before I say what I really came to say, I want to say thank
18:32 ↗ you for building that roundabout between Trader Joe's and
18:38 ↗ Target. Although a lot of people don't know how to use the roundabout, they'll figure
18:43 ↗ it out sooner or later, and it's so much safer than it was before. I
18:48 ↗ actually drive up that street now where I didn't before. But what I'm really here
18:54 ↗ for is to thank you for including the
19:00 ↗ Southeast 43rd Way traffic signalization and realignment project in the proposed
19:06 ↗ budget that you approved and are planning to ratify tonight.
19:12 ↗ We have almost 1,400 residents going in and out of Providence Point Drive
19:18 ↗ on 43rd on both ways. And the traffic has increased
19:24 ↗ significantly with all the build-out going up in Sammamish and
19:30 ↗ continues to grow, plus the Providence Ridge project as well. And
19:36 ↗ it is not safe. to make a turn, whether it's a right turn, definitely very
19:42 ↗ unsafe making a left turn off those streets. And so it is very
19:48 ↗ important to our residents there and just know that we have almost 1,400
19:55 ↗ voters there. So thank you. Thank you, Jan. No one
20:01 ↗ further has signed up to speak. Please.
20:10 ↗ And you're after. OK. Lindsay Walsh, 1769
20:14 ↗ 28th Avenue Northeast. You guys have several things on your regular
20:20 ↗ agenda. I'll try and get through them. First, with the architecture and urban design on
20:25 ↗ page 841 of the packet in the site walls section, I feel like even
20:31 ↗ under 35 feet should also be articulated and modulated. If we think about how long
20:36 ↗ 35 feet is for a wall, that would just be going on and on. I
20:41 ↗ feel like that, when we're talking site walls in specific, needs a little bit of
20:45 ↗ definition. In section A of that same page, it's missing the words shall
20:51 ↗ be, where we need to tell them it needs to be that way, not there's
20:57 ↗ just missing words. on the school impact fees I would echo what Brian said
21:03 ↗ I think we really need to have some time to discuss the discount unfortunately we
21:07 ↗ haven't had that time I think we do need to approve this so that we
21:11 ↗ gain any additional money since this is an increase but man we need to go
21:17 ↗ back to the table and actually have a conversation about that I don't agree with
21:20 ↗ the discount For the transportation benefit district, I really just feel like that's not
21:26 ↗ ready for a public hearing in January. The council really needs to have a meeting
21:32 ↗ on options. You know, what are the larger options? What is our strategy for funding
21:38 ↗ this outside of the budget? And so I feel like that needs to happen before
21:46 ↗ Oh, and then also, since we're putting in forth a transportation board, shouldn't they maybe
21:50 ↗ have a hit at it before we consider something going to a public vote? And
21:55 ↗ then finally, with the district visions, I think we all know that it's just not
21:59 ↗ ready for approval. I'm not really pleased with the idea of having three meetings
22:05 ↗ for PPC broken out by area. I think we need to have... more of a
22:10 ↗ focus on code and how that's actually gonna make a difference. Because it feels like
22:15 ↗ even if we go back and really finalize those district visions, I don't think it
22:20 ↗ gets us to where we need to be. And I'll talk more about that on
22:24 ↗ the moratorium, but I think we need to rethink about how we're addressing that
22:30 ↗ in the PPC meeting so that it can really come back to you guys the
22:32 ↗ way that you want it to be. So thank you. Thank you, Lindsay.
22:46 ↗ My name is Kay Haynes, 2830 Northwest Pinecone Drive. And I'm from the
22:53 ↗ Save Cougar Mountain Neighborhood Association, which is comprised of several neighborhoods that are concerned about
22:58 ↗ what's happening to our hillsides and forested land in Issaquah.
23:05 ↗ I know you have many daunting issues before you tonight, and I know the business
23:09 ↗ of governing is intense, but I want to say a word about our future as
23:15 ↗ an incredibly unique, charming town. Many of us moved here because of the
23:21 ↗ forest and the hillsides and the beauty, and we see a lot of threatening things
23:26 ↗ happening that have concerned us about where our community is going. And I would like
23:32 ↗ to just mention some of those things that are of concern to us.
23:38 ↗ You know, Issaquah is so unique. It's so completely unique in the region at this
23:42 ↗ point. But land is becoming more and more valuable, and engineering is becoming
23:48 ↗ more and more bolder. It seems like we can mitigate anything. We can reshape mountains
23:54 ↗ to our requirements. And All of this is making
24:01 ↗ our critical areas more vulnerable. Whatever happens, piece by piece, plat
24:06 ↗ by plat, it is forever. It's not like something that is going to change or
24:11 ↗ that we can go back on in a few months or a few years if
24:14 ↗ we did it wrong, if we got it wrong. It's gone. It's forever.
24:21 ↗ The developers talk about the great view potential of our hillsides. I've seen this in
24:26 ↗ print many times. But it dawns on me, this view is for a handful of
24:30 ↗ people who live on the hillsides. A handful of people. The individuals who can
24:36 ↗ afford to live on the hillsides versus the thousands of people who live in the
24:42 ↗ valley and who work in the valley. Thousands of people who drive the
24:47 ↗ freeways, who live across the mountain, who visit the lake.
24:53 ↗ All of these people are impacted by the viewshed. And that is many, many more
24:58 ↗ people than those few people who are able to live on the mountainside when it's
25:03 ↗ modified so intensely for development.
25:09 ↗ The other thing is obviously the forested hillsides aren't just aesthetic. And the fact that
25:15 ↗ trees absorb carbon dioxide and potentially harmful gases, that they reduce
25:21 ↗ the ozone levels, runoff, and pollution, noise pollution.
25:27 ↗ These are very significant things that aren't being considered in many regions or have no
25:33 ↗ purchase in many regions and in many areas of King County just because of the
25:38 ↗ intensity of the urban growth and the differences in development that have
25:44 ↗ occurred. We say we need affordable housing in Issaquah, and we do.
25:50 ↗ But homes built on forested hillsides with all of the expenses of clear cutting, reengineering
25:56 ↗ steep slopes, streams, steep roads, they only produce very high end housing.
26:02 ↗ Million dollar hillside homes do not provide affordable housing other than a few token units
26:07 ↗ at best. And we do need affordable housing in the city of Issaquah.
26:13 ↗ The idea was to build on the valley floor and we would like to do
26:17 ↗ everything we can to protect that. So what do we need? We need to bring
26:20 ↗ our policies and codes into congruence with our vision. We need a strategic plan for
26:26 ↗ parks and open space. We need a strategic plan for the acquisition of steep hillsides
26:31 ↗ and forested slopes. We need a continued moratorium until all issues have been clarified. We
26:37 ↗ need to value our hillsides as much as we value our streams. And the city
26:41 ↗ needs to become very active in exploring partnerships with the county and with other nonprofit
26:47 ↗ organizations and local citizens in trying to resolve these
26:53 ↗ issues that are important to everyone and to future generations. We have a great council,
26:58 ↗ and we are very appreciative for every one of you. We have a wonderful council
27:02 ↗ compared to so many areas. There is so much creativity and intelligence and
27:07 ↗ capacity here. And I just know that with everyone working together, we can find solutions
27:13 ↗ that will be beneficial to us, to our community, and to hopefully our forested
27:19 ↗ hillsides. Thank you. Thank you, Kay. Anyone else? Lisa?
27:34 ↗ Good evening, I'm Lisa Callan and I'm here with the, I'm on the Issaquah School
27:37 ↗ District School Board. And first off, I just want to thank Mayor Butler and Councilmember
27:44 ↗ Berber for, on behalf of the school district and the literally thousands
27:50 ↗ of children that had benefited from your work from the years of service that you
27:55 ↗ have put in. So if you think about the number of kids that come through
27:57 ↗ the Issaquah School District and the work that has come before you on that, there
28:01 ↗ is literally thousands of children that have benefited from that. So please don't take that
28:06 ↗ lightly because I certainly don't and I certainly appreciate every decision that you made on
28:10 ↗ their behalf. The other thing I wanted to, a couple other things I wanted to
28:15 ↗ bring up, there's been public input, I think, We've heard and also had been forwarded
28:21 ↗ on and passed on some emails from the council regarding the impact fees for the
28:27 ↗ school district. And I just wanted to share that we welcome conversation and
28:33 ↗ input directly to the school board. We will be starting the work on impact fees
28:38 ↗ in April for this coming year already, so in April and May, and we would
28:43 ↗ love to have the conversation, the community input, while we're actually formulating that plan so
28:48 ↗ that you can be part of that discussion and we can have your points of
28:52 ↗ view and we can ultimately make a better decision because we have more input from
28:56 ↗ the community at large. So I want to welcome everybody to come and certainly engage
29:01 ↗ the school board in that work because we do it on behalf of the entire
29:04 ↗ school district. which kind of takes me to my last point, which is the impact
29:09 ↗ fees in the capital facilities plan is really determined based off of the whole 110
29:15 ↗ square miles of the district, and it covers five municipalities. And the work that we
29:19 ↗ do there is really to the extent of the generation factors that are,
29:26 ↗ and the build-out that's going across our entire district. So the fee that is, that
29:31 ↗ we talk about for multifamily and for single-family is really associated at a district-wide viewpoint,
29:38 ↗ right? So it's not an individual municipality viewpoint. And we certainly understand the
29:44 ↗ concern and the impacts of growth that are happening in the city of Issaquah, and
29:49 ↗ with each municipality, it is unique. And with that in mind, and knowing that you
29:53 ↗ have that work and you have the the decision to make as a municipality to
29:59 ↗ do that based off of what your city needs to do in response to that
30:02 ↗ growth. And the district certainly respects that and honors that, and that's why you have
30:06 ↗ that decision before you, and it's not something that is put in the hands of
30:10 ↗ the school district or the school board. You know, we have to actually come to
30:14 ↗ you as a city to pay attention to what's happening in your city. So we
30:17 ↗ just wanted to make sure that you understood that as well, and the residents understood
30:21 ↗ that, and we look forward to engaging with everybody in April. Thank you. Thank you,
30:27 ↗ Lisa. Yes, please.
30:38 ↗ Hello. My name is Susan Neville, 2825 Northwest Pinecone Drive. I
30:44 ↗ have to remember to breathe. I'm a 20-year resident and
30:50 ↗ I would like to speak to the Forest and Hillsides. I'm also a member of
30:56 ↗ Save Cougar Mountain Initiative. We have a website you can go to,
31:00 ↗ savecougarmountain.org, which speaks more to it. But I would like to speak
31:07 ↗ to the Bergsma Windward 45-acre development that is adjacent to King County
31:13 ↗ Cougar Mountain Park and Issaquah Harvey Manning Park on Newport Way.
31:19 ↗ I will refer to it as the property as Bergsma. Almost one year ago, residents
31:25 ↗ of Issaquah started a campaign to make this forested hill side an open
31:30 ↗ space. This isn't about one piece of land on Newport Way. The forested
31:36 ↗ mountainsides and open space of Cougar Mountain represent the quality of life that drew people
31:42 ↗ here 20 years ago, just as myself, 10 years ago, and even the last three
31:47 ↗ years. The particular property, Bergsma property,
31:53 ↗ I'd like to list some of the opportunities of making it into an open space.
31:58 ↗ One of the most important is it retains an essential part of the Issaquah Alps,
32:04 ↗ the view shed from the valley floor, and our natural landscape. It offers easy
32:10 ↗ access to family hiking, a continuation of King County Cougar Park and trail system already
32:15 ↗ in place. And it retains the open space for Issaquah residents for the
32:21 ↗ future. The most recent Issaquah Park Survey of
32:26 ↗ Residents rated the quality of life in Issaquah as excellent to good.
32:32 ↗ And the top three priorities included parks, trails, and open space,
32:39 ↗ along with safety and mobility. Parks, trails, and open space actually was listed as most
32:45 ↗ essential to Issaquah's overall quality of life. It's an important element. That's
32:51 ↗ what keeps people here and brings people. Another unique opportunity is a
32:56 ↗ large trail had access with an easy walking distance of the nearby Park and
33:02 ↗ Ride. Currently King County consists of hundreds
33:08 ↗ of drive and park access trail and open spaces, but none of them have
33:15 ↗ ride-in hikes just 18 miles east of Seattle. So the big question
33:21 ↗ is today, how do we accomplish retaining Berksma property as open space? One of the
33:26 ↗ methods that we've used in the past is TDRs, or Transfer Development Rights, and it
33:32 ↗ has been a positive tool for Issaquah. The growth potential for Issaquah is at an
33:38 ↗ all-time high, and luckily Berksma property is categorized as a sending site.
33:45 ↗ Bergsma GDR could be bought and banked for use in the future. And
33:51 ↗ another example of one that was very successful was Park Point GDR agreement.
33:58 ↗ It used this tool, and it accomplished many things. It created 144 acres of open
34:04 ↗ space on Squawk Mountain, a 19-acre satellite Bellevue campus to come, 50
34:10 ↗ affordable houses, units, and $2 million in
34:15 ↗ transportation improvements. Other ways maybe to
34:21 ↗ accomplish this purchase is partnerships with King County Parks, which would enlarge the Cougar
34:27 ↗ Mountain Park. And this is of interest to King County, the easy access, as we
34:31 ↗ talked about, to park and rides. And even to start with, King County has $19
34:37 ↗ million in funds to buy open space sitting out there somewhere to be taking.
34:44 ↗ So what this comes down to is now in the hands of city council and
34:48 ↗ city administration to take the initiative to create this open space.
34:54 ↗ I'd like to leave you with a few. On our website,
35:00 ↗ we continually, continually get comments from people once they're aware of the development
35:06 ↗ coming forward that they're pretty very good quotes that I'd
35:12 ↗ like to share with you. residents and non-residents of issaquah so the residents quotes
35:18 ↗ are please please pates excuse me please place me on your email
35:24 ↗ list i love that area of cougar mountain and it would make me sick to
35:28 ↗ see it developed and another resident wrote i'm an avid hiker and trail runner
35:34 ↗ so it's really important to me that we keep the mountains in their natural state
35:39 ↗ my husband and i moved to issaquah purposely to be closed to so many amazing
35:42 ↗ trails Please let me know what I could possibly do. Thanks for your
35:48 ↗ time. Thank you, Susan. Yes, please. I believe there
35:54 ↗ was someone, if you just sort of make your way up here, you'll be next.
36:01 ↗ Good evening, my name is Julie Clark. I live at 915 Bear Ridge Court Northwest.
36:07 ↗ And I am also with Save Cougar Mountain Initiative City Council had
36:13 ↗ listened to residents express their concerns about the development, and this is regarding Bergsma.
36:19 ↗ City Council had listened to residents express their concerns about the development and list city
36:25 ↗ staff's presentation, which stated that the Bergsma development agreement,
36:31 ↗ if the Bergsma development agreement was denied, the property owners would not be building a
36:35 ↗ connector road, and on one of the slides presented, provided in the packet on
36:41 ↗ the evening of June 19, 2017, they showed that without a
36:47 ↗ development agreement, there would be no emergency access for TALIS. You,
36:53 ↗ the Issaquah City Council, voted unanimously to deny the development agreement for the
36:59 ↗ Bergsma property. In doing so, you also consciously voted to deny the building of
37:05 ↗ an access road between TALIS and Newport Way. So it came as a surprise to
37:11 ↗ me to learn that the city staff are working hard to provide a road. Currently,
37:16 ↗ it is being referred to as a utility trail where water will be connected from
37:21 ↗ Harvey Manning Park to Bergsma. The issue, though, is that the city wants to put
37:26 ↗ this utility trail in the same location as the previously proposed connector road.
37:32 ↗ They want the utility trail to be, by some reports, eight feet wide, other reports,
37:36 ↗ 18 feet wide. And most concerning of all is that
37:42 ↗ unlike the neighborhood trails of Tallis, the utility trail will be paved.
37:49 ↗ This leaves little doubt that this utility trail could become a connector road,
37:54 ↗ particularly when, as recently as October 31st, an email was
38:00 ↗ received from city staff confirming that there may be an emergency access road developed
38:07 ↗ If a utility road, in fact, needs to be developed between Harvey Manning Park and
38:12 ↗ Bergsma, it should mirror the current setting of the environment and the
38:18 ↗ trails within Talis. In addition to my comments regarding this
38:24 ↗ particular road and my concerns, I also wanted to keep my comments to five minutes.
38:31 ↗ under five minutes but first i realize that there's a number of topics being discussed
38:36 ↗ at this evening's meeting so i'd like to support the extension of the building moratorium
38:42 ↗ as i see current buildings going up in our city it is clear we need
38:46 ↗ to allow for the codes to be rewritten to reflect the vision of the city
38:53 ↗ I think developers should pay their fair share of school impact fees and their fair
38:57 ↗ share of fees to improve roads for the increased population that their developments bring.
39:04 ↗ Developers should not be given a free ride, so please increase the
39:09 ↗ developer's fees. I also think that property owners of multifamily housing
39:15 ↗ should have to pay property taxes that benefit our schools so that the current
39:21 ↗ single-family homeowners do not have to pay extra to cover the multi-family
39:27 ↗ owners share thank you thank you julie
39:38 ↗ hi my name is brookie shoal i am the president and treasurer of the talus
39:43 ↗ residential association and i live at 522 timber creek drive northwest
39:49 ↗ Regarding item N on tonight's consent calendar, the end of the Talus development agreement,
39:55 ↗ I wanted to come before you to let you know that the Residential Association is
39:59 ↗ in support of ending the agreement as soon as possible. And we also really appreciate
40:05 ↗ and support the city's plan to hold a community meeting with our residents in January.
40:11 ↗ We'd like to end the agreement as soon as possible to prevent the master developer
40:15 ↗ from continuing to make rash modification requests at the 11th hour of the agreement's
40:21 ↗ expiration. As you're aware, the city recently received a request for residential zoning
40:27 ↗ and 77 ERUs to be added to parcel 17B and for tract C, the utility
40:32 ↗ area off of SR 900, to be developed to the tune of 288 ERUs.
40:39 ↗ So although we support ending the agreement, We are also in a bit of angst
40:44 ↗ that we still have quite a few open questions about what will and will not
40:49 ↗ happen after the agreement ends. For example, what happens to the open ERUs
40:54 ↗ when the agreement ends? How will the new Central Issaquah Design Standards
41:01 ↗ apply to the underdeveloped areas that we have still in TALIS? Does this change make
41:06 ↗ it possible for an atlas-like building to be built in TALIS? Will we be able
41:12 ↗ to protect our existing trees? We have several questions like these that I
41:18 ↗ know that we'll address when the city has a meeting with us. So we look
41:23 ↗ forward to the community meeting to get answers to these and other questions. But we
41:28 ↗ do support ending the agreement in parallel. It's not necessary to run a sequential process
41:33 ↗ where the final vote is not proposed to take place until March or April of
41:37 ↗ 2018. Thank you. Thank you,
41:42 ↗ Brookie.
41:43 ↗ David? Good evening, David Kapler, 255
41:50 ↗ Southeast Andrews Street. Just here to support the agreement with the city and the state
41:54 ↗ parks for the EIS study and the traffic study, and take pity on Nikki, who
41:59 ↗ has to get back to Olympia somehow tonight. So, thank you. Connie?
42:12 ↗ Okay, so I want to echo Brian, echo Kay, echo Susan, and echo part of
42:17 ↗ David. Only part, though. We need to
42:23 ↗ take the vote to raise the school impact fees. I think we need to send
42:26 ↗ a message throughout town that we need to pay for things. And it shouldn't all
42:31 ↗ be coming back on the communities to do levies and bonds when we have unrealized
42:37 ↗ impact fees that are already set up to be utilized. And then one last thing
42:41 ↗ on the Lake Sammamish State Park Agreement, which is where I was in slight disagreement
42:45 ↗ with Dave. I think we also need to make sure that the scoping, which is
42:49 ↗ the inclusion of what projects will be in the EIS and the development agreement,
42:55 ↗ be part, a major part of the public process. Because that's what the community even
42:59 ↗ cares about and will know about. By the time you get to EIS, it's all
43:02 ↗ gibberish. Thanks. Thank you, Connie. Yes, please.
43:17 ↗ Nikki Fields, I'm from Washington State Parks. I'm a parks planner. And we're
43:23 ↗ really excited about the possibility of the agreement with the city of Issaquah. And I
43:28 ↗ just wanted to express that. We've been working with you for years to improve Lake
43:33 ↗ Sammamish State Park. And we're kind of at a crossroads now. We've completed some major
43:38 ↗ projects, and we're looking at what our next big investments are. And we need to,
43:44 ↗ there's a lot of proposals on the table. We need to figure out which of
43:47 ↗ them are consistent with the state parks mission and vision. And completing an
43:52 ↗ EIS will help us do that. And I also wanted to say that a public
43:58 ↗ process is a big piece of what state parks is planning for this, that we
44:03 ↗ intend to involve the public in figuring out what is in the scoping before we
44:07 ↗ get into the environmental implications. So thank you so much. Thank you, Nikki.
44:14 ↗ Steve, are you going to speak this evening?
44:28 ↗ So first of all, I want to take a moment to thank Councilmember Eileen Barber
44:31 ↗ for championing things here in Issaquah. I associate you most with kind of educating people
44:37 ↗ about the beauties of Issaquah and Salmon Days, so thank you for that. Mayor Butler,
44:40 ↗ thank you for kind of your leadership in championing things and kind of that small
44:44 ↗ town feel here in Issaquah. So I wanted to thank you both for that. If
44:48 ↗ I'm out of order for talking directly to council members, sorry. Oh well. We'll forgive
44:54 ↗ you this one time, Steve. I like the Christmas reason as you walk down Front
44:59 ↗ Street on the lampposts. So it's kind of cool feature, so thank you. Consent calendar
45:05 ↗ item A, I'm sorry, I, AB 7508. personnel policy i sent some comments in
45:11 ↗ i don't think that's ready yet i think there's some cost features of allowing people
45:14 ↗ to cash in their sick leave that should be reviewed before that gets approved
45:24 ↗ regular business item c a b 734 for district visions i agree it needs some
45:28 ↗ more discussion i believe that's going back to ppc so i'd like to see that
45:32 ↗ get some more discussion i agree with the comment on that lindsay made on the
45:35 ↗ articulated walls needing further discussion and review, particularly item D 7342,
45:42 ↗ architectural fit and urban design. I still think that needs to be part of that
45:46 ↗ needs to be looking at the size and scales of the buildings that we're looking
45:50 ↗ at as part of the articulated or as part of the architectural fit. If it's
45:54 ↗ a large building in some areas that are considered, I forget the term, historic is
45:59 ↗ a quad, then I think that needs to be looked at as part of that.
46:03 ↗ And maybe that's more of the moratorium issues. Item H,
46:09 ↗ Brian articulated it pretty well. I only looked at the Atlas building and the cost
46:13 ↗ for that. He went further. I'm glad to see the city council looking forward to
46:18 ↗ this in April and May timeframe, but this is something that's being brought forward today.
46:22 ↗ I don't know about the legal language of things like the agreements between the city
46:27 ↗ council and Issaquah School District, but it seems to me that all of you are
46:33 ↗ abrogating your duty unless you insist that more or less discount fees be applied and
46:39 ↗ get the monies that will be used going forward throughout. Thanks. Thank
46:44 ↗ you, Steve. Is there anyone else desiring to speak this evening? Anyone else?
46:50 ↗ Third and final call, seeing no one. And audience comments are closed and we'll now
46:56 ↗ move to committee and regional reports, beginning with Mariah. Thank you,
47:02 ↗ Mr. Mayor. The Eastside Human Services Forum held its annual meeting on December
47:09 ↗ 5th. And during that meeting, there was just a really great overview with different cities,
47:15 ↗ including Issaquah, sharing all of the information and lessons learned from the needs
47:21 ↗ assessments. So it really gave a great opportunity to share a great regional overview
47:27 ↗ of the kinds of work that's being done across the cities and some best practices.
47:31 ↗ So that was a great meeting, good end to the year for that group. And
47:38 ↗ then on Thursday, December 14th, I attended the Economic Development Council's
47:44 ↗ fourth quarter annual board meeting. This was a big meeting for the group.
47:49 ↗ There's a proposed resolution to join what is called the Regional Economic Development
47:55 ↗ Alliance. And that is a relationship and partnerships
48:01 ↗ have been being worked on between the Trade Development Alliance of Greater
48:07 ↗ Seattle, the EDC, the Economic Development Council, and Seattle and King
48:12 ↗ County, and then the China Relations Council. So this idea has come
48:18 ↗ together to develop this regional economic alliance, and the EDC has
48:24 ↗ decided that they would like to go forward and join this alliance. So this is
48:30 ↗ a really big startup. that they're going to be working on. And
48:36 ↗ I'm just gonna read a little bit about it because we're gonna be talking more
48:39 ↗ about this and I wanna just give you a snapshot. The Economic Development Council of
48:44 ↗ Seattle and King County, EDC's business attraction expertise and focus are essential
48:51 ↗ to successfully establishing the regional alliance as a world-class economic development organization.
48:57 ↗ It is proposed that the EDC join the regional alliance to form the backbone of
49:01 ↗ the alliance's business attraction work. EDC's full complement of staff and programs that support business
49:07 ↗ attraction would join the regional alliance. EDC's associate development organization designations
49:12 ↗ supporting business retention and expansion would not be merged. Redesignation would be
49:18 ↗ determined by King County. So that's basically saying that some of the administrative parts and
49:23 ↗ the business development parts, the staffing part of the EDC would
49:29 ↗ then, they would look to handle that through King County. This would start In July
49:34 ↗ of 2018, it would be managed by three separate boards, the executive board, a
49:40 ↗ leadership council, and an investor board. They're looking to hire a CEO.
49:46 ↗ Right now, they're starting a search, and they're doing seed funding of $2 million to
49:51 ↗ start this up. $1.5 million of that is private, and they're looking for $500,000
49:59 ↗ from the public sector. So this is just... has been a long time coming but
50:05 ↗ they really um now have a plan in place so we'll be talking more about
50:11 ↗ that and is a cause involvement thank you thank you mariah
50:17 ↗ bill thank you mr mayor to speed things up here i'm just going to mention
50:20 ↗ the infrastructure committee meeting which is this thursday night it has a great agenda please
50:25 ↗ come we'll be talking to continue our conversation on small cell uh permit request Solid
50:31 ↗ Waste, the most important thing probably is Old Town traffic, if you
50:36 ↗ live in Old Town, you should come. And also Newport Way, Maple to Sunset. Thank
50:41 ↗ you. Thank you, Bill. Paul? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
50:47 ↗ The Lodging Tack Advisory Committee will be meeting soon at a date to be determined
50:51 ↗ to draft a roadmap the process of establishing a destination marketing organization
50:57 ↗ or DMO. The goal is to have the roadmap in time for the services and
51:01 ↗ safety committee meeting in January, where that is currently slated to be considered. The roadmap
51:07 ↗ will include a public engagement meeting to discuss the establishment of a DMO, from
51:13 ↗ which the LTCH will then update its plan for the DMO and submit this in
51:18 ↗ February back to Services and Safety for its recommendation with final action by the council
51:23 ↗ by the end of February, hopefully. That concludes my report.
51:30 ↗ Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for everything. Tuesday, December 12th, the
51:36 ↗ Services and Safety Committee met at 6.30 here in Chambers. We had four bills in
51:40 ↗ front of us. 7401, the Senior Center Long-Term
51:46 ↗ Operations, we voted 3-0 to bring it forward to full council. 7493,
51:53 ↗ Lake Samammer State Partnering Agreement is on tonight's agenda. 7508, Personnel Policy
51:59 ↗ Manual regarding sick leave, we voted 3-0 to bring it forward. It's on tonight's consent.
52:05 ↗ And 7519, eCity, the
52:11 ↗ software that we use, customer management software, moving forward with an interlocal
52:17 ↗ agreement. We also voted 3-0 to bring it forward, and it's on consent this evening.
52:23 ↗ Then Wednesday, December 13th, I chaired my last Sound Cities Association pick. meeting the
52:29 ↗ major business of the day was to elect Ed Prince from the Renton City Council
52:34 ↗ as chair and Kristi Mouchau from Sammamish as the vice chair and they are going
52:39 ↗ to do a great job next year very excited this concludes my report thank you
52:44 ↗ Tola Eileen no report this evening Mary Lou thank you Mr. Mayor
52:50 ↗ On December 5th, I attended the Eastside Fire and Rescue Finance and Administrative Committee meeting.
52:56 ↗ We had one item to discuss, which was a continuation of a discussion on motor
53:01 ↗ vehicle accident revenues, and that was move forward to the board meeting. The Eastside
53:07 ↗ Fire and Rescue board meeting was on December 14th, and I had five items that
53:12 ↗ I wanted to report back on. First off, the recognition of the retirement of
53:18 ↗ long-serving Director Eileen Barber, retiring from Eastside Fire and Rescue, and
53:24 ↗ City of Sammamish Director Bob Keller. Second, we were notified that the Maple Valley Fire
53:30 ↗ District is potentially looking for some contracting opportunities with Eastside Fire and Rescue, and we'll
53:35 ↗ get more information on that later. Also, the City of Duval is putting in a
53:40 ↗ contract request for just fire prevention services, but Eastside Fire and Rescue is receiving a
53:45 ↗ lot more of these requests in the last couple of years than they did before,
53:49 ↗ which is good. There is a brief discussion about an update on the
53:55 ↗ PFAS situation, which has been talked about both at our city council and
54:01 ↗ with a working group with Ecology and Sand Flat Water. So the board got a
54:05 ↗ small update on that. And the last one was a, they call it a new
54:10 ↗ member or potential director orientation, which is a new feature that
54:16 ↗ introduced in the last couple of years and the fire chief and the board chair
54:20 ↗ put on this orientation and we had council member batiz future council member
54:26 ↗ chris ray and council member ramos our alternate attend and it's a
54:32 ↗ very very brief but very informative meeting um a couple more little
54:37 ↗ things um december 15th they attended along with council member ramos the city of issaquah
54:46 ↗ audit exit interviews for fiscal year 2016. It was the second audit that was
54:52 ↗ completed this year. Both years 2015 and 2016 were completed in the same year.
54:58 ↗ There was a carryover of one item from the following year, which is a complicated,
55:04 ↗ Real estate transaction that was booked, but not booked in the right category, and that
55:09 ↗ is still getting sorted out and still was showing up this year, but it is
55:13 ↗ something that the auditors have worked with city staff to put to bed. On December
55:19 ↗ 15th, I attended the Greater Esquad Chamber of Commerce board meeting. I spoke about moratorium
55:25 ↗ and listened to concerns from the Chamber about how a six-month extension of a moratorium
55:30 ↗ could be perceived in the business community and in the development community. I discussed the
55:35 ↗ expected timeline for completion of the district visioning work item.
55:42 ↗ And also pointed out that if all items were complete, the City did not need
55:47 ↗ to wait till the end of the six-month for the moratorium lift. The city administrator
55:52 ↗ also attended. We talked, he talked about a lot of issues. The budget had been
55:57 ↗ finalized, but not yet approved. There was discussion about a pilot parking enforcement. Actually, those
56:03 ↗ might have been two items I brought up. I can't remember. The questions from the
56:06 ↗ chamber on the progress of the 62nd Street project and the reopening of the under
56:11 ↗ crossing. The chamber has identified this as an issue of high concern to them, and
56:15 ↗ they ask for updates frequently about it. They're very interested in reestablishing this access as
56:21 ↗ soon as possible. And there was also some questions about the state park and the
56:25 ↗ city's relationship with the state park and possible future uses of Hans Jensen facility in
56:30 ↗ East Lake Sammamish. So lots of topics there. And into my report, Mr. Mayor. Thank
56:34 ↗ you. Thank you. Stacey. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The Council's Land and Shore Committee met
56:39 ↗ on December 7th. We had three items on our agenda. All three are on our
56:42 ↗ regular agenda tonight. Agenda Bill 7344, Central Isquad District Visions. Agenda
56:48 ↗ Bill 7507, Inclusionary Zoning Requirements. And 7503, Short Platten Boundary Line, regarding the
56:55 ↗ city owned parcel that we formerly have been referencing as the King County Island Parcel.
57:00 ↗ So I will just save discussion on those items until later. The next meeting of
57:05 ↗ land and shore, I think, would be scheduled for January 4th, but we don't have
57:10 ↗ an agenda yet. Thank you. Thank you, and I have no report this
57:16 ↗ evening, so we will now move to the consent calendar, and I'd ask if the
57:21 ↗ accounts payable and payroll for December 18th have been reviewed? I have, yes. Thank you.
57:28 ↗ I would ask the clerk to read into the record the consent calendar.
57:34 ↗ consent calendar was distributed to council in advance for study if authorized council action will
57:39 ↗ occur by single motion regarding the following items item a seeks approval of the accounts
57:43 ↗ payables and payroll of december 18th items b through f seeks approval of the minutes
57:48 ↗ of the council committee work session of november 13th and the special work sessions of
57:53 ↗ november 15th and 27th the special meeting of december 4th and the regular meeting of
57:57 ↗ december 4th Item G, AB 7400, Issaquah Police Officers
58:02 ↗ Association Collective Bargaining Agreement seeks to approve contract and adopt ordinance. If adopted, it
58:08 ↗ will be assigned number 2814. Item H, AB 7504, amendments to IMC 2.06.120,
58:16 ↗ public meeting executive sessions, seeks to adopt ordinance. If adopted, it will be assigned number
58:20 ↗ 2815. Item I, AB 7508, personnel policy manual
58:26 ↗ changes resulting from state sick leave requirements, seeks to approve resolution. If approved, it will
58:32 ↗ be assigned number 2017-17. Item J, AB 7519, eCity
58:38 ↗ Gov Alliance interlocal agreement, seeks to adopt ordinance. If adopted, it will be assigned number
58:43 ↗ 2816. Item K, AB 7520, Eastside Transportation Partnership agreement,
58:49 ↗ seeks to authorize. Item L, AB 7522, creating the visit is isaquah organization
58:55 ↗ seeks referral to council services and safety committee item m ab7523 end of isaquah
59:01 ↗ highlands development agreements seeks approval of schedule and referral to council land and shore committee
59:06 ↗ item n ab7524 end of talus development agreement seeks approval of schedule and referral to
59:12 ↗ council land and shore committee and item o ab7525 amending 2018 property tax levy
59:18 ↗ seeks to adopt ordinance and approve resolution If adopted, they will be assigned number 2817
59:24 ↗ and 2017-18. This concludes the reading. Thank you. Does any council
59:30 ↗ member desire to remove any item from the consent calendar for consideration under
59:36 ↗ regular business? Stacey? I move to adopt the consent calendar
59:42 ↗ as presented. Second. It's moved and seconded. All those in favor signify by saying aye.
59:48 ↗ Aye. Those opposed, that carries unanimously. Moving now to agenda bill 7393, 2018
59:58 ↗ budget. Jen Olson, director of finance for a short staff
1:00:04 ↗ presentation. Good evening, Mayor Butler. We're at the end.
1:00:10 ↗ The 2018 proposed budget, after the December 4th public hearing that
1:00:16 ↗ was continued to tonight, the council conducted two budget work sessions and
1:00:22 ↗ at the last December 13th budget work session, there were deliberations and the
1:00:28 ↗ administration was directed to adjust those amounts from the proposed 2018
1:00:34 ↗ budget. You'll have in the agenda packet is the council president's budget letter, that is
1:00:40 ↗ Exhibit B that was added, and information with regards to those adjustments that the council
1:00:45 ↗ directed the staff to make. So with that, I just have a very brief presentation.
1:00:51 ↗ There's a lot of information in the budget. I appreciate the council going through seven
1:00:55 ↗ work sessions along with the public hearings in order to get through the budget. It
1:01:00 ↗ was proposed by the mayor based on parameters in October. Those seven work sessions brought
1:01:06 ↗ us to tonight and through those council deliberations. The total overall budget is $138
1:01:12 ↗ million in expenditures for 2018 that will be offset by revenues in the amount
1:01:18 ↗ of about $130 million. From a general fund perspective, the general fund is
1:01:24 ↗ almost $51 million in operating expenses and revenues that would offset also
1:01:29 ↗ almost $51,000. The general fund is expected to decrease very, very slightly,
1:01:35 ↗ about $43,000 utilizing ending fund balance. There are a number of different types of funds,
1:01:41 ↗ those being the general fund, which is the major operating fund for the city. We
1:01:45 ↗ have special revenue funds, debt service funds, those capital project funds where capital investments are
1:01:51 ↗ being made on a number of transportation projects in 2018, as well as park projects.
1:01:56 ↗ We also have the business proprietary funds for our utilities. Those are our major
1:02:02 ↗ revenues coming from those rate payers. There's a 5% increase in rates, and there is
1:02:08 ↗ the identified use of ending fund balance in those funds for capital investments for our
1:02:13 ↗ water, sewer, and stormwater. That's all I have.
1:02:20 ↗ Thank you, Jen. Are there questions of Jen at this time? Being none then, I'll
1:02:25 ↗ open the public hearing at 8.03 and the same rules
1:02:32 ↗ that I did for our audience comments apply here. Has anyone signed up to speak?
1:02:37 ↗ No. Is there anyone who has not signed up to speak
1:02:43 ↗ desiring to speak? And yes, sir. Yes.
1:02:51 ↗ I've been here before. My name is Ted Ganlon. I live at Providence Point, and
1:02:57 ↗ I'm chairing the government
1:03:03 ↗ committee of some sort, and we're responsible for properties, construction, and also roads around
1:03:09 ↗ Providence Point. Let me say, I've been there for 12 years, and I always regarded
1:03:15 ↗ this intersection as challenging, but it never crossed my mind that it was really that
1:03:20 ↗ dangerous, but this last year looking at it, I really decided that
1:03:26 ↗ it is a terrible intersection. We have two entrances at Providence Point to the
1:03:32 ↗ main part of the body. One is on 43rd Way and the other is on
1:03:38 ↗ 225th Avenue. And they carry roughly the same traffic except a number
1:03:44 ↗ of minor differences. Now the one on 225th Avenue is under the purview
1:03:50 ↗ of Sammamish. And when you go out into the street, there are holding
1:03:56 ↗ lanes 11 feet wide, a lot of traffic coming. You wait in the holding lane
1:04:01 ↗ and you go when you can. And there have been absolutely no accidents I've heard
1:04:07 ↗ of in the last 12 years I've lived there. On the other hand, you go
1:04:12 ↗ out this intersection 43rd way, and there's a, from
1:04:19 ↗ the other side, and there's a holding lane which is nine feet four inches wide.
1:04:26 ↗ Now, our Providence Point bus barely fits there. And not only that, but the
1:04:31 ↗ alignment to the downhill lane there, the line on the side, isn't
1:04:37 ↗ precisely aligned with the continuation past that holding lane.
1:04:44 ↗ And just on the way here at night in the rain where there's insufficient light,
1:04:51 ↗ I surprised a few people on the car coming over by using one of the
1:04:56 ↗ uphill lanes rather than moving completely into the holding lane because I figured the holding
1:05:01 ↗ lane was more dangerous than facing traffic and going downhill. You
1:05:07 ↗ had not only that holding lane, but the The big difference are that you
1:05:13 ↗ have two lanes coming uphill, and once on 225th, they
1:05:19 ↗ merge and you just have one, or 228th, you have just one lane going in
1:05:23 ↗ each direction. And for some reason, that contributes to people going
1:05:29 ↗ much faster, something having to do with natural idea that if you start up a
1:05:34 ↗ hill, you've gotta hit the gas. And if you have a place where you're going
1:05:39 ↗ to merge at the top of the hill, you've got to get there before the
1:05:42 ↗ car next to you. And whatever it is, the traffic coming uphill is
1:05:49 ↗ one of the most dangerous parts of this intersection. And there are a number of
1:05:54 ↗ other problems, and I've sat observing this intersection from various angles
1:06:00 ↗ for lengths of time, and all sorts of crazy things happen there. It's
1:06:06 ↗ an accident, these are accidents just waiting to happen. We've had three this year, one
1:06:11 ↗ of which involved a broken hand, and two were on the order of magnitude of
1:06:16 ↗ total, and on the average, the police record about a two a year, but I've
1:06:22 ↗ learned that not all accidents get recorded by the police and not
1:06:28 ↗ all accidents are recorded by Providence Point either. They only look at accidents on their
1:06:33 ↗ property. So I thank you profusely for including that on your
1:06:39 ↗ budget, the idea of doing some more work on that intersection at Providence Point. We
1:06:44 ↗ are all very proud of you. grateful. Thank you. Thank you. Connie?
1:06:56 ↗ So I eat popcorn and throw it at the TV during budget sessions, just
1:07:02 ↗ in case you couldn't feel that from where you were sitting. So this last meeting
1:07:07 ↗ I thought was most fascinating in that people, the council kept asking
1:07:13 ↗ questions like, well, what about what about this fund? And they would say, oh, there's
1:07:18 ↗ $11 million in the mitigation fund. And then I heard the city manager say something
1:07:24 ↗ like, well, and we have another $9 million in this fund. And I don't think
1:07:29 ↗ those are the general fund. And then we have a 34% reserve in our general
1:07:34 ↗ fund when I'm a little confused. It's somewhere between 15% and 20% that we're supposed
1:07:40 ↗ to have. And so then a large part of the budget was, well, how can
1:07:44 ↗ we get more money to pay for improvements? And it's like, well, it sounds actually
1:07:49 ↗ like you have quite a bit of money. So I'm a little confused.
1:07:56 ↗ at the intent, obvious intent of trying to get more money before spending
1:08:02 ↗ extra money that you already have. You aren't doing it right now, but that is
1:08:07 ↗ a work plan for next year when that was an obvious ask by the administration.
1:08:11 ↗ So now as a bonus, Providence Point, boom, they're
1:08:17 ↗ finally gonna get something, I hope. In this budget, it's councilmanic bonding.
1:08:24 ↗ you're looking at doing some debt. Now, maybe that's a good thing because I don't
1:08:28 ↗ know the percentage interest, but I don't want anyone to hold Providence Point
1:08:34 ↗ hostage yet again because they vote for a future bond.
1:08:40 ↗ That's not fair. They should have gotten their project so many years ago and just
1:08:46 ↗ give up the idea that you need their vote and do it for them. It's
1:08:50 ↗ crazy making. So then my next small topic is communication. And it's a
1:08:55 ↗ thread throughout the city, but this particular budget session was very hard because this
1:09:01 ↗ was an opaque budget. And I could, there was no way for me to actually
1:09:06 ↗ understand the budget, and this is maybe my 15th budget that I've watched and been
1:09:11 ↗ involved in from the outside. I didn't get the information. It was not
1:09:16 ↗ possible for me to gather the information as the budget session was happening to understand
1:09:21 ↗ the numbers that you were talking about. And I hope to never see a budget
1:09:26 ↗ happen like this again because it was bowls of popcorn by the end. It's like,
1:09:32 ↗ I don't know what you're doing. So I hope you all do because I can't
1:09:37 ↗ even make a super educated comment from the tools that I was given. Thanks.
1:09:44 ↗ Thank you, Connie. Yes. I
1:09:50 ↗ think I'm going to go over to Connie's house during budget meetings. I felt the
1:09:54 ↗ same way. I mean, I have watched these things, and they are really hard
1:10:00 ↗ for somebody who's just watching it to understand. I think the
1:10:06 ↗ thing that frustrated me most was hearing that finally in your
1:10:12 ↗ sixth session talking about this on the 13th finally having a
1:10:18 ↗ conversation about whether funds should be used from reet versus mitigation versus general fund
1:10:24 ↗ like I feel like that should have been a way earlier conversation you guys
1:10:30 ↗ should be having strategy conversations rather than going into those individual line
1:10:36 ↗ items on whether or not this department gets this and that.
1:10:42 ↗ I feel like it was backward the way that it was addressed. And so I
1:10:46 ↗ was pleased to see that that was addressed, but I feel like it needs
1:10:53 ↗ a different format in the future. So thank you. Thank you, Lindsay. Anyone
1:10:59 ↗ else this evening? Yes.
1:11:11 ↗ Hi, I'm Daphne Gannon. I'm also from Providence Point. And I just wanted you to
1:11:16 ↗ know that it's been wonderful working with your council as we tried to get this...
1:11:22 ↗ project done. And I just wanted you to know that Providence Point votes to support
1:11:28 ↗ virtually all the bond issues that have come. We support the schools 100% because
1:11:34 ↗ we feel that we're all part of a community. So that's one thing I wanted
1:11:39 ↗ to say. The next thing I wanted to say is that you spend an awful
1:11:43 ↗ lot of time talking about how to spend the budget. And
1:11:49 ↗ I have been observing that a lot of the money that Issaquah gets
1:11:55 ↗ is from sales tax. And I know that there has been people working on it,
1:12:01 ↗ and I hope that somebody from Issaquah is working on trying to get some
1:12:06 ↗ sales tax out of online retailers.
1:12:12 ↗ Because the last three things I bought from Amazon.com, I paid zero sales tax.
1:12:20 ↗ And you know, I mean, I feel guilty not giving the sales tax money to
1:12:25 ↗ Issaquah. So I hope that you're working with other cities trying to
1:12:31 ↗ capture it. It shouldn't be hard. Amazon has my zip code, and the only zip
1:12:37 ↗ code that money could go zipping to Issaquah instead of having
1:12:43 ↗ me get a free ride. So I want you to look into getting more money
1:12:47 ↗ out of the retail so you have more money to spend. Thank you. Thank you
1:12:52 ↗ very much. Anyone else? Yes, please.
1:13:04 ↗ City Council members, Mr. Mayor, thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name
1:13:08 ↗ is Zach Hall. I live at 4432 192nd Place Southeast in the South Cove area.
1:13:14 ↗ And actually I'd like to speak on behalf of the South Lake Sammamish Union area,
1:13:18 ↗ which is often called South Cove in general. I just wanted to thank you and
1:13:21 ↗ especially Councilmember Batiste for including funding to improve Northwest Sammamish Road between I-90 and
1:13:29 ↗ and Lake Sammamish. That road is so dangerous, especially for the people that live in
1:13:34 ↗ that area, and it's really our only connection to downtown Issaquah. I can't tell you
1:13:38 ↗ the number of times that I've biked or walked down that path as a kid
1:13:42 ↗ and almost been hit, especially when you're driving east in a car toward Issaquah in
1:13:47 ↗ I-90 coming west. At night, the lights are in your eyes. You can't see the
1:13:51 ↗ sidewalks, so people will kind of come out of nowhere driving along that road. So
1:13:57 ↗ again, I just wanted to say thank you very much for including that in the
1:13:59 ↗ plan. I know there are a lot more steps along the process for how that
1:14:03 ↗ money should be spent and what's best, including with the shoulder hardening,
1:14:09 ↗ the plan from the state. So I know there's a lot more steps in that
1:14:12 ↗ process. So just thank you very much. Thank you,
1:14:15 ↗ Zach. Anyone else desiring to speak?
1:14:22 ↗ Anyone else third and final call? With that, the public
1:14:28 ↗ hearing is closed at 8.15. And
1:14:37 ↗ Jen, I thought you'd be out of here by now. I'm just waiting on you,
1:14:41 ↗ Mayor. Are there questions of Jen? Stacey? I
1:14:47 ↗ just don't see any questions, so I'm gonna make a motion. Okay. I would move
1:14:52 ↗ to adopt ordinance number. 2818. Adopting the 2018 budget, setting forth the
1:14:57 ↗ estimated revenues and appropriations for each separate fund, and estimated impact on ending fund balances
1:15:03 ↗ for all such funds combined of the city for the fiscal year commencing January 1st,
1:15:07 ↗ 2018, and repealing ordinance number 2794 relating to the Heimsters Public Works Operations
1:15:13 ↗ Pay Plan, and two. Oh, do we do, oh. Second. Yep.
1:15:19 ↗ Sorry. It's not a second yet. and adopt ordinance number. 2819.
1:15:25 ↗ Adopting an annual salary schedule for all city employees effective January 1st, 2018.
1:15:31 ↗ There you go. Does I hear a second? Mm-hmm. All game. Yeah. Oh, okay.
1:15:38 ↗ Questions or discussion?
1:15:47 ↗ I'm not sure where I would possibly start if I wanted to address the budget,
1:15:51 ↗ but there are seven work sessions on videotape if anybody wants to see how the
1:15:56 ↗ conversation went. I do want to take this opportunity, Jen, this is my sixth budget
1:16:02 ↗ on council, and I think it's, changed markedly in
1:16:08 ↗ some very good strides. I think a lot of the kind of the fund cleanup,
1:16:12 ↗ clarification on certain things that certain mechanisms that we've used over the years, the
1:16:18 ↗ refinement of the financial policies, the establishment of a capital plan, and that's linkage to
1:16:24 ↗ our operational budget, the five-year forecast as well,
1:16:30 ↗ All of those elements, I think, are noted improvements over what we've done in the
1:16:34 ↗ past. So continuous quality improvement, I'm definitely experiencing it this year. I expect
1:16:40 ↗ that there will be even more improvements in the future, but it's worth
1:16:46 ↗ taking a moment and stop and recognizing what we have accomplished this year.
1:16:52 ↗ You deserve much of that. So thank you to your and your staff for what
1:16:58 ↗ you did in bringing it to this point this year. Thank you. Thank you. Other
1:17:01 ↗ questions or discussion? Stacy? I just wanna follow up to what Paul said.
1:17:08 ↗ First of all, thank you to you and your staff for all the work that
1:17:10 ↗ you've put in. This was a great conversation. many, well, seven times three hours is
1:17:16 ↗ 21 hours plus time over. Doesn't include council meetings or all the time where we
1:17:20 ↗ spent reviewing. Doesn't come close to all the time that you spent working on the
1:17:25 ↗ budget. The transmittal letter, there's a letter that goes each year from the council president
1:17:30 ↗ to the mayor. And that letter acknowledges
1:17:37 ↗ in the bottom that it was challenging in many ways. And I think part of
1:17:42 ↗ that is because we're in transition. We started a new capital improvement plan this year.
1:17:46 ↗ And so we had to get used to working with that with the budget. And
1:17:52 ↗ then I also think we have some ways that we're presenting the budget that is
1:17:55 ↗ just a little bit different than we've done before. And like I said, we're in
1:17:58 ↗ a transition period. So hang in there, everybody who's working on it and also
1:18:04 ↗ following it because it's just gonna get better from here. I have faith and I'm
1:18:10 ↗ looking forward to it. So thank you, Gwen, for all of the work and to
1:18:14 ↗ all the council members for all the work that you put into it this year
1:18:16 ↗ as well. Thank you. Bill. Yes, thank you.
1:18:23 ↗ I have a little different view of some of the things and agree with some
1:18:26 ↗ of the public comment. I think our budget this year started out very opaque and
1:18:32 ↗ it took a long time, seven sessions because we had to get, it took a
1:18:37 ↗ long time to get some clarity on some items. And I think strategically from an
1:18:42 ↗ overall viewpoint, we did not really approach it the way I would approach a budget.
1:18:48 ↗ And so I have some just a lot of discomfort with a couple of things.
1:18:53 ↗ So as we look at some of the things that are in there, such as
1:18:58 ↗ some councilmanic bonding, some plans for the future, such as
1:19:05 ↗ the transportation benefit district, there's some requests for additional funding, if not yet coming
1:19:11 ↗ down the line, saying we don't have funding for a number of things. The way
1:19:16 ↗ I look at a budget is before you start asking for money, you need to
1:19:19 ↗ really know where your budget is and tighten things up and look at it a
1:19:23 ↗ little more wholly. So when you look at one item and you agree to fund
1:19:27 ↗ that, you know you're deciding not to fund something else. And I think we tend
1:19:31 ↗ to pick it up too much one piece at a time and don't weigh that
1:19:34 ↗ balance. So looking at it as a whole, with all the things coming and
1:19:40 ↗ one comment is there's money in the budget The ending fund balance is projected to
1:19:45 ↗ be quite a bit over what we have set as our minimums and our maximum
1:19:50 ↗ even. So in that sense, I think we didn't do the job that I would
1:19:55 ↗ like to see. So I'm not comfortable with the budget as it's come about. So
1:20:00 ↗ that's where I am. Mariah. And
1:20:06 ↗ I just wanted to thank you and the staff and everyone who worked hard on
1:20:12 ↗ the budget and council. for us working all the way through.
1:20:18 ↗ What I would like to see, we definitely are in a transition period and there
1:20:23 ↗ were comments that came that maybe it would be a little bit better this way
1:20:28 ↗ or I'd like to see this or that and I would like to see that
1:20:31 ↗ brought up in a work session in the first quarter. Well, it's still fresh in
1:20:34 ↗ our minds and we could talk about some of those things that, some ideas from
1:20:40 ↗ both sides just to give some helpful feedback for our next next
1:20:46 ↗ budget session. But again, I just wanted to thank you and the staff for all
1:20:50 ↗ the hard work. Welcome. Ola. So
1:20:57 ↗ I'd like to plus one on that on doing a debrief next quarter. I
1:21:02 ↗ think that, you know, we only do three things, really, on council. We spend money,
1:21:08 ↗ we write laws, and we set goals. And so this is one of the most
1:21:13 ↗ important things we do annually. I was one of the people that led the charge
1:21:17 ↗ to get it on camera so that people would understand the trade-offs that we face,
1:21:23 ↗ that the city faces in putting together a good budget. I think there's always room
1:21:27 ↗ for improvement, but I think that the administration did a good job this year. I
1:21:31 ↗ think we always kick ourselves in the 11th hour because there's things we didn't think
1:21:37 ↗ about. This is why I particularly like Mariah's idea about while it's still fresh in
1:21:41 ↗ our heads, coming back and taking a little bit of a look and seeing what
1:21:44 ↗ we might do differently. You know, I think, I continue to believe that
1:21:50 ↗ one of the paramount duties for us as electeds is to be able to look
1:21:54 ↗ at you, our constituents, and tell you clearly that we understand
1:22:00 ↗ how the city is spending your money and that we're being good stewards with your
1:22:04 ↗ money. And I believe that by looking at the large picture, by looking at the
1:22:08 ↗ macroscopic on police and parks and all the other departments of the city,
1:22:15 ↗ that I can do that, that I can look you in the eye. and tell
1:22:18 ↗ you that we are being cautious and good stewards with your money. So in that
1:22:21 ↗ sense, the process worked. Thank you. Thank you, Tola. Mary Lou? So Jen, I just,
1:22:27 ↗ I wanted to compliment you as well. I wanted to go about it a slightly
1:22:32 ↗ different way though. There was an ad hoc financial committee that was formed this year
1:22:36 ↗ that Councilmember Martson Winterstein and I sat on and we were the first ones to
1:22:40 ↗ be introduced to what you called our new financial modeling tool, which I,
1:22:47 ↗ the extra time we had with you was awesome, but it also was one of
1:22:50 ↗ the reasons why I was very comfortable with your recommendations on how to fund the
1:22:55 ↗ capital projects that we looked at in the budget that we just approved. I feel
1:23:00 ↗ like we need to take more time with that tool and use it more often
1:23:05 ↗ and earlier on in the year. And also, that would be a great way for
1:23:08 ↗ us to figure out how a transportation benefit district might also be a piece of
1:23:12 ↗ that puzzle. But I feel like we took a really big step this year with
1:23:15 ↗ the Financial Ad Hoc Committee, and I'm hoping we can do that again. and get
1:23:21 ↗ more use out of that tool and see how we might fit the transportation benefit
1:23:26 ↗ district in. So because of that work you did with us six, seven months ago,
1:23:30 ↗ I was very comfortable with the funding proposal for, I think it's Providence, the 43rd
1:23:36 ↗ way intersection. So thank you for that. That was very helpful. Thank you. Anyone
1:23:42 ↗ else? Seeing no one then. All those in favor of adopting ordinance number 21.
1:23:50 ↗ 2818 adopting the 2018 budget, setting forth the estimated revenues and
1:23:56 ↗ appropriations for each separate fund, an estimated impact on ending fund
1:24:02 ↗ balance for all such funds combined of the city for the fiscal
1:24:07 ↗ year commencing January 1st, 2018, and adopting ordinance number 2819
1:24:15 ↗ adopting an annual salary schedule for all city employees effective
1:24:21 ↗ January 1st, 2018. Signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed? Nay.
1:24:28 ↗ The motion carries six to one with council member Ramos in opposition.
1:24:36 ↗ With that, we'll move to our second public hearing, agenda bill 7-1.
1:24:47 ↗ Expiration of temporary moratorium related to certain permit applications.
1:24:54 ↗ Keith Niven, Director of Services Development and
1:25:00 ↗ Economic Development for the staff presentation. Keith,
1:25:06 ↗ welcome. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, City Council.
1:25:15 ↗ This evening I'm going to open the public hearing for potential
1:25:20 ↗ extension or amendment of the existing temporary development
1:25:26 ↗ moratorium. So I thought it would be good to kind of revisit a
1:25:32 ↗ piece of the original ordinance that was passed back in September of 2016.
1:25:39 ↗ So I'm gonna go ahead and read this, it's not that long. Whereas since adopting
1:25:43 ↗ the Central Issaquah Plan, several developments have been approved, built, and or are currently under
1:25:49 ↗ review. After receiving significant negative reaction from the community about some of those developments,
1:25:55 ↗ the City Council asked the administration to assess whether the projects built under construction and
1:26:01 ↗ or in review thus far meet the CIP vision. That assessment, which was presented to
1:26:07 ↗ the council at its July 11, 2016 work session, indicated certain deficiencies
1:26:13 ↗ where the vision was not being met, including architectural fit with the community, urban design
1:26:19 ↗ elements, vertical mix use, affordable housing, parking, and district visions.
1:26:25 ↗ And the reason why I'm bringing this piece back to you is this is the
1:26:30 ↗ reason for adopting the moratorium back in September of 2016.
1:26:36 ↗ So where we are today, we have
1:26:42 ↗ finished some of the work items, and some of them are on your agenda for
1:26:46 ↗ later this evening under regular business. So parking, agenda bill 7,345,
1:26:52 ↗ that was approved by the council in August. Affordable housing.
1:26:58 ↗ So we had tackled that one through developing a housing strategy. And
1:27:04 ↗ that was approved, that was agenda bill 7,340. It was approved in September following
1:27:10 ↗ the adoption of the housing strategy work plan. the Council asked the administration to
1:27:16 ↗ bring forward two implementing actions, one for increasing inclusionary
1:27:22 ↗ requirement in Central Issaquah, and that's Agenda Bill 7507. That's on the
1:27:27 ↗ docket for this evening. And then also to adopt a pilot multifamily tax exemption project.
1:27:34 ↗ And that's also on the docket this evening, Agenda Bill 7488. Vertical mixed use,
1:27:40 ↗ the council approved that in October, agenda bill 7317. We combined
1:27:46 ↗ architectural fit and urban design into one work item. That is also on tonight's
1:27:53 ↗ regular business agenda, agenda bill 7342. And then the last item, district
1:27:59 ↗ visions, that's also back this evening, agenda bill 7344.
1:28:05 ↗ That concludes my opening presentation. Are there questions of Keith at
1:28:12 ↗ this time? Seeing none then, I'll
1:28:17 ↗ open the public hearing at 8-29 and ask if
1:28:23 ↗ anyone has signed up to speak. Yes, Ken Konigsmark.
1:28:35 ↗ Good evening, Ken Koenigsmark, 5713 285th Avenue Southeast in Issaquah. I'd like to start by
1:28:41 ↗ first offering my appreciation to Councilmember Barber and Mayor Butler as well for your
1:28:46 ↗ noble service to our community and the citizens here and really greatly appreciate all that
1:28:51 ↗ you've done and the time you've put in. um i also feel like i'm getting
1:28:56 ↗ old because i remember eileen helping me in the aisles of bent franklin after i
1:29:02 ↗ moved here and i also remember being directly involved in the
1:29:07 ↗ creation of both the isaqa highlands and the talus development agreements but that sets the
1:29:12 ↗ stage for what i'm about to say 20 years ago we didn't have talus we
1:29:17 ↗ didn't have isaqa highlands and we look now what's happened in a 20-year time frame
1:29:22 ↗ in this community And we've got to think about what it's going to be like
1:29:26 ↗ 20 years from now, especially as we debate the development moratorium.
1:29:32 ↗ I think it's absolutely essential it be extended and we get it right. I was
1:29:38 ↗ on the Central Issaquah Plan Task Force for two years. I was greatly disappointed to
1:29:44 ↗ see the first two projects that came out after that. And this is our second
1:29:49 ↗ chance now to get things right after we had those escapes. We've got to get
1:29:54 ↗ it right this time, and we've got to set the stage for the next 20
1:29:57 ↗ years, which will blow by just as fast as the last 20 did. And before
1:30:02 ↗ we know it, we'll have as many houses up in Highlands and Talos on the
1:30:07 ↗ valley floor, and we've got to get it right. The central Issaquah plan
1:30:13 ↗ does need more detailed, thorough, and deliberate refinement. It's probably 75
1:30:19 ↗ to 80% of the way there, but we've got to get it right on the
1:30:23 ↗ visions. Secondly, we've got to get the codes, policies, and regulations in place that
1:30:28 ↗ back up those visions to make them happen. We cannot leave it to the development
1:30:33 ↗ community do what we hope they'll do. We've got to make them do
1:30:39 ↗ what we want to have the kind of development in our community that enhances quality
1:30:45 ↗ of life for residents who live here today while also accommodating those who want to
1:30:51 ↗ live here in the future. We also must do things like clearly define
1:30:59 ↗ the public open spaces desired on the valley floor as that area develops and have
1:31:04 ↗ a master plan for where those will be, how they will each connect to the
1:31:09 ↗ green necklace, where is that specific routing and path of the green necklace, and what
1:31:15 ↗ will that include so that as the whole valley floor develops further, we've
1:31:21 ↗ got a master plan that we're working from. And I hope that can be done
1:31:25 ↗ before the development moratorium is lifted. I've got to
1:31:30 ↗ emphasize that Issaquah is such a unique, special, and blessed community,
1:31:36 ↗ unlike any in this region. Nobody else has the Issaquah Alps at your doorstep. Nobody
1:31:41 ↗ else really has salmon swimming up their streams like we do. This is what defines
1:31:47 ↗ this community. And we've got to maintain those fundamental core values
1:31:53 ↗ before we lift a moratorium and invite others to come in. And they need to
1:31:56 ↗ fit into our environment and fit into our culture and our
1:32:02 ↗ values. We can be choosy, we can pick who we want, we'll have absolutely
1:32:08 ↗ more demand than we could possibly handle. So let's get it right in the planning
1:32:13 ↗ and then allow only those who will do what we want to be able to
1:32:18 ↗ build and come to our community. Thank you. Thank you, Ken.
1:32:30 ↗ No one further has signed up to speak. Is there anyone else who has not
1:32:34 ↗ signed up who would like to speak this evening? David.
1:32:46 ↗ Good evening again to David Kepler, 255 Southeast Andrew Street. Now I'm gonna repeat what
1:32:51 ↗ Ken said, which so well. I guess I will stress one thing and that is
1:32:56 ↗ the green necklace. When you see the diagram, cartoon
1:33:02 ↗ type diagram in the plan, we've got some work to do. It's only fair to
1:33:07 ↗ property owners in the Central Issaquah Plan that they know where the green necklace is
1:33:13 ↗ gonna be, so that they see it as an amenity, they can plan around it,
1:33:18 ↗ they can take advantage of it and not feel halfway through their planning effort that
1:33:22 ↗ it's gonna be shoved down their throat or something. We need to map it out,
1:33:26 ↗ we need to look at the city existing park properties and figure out where that
1:33:31 ↗ is gonna be, the actual ring of the necklace and the connecting points to Grand
1:33:36 ↗ Ridge, Tiger, Squawk, Cougar, and the rest of Issaquah. Thank you. Thank you, David.
1:33:43 ↗ Anyone else desiring to speak this evening? Yes.
1:33:54 ↗ down if I can beat Ken and Dave here. But my main thing,
1:34:00 ↗ I usually speak from the heart. I don't go into all the politics and everything.
1:34:04 ↗ And I am. Could you just please identify yourself? I'm sorry. Jenny Bingham, 375 Southeast
1:34:08 ↗ Andrews Street. And so my reason for saying the
1:34:14 ↗ moratorium needs to stay the moratorium for quite a while. First of all, I believe
1:34:20 ↗ that the city needs to work with state routes. and our freeways to get
1:34:26 ↗ the traffic out of Issaquah as a bypass through Issaquah. There shouldn't be any more
1:34:31 ↗ building at all until we have a plan in place with the
1:34:37 ↗ state, with, I don't care who it is, we need to get the people out
1:34:42 ↗ of here. And until the parking issue, whether you're gonna hire a company to enforce
1:34:47 ↗ the parking, that's another thing that the moratorium needs to stay until the parking issue.
1:34:53 ↗ has totally been taken care of, and we see that those issues are taken care
1:34:57 ↗ of. Traffic calming, as you all know that I'm big on the traffic calming because
1:35:02 ↗ I live on Andrews and we get all the runoff there. And there is a
1:35:07 ↗ plan going forward for a pilot program. However, another reason to keep the moratorium,
1:35:13 ↗ we don't have a promise how that's going to work. And there's some questions that
1:35:18 ↗ they may want to take the left-hand turn lines and cover them.
1:35:25 ↗ I assume we get a vote on that in the 21st. But if they cover
1:35:30 ↗ them up, then we have another issue of people coming down, and then we'll just
1:35:33 ↗ hear them bump, bump, bump over the pilot program. So with the beauty of Issaquah,
1:35:38 ↗ and I've been here for 48 years, so I've seen a lot of change. The
1:35:42 ↗ last 20 years is not pretty, and the next 20 years, if
1:35:48 ↗ we keep up with the way we are now, It's not going to be pretty
1:35:53 ↗ at all. Thank you. Thank you, Jenny. Anyone else who has not
1:35:59 ↗ signed up, desiring to speak? Yes.
1:36:07 ↗ Mr. Mayor, members of the council, I'm Rob McKenna. I represent Upland Development Company. My
1:36:12 ↗ office address is 701 Fifth Avenue, Suite 5600 in Seattle. You did a lot of
1:36:16 ↗ homework over the weekend getting ready for tonight's meeting and then you made it really
1:36:19 ↗ easy by deciding to limit the extension of the moratorium to the central area.
1:36:25 ↗ And as you all know and your city attorney knows, that's exactly the right thing
1:36:28 ↗ to do because the elements of your work plan that affect areas outside of the
1:36:33 ↗ central district have been completed. And you've been very careful every step of the way
1:36:37 ↗ to follow the state statute governing zoning and development moratoria. So you're
1:36:43 ↗ taking another appropriate step tonight by limiting that moratorium's extension to the Central District
1:36:49 ↗ until the District Visions element can be completed in April, I think is the projected
1:36:53 ↗ date. So on behalf of my client, thank you. I know this has been a
1:36:58 ↗ long 468 days of this moratorium for the entirety of Issaquah.
1:37:03 ↗ And I know that he's not the only property owner, which is really happy to
1:37:06 ↗ see that for them anyway, it's coming to an end. So thank you very much
1:37:10 ↗ and have great holidays. And Fred, I have to take the opportunity to congratulate you
1:37:15 ↗ on a marvelous career in public service. It was always a pleasure to serve with
1:37:19 ↗ you, and I think the people of this region, not to mention the city of
1:37:23 ↗ Issaquah, owe you a great debt of gratitude, so thank you. Thank you, Rob. Anyone
1:37:28 ↗ else desiring to speak?
1:37:35 ↗ Oh, I thought, oh, Steve, I see you moving in this direction.
1:37:45 ↗ I get myself in queue. I didn't think I said last time I live in
1:37:48 ↗ Old Town for about 10 years now, Steve Pereira. So I don't think we're anywhere
1:37:52 ↗ near, and I actually think the wrong question is should the moratorium be lifted. I
1:37:56 ↗ think the right question is what needs to be done before we get to that
1:37:58 ↗ point. A couple of things or comments that I publicly heard that I think are
1:38:03 ↗ relevant. One was it seems like the next wave of construction might be more apartment
1:38:07 ↗ complexes and what can be done. Or is there something that can be done to
1:38:11 ↗ say maybe we need to hold off on some apartment complexes until we get some
1:38:14 ↗ of the other things that we need to go with it to ensure we get
1:38:17 ↗ those things? I don't have the answer, but I think that is one of the
1:38:19 ↗ reasons that needs to be looked at and dug into deeper to know that. Another
1:38:24 ↗ public comment I heard was that, and it applies to the Highlands area,
1:38:29 ↗ was stick a fork in it and call it done. How do we know when
1:38:33 ↗ we get through developing the Central Issaquah Plan that we've got what we want? what's
1:38:37 ↗ our measurement for success? How do we know it's time, it's done, we've done enough
1:38:41 ↗ that we don't want any more development? I think until we figure that out, we
1:38:45 ↗ need to keep the development more term in place. Another thing I heard was that
1:38:51 ↗ looking at this plan is talking about maybe beginning of a transformation from what we
1:38:55 ↗ have today to what we're gonna be. And to me, I envision the green necklace
1:39:00 ↗ being a little bit more firm than the caricature that was put up. as being
1:39:05 ↗ looked at as a green necklace, but it was more robust. So I think we
1:39:08 ↗ need to look at things like the tree canopy and the green open space where
1:39:12 ↗ we talked about 50% tree retention or canopy retention. That was something that got pushed
1:39:18 ↗ off of the workload for 2017 or 2018. I think that needs to be looked
1:39:21 ↗ at and be part of that conversation. I also think that it's not
1:39:27 ↗ as known as a being, and I'm okay with it, but it's central to, its
1:39:33 ↗ natural beauty it's salmon it isn't economic development isn't the driver for folks coming to
1:39:39 ↗ isaqwa it's known for its natural charm that needs to be maintained and kept so
1:39:45 ↗ again i don't think oh the other thing i also don't think it should be
1:39:48 ↗ limited to the central isaqwa plan i know we talked about old town old town
1:39:53 ↗ has received a discussion and there were some council members that talked about looking at
1:39:57 ↗ again next year and i think that We need to keep the
1:40:03 ↗ moratorium in place to look at what the housing standards should be. We're losing more
1:40:06 ↗ and more single small houses in that area. They're gonna be tore down. I also
1:40:11 ↗ think in the grander scale, we need to look at matching housing types, the same
1:40:15 ↗ housing types that are already in that community. That hasn't been nailed down further. That's
1:40:19 ↗ for the reason. I also think you need to look at a traffic plan for
1:40:22 ↗ the development that we've talked about putting into place before we open the moratorium. So
1:40:26 ↗ I'm just hopeful a lot more discussions will take place before moratorium gets lifted so
1:40:31 ↗ we can get some city code city code in place that makes those things happen
1:40:34 ↗ so everybody knows what to expect thanks thank you steve lindsay
1:40:42 ↗ lindsay walsh um i agree that the moratorium isn't ready to be lifted i'm
1:40:48 ↗ happy that we're going to limit it to central isaquai i think that's the right
1:40:51 ↗ direction gives the developers in the business community some options um
1:40:58 ↗ The thing that I'm concerned about is that we're looking at six months, and we're
1:41:04 ↗ saying the only thing that we need to address is district visions. And I just
1:41:08 ↗ don't think that goes far enough. I think we really need to look at the
1:41:11 ↗ code. And if we're going to give ourselves six months, we should bring a consultant
1:41:15 ↗ in, look at that code that backs up all of those work items. That means
1:41:21 ↗ that we're actually going to have things in code that says developers have to follow
1:41:27 ↗ that. Otherwise, I think we're just putting ourselves out in that same position once again
1:41:34 ↗ to say, OK, we have the central Isquad plan. Why didn't it work? Oh, because
1:41:39 ↗ the code wasn't there. So I think if we're going to take the six months,
1:41:43 ↗ it's not going to take PPC. three or four months to get through the
1:41:49 ↗ district visions, we can kick that out in probably two meetings, get that done,
1:41:55 ↗ and then let somebody focus on that code. Because otherwise, we're gonna end up in
1:42:00 ↗ the same position that we're at, and I don't think anybody wants that. Thank you.
1:42:05 ↗ Thank you, Lizzie. Kathy? Kathy McCrory, Greater
1:42:11 ↗ Issaquah Chamber of Commerce, 155 Northwest, Gilman. We have heard
1:42:16 ↗ earlier from one of our board members, Nathan Bosler, I just want to surmise that
1:42:23 ↗ the chamber wants to be perfectly clear in that we want all of the process
1:42:28 ↗ to continue. We believe in the process you started back in September 2016,
1:42:35 ↗ and we believe in finishing the project. The work has been excellent, and we look
1:42:40 ↗ forward to that finished product. Our... request is
1:42:46 ↗ that is there some way that local businesses can get back
1:42:52 ↗ to business while this process continues we have faith in you we have
1:42:57 ↗ faith in the city staff and all of the commissions that are working so diligently
1:43:03 ↗ on this but for 15 months the business community in issaquah has been on hold
1:43:10 ↗ and we ask that you find a way to let them get back to expansion
1:43:15 ↗ and creating those extra jobs. Those extra jobs will help alleviate traffic because we'll have
1:43:21 ↗ good paying local jobs coming to the area again being created by our own local
1:43:25 ↗ business community, and they can hire other local people that then do not have to
1:43:30 ↗ commute to Bellevue or Seattle or Redmond or Kirkland for those jobs.
1:43:36 ↗ paying jobs they'll be right here in Issaquah so again thank you congratulations on all
1:43:42 ↗ the hard work we are close to the finish line we trust that we will
1:43:47 ↗ get there with the same quality of work that you have provided all the way
1:43:52 ↗ along but we do ask to find a way to allow the business community to
1:43:57 ↗ get back to business thank you thank you Kathy Connie
1:44:11 ↗ Well, our problems are our success already, right? If we open up,
1:44:18 ↗ they will come and they will do what we allow them to do. And what
1:44:22 ↗ we need to do is say, you have to make Issaquah better
1:44:28 ↗ for the community and the businesses. And if we have to wait for those improvements
1:44:34 ↗ to come, then we need to wait because we want our town to be great
1:44:37 ↗ long-term not taking up short-term opportunities. Now,
1:44:43 ↗ onto the moratorium. It's more technical, really. I
1:44:49 ↗ think that you don't have the capacity to continue the rest of the city in
1:44:54 ↗ the moratorium with the work that has already been done. So from what I can
1:44:58 ↗ understand, anyway, you need to set that free. The Central Issaquah Plan portion of the
1:45:04 ↗ moratorium, um, I would like to see a few things not passed this
1:45:10 ↗ evening and have more work done to them. And that would be the architectural fit
1:45:15 ↗ and urban design agenda bill, 7342.
1:45:21 ↗ It's big, it's complicated, and I don't know that anybody has actually gone through the
1:45:26 ↗ whole thing to understand how it's gonna fit together. So I would actually like for
1:45:30 ↗ development commission to go through, not my idea, but, and try it out. see
1:45:36 ↗ what happens let's see if we can prevent some of the mistakes before it turns
1:45:41 ↗ into basically our code the district visions obviously
1:45:47 ↗ need more work they are supposed to be however visions
1:45:54 ↗ but the core problem of what has happened with our past central issaquah plan is
1:45:59 ↗ that we did not connect them adequately so i do think there needs to be
1:46:05 ↗ more connective tissue to implementation that gets carried along with divisions
1:46:10 ↗ otherwise the moratorium will not have been a success because we won't get better results
1:46:16 ↗ now the housing strategy that you all decided was enough i just don't think
1:46:23 ↗ covers enough territory, that's a very
1:46:29 ↗ narrow look at a housing strategy. And what I would like to see included in
1:46:33 ↗ something in that range would be what to do with existing
1:46:39 ↗ housing or buildings, because we don't need to just build affordable housing.
1:46:45 ↗ we can renovate affordable housing, we can do other things to create affordable housing. And
1:46:51 ↗ this push seems to me like, okay, we're gonna create new. And I just so
1:46:56 ↗ strongly disagree with that that I wanna toss that one back. The other ones, You
1:47:02 ↗ know what? It's not that they are great. It's just I fail to care, which
1:47:06 ↗ is really a sad statement of affairs. But this has been an overly complex year,
1:47:10 ↗ and something has had to fall out of my brain, and those things just fell
1:47:14 ↗ to the ground. So I'm going to say no comment. Thanks. Thank you, Connie.
1:47:21 ↗ Anyone else desiring to speak? Anyone else? Third and final call. Anyone else?
1:47:27 ↗ Seeing no one else desiring to speak.
1:47:33 ↗ I will close the public hearing at 8.48.
1:47:41 ↗ Just for the audience, this agenda bill, now that the
1:47:47 ↗ public hearing has been completed, is later on in our regular business
1:47:53 ↗ agenda after we deal with a number of the items that you see on the
1:47:59 ↗ slide that are a part of our regular business agenda this evening. Keith,
1:48:05 ↗ you snuck back up there. Is there something you wanna say about that? Not at
1:48:09 ↗ all, I have the next agenda item. Don't go away. Moving
1:48:15 ↗ now to agenda bill 7493, Lakes to Miami State Park partnering agreement.
1:48:22 ↗ Keith Niven, are you still the DSD director? I am. Okay.
1:48:35 ↗ Good evening again, Mr. Mayor, City Council. So this evening, Agenda Bill 7493
1:48:43 ↗ is a request by State Parks for the city to enter
1:48:49 ↗ into a partnering agreement with State Parks to
1:48:55 ↗ work on both an environmental impact statement and a development agreement for the state park.
1:49:02 ↗ State park, as you know, is located on our western edge of town.
1:49:09 ↗ And what we're talking about is there's a list of a number of things
1:49:15 ↗ that were included both in the 2007 master plan as well as have evolved
1:49:21 ↗ over more recent about the opportunities that
1:49:27 ↗ the park presents for us as a city. And
1:49:33 ↗ what we're talking about really is kind of building on the momentum that
1:49:39 ↗ has recently occurred in the state park, from the restoration of Sunset Beach
1:49:45 ↗ to the new play equipment, to the bathhouse. There's a lot of
1:49:51 ↗ state investment that has recently occurred in the state park. And what this would allow
1:49:57 ↗ for is for that momentum to continue. So
1:50:03 ↗ here's kind of a chronology of the things that have happened since 2009.
1:50:09 ↗ And you can see there's kind of a break point here after beach restoration. We're
1:50:15 ↗ talking partnering agreement. State Parks also has funding for a dock.
1:50:22 ↗ And if there was a capital budget passed in Olympia, they think they would also
1:50:27 ↗ have funding for a new picnic area. And then what we're talking about is in
1:50:32 ↗ 2018, working on an EIS and a development agreement. so that concludes this has
1:50:38 ↗ been both to land and shore but more recently to safety and services
1:50:43 ↗ services and safety or the other way around
1:50:49 ↗ so are there questions of keith at this time or tola do you have some
1:50:53 ↗ comments as chair of safety and services or would you like to take Make a
1:50:59 ↗ motion. Or Chair of Services and Safety. Either or. They both work. Well, I'd like
1:51:04 ↗ to move to authorize the mayor to enter into and execute a partnering agreement with
1:51:08 ↗ the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission committing to the funding of an environmental impact
1:51:13 ↗ statement, EIS, and traffic analysis for Lake Samanmur State Park and directing city staff to
1:51:18 ↗ begin work on a development agreement for the park in 2018 and furthermore, direct the
1:51:23 ↗ administration to bring an agenda bill to council in January 2018, providing a project scheduled
1:51:28 ↗ for the development agreement and eis and outline for commute for community outreach second
1:51:34 ↗ it's moved and seconded questions or discussion ola
1:51:40 ↗ um keith can you talk a little bit more about that that second bit um
1:51:45 ↗ in terms of uh schedule going forward it the way it's worded it's it's it
1:51:49 ↗ sounds like the schedule on the eis but really the the overall community engagement piece
1:51:55 ↗ Sure. I think right now, so city staff has really done no work on this
1:52:01 ↗ project yet. We were waiting to see if council was going to authorize the commitment
1:52:06 ↗ of staff resources to this effort. So assuming this agenda bill gets approved this evening
1:52:12 ↗ and with the adoption of the budget for 2018, the next step will be for
1:52:17 ↗ city staff and state parks to get together and really kind of work through the
1:52:22 ↗ process. The process will include both the scoping of the
1:52:28 ↗ EIS, so that'll talk about what to include in that. What we know is that
1:52:32 ↗ there's gonna be a traffic component to it, because there's been a lot of conversation
1:52:37 ↗ about potentially looking at moving the entrance to the state park closer to the intersection
1:52:42 ↗ of 56th and 12th. kind of closer to across the street from
1:52:48 ↗ where IHOP and ARCO are, as opposed to mid-block where it is now. And so
1:52:53 ↗ traffic is clearly going to be one piece of the puzzle. There's been conversations
1:52:59 ↗ about potentially turning the existing grass soccer fields into all-weather fields
1:53:05 ↗ and what the impacts that would come with that. So the first part of this
1:53:09 ↗ is really having some public dialogue about what to include in that process.
1:53:15 ↗ we'll move forward with the process so that first part will be i think talking
1:53:20 ↗ through what to include in both the eis and potentially the development agreement before any
1:53:26 ↗ work really gets done that's an important piece thank you
1:53:32 ↗ any additional questions or discussion all followed by bill it's important that
1:53:47 ↗ Should this pass this evening, I want it to be heard and understood as a
1:53:51 ↗ very loud and clear statement to the State Parks Commission and
1:53:57 ↗ our legislators in Olympia that this is a good faith effort on Issaquah's
1:54:03 ↗ part. This is a demonstration of good will in the form of spending our own
1:54:08 ↗ funds from the city to the state legislature that we are partners in shaping the
1:54:12 ↗ long-term development of Lake Samama State Park for the good of our citizens, for the
1:54:16 ↗ good of all the state citizens, and all users of the state park system.
1:54:22 ↗ There you go. Well stated. Bill? Yes, and I think one of
1:54:28 ↗ the key factors in this, and I've heard it mentioned a little bit already about
1:54:32 ↗ public involvement, I'm very happy to hear that the state parks said that's top on
1:54:35 ↗ their list as well, because that's what's gonna make this successful or not. So to
1:54:40 ↗ have that really be our top notch public outreach scoping and involvement to
1:54:46 ↗ figure out what we, everybody needs and wants there is the most critical piece. So
1:54:52 ↗ I can't, can't encourage that being top quality uh top-notch more
1:54:58 ↗ than anything else so thank you any addition uh stacy and i just want to
1:55:03 ↗ comment that the changes uh improvements at lakes and mamma state park over the last
1:55:08 ↗ um three or four years have been nothing short of um outstanding and so i
1:55:13 ↗ want to thank um the State Park Department Commission and city
1:55:19 ↗ staff and also this council for the, and I can't forget our legislators for all
1:55:24 ↗ the hard work in getting additional money for the park. And I enthusiastically support this
1:55:30 ↗ agenda bill because I think even greater things are to happen at Lake Samanah State
1:55:35 ↗ Park. What we once had just seven or eight short
1:55:41 ↗ years ago, a park that was in bad need of attention, the change, the dramatic
1:55:47 ↗ change in the last few years can't be emphasized enough. So I'm very excited
1:55:53 ↗ about this. Thank you, Stacey. Are you ready to act?
1:55:59 ↗ All those in favor of approving the long motion, that TOLO
1:56:04 ↗ made, which is in the agenda bill, signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed,
1:56:10 ↗ that carries unanimously. Just a short announcement.
1:56:17 ↗ Following the next item, agenda bill 7486,
1:56:24 ↗ Newport Way SR 900 Southeast 50, Fourth Street Corridor Concept will
1:56:31 ↗ taking a short break uh a short bio break so brianna uh
1:56:37 ↗ from public works engineering for the staff report and just as a reminder
1:56:44 ↗ uh this is another one that we didn't get to at our previous meeting and
1:56:49 ↗ uh we put you up front brianna so in case we run out of time
1:56:55 ↗ you'll get through this this is much appreciated mr mayor I'm Brianne Ross with Public
1:57:01 ↗ Works Engineering, and with me I've got Cecilia Sato and John Davies with KPGR Consultants.
1:57:07 ↗ And we are here tonight to talk to you about the Newport Way Northwest Corridor
1:57:11 ↗ Improvements. And this corridor concept addresses the
1:57:17 ↗ operational needs of the corridor at about the 10% design level. So we are looking
1:57:22 ↗ at the level of detail of the cross section and the intersection control methods.
1:57:29 ↗ We still have another three years ahead of us to figure out the rest of
1:57:32 ↗ the details to spend on design, environmental permitting, right-of-way acquisition. At
1:57:38 ↗ that time, we would address things like roadway elevations, walls, utility design,
1:57:44 ↗ specific pedestrian crossing treatments, future transit, school bus locations,
1:57:50 ↗ driveway widths, and corridor aesthetics. Tonight, we are here to present the
1:57:56 ↗ design report and its findings for your consideration and ask, shall the council
1:58:02 ↗ support the corridor concept? So the project
1:58:08 ↗ goals were developed in collaboration with our residents at the design workshops. This corridor concept
1:58:13 ↗ that you have in your packet balances those goals by providing continuous sidewalk, continuous
1:58:19 ↗ multi-use path appealing to a broad range of bicyclists, continuous bike lanes appealing to the
1:58:25 ↗ commuter bicyclists, left turn lanes and receiving lanes in and out of the neighborhood to
1:58:30 ↗ improve that access and accommodate traffic, changing the character of the roadway to be an
1:58:36 ↗ urban road, not a rural highway, and minimizing the roadway width to preserve
1:58:42 ↗ as much as possible of the hillside and environmental areas and native trees. So
1:58:48 ↗ we did our public engagement process, pilot process, with this project. We've had five public
1:58:54 ↗ meetings, and we've spoken with council, or CIC, six times. And then in
1:59:00 ↗ addition to that, we've had in-depth conversations with police, fire,
1:59:07 ↗ parks, maintenance and operations, Office of Sustainability, Economic Development, our long-range
1:59:13 ↗ planners, our short-range, our current planners, King County Metro, School District, Mountain-South
1:59:19 ↗ Sound Greenway Trust, WSDOT, and City of Bellevue. And
1:59:25 ↗ after tonight, pending your approval, we will be shifting into the share category of our
1:59:32 ↗ public engagement process. So like I said earlier, we have another three years. of us
1:59:38 ↗ and we anticipate we'll have ongoing communication with the public this isn't it we will
1:59:43 ↗ continue to go back out with them major design milestones once or twice a year
1:59:48 ↗ continuing to update our website push out some email communication and have one-on-one
1:59:54 ↗ meetings with property owners who are affected by purchasing right away our easements so there's
2:00:00 ↗ also going to be opportunities in the future to consult on the corridor character
2:00:06 ↗ So about a year ago in November, there was a meeting that was standing room
2:00:12 ↗ only in Tibbetts Valley Manor with most of the attendees being quite angry
2:00:18 ↗ with the city and where we were at. And since that time, we've heard many
2:00:23 ↗ diverse opinions about Newport, including should it be a five-lane road, should it be a
2:00:28 ↗ two-lane road. And so we have worked hard with the public to balance those priorities.
2:00:32 ↗ And so This is the result of that.
2:00:39 ↗ At the last public meeting, as people left, they were given a dot, and they
2:00:43 ↗ were asked to place the dot where they thought it belonged based on how our
2:00:48 ↗ design concept that you see tonight satisfied their requirements. And we asked if we
2:00:55 ↗ needed further improvement or if we were heading in the right direction. And so, I
2:01:01 ↗ think that we can definitely see that there's consensus that we're heading in the right
2:01:06 ↗ direction and there's public support for our conceptual layout. That being said, there still
2:01:12 ↗ are a small number of community concerns. There's many of these concerns that will be
2:01:18 ↗ addressed during final design, such as the driveway widths, site distance, and that's
2:01:24 ↗ referring especially to what could be or could not be planted in certain areas.
2:01:31 ↗ and turning movements around SR900. We're going to work with our counterparts in DSD
2:01:37 ↗ to look at the construction phasing and traffic control that the developers will be using
2:01:41 ↗ as they get further into construction. And then, intersection control at Oakcrest.
2:01:48 ↗ And so while at Oakcrest there are some items that will be continued to be
2:01:52 ↗ looked at in final design, such as the curb radii, future plantings, et cetera,
2:01:59 ↗ we do firmly believe that the proposed intersection configuration at Oakcrest is the
2:02:04 ↗ appropriate method of intersection control, both for today and for the
2:02:10 ↗ forecasted future in 2040. and I'm gonna let John
2:02:16 ↗ talk a little bit about why we think that.
2:02:23 ↗ Thank you, I'm John Davies with KPG. KPG worked closely
2:02:29 ↗ with neighborhoods all along Newport Way to really discuss what their concerns and issues were,
2:02:35 ↗ including the Somerville, I mean, the Summerhill neighborhood. Oakcrest Drive,
2:02:44 ↗ along with the REVA development, is a typical
2:02:50 ↗ type of intersection that we've seen many, many times before, where you
2:02:56 ↗ sort of have fairly light traffic on either side, heavy volumes. And we
2:03:02 ↗ believe, based on our many years of experience doing
2:03:08 ↗ intersections all over the Puget Sound, that the solution we came up is a good
2:03:13 ↗ solution. it's an appropriate solution for this type of corridor.
2:03:20 ↗ It addresses a lot of the, some of the issues that we heard. One of
2:03:23 ↗ the major issues is people who needed to make a left-hand turn into one of
2:03:28 ↗ the side streets really felt concerned about vehicles coming up behind them and the potential
2:03:34 ↗ for rear-end collisions. This will add those left-turn lanes on
2:03:41 ↗ either side to help people move out of that traffic, make access into the developments
2:03:46 ↗ even easier. With these project improvements,
2:03:52 ↗ we're gonna improve the level of service operation to a level service D. That's the
2:03:58 ↗ city's standard. What does that really mean, level of service D? Well, that means on
2:04:04 ↗ average, a vehicle pulling up waiting to make a left-hand turn, is gonna have to
2:04:09 ↗ wait somewhere between 25 and 35 seconds before they can complete that left
2:04:15 ↗ turn. So is that a short amount of time? Potentially, is that
2:04:21 ↗ an unreasonable amount of time? Not necessarily. Our analysis
2:04:27 ↗ looked at both existing conditions and also the 2040 forecasted
2:04:32 ↗ volumes. Now, both,
2:04:38 ↗ and the Summer Hill neighborhood are built out or will be
2:04:44 ↗ built out. There's not gonna be an expansion of these neighborhoods very easily. There's no
2:04:49 ↗ connecting through roads that would add traffic to these streets. Pretty much the traffic we
2:04:54 ↗ see today on those two roads will remain pretty much the same.
2:05:00 ↗ There's 55 houses up on Oak Crest Drive. There'll be another 40 houses
2:05:07 ↗ homes related to REVA.
2:05:13 ↗ When we looked at the traffic, we get about 15 vehicles attempting to make this
2:05:19 ↗ left-hand turn in the morning coming out of Oak Crest Drive. In the evening,
2:05:24 ↗ that number drops to somewhere around five left-hand turns. So the question is,
2:05:30 ↗ what kind of improvements would be appropriate there? We took a lot of the
2:05:36 ↗ comments from the neighbors who said, you know, we'd really like to see a signal
2:05:40 ↗ here or an all-way stop sign. But one of the things that we do in
2:05:45 ↗ our profession is we say, is that an appropriate treatment? Because a signal
2:05:51 ↗ isn't necessarily a good thing. There's a downside to signals. For example, you
2:05:57 ↗ stop. Whenever that light turns red, all the traffic moving through there.
2:06:03 ↗ Now that can cause other negative benefits. It can create noise from breaking. It can
2:06:09 ↗ have people complaining about traffic sitting there idling or maybe radios
2:06:15 ↗ playing. All those things that wouldn't be experienced today would be added in.
2:06:21 ↗ There's other things such as there's the weighting of these
2:06:27 ↗ benefits versus the cost of having a signal or an all-way stop sign is something
2:06:32 ↗ that we take very seriously. And our opinion is that the appropriate design is the
2:06:38 ↗ one we've come up with and seek to get your approval as part of this
2:06:43 ↗ effort.
2:06:53 ↗ I'm Cecilia Saso. I'm with KPG. So I'm just going to walk you through the
2:06:56 ↗ preferred concept that we came up with. As Brianne mentioned, through the last four months,
2:07:01 ↗ this preferred option is a combination of what we heard from the community, their concerns,
2:07:07 ↗ their questions, their comments, and then also meeting back with city staff, such as DSD,
2:07:11 ↗ PWO, and Public Works. And it was managing to balance all the different priorities of
2:07:17 ↗ the different groups that we've heard from. The first one was improving access along this
2:07:22 ↗ corridor. and providing some traffic calming. And the preferred concept that we're showing up here
2:07:26 ↗ today is based off of all the different intersection controls and cross sections that we
2:07:32 ↗ heard that we want to explore. There's a five lane section, a three lane section,
2:07:36 ↗ a two lane section. And this is the preferred concept that in the end, the
2:07:40 ↗ community has supported us and we're moving in the right direction. It's a three lane
2:07:44 ↗ roadway with a median in areas that we don't have left turns into neighborhoods. We
2:07:48 ↗ have on street bike facilities. We have landscape planters and a regional trail that
2:07:54 ↗ continues the Mountain to Sounds trail from Bellevue through the city. All of
2:08:00 ↗ these concepts will further support the priorities and the goals of the project. The left-hand
2:08:05 ↗ turns will help people get into their neighborhoods. We will provide some egress flying tees
2:08:10 ↗ that you'll see next. I'll help them get out of their neighborhoods in a safe
2:08:13 ↗ manner. We have some traffic calling facilities by putting in curbs alone and eyeing that
2:08:19 ↗ verticality in the medians. by putting in those curbs and taking away the shoulders that
2:08:21 ↗ we have out there right now, that will automatically slow down traffic to your 30
2:08:25 ↗ miles per hour speed limit. We're putting in continuous pedestrian facilities on both sides of
2:08:30 ↗ the roadway so people don't have to cross. The people who are on the Spyglass
2:08:35 ↗ and the Summerhill neighborhoods can walk continuously along the south side of Newport Way. And
2:08:40 ↗ then we're continuing again that Mountains to Sounds Greenway Trail that you want to provide
2:08:45 ↗ that continuity throughout your city. The tricky thing was kind of balancing all the priorities
2:08:50 ↗ and making sure this fits within your right-of-way and trying to minimize impacts to the
2:08:55 ↗ surrounding community. So I'm just going to walk you through the corridor as we with
2:09:00 ↗ the applied preferred section. This is just a vicinity map to show you, again, where
2:09:06 ↗ the project is located. And notice that it's very curvy. Oops. I can't get perfect.
2:09:12 ↗ And I'm going to switch over to the scrollbot. We're going to start at the
2:09:18 ↗ very beginning at 54th. When we talked to the community at the very beginning of
2:09:24 ↗ our workshop back in June, we heard that 54th, it's the steep topography, that curve
2:09:29 ↗ coming around through this area made people pretty nervous taking a left onto Newport
2:09:35 ↗ Way. We talked about looking at roundabouts, but the space constraints and just the financial
2:09:41 ↗ implications of putting a roundabout in this location made it virtually impossible to build in
2:09:44 ↗ a in a practical manner. So we ended up on a flying tee
2:09:50 ↗ which basically provides that two-step movement of people coming out of 54th and turning left
2:09:55 ↗ onto Newport. It gives them a space to take a look behind them on people
2:09:59 ↗ coming around the curve on Newport, so it helps them merge into traffic in a
2:10:02 ↗ much safer manner. This also provides you a nice gateway opportunity because you want to
2:10:07 ↗ basically change the corridor or the character of Newport Way into more of a neighborhood
2:10:12 ↗ feel. So it's getting people to slow down as they're coming through that Lakemont area
2:10:16 ↗ and slowing down at 54th, and the gateway opportunity will help to give that heads
2:10:20 ↗ up motion. We're looking at adding low planting or hard skate
2:10:26 ↗ median to provide that, again, that traffic calming feeling. Into the
2:10:32 ↗ Gateway Senior Housing through here, we're adding a flying tee to help people get into
2:10:37 ↗ their neighborhood and out of it. Again, being very conscious of the site distance issues
2:10:42 ↗ that are going around this curve, so keeping the plantings low or maybe hardscape, low
2:10:46 ↗ maintenance, so people aren't out in the middle of the streets maintaining plants too often.
2:10:52 ↗ We are looking at adding a formal intersection at Pinecone Drive, knowing that this Hilldreth
2:10:58 ↗ property could be redeveloped in five to 10 years or whenever that should happen,
2:11:03 ↗ giving this person, giving this development an actual fourth leg. We're also looking at adding
2:11:09 ↗ a raised intersection. And this is basically the start of your neighborhood community where the
2:11:15 ↗ driveways through this area west of it, or I guess south of it, starts to
2:11:20 ↗ increase in frequency. So we want to give people this heads up motion. You're coming
2:11:24 ↗ across this intersection, so you should need to slow down. And then we come through
2:11:29 ↗ the roundabout at the gateway development and in the Splyglass neighborhood, which the developer will
2:11:35 ↗ be building. to maintain full access for the Sammamish
2:11:41 ↗ Point neighborhood through here. We are adding a C-curb at
2:11:47 ↗ the Pacific Elm Drive at the secondary spyglass location. It's basically keeping
2:11:54 ↗ the turning movements the same as it is today, except we're removing this pork-trap island,
2:11:58 ↗ and we're creating a formal crossing over here. So it basically lessens the
2:12:04 ↗ distance that people have to cross the road. We're providing a left turn into Sammamish
2:12:09 ↗ Point and a flying T option on the way out. Through the
2:12:15 ↗ Oakcrest Drive and Riva townhomes, we're doing a formal intersection with left
2:12:21 ↗ turns in. We are moving the crosswalk to the Cougar Mountain Trailhead area
2:12:26 ↗ where there'll be a new parking lot with added capacity for vehicles and then also
2:12:30 ↗ help serve the folks who are crossing on the north side of the road to
2:12:34 ↗ access that trail. And as we come through this section of the roadway, we start
2:12:40 ↗ to narrow it down to a two-lane roadway, which we feel is appropriate, hearing that
2:12:43 ↗ the community wants, values, and loves the native and growth
2:12:49 ↗ trees, and keeping that hillside intact. So we remove the third lane to keep it
2:12:54 ↗ a two-lane section. This also helps with emergency access vehicles coming through this area.
2:13:02 ↗ We continue this section all the way through to the Bergsma entrance. right now again
2:13:07 ↗ this is a placeholder this is based off of what the drawings that we've seen
2:13:11 ↗ as of last august i believe or as of august of this year and we
2:13:15 ↗ are providing a formal intersection onto newport way looking at possibly combining these two
2:13:20 ↗ driveways at chic and having a two-way left turn to provide queuing opportunities to
2:13:26 ↗ get into the driveway safely And as we come to SR 900, we will be
2:13:30 ↗ doing further analysis on here, working with WSDOT coordination, working with the property owners in
2:13:35 ↗ this location. There's much to be ironed out here. It's a very complicated intersection. And
2:13:39 ↗ so the takeaway from here is making sure that we have enough queueing lengths to
2:13:43 ↗ take a right onto SR 900. And then having this transition
2:13:49 ↗ zone through here that will give access to both the carries and legacy land and
2:13:54 ↗ Engelbert. Back to the PowerPoint.
2:14:04 ↗ And so these are just some of the renderings that we have through here.
2:14:09 ↗ Just let me know if you have any questions.
2:14:16 ↗ And we're through on. All right. So
2:14:24 ↗ what we determined so far, and this is what you guys are voting to approve,
2:14:29 ↗ is the project footprint or the cross section that you see, as well
2:14:35 ↗ as the intersection design, the lane configuration and the method of control, and
2:14:41 ↗ two raised intersections at a minimum. So
2:14:51 ↗ as I said before, have another two years of design and about a year of
2:14:57 ↗ right-of-way that we'd be looking at. And so during that time, we would
2:15:03 ↗ look to finalize these other types of items, you know, the verticality
2:15:09 ↗ of the roadway, walls, potentially additional traffic calming elements, what
2:15:15 ↗ trees we're planting and where, where we have walls and what those walls look like.
2:15:21 ↗ the driveway widths, certainly a lot about utilities, starting to narrow down onto
2:15:27 ↗ the right-of-way needs, and then looking, of course, at construction phasing and traffic control.
2:15:33 ↗ So tonight, here we are. Any questions?
2:15:40 ↗ Questions of Rihanna Ola? How raised is
2:15:46 ↗ raised? Six inches. So what happens if somebody just is going through and it's kind
2:15:52 ↗ of late? Can you do the speed limit through the raised intersections? So they'll be
2:15:57 ↗ designed to accommodate, to go down to about 25 miles an hour. But we haven't
2:16:03 ↗ dictated exactly what the rate of that raised. will be.
2:16:09 ↗ So that's something that we're going to continue to work with our operations and maintenance
2:16:12 ↗ folks. They have an interest in that, and certainly our emergency services folks. So we're
2:16:17 ↗ looking to try and provide a traffic calming measure. So we want people to slow
2:16:21 ↗ down to 25. Could someone go speed limit? Yeah,
2:16:27 ↗ probably. And what happens if someone does speed limit through
2:16:33 ↗ a raised intersection? I would say that maybe it would feel like you went over
2:16:39 ↗ a speed bump faster than you wanted to. Maybe. But it's flat, so.
2:16:45 ↗ I don't, I mean, nothing. Okay, thank you. Uncomfortable. Yeah. Mary Lou?
2:16:54 ↗ I just wanted to comment. Actually, Brianne, thank you on the one slide where you're
2:16:57 ↗ showing sort of those issues that get addressed later on in the design. And we
2:17:02 ↗ have heard so much from the Oakcrest residents that they seem to be the group
2:17:07 ↗ that still has concerns about where we're going. And so I'm glad you captured that
2:17:13 ↗ and that that's going to carry forward to next stage of design. Thanks.
2:17:23 ↗ This is coming back from infrastructure. Nope, Stacy.
2:17:26 ↗ There are more questions, I'll make a motion. I'd move to approve the
2:17:32 ↗ preferred corridor concept recommended in the Newport Way Northwest SR 900 to Southeast 54th Street
2:17:38 ↗ Design Report. Second. Moved and seconded twice.
2:17:44 ↗ Additional questions or discussion? Paul?
2:17:52 ↗ There's ongoing development on the road now. There's some phased coming in within this two
2:17:58 ↗ or three year window that you've identified. Talk to us a little bit about the
2:18:07 ↗ roadway improvements. Each of those are required to complete, even
2:18:13 ↗ though your design is not complete. So we've had
2:18:19 ↗ ongoing coordination with all the developers that are coming in. Certainly, some of the developers
2:18:25 ↗ are further along in their permitting process than others. we worked really
2:18:31 ↗ closely with Gateway to get a roundabout that we felt strongly fit the needs of
2:18:36 ↗ the corridor. And we're continuing to work with Gateway Senior on their frontage
2:18:41 ↗ improvements to make sure that we have something that works with the corridor and same
2:18:46 ↗ with Reva and Bergsma. So they will be, we are looking to have them build
2:18:52 ↗ what we are showing here and we're working on coordinating that effort with them. Let
2:18:56 ↗ me ask it another way. Sure. Thank you for that. said 10%. Yes.
2:19:03 ↗ Build is about 100%. Hope so, yes. We're going to spend two more years in
2:19:08 ↗ design. So let's use the roundabout as an example. Do you
2:19:14 ↗ expect that what they build, which will be built before design is complete,
2:19:20 ↗ to be final? Do you expect there to be some chance that
2:19:26 ↗ some type of redevelopment of that roundabout because of a finalization of the design.
2:19:33 ↗ My question is about the sequencing. You've said many times about the duration. It's still
2:19:36 ↗ required, and yet we're gonna have concrete poured during that design. So I'm
2:19:43 ↗ trying to get comfortable with at least understanding
2:19:49 ↗ what will happen with those elements that are completed by development before our design is
2:19:54 ↗ even complete. Sure. and my team are working
2:20:01 ↗ closely with DSD in reviewing those plans and in every effort to minimize anything that
2:20:07 ↗ would have to be redone at a later date. So while we are at a
2:20:11 ↗ 10% design, we are evaluating those proposed improvements and those
2:20:17 ↗ plans to make sure that they would be compatible with ours. I certainly can't
2:20:22 ↗ guarantee that there won't be something that, you know, may need to be
2:20:29 ↗ done in the future, but that's the effort. So we're looking to minimize that and
2:20:32 ↗ coordinate closely. So as we review our plans, we also can accelerate those
2:20:39 ↗ areas of the corridor to try and make sure that our design can keep up
2:20:44 ↗ with theirs. And that's what we've been working on doing. Thank you.
2:20:51 ↗ Additional questions or discussion? No?
2:20:58 ↗ i i think there's been a lot of good public involvement uh with this and
2:21:03 ↗ it's it's got a lot of good things going for it i'm i'm looking at
2:21:07 ↗ this and and saying it is a concept and it is going to be something
2:21:12 ↗ that's going to be lasting more than 50 years right whatever we do now and
2:21:16 ↗ i guess it's it's got a lot i like but there's i think there's a
2:21:20 ↗ couple pieces missing yet and so i'm not ready to approve this concept because of
2:21:25 ↗ the main two issues of the Mountains of Sound Trail, Greenway Trail works and bicycles
2:21:30 ↗ and protected bicycle lanes. And this needs to be futuristic to me. This is a
2:21:36 ↗ great design if we were maybe 10 or 15 years back, but I think we
2:21:40 ↗ need to look a little more into the future and see what's there and what's
2:21:45 ↗ possible and what's gonna hit us. With electric bicycles and all these other
2:21:51 ↗ things that are coming our way, I don't think we're looking at that well enough.
2:21:55 ↗ So with those things in mind, it's got a lot of good stuff. It's 90%
2:22:01 ↗ there, but to me, it's not quite ready. I think we're missing a little bit.
2:22:04 ↗ So I'm not ready to approve this concept yet. Thank you. Any additional comments or
2:22:10 ↗ questions? Paul? Everyone else has already had a chance who wants to make a comment.
2:22:16 ↗ Thank you for tonight. You knew exactly what to address. There had been outstanding concerns.
2:22:22 ↗ I think Mary Lou addressed part of that as well. As you know, I was
2:22:25 ↗ very specifically concerned about the intersection at Oak Crest Drive and Riva.
2:22:32 ↗ And that's where I struggled the most because what I know is that there has
2:22:36 ↗ been a very deliberate, very thorough
2:22:42 ↗ process in which stakeholders, on all sides of this corridor
2:22:48 ↗ have had opportunities to listen, give their input, have their input considered, and then go
2:22:54 ↗ back and discuss it again, and then go back and maybe discuss and see the
2:22:57 ↗ results a third time. I know that we can't have everything that we all would
2:23:03 ↗ like. I think there's been a very nice balance. You talked about where the portion
2:23:07 ↗ of the corridor goes back down the two lanes as you're headed east. That's very
2:23:11 ↗ thoughtful design. It allows us to preserve certain natural elements that we couldn't if we
2:23:16 ↗ wanted to have those three lanes. So I think that's just one example of the
2:23:22 ↗ thoughtfulness that was put into this. As a result, I
2:23:28 ↗ can't sit here and say, well, I'm sure you should have done this element different
2:23:34 ↗ or this intersection a little bit different. There are multiple ways that all of these
2:23:38 ↗ could be done, but I do trust the sincerity and the completeness of the effort
2:23:44 ↗ that you've put into this. while acknowledging that there are still some concerns and listing
2:23:49 ↗ those concerns, and specifically concerns of the people who are dependent upon Oak Crest Drive.
2:23:55 ↗ If I was going to oppose any part of it, it was what you were
2:23:59 ↗ planning to do at Oak Crest Drive. I want to, but I am
2:24:05 ↗ gonna support this going forward because the process isn't complete.
2:24:14 ↗ You were very firm in your comments earlier. No, we're gonna design it without a
2:24:18 ↗ lighted intersection. You've provided me with some additional information on why that might not be
2:24:24 ↗ a good idea. But I'm gonna continue to bird dog that particular issue
2:24:29 ↗ because just to make sure if there really
2:24:35 ↗ is a form of control there that can achieve major
2:24:41 ↗ objectives for this corridor and for all users and improve, get some of the improvements
2:24:47 ↗ sought by the residents of that area, then I'm not going to drop that issue
2:24:50 ↗ until I'm absolutely positive. But still at this point though, I am going to support
2:24:56 ↗ the concept so we can continue forward. Thank you.
2:25:02 ↗ So I'm excited about this. I'm going to support it today. It represents such a
2:25:08 ↗ change from when I, in 2003, first rode my bike home from Soto in
2:25:14 ↗ the rain on this road on a dark, narrow
2:25:20 ↗ road where the shoulder situation was interesting. So I'm looking forward to riding my bike
2:25:25 ↗ on this going forward. So I want to say my next comments carefully.
2:25:32 ↗ As we go forward, I think this already,
2:25:39 ↗ as a community, I think this design goes a great distance towards
2:25:45 ↗ accommodating local users' concerns while slowing
2:25:50 ↗ down what had been an arterial for the rest of the city. And so I
2:25:56 ↗ want to be careful local residents don't get to design every road, including
2:26:03 ↗ and especially when it's a road that is still going to be a throughput. It
2:26:07 ↗ is still going to be a lot of cars are going to take it every
2:26:10 ↗ morning and every afternoon. And so I think in the coming
2:26:16 ↗ conversations, we need to make sure that the needs, I mean, this is like 85%
2:26:23 ↗ the way towards what local residents we're looking for for their streets. And I want
2:26:28 ↗ to make sure that we continue to balance the needs of the other 34,900
2:26:37 ↗ people in the city who also use this road. Thanks.
2:26:46 ↗ Mary Lou. Thanks, Fred. So, Brianne, I'm excited about this project because it
2:26:52 ↗ is the first large residential arterial project that will have been done in a very
2:26:58 ↗ long time. And the corridor study is done. And the council
2:27:04 ↗ is going to look at some long-term funding solutions for these kinds of projects. So
2:27:09 ↗ this will be the first. And that's exciting. So thank you for getting this done.
2:27:14 ↗ It ties in nicely with our conversation about how we're going to pay for it
2:27:17 ↗ all. So. Right.
2:27:22 ↗ Mariah, bring us home. I will. I just wanted to
2:27:28 ↗ echo. Thank you for all of the hard work that's gone into this. I think
2:27:33 ↗ it's been very thoughtfully designed. I'll be supporting this this evening. I know that there
2:27:38 ↗ have been some questions, and so thank you for capturing all of that. And I
2:27:44 ↗ really liked all the public engagement that we were able to wrap into. looking at
2:27:49 ↗ the design of this project. Okay, and with that,
2:27:55 ↗ all those in favor of approving the preferred corridor concept recommended for
2:28:01 ↗ Newport Way SR 900 to Southeast 54th Street Design Report signify by saying
2:28:07 ↗ aye. Aye. Those opposed? Nay. That carries
2:28:13 ↗ six to one with Council Member Ramos. supporting it.
2:28:20 ↗ We are going to take a 10 minute break. Please be back in your seats
2:28:26 ↗ at 20 till, wow.
2:39:18 ↗ There has to be a cold echo here. We are back in session. The next
2:39:24 ↗ item on our agenda is agenda bill 7344,
2:39:30 ↗ Central Issaquah District Visions. Keith Niven for the staff presentation.
2:39:47 ↗ Mr. Mayor, good evening. Keith Niven, Director of Economic Development and Development Services, again.
2:39:54 ↗ So this next item, Agenda Bill 7344, is
2:40:01 ↗ one of the moratorium work items. And this was looking back at the
2:40:07 ↗ district visions. So I wanna start again by a quote from the
2:40:13 ↗ ordinance. I think it's important to go back to the original ordinance. Whereas the city
2:40:17 ↗ council requires additional time to consider whether the vision for some of the districts,
2:40:23 ↗ parens, neighborhoods, contained in central Issaquah may need to be modified based on development. That's
2:40:29 ↗ where we started. So... where we ended up or where we
2:40:35 ↗ are today is a little bit further deep in the lake than that. And so
2:40:41 ↗ as we started to talk this through with the Planning Policy Commission and the task
2:40:46 ↗ force and the public, it became clear that there was a desire
2:40:52 ↗ to look at those district visions at a much greater level of detail than
2:40:58 ↗ I think what was initially envisioned by the council. So where we are right now
2:41:03 ↗ is Central Issaquah is actually in the existing Central Issaquah plan.
2:41:09 ↗ It's a composite of 10 districts. As we started talking about those 10
2:41:14 ↗ districts, there was definitely a desire to simplify the structure.
2:41:20 ↗ And right now, where we're at in the conversation is we think there's really probably
2:41:26 ↗ only four. And those four are outlined, and hopefully
2:41:32 ↗ you can see those outlines in this map. And so
2:41:38 ↗ looking at the old, and I just used one of the visions as an example
2:41:43 ↗ to kind of show you where we were and where we are at the moment.
2:41:47 ↗ So here's one of the visions from the plan document. So as you can see,
2:41:52 ↗ this is for Western Gateway. Western Gateway is... So incidentally, over here, where
2:41:58 ↗ all the conversation about Newport just happened. And there was a vision
2:42:04 ↗ section. There was a section on primary uses, key environmental features, and
2:42:10 ↗ then a section on mobility and connections. So here's what it's evolved into
2:42:16 ↗ at this point. I don't expect you to be able to read this. But basically,
2:42:20 ↗ where the conversation has gone to so far is there's a section on developer
2:42:26 ↗ obligations, there's a section on city implementing actions, and then there's a
2:42:32 ↗ section on measures of success. And this came
2:42:38 ↗ out of a conversation we had with Planning Policy Commission and the central
2:42:44 ↗ task force, that there needed to be more specific direction for what developers
2:42:50 ↗ needed to do. There needed to be more on what the city was
2:42:56 ↗ committing itself to do, and then what would success look like for each of these
2:43:01 ↗ neighborhoods or districts 20 years from now? And so right now, kind of
2:43:07 ↗ here's where we are. And the recommendation, which hasn't been
2:43:13 ↗ given yet by the chair of Land and Shore, was to remand this back to
2:43:19 ↗ the Planning Policy Commission. as we talked about, and I think you heard under public
2:43:25 ↗ comment earlier on the visions, is what we put together was basically
2:43:31 ↗ three meetings with the Planning Policy Commission, followed by three meetings with Land and
2:43:37 ↗ Shore. And the idea right now is the visions are kind of
2:43:45 ↗ There's a whole introductory section which touches on things that you've heard earlier about the
2:43:51 ↗ green necklace. It includes kind of how the construct is put together. That's really a
2:43:57 ↗ conversation in and of itself. It's really getting the bones right. And then what I
2:44:02 ↗ had envisioned was one meeting to talk about two of the neighborhoods and one meeting
2:44:07 ↗ to talk about the other two neighborhoods. So for me, that's three meetings. We heard
2:44:11 ↗ earlier that somebody thinks they can get it done in two. That'd be awesome if
2:44:15 ↗ it could be done in two. I'm less optimistic. This one, unlike most of the
2:44:20 ↗ other moratorium work items, someone has no edges. You know, we could really talk about
2:44:26 ↗ the vision for Central Issaquah forever. And we could talk about it and wordsmith it.
2:44:32 ↗ And, you know, I think the reality is trying to put edges on this box
2:44:37 ↗ is really hard. There's expectations from the community that I think are very high.
2:44:44 ↗ So here's where we are. We are to a point where this definitely needs more
2:44:50 ↗ work. I think the staff recognize that. I think you've heard from the community that
2:44:55 ↗ it needs more work. And so I think at some point the recommendation is to
2:45:00 ↗ remand it back to Planning Policy Commission for more work.
2:45:08 ↗ Questions of Keith at this time? This is coming back from Land and
2:45:14 ↗ Schorst. Stacey. I'm going to make a motion. I move to remand agenda bill 7344
2:45:21 ↗ back to the Planning Policy Commission for additional review and recommendation. Returning to the full
2:45:25 ↗ council for referring to the Council Land and Shore Committee on February 20, 2018. Second.
2:45:31 ↗ It's moved and seconded. Questions or discussion? Paul and
2:45:37 ↗ then Stacy, or Stacy and then Paul.
2:45:43 ↗ Thank you, Keith, for the discussion.
2:45:49 ↗ presentation. I think you did a great job in presenting where we are. A couple
2:45:54 ↗ of comments. First of all, I really like the direction that it's headed. And I
2:45:59 ↗ think we heard almost unanimously from the packed house at Land & Shore, full of
2:46:04 ↗ PPC members and task force members and members of the public, that the divisions piece,
2:46:10 ↗ the revisions to the divisions piece are headed in the right direction.
2:46:18 ↗ And we also heard unanimously, as I recall, from the comments we got from
2:46:25 ↗ folks who attended our meeting that it needs more work. And
2:46:31 ↗ so I support this. I think one of the things we ran
2:46:37 ↗ into is that this was a piece that part of the
2:46:43 ↗ moratorium that we ended up working on last. We probably should have maybe started on
2:46:48 ↗ it first. It feels like we're trying to rush to get it done.
2:46:55 ↗ And I think everybody kind of recognized that. And nobody's fault.
2:47:01 ↗ We're just running into the end here and trying to get it done clearly when
2:47:07 ↗ it's not done. But probably should have. this one earlier rather rather than later but
2:47:13 ↗ i i think it's like i said i think it's headed um in the right
2:47:16 ↗ direction and i like a lot of things about it and i'm not going to
2:47:20 ↗ say all of the things that i like or don't like about it we made
2:47:24 ↗ significant substantive comments at Land & Shore. One thing I will be
2:47:30 ↗ doing is I will be, if this passes and goes back for more review, spending
2:47:36 ↗ some time reviewing the document that was presented and
2:47:42 ↗ sending some comments to you about what sort of summarizing
2:47:48 ↗ my comments because I think that makes it an easier job if you know exactly
2:47:54 ↗ a priority and what's not and so i would encourage um fellow land and shore
2:47:59 ↗ members to do the same if this passes and other council members as well if
2:48:03 ↗ you want to provide feedback at this if this passes there would be a good
2:48:06 ↗ opportunity to do that thank you paul one comment one question the comment is that
2:48:12 ↗ i don't share the feeling that others have expressed and this is just me personally
2:48:17 ↗ that this feels rushed that I think that there has been quite a bit of
2:48:22 ↗ time and effort. Now, it certainly has gone through some notable
2:48:28 ↗ changes between meetings, and that's okay. That's a good thing.
2:48:34 ↗ That can happen. But in fact, so this doesn't feel so rushed to me, and
2:48:39 ↗ I will say right now, and I'll talk more about this later on, is
2:48:47 ↗ that this, that's a good thing. That's four extra months. And now that feels like
2:48:52 ↗ a really long time, given where I thought we were when we completed. Now, I
2:48:56 ↗ said it needed more work itself. I also said we were very close, and I
2:49:00 ↗ think the structure, I think there's some fine tuning of some of the elements, but
2:49:05 ↗ this seems like an awfully heavy work plan. And so,
2:49:11 ↗ actually, so I have two questions for you. The first one is, You put up
2:49:18 ↗ the ordinance at the beginning and you did it for a
2:49:23 ↗ purpose. We're now looking at a work plan and then actually with content. And is
2:49:29 ↗ there anything about state statute or what have you and how we are working on
2:49:33 ↗ this element or one of these justifications or reasons for the moratorium,
2:49:39 ↗ which it's changing and it may be totally fine. Are we
2:49:45 ↗ anywhere near, is there any risk at all? And if there's a one-word answer, no,
2:49:49 ↗ just say it, that's fine. That as we kind of play with the scope of
2:49:54 ↗ this, that we're getting outside of what really is allowed per the state statute.
2:50:00 ↗ That's my first question. I'm looking at the city attorney, wondering if
2:50:06 ↗ he wants to weigh in on that legal question.
2:50:23 ↗ This item is
2:50:25 ↗ his, Keith, put up the first statute again. Yeah,
2:50:31 ↗ I'm going back to it. Contained in, may need to be modified
2:50:38 ↗ based on development. I think our work on this
2:50:43 ↗ element, on this component, is expanded far beyond
2:50:50 ↗ last phrase or what would be identified as driven by based on development.
2:50:55 ↗ Keithan himself said it's taken, there's been, we went from 10 to four proposed regions,
2:51:01 ↗ for example. He's talked about now kind of there's a whole element,
2:51:09 ↗ which really isn't about district visions, but it is about the overall vision, the
2:51:15 ↗ primacy of the green necklace, for example. So the work plan forward
2:51:20 ↗ feels like more and beyond. I just want a quick read on whether or not,
2:51:26 ↗ as we've grown the scope of this, and it's morphed, if we have any risk
2:51:30 ↗ at all. There's risk in everything, but
2:51:38 ↗ let me state that my understanding when you adopted the moratorium was that the
2:51:44 ↗ idea on the district visions was that
2:51:50 ↗ based on the development you were seeing in the central Issaquah area, that you wanted
2:51:56 ↗ to consider the district visions and modification of those visions in order to
2:52:02 ↗ ensure that you got what you wanted in central Issaquah as opposed to what you
2:52:06 ↗ were getting. I think within that broad context, what we're talking about here is
2:52:12 ↗ within the scope of that, you know,
2:52:19 ↗ as far as what is necessary to implement those visions, there may be implementing regulations
2:52:24 ↗ that are required to do that. Does that answer your question or is there a-
2:52:28 ↗ It does. I just wanted to have that out there, that conversation. That this has
2:52:33 ↗ been morphing and yet we're still within the spirit and the letter of just the
2:52:38 ↗ state statute relating to moratoriums and our reasons for the emergency moratorium. Certainly that was
2:52:44 ↗ my understanding of one of the reasons for your moratorium and Mr. Niven can correct
2:52:49 ↗ me if I'm wrong, but because I wasn't, obviously that was during the transition from
2:52:55 ↗ Wayne Tanaka to me. So I wasn't necessarily at all of your meetings relating to
2:53:00 ↗ that, but it was certainly my understanding that that was the intent
2:53:06 ↗ of that factor in your consideration.
2:53:13 ↗ I like the way you kicked it back to Keith. That was great. You noticed
2:53:16 ↗ that too, huh? Okay. So I don't want to discuss this anymore than we have
2:53:21 ↗ to. I just wanted to have that. It was in the back of my mind
2:53:25 ↗ and before we do anything, I wanted to make sure I understood that. Keith, my
2:53:28 ↗ second question is if you could go to the schedule.
2:53:37 ↗ I am sensitive to the time that we've already been in a moratorium and its
2:53:41 ↗ impact. We've had a number of people comment about that in both directions.
2:53:47 ↗ I will say that with most of the comments that I heard about keeping it
2:53:53 ↗ or extending it longer, we're definitely growing the scope and the justifications, adding more reasons
2:53:59 ↗ and things we needed to accomplish beyond our initial
2:54:05 ↗ list of reasons. So I hear that, but that's a totally different action.
2:54:11 ↗ The other comments were about, hey, can you bring it in sooner? And again, tonight,
2:54:18 ↗ because what's considered in front of us does
2:54:24 ↗ limit ongoing moratorium within the central area, which is an interesting good
2:54:30 ↗ step, I think, this work plan, three meetings with PPC? I mean,
2:54:36 ↗ they thought they were done. No, they didn't. I mean, they were going to meet
2:54:40 ↗ one more time. They were going to meet one more time. They were going to
2:54:44 ↗ meet one more time and had committed to giving us their findings of fact after
2:54:50 ↗ that one more meeting. Now, that was canceled. Right. And for whatever reason, so things
2:54:53 ↗ evolve. I get that. But this is now three more meeting and
2:55:00 ↗ three touches with land and shore. I mean, I'm, you know, I'm,
2:55:07 ↗ I'm interested in the thoughts of my other colleagues on the council, but the motion
2:55:11 ↗ that's on the floor says bring it back to the regular council for referral to
2:55:17 ↗ Land and Shore on February 20th. And I'm thinking about an amendment to move that
2:55:21 ↗ to the first business meeting in February because I don't know that this,
2:55:30 ↗ that we need this much extra time.
2:55:37 ↗ lube sure so you know that's why there's seven of us because we
2:55:43 ↗ we hear the audience and we hear the business community and i i didn't actually
2:55:49 ↗ hear anything about scope creep i heard a lot about the impacts that moratoriums have
2:55:54 ↗ and can have for five to ten years after they're over what you can do
2:55:57 ↗ to your community over a longer term. And what I heard was there's been
2:56:03 ↗ change and you've gone in a certain direction. It looks like you're close and can
2:56:08 ↗ you lift the moratorium? Can you not just finish the last bits and pieces outside?
2:56:14 ↗ So I, my, you know, watching Planning Policy Commission,
2:56:20 ↗ I'm very, very impressed with the hours they put in and the format they used
2:56:24 ↗ and the people they had at the table. If, if and they can change and
2:56:29 ↗ schedule it differently, great, but I want them not to feel rushed. I want them
2:56:33 ↗ to have the time to cross the T's and dot the I's. I had a
2:56:38 ↗ couple of concerns that I've mentioned to you before, Keith. One is that within the
2:56:44 ↗ visions themself, I still do not feel like when we talk about a mixed
2:56:50 ↗ use neighborhood, it's almost like saying we're not gonna have zoning anymore. because you allow
2:56:54 ↗ so many uses in the same place. And I'm very, very, very concerned about displacement
2:56:59 ↗ of jobs and professional office space for housing because the market wants to build
2:57:05 ↗ housing now. And if we get just housing replacing office buildings or
2:57:11 ↗ commercial properties now, that's what we get. And so I'm not still
2:57:17 ↗ seeing in the visions that there's a, could prevent that that would be an unintended
2:57:23 ↗ consequence and it would further feed into the comments we're hearing from the community is
2:57:27 ↗ you're just building apartments and so i don't know that that's particularly been nailed down
2:57:33 ↗ i also think that the conversation has been fantastic about what the boundary should be
2:57:37 ↗ and i consider that a significant change um the fact that things could be shrinking
2:57:42 ↗ or moving around that's that's a big deal and i think it's really positive but
2:57:47 ↗ um there was talk on the north corner northeast edge of valley
2:57:53 ↗ what's it called east valley east lake east lake yeah um that
2:57:59 ↗ there's um property lines that creep up into existing professional office or forested
2:58:05 ↗ hillsides on a slope and i'm i still haven't heard a conversation at ppc about
2:58:09 ↗ why that fits into the let's rebuild a lively vibrant area on the valley floor
2:58:16 ↗ where we have single-story retail and parking lots well why are we going up hillsides
2:58:19 ↗ why are we including professional office parks that are already built so that whole east
2:58:25 ↗ valley neighborhood to me is still got a very weird jagged boundary on the one
2:58:29 ↗ side and i'm i'm just not sure the rationale is there to draw it that
2:58:32 ↗ way and that that's So I think that maybe this schedule,
2:58:39 ↗ that it's possible that with the scope of work, you could advance the schedule, but
2:58:43 ↗ I'm happy with the schedule the way it is. I don't think people wanna sit
2:58:46 ↗ and talk more than they need to. I think PPC will get through their work
2:58:49 ↗ and maybe we'll be lifting it before April 16th. So I'm optimistic.
2:58:56 ↗ Other questions or discussion? Mariah?
2:59:02 ↗ So I would support DAB as it stands right now. I think that any
2:59:08 ↗ time we're doing strategic work based on the visions and what's
2:59:14 ↗ going to happen so far out in the future and the group that's working the
2:59:19 ↗ most closely with this is saying we could use more time. And in light of
2:59:24 ↗ just the comment that you just made, Mary Lou, in regard to the
2:59:31 ↗ the neighborhoods having mixed uses and what's going on with the zoning
2:59:37 ↗ that might possibly attract more housing as opposed to some of the office space, I
2:59:41 ↗ think is just a really good, is a really good point. And one of the
2:59:45 ↗ issues that I too would like to see PPC and Land and Shore look
2:59:51 ↗ at. So I would support the schedule as it is. And if it ends up
2:59:56 ↗ being shorter than that, that's great.
3:00:03 ↗ So I'm gonna support the agenda bill as written, but I do wanna plus one
3:00:08 ↗ part of what Paul said, which is that I think, I do think we did
3:00:12 ↗ hear a certain amount today of folks that want to extend the moratorium
3:00:18 ↗ until we can sort of guarantee what we're going to get. And we just can't.
3:00:22 ↗ I mean, the original central Issaquah plan was a good faith
3:00:28 ↗ attempt, and we are now revising that based on what we know. This will be
3:00:32 ↗ a good faith attempt. We will see what we get. We will probably be revising
3:00:37 ↗ it again in a few years, hopefully without having to have a moratorium. But, you
3:00:40 ↗ know, I want to I wanna caution the classic
3:00:47 ↗ don't let great be the enemy of good or don't let good be the enemy
3:00:50 ↗ of great. I wanna move forward, I wanna respect the staff's recommendation, and then we
3:00:55 ↗ will see how things work. And I keenly recognize that people don't want just more
3:01:01 ↗ housing. in our city. I totally get that. I'm on record as
3:01:06 ↗ liking workforce housing. That's something I care about, but I totally agree that it would
3:01:12 ↗ be a tragedy if all we got for the next 15 years was more housing
3:01:16 ↗ because we need living wage jobs as well here. So, but I'm eager to support
3:01:21 ↗ the administration's efforts and see where we go when this process is over. Thanks. Bill?
3:01:31 ↗ I guess home. All right. So kind of sum that up. I think that I
3:01:36 ↗ would like to get this wrapped up as quickly as possible. Maybe we can do
3:01:39 ↗ it sooner. But I heard someone in the comments say, we have to do this
3:01:42 ↗ right. We've started. We're in over a year. I'm not going to shortchange at the
3:01:46 ↗ last, at the finish line to make sure, to get it done, you know, two
3:01:50 ↗ days quicker. So we've got to do it right. We've got to finish what we
3:01:53 ↗ started. I'm hoping we can get it done sooner, but... a schedule i'll go with
3:01:58 ↗ and if we do get it done sooner great thank you all those uh in
3:02:04 ↗ favor for wait keith question for you could you
3:02:10 ↗ please um clarify what you your comments more about you said something that felt like
3:02:16 ↗ it needed more and you were talking about the green necklace What is in your
3:02:21 ↗ mind that has to, what's our target there? What are we gonna try to
3:02:27 ↗ do with that? Oh boy, he's blowing air. So the green necklace is hard.
3:02:33 ↗ The green necklace, there was clearly a ask from the public to
3:02:40 ↗ clarify the green necklace. In the district, in the visions, and
3:02:49 ↗ There's a lot of moving pieces here because the
3:02:55 ↗ parks plan is also about to hit pavement in terms of getting it out there
3:03:01 ↗ to start getting some community feedback on the park plan.
3:03:07 ↗ So the green necklace, what I've heard is
3:03:14 ↗ a request to identify the gaps. don't have, what we need to have to complete
3:03:19 ↗ the green necklace. I still find it important. And I think people,
3:03:25 ↗ so one of the questions I asked of PPC was, even though there was a
3:03:30 ↗ lot of maybe talk about the cartoonish image that we provided, it was meant to,
3:03:36 ↗ one, question, is a visual helpful
3:03:42 ↗ in establishing what the green necklace is? Because I think a lot of people had
3:03:46 ↗ a tough time just imaging what that was. And so the answer that came back
3:03:52 ↗ from PPC and the task force is yes. Having an image of the green necklace
3:03:57 ↗ is important. Now, how far down that goes in detail, I think is a huge
3:04:02 ↗ conversation point. So I love the idea that the
3:04:08 ↗ work plan can be done in less than three months. I am suspect because I
3:04:14 ↗ think each of those things, like talking about how far down the green necklace goes
3:04:17 ↗ in terms of level of detail, that could be two, three meetings just in of
3:04:23 ↗ itself, I think. When you put the park plan up and you put the other
3:04:28 ↗ park, the community facilities plan from central Issaquah, and you start to look at all
3:04:34 ↗ the pieces of the puzzle, what actually wants to go in the vision section and
3:04:38 ↗ how, how loose is that versus
3:04:44 ↗ how specific is that? That's a whole conversation in and of itself. Okay, so you,
3:04:49 ↗ in your own mind, don't have a sense of how specific that is. We've heard
3:04:52 ↗ a couple comments, and I'm not disputing them. I'm interested in your opinion about how
3:04:57 ↗ detailed we can get about specific locations, connecting these things. I think some comments about,
3:05:02 ↗ hey, giving people the opportunity to know what it is so that they can plan
3:05:07 ↗ and accommodate for that. I mean, that all makes sense. Is that doable?
3:05:15 ↗ I don't know, maybe. I need to sit down with Jeff, I think, after the
3:05:20 ↗ first of the year, and we need to start unpacking what that wants to look
3:05:24 ↗ like. Okay, I appreciate your honesty with that answer. Thank you.
3:05:30 ↗ Are we ready to vote? All those in favor of remanding AB 7344
3:05:36 ↗ back to the PPC for additional review and recommendation? I'm turning to the full council
3:05:41 ↗ for referral to Council Land and Shore Committee on February 20th. Signify
3:05:47 ↗ by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed? That carries unanimously.
3:05:53 ↗ Moving now to
3:06:00 ↗ agenda bill 7342, Architectural Fit and Urban
3:06:04 ↗ Design. Lucy Sloman. Good evening.
3:06:10 ↗ Or the staff report. For the win. Okay.
3:06:18 ↗ So tonight, even briefer overview of the
3:06:23 ↗ design manual, responses to council comments from December 4
3:06:29 ↗ and possible adoption. I show this just to kind of give a
3:06:35 ↗ brief capsule of what we've done. The moratorium was approved
3:06:41 ↗ September 6th and Crandall Rambula was hired in March. I
3:06:46 ↗ said 2018, I guess I'm feeling very optimistic or retro or something. Anyway,
3:06:53 ↗ that was 2016 and 2017. And once we hired them, I hope you can see
3:06:59 ↗ that we've been running very hard working with the development commission, land and shore, Council
3:07:05 ↗ to really try and find a tool that will meet our needs to address two
3:07:10 ↗ moratorium work plan items, architectural fit and urban design.
3:07:16 ↗ For architecture, we've developed two districts. There are,
3:07:23 ↗ excuse me, finding a cold, seven architectural styles, one of which goes into both the
3:07:28 ↗ urban core traditional Issaquah. There are massing scale, materials, and
3:07:34 ↗ colors. This is all new tools that we haven't had before to help define the
3:07:40 ↗ architectural character for central Issaquah. In terms of urban design, we look at both
3:07:45 ↗ context and site. Context is natural and built. Site is
3:07:52 ↗ all the different elements that define the edges and access into the block or
3:07:57 ↗ the project site. What we've really focused on recently and tonight is no
3:08:03 ↗ exception are the three new pages that have been added, hillsides and slopesites,
3:08:10 ↗ site walls, and rooftop use. So to specifically
3:08:16 ↗ look at the comments that council asked us to address, With hillsides and
3:08:22 ↗ slope sites, there was a concern that we were not requiring trees between the walls,
3:08:27 ↗ that we had limited the heights of retaining walls to try and keep them at
3:08:31 ↗ a better scale, but had not required trees. There was a request to look at
3:08:37 ↗ limiting wall lengths and how to articulate and modulate long walls. So
3:08:43 ↗ what we have proposed is that if the walls be designed and be
3:08:48 ↗ stable with trees in between them will do that. And that in front of the
3:08:54 ↗ walls, we will have trees every 30 to 35 feet to provide a sort of
3:08:59 ↗ modulation and softening. So we're really looking at landscape to address
3:09:04 ↗ wall appearance on hillsides and slope sites. Should I keep talking or do you
3:09:10 ↗ wanna ask questions? Okay. Site walls. Again, a
3:09:16 ↗ concern about limiting wall lengths and articulation and modulation
3:09:22 ↗ of long walls. All the yellow text is where we've made adjustments. I don't know
3:09:28 ↗ what, you can't read any of that, I'm sorry. There are two options for
3:09:34 ↗ walls near pedestrian areas. They either have to be four feet or if they are
3:09:39 ↗ the max, up to the maximum 10 feet, then they have to be set back
3:09:44 ↗ regular use of evergreen trees to create that kind of
3:09:49 ↗ modulation through landscape. We have defined what a long wall is
3:09:55 ↗ and provided additional tools to address them. So we're
3:10:01 ↗ saying don't limit the length of walls, but use wall design and then
3:10:07 ↗ landscape to again soften and modulate the walls.
3:10:13 ↗ Rooftop use, there was a request to require or discussion of requiring
3:10:19 ↗ rooftop landscape to soften the roof line and blend in with the surrounding hills.
3:10:26 ↗ I think this was one item in which there was a lot, staff heard from
3:10:31 ↗ a lot of people afterwards with concerns.
3:10:37 ↗ The additional weight would probably quadruple by adding, by requiring trees
3:10:43 ↗ and landscape on the roof. Trees on the roof would probably be limited in size,
3:10:50 ↗ which would make on mid-size and high-rise buildings it difficult for them to be visible.
3:10:56 ↗ And we heard about safety and maintenance concerns in terms of
3:11:01 ↗ branches and maintenance workers and the kind of fencing that might be required to protect
3:11:05 ↗ them. As a result, we did not propose a change to text, but what we
3:11:10 ↗ did was really go back and look at what would the roof line be. If
3:11:15 ↗ we're relying on the building architecture, then we need to make sure that the building
3:11:19 ↗ architecture will provide that kind of skyline. And what we realized
3:11:25 ↗ was that that was not, the text was really good. The images did not illustrate
3:11:30 ↗ it as well as it should. So we have proposed adding two images,
3:11:36 ↗ which you see at the bottom of the page, as appropriate, and adding an
3:11:41 ↗ inappropriate example, which is Atlas, because I can't I can't tell you how many times
3:11:46 ↗ I've heard over and over again how that is a great example of an awful
3:11:51 ↗ roof line. So let's just put it in there and make it clear that that's
3:11:55 ↗ not what we want. If we know we should be clear.
3:12:01 ↗ Finally, there was a question, you know, DC came, several DC members
3:12:06 ↗ came and they said, look, we just want to start using this tool. We're really
3:12:11 ↗ excited. We know it's not perfect, but the way it's going to get better is
3:12:15 ↗ by using it. And I think that was a message that staff and council could
3:12:19 ↗ hear. And so the question was, are we doing monitoring at the right rate to
3:12:24 ↗ make sure that we are looking at this and if we need to be making
3:12:29 ↗ adjustments, we're doing that in a more incremental fashion. What we had proposed was that
3:12:34 ↗ we would monitor every three years, which was a frequency that was already established
3:12:40 ↗ in central Issaquah. What we proposed though was instead of just relying on a
3:12:46 ↗ period of time, that we would also, after the completion of three land use permits,
3:12:52 ↗ that we would go back and look. So that gives us two different metrics to
3:12:57 ↗ trigger an examination. And that examination includes roof lines, for
3:13:03 ↗ instance, which has obviously been a topic of attention. So.
3:13:11 ↗ We're recommending approval of the September 14th draft,
3:13:16 ↗ incorporation of the December 11th memo, and to allow for Scrivener errors
3:13:22 ↗ and formatting as we create a final Word document. So
3:13:28 ↗ you will recall that there is a motion on the floor that was moved by
3:13:34 ↗ Goodman and seconded by Winterstein, and that asks for some potential
3:13:41 ↗ and in your agenda bill,
3:13:49 ↗ those changes, there is a proposed amendment to the
3:13:55 ↗ main motion that we considered back on November 17th.
3:14:01 ↗ Make a motion, unless there are more questions for Lucy. Mary Lou?
3:14:11 ↗ Lucy, one of the things that had come up during discussion was the integration of
3:14:16 ↗ architectural review. And I know that we have a couple of different models in town,
3:14:21 ↗ and in some areas we use an architectural review committee. We're not proposing that here.
3:14:27 ↗ I spoke with Keith today, and there is a proposal within this first year to
3:14:33 ↗ retain some architectural review services, dollars in the budget, budget is approved.
3:14:39 ↗ So because it's a prescriptive code, just wanted to suggest
3:14:45 ↗ something and see what you think about it. But in that first three years or
3:14:50 ↗ first three site development permits, there will be places where staff or the architect
3:14:56 ↗ will have to make an interpretation or an exception because the intent is not being
3:15:01 ↗ met. And I guess if we, after that
3:15:07 ↗ first three project period, if those were tracked through that and then those were presented
3:15:13 ↗ to the development commission as potential amendments so that we can clean up as we
3:15:17 ↗ go was one question if you thought that was possible and the second was what
3:15:22 ↗ do we do after year one when we won't likely have an architect
3:15:29 ↗ on contract services anymore what happens after three projects or then what do we do
3:15:37 ↗ I think with, as with many things, I think we should look at where we
3:15:40 ↗ are at the end of that year. I mean, part of why we found the
3:15:46 ↗ value that we saw in retaining Crandall Arambula is not just
3:15:52 ↗ to provide that sort of input and, and,
3:15:59 ↗ to the development commission in writing staff reports, but it's a training opportunity for staff.
3:16:05 ↗ When you haven't written something, we may interpret, I mean, I have already been sending
3:16:09 ↗ them things and saying, okay, this is how we're thinking about this, is do you
3:16:15 ↗ agree? And they're giving us feedback. And so, you know, I think that's a great
3:16:20 ↗ point about tracking those conversations to see if they enlighten us
3:16:27 ↗ on further amendments. I think that at the end, depending on how many projects we've
3:16:33 ↗ had, we may say we wanna do that for another year, there weren't enough projects.
3:16:38 ↗ On the other hand, right now, we're just in the collaboration and pre-app phase and
3:16:43 ↗ we're asking some questions to make sure that what we heard and understood along the
3:16:47 ↗ way is consistent with their intent.
3:16:49 ↗ Okay, great, thanks. Stacy?
3:16:55 ↗ I'm gonna make a motion. to amend the motion so there's a main motion on
3:17:00 ↗ the floor and the main motion was was to adopt ordinance number 2813 um and
3:17:06 ↗ but now we're back and so i would move to amend the motion to adopt
3:17:11 ↗ ordinance number 2813 with the updates and corrections set forth in the staff memo dated
3:17:16 ↗ december 11th 11 2017. second
3:17:22 ↗ it's moved and seconded questions or discussion
3:17:31 ↗ All those in favor of the amendment signify by saying
3:17:37 ↗ aye. Aye. Those opposed? That carries unanimously. And then we
3:17:43 ↗ need to. Then we need. Back to the main motion as amended, right? Mm-hmm. So
3:17:48 ↗ I would move to adopt the main motion as amended.
3:17:54 ↗ It's already. Is that right? Mm-hmm. No. He said. M says no. Oh. The main
3:17:59 ↗ motion is on the floor now as amended by your motion. So all that needs
3:18:03 ↗ to be done is to take the vote on the main motion as amended.
3:18:11 ↗ So, although any discussion, oh, we've already had the discussion.
3:18:17 ↗ All those in favor of the amended main motion signify by saying aye.
3:18:24 ↗ Aye. Those opposed, that carries unanimously. moving now to
3:18:30 ↗ thank you lucy all your work work that was my
3:18:35 ↗ christmas present uh
3:18:41 ↗ agenda bill 7507 amendments to the imc and central issaquah
3:18:47 ↗ standards regarding inclusionary zoning requirements for central issaquah
3:18:55 ↗ for the staff report. Trish, welcome. Hello, welcome. Tonight is
3:19:01 ↗ another moratorium item in that it's connected to the housing strategy, and this is inclusionary
3:19:06 ↗ zoning coming out of land and shore.
3:19:12 ↗ Just as a reminder, why did you pick this for the moratorium items? In the
3:19:17 ↗ comprehensive plan, there's a countywide need that all of the jurisdictions within King County have
3:19:23 ↗ to put in their comprehensive plans. AND IN THE FIRST DASHBOARD THAT WE DID, 2016,
3:19:30 ↗ WE STILL HAD ZERO AFFORDABLE HOUSING UNITS IN CENTRAL ISSAQUA, YET WE HAD OVER 900
3:19:37 ↗ PERMITS EITHER COMPLETED OR UNDER REVIEW. SO 900 AND SOME UNITS, NONE WERE
3:19:43 ↗ AFFORDABLE. THAT RAISED A GREAT FLAG FOR YOU, SO THAT'S WHY WE DID THE HOUSING
3:19:47 ↗ STRATEGY. ONE OF THE HOUSING STRATEGY ITEMS THAT WE WANTED TO BRING FORWARD BEFORE THE
3:19:52 ↗ END OF THIS YEAR WAS THE DEVELOPER required affordable housing,
3:19:58 ↗ which is strategy six of the nine. And we have
3:20:04 ↗ authorization to do this the state, which is always a good thing to be sure
3:20:08 ↗ of, and it says that if you do require developers to provide this sort of
3:20:13 ↗ housing at affordability levels, that you have to give them a little bit of value
3:20:19 ↗ so that they're able to do that. So that's why we put the RCW up
3:20:22 ↗ there. So you will be comforted by that, that we are well within the law
3:20:26 ↗ to do this. Saying that, we did push the envelope as far as we felt
3:20:31 ↗ we could by increasing it in the urban core and adding it into
3:20:37 ↗ two other areas, the mixed-use zone, which is the purple, and the new vertical mixed-use
3:20:42 ↗ area that's in the yellow. And we did a little capacity analysis to see
3:20:48 ↗ how many units we could get if this all built out the way we hoped
3:20:53 ↗ with the new requirements, and we would get over 900 new
3:20:59 ↗ affordable units thought that was good news as well
3:21:06 ↗ just to summarize we're increasing it in the urban core that's the only place that
3:21:11 ↗ it's required now and we're adding the requirement in the vertical mixed use and the
3:21:15 ↗ mixed use zone There were some questions in land and
3:21:21 ↗ shore. One of them was how does this requirement change or affect the
3:21:27 ↗ residual land value for the developer? The other question that came up at land and
3:21:33 ↗ shore was will the inclusionary requirement cause some developers to not look at Central Issaquah
3:21:38 ↗ to develop? And so, yes. I just want to clarify that the residual land
3:21:44 ↗ value for the developer did not come in land and shore. I raise that at
3:21:48 ↗ leadership. I just want to make sure that that's clear. Oh, okay. I was thinking
3:21:52 ↗ Land and Shore members. I'm sorry, but you're correct. That's okay. You're correct. Yeah. You're
3:21:55 ↗ correct. We have Arthur Sullivan here as
3:22:01 ↗ well from Arch to help explain this. This is the list of developers that are
3:22:06 ↗ using these incentives in King County. We had to use very small print because there
3:22:11 ↗ are so many of them that are super comfortable with providing this sort of housing
3:22:16 ↗ in with their other developments. And the other question on, are there any
3:22:22 ↗ questions on this answer? Okay. Then I'll go to the one that I am going
3:22:27 ↗ to need Arthur to help me explain. This is the residual land value question
3:22:33 ↗ that came up. Arthur, can you help with this one? So can you go back
3:22:38 ↗ a slide and tell me what the list of developers is, what question does that
3:22:41 ↗ answer? This was the question, will the inclusionary requirements that we're proposing, will it limit
3:22:46 ↗ the amount of developers that would be able to build in Central? Would it cause
3:22:50 ↗ some of them to not choose us as their building place? So these are
3:22:57 ↗ the builders in our area that are already building this sort of product in other
3:23:02 ↗ areas of our region. So these are the ones that would not be limited to
3:23:07 ↗ not build in Central.
3:23:15 ↗ So I guess the question that this is trying to answer is
3:23:21 ↗ developers who are faced with inclusionary zoning of the list of developers who have,
3:23:27 ↗ who are comfortable with inclusionary. Yes. Okay. So, however,
3:23:34 ↗ every city and jurisdiction has different codes and different layers of
3:23:40 ↗ requirements. And so I'm not sure we can compare apples to apples when
3:23:46 ↗ just because a developer has built a project somewhere else with inclusionary zoning, which we've
3:23:51 ↗ never had here before, that they're comfortable with all of the central isaqua plan regulations
3:23:57 ↗ that we have so i think i understand what you're trying to say but i
3:24:01 ↗ don't think that answers the question oh and goodman real estate is not mine just
3:24:11 ↗ but they um arthur sullivan program manager of arch mayor council president and council
3:24:17 ↗ Right. This is we were trying to give you a sense from the question. It's
3:24:22 ↗ sort of how you answer that question. And so these are this is not just
3:24:26 ↗ all high density. This is any. This is only East King County, though. So we
3:24:30 ↗ look at the records of who has developed under local
3:24:36 ↗ and what developers with whatever the rules were in those communities were willing to still
3:24:42 ↗ proceed with development under those local programs. If I went through this list, I could
3:24:47 ↗ probably point out the ones that are doing development at the density that you're talking
3:24:51 ↗ about here. But all of downtown Redmond, when you look there, every one of those
3:24:56 ↗ properties, so that includes Cosmos and Avalon and a number of other national companies as
3:25:01 ↗ well as local companies, they're having a lot of different a lot of similarities to
3:25:05 ↗ what you're looking at but you're right i can't guarantee that all these bills would
3:25:10 ↗ come in here and would build here we're just trying to give you a sense
3:25:13 ↗ of what has been the impact of cities imposing mandatory requirements in other settings in
3:25:18 ↗ east king county
3:25:26 ↗ so residual land use so it's the next slide no there's really
3:25:32 ↗ not necessarily the next slide um so you asked a question about using a
3:25:38 ↗ residual land value approach to analyzing the impacts of the incentive program is that correct
3:25:44 ↗ um yes so i had um so what i what i said at land inshore
3:25:50 ↗ was that i didn't really understand the agenda bill and um i don't I still
3:25:55 ↗ don't really understand the agenda, but I couldn't really explain it other than we've made
3:26:00 ↗ changes to our code that we have
3:26:07 ↗ changed, given away something to get something, and that something that we're getting would be
3:26:12 ↗ more affordable housing. But I think what I don't understand is the effect. And so
3:26:17 ↗ I went away and had an occasion to talk to somebody who is familiar, a
3:26:21 ↗ developer who is familiar with our codes, and who reviewed the agenda bill and has
3:26:27 ↗ concerns about whether we would necessarily be getting what we want to get. And so
3:26:35 ↗ what was brought up was the possibility of doing a residual land value analysis, which
3:26:40 ↗ is a profitability potential, because if it's not profitable, then the developer's not going to
3:26:46 ↗ build. So we have codes in Central Issaquah that are very particular
3:26:52 ↗ to Issaquah. And so that's why I said for, I don't know, you can just
3:26:57 ↗ take a developer who has developed somewhere else under different kinds of codes.
3:27:03 ↗ Doesn't necessarily mean that they can do that here. And
3:27:09 ↗ one of the comments that was made to me is that with this code
3:27:15 ↗ without something else, some other incentives, likely not going to get what we
3:27:21 ↗ want. And so that's concerning if we pass a code and then we hear later,
3:27:24 ↗ no, you really have to have MFTE. So that was one, that's one concern.
3:27:31 ↗ And if they're not, if there's a concern that there's not the profitability after all
3:27:36 ↗ of these regulations to build what we want in Central Issaquah, then that creates an
3:27:41 ↗ incentive potentially to build in the city and not
3:27:47 ↗ necessarily have a, we don't have a code right now for affordability. So I think
3:27:51 ↗ what I don't understand is the effect and one way to
3:27:57 ↗ understand the effect and if it's having the intended effect and not unintended consequences is
3:28:03 ↗ a residual land value analysis, which we haven't had. So that's a
3:28:09 ↗ mouthful, but I think I can try to break it down a little bit for
3:28:11 ↗ you. So the purpose, as you mentioned, purpose of doing residual land
3:28:17 ↗ value analysis is to sort of understand potential profitability of real estate development.
3:28:24 ↗ In real estate economics, land value is essentially based on what a person is willing
3:28:30 ↗ to pay to get access to a piece of property by looking at the development
3:28:35 ↗ costs and comparing that to the capitalized value of their revenue. how much they can
3:28:40 ↗ borrow against the property and when they look at that analysis they look at whether
3:28:45 ↗ or not they would move forward as you pointed out to developers you've talked to
3:28:49 ↗ and we've worked a lot of times in cases where they use residual land value
3:28:54 ↗ that is one way to sort of get at that concept and residual land value
3:28:59 ↗ is particularly helpful when you have a lot of factors that you were trying to
3:29:02 ↗ account for in that analysis so you can account for the building costs you can
3:29:06 ↗ account for rent you can account for parking requirement, you can account for a wide
3:29:11 ↗ range of things, and that's generally when using residual land value makes the most sense.
3:29:17 ↗ What we were assigned to do is to take one measure, okay, and you can
3:29:21 ↗ do that with the residual land as well. You can take one factor and play
3:29:25 ↗ with that and see how it changes the land value or the profitability. What
3:29:31 ↗ we have found is there's another way to get to a very similar answer when
3:29:35 ↗ you're isolating on one issue. And here the isolation of the issue was if you
3:29:41 ↗ change the affordability requirement, will that impact the profitability to a builder, which is
3:29:47 ↗ sort of the same concept as residual land value. So we were, so that's the
3:29:52 ↗ analysis that we were doing. Whether or not there is some truth to the idea
3:29:57 ↗ that need more to get development in general,
3:30:03 ↗ that may be a consideration. I think what was starting to be demonstrated is you
3:30:07 ↗ are starting to see development in your community. So we basically were
3:30:13 ↗ taking the issue that was put in front of us, which is if we want
3:30:17 ↗ to include an affordability requirement, how will that affect the profitability of land? And so
3:30:22 ↗ we basically did that same type of analysis. Now, I have been involved in other
3:30:26 ↗ situations in the past few years where the city has used residual land value as
3:30:32 ↗ well as the approach that we gave to you and the charts that we did
3:30:35 ↗ for you. the results were very similar when you looked at the affordability
3:30:41 ↗ component. And so when they did a residual land value on the affordable housing component,
3:30:47 ↗ they came out with very similar results in the approach that we used with you
3:30:50 ↗ because they're both trying to do the same thing. They're trying to translate the value
3:30:54 ↗ of the impact on revenue towards the value of land. And so you're using land
3:30:59 ↗ value by giving more of it to offset the lost in land value that that
3:31:04 ↗ property has from reduced revenue. So, and our experience has
3:31:10 ↗ been that, you know, is that we get very similar results. It's when you break
3:31:15 ↗ down the math, you're doing very similar things, but you're only looking, what we did
3:31:19 ↗ is looked at one variable instead of multiple variables. If multiple variables are being looked
3:31:24 ↗ at simultaneously, then you probably need to do something more like residual land analysis. But
3:31:29 ↗ again, like I said, we get very similar results using the same approach in residual
3:31:33 ↗ land as we do using sort of the income approach that we use for you.
3:31:41 ↗ yeah I don't know that I I don't know that I see that analysis in
3:31:44 ↗ here and I don't know that I agree just from a I don't do your
3:31:48 ↗ work but right uh it doesn't sound like using one factor rather than multiple factors
3:31:54 ↗ you necessarily get to the same place but I don't have that's not my well
3:31:58 ↗ what I'm saying is in a residual land analysis what they will do when they
3:32:01 ↗ are looking at like an affordability requirement they keep all the other things in their
3:32:05 ↗ equations the same and then they just change that one element to the formula And
3:32:11 ↗ so that's what I was trying to describe is you can do a residual end
3:32:15 ↗ value analysis where they only change one assumption and they see what that does to
3:32:20 ↗ land value. And what we're saying is our approach sort of does the same thing.
3:32:23 ↗ If you're only using one assumption you're looking at, you get sort of the very
3:32:28 ↗ similar math that you're doing. Okay, so all of that brings you back to the
3:32:33 ↗ same, I don't understand the effect of this. would involve going back to the
3:32:40 ↗ charts that we tried to include before if you so
3:32:44 ↗ thanks so are there ever question for you um as you were talking
3:32:50 ↗ um and i was trying to understand because i don't think i quite get that
3:32:53 ↗ residual land value concept but um how do we not end up with an unintended
3:32:59 ↗ consequence how do we not I'm going to put these inclusionary zoning numbers in there
3:33:04 ↗ and find out that everybody that's coming into town will now build somewhere else.
3:33:11 ↗ You mentioned either you or Stacey mentioned multifamily tax exemption. So we don't have that
3:33:17 ↗ for these areas. So how do we know that what we put together actually won't
3:33:22 ↗ get us the opposite of what we want, which is we want people to build
3:33:25 ↗ in the core more than any other area in town and we want it to
3:33:29 ↗ be inclusionary. How do we know we're going to get that? how do we know
3:33:33 ↗ this isn't a disincentive or that you have to have mfte to make it work
3:33:37 ↗ or that you have to have tax credits to make it work so at this
3:33:43 ↗ point without having a zoning map in front of me the type of housing you're
3:33:48 ↗ generally proposing for this area is pretty different than the rest of the city so
3:33:53 ↗ the type of builders who are looking in central issaquah really have other opportunities
3:33:59 ↗ that i'm that aware of in issaquah to do what you are providing for in
3:34:04 ↗ central issaquah so you have a very different land use pattern what our general
3:34:10 ↗ experience is in other cities it's not a matter of it going in the other
3:34:13 ↗ part of the city it's when when will you eventually get that land use pattern
3:34:19 ↗ that you have zoned for there okay so um When
3:34:25 ↗ Atlas was first being built, we talked about the kinds of Econ Northwest, talked about
3:34:31 ↗ the rental rates per square foot that we would need to have in order to
3:34:35 ↗ get a certain development. And they showed that even with Atlas, we're pushing that
3:34:41 ↗ line pretty far out. So what does, if
3:34:47 ↗ they're not getting that $2 per square foot now in Atlas that would get us
3:34:53 ↗ mixed use. How does adding inclusionary zoning on top of that mean we'll get any
3:34:59 ↗ kind of product? So what we've based, right, so what we're trying to do in
3:35:02 ↗ our analysis is show you that you're not making the economics any worse. And in
3:35:06 ↗ fact, you're maybe making the economics a little better. That's what we were trying to
3:35:11 ↗ do with the revisions to add affordability by giving them more base
3:35:17 ↗ that offsets the impact the reduced revenue for the affordability so that's what we were
3:35:23 ↗ trying to do is keeping everything else equal that this provision should be neutral
3:35:29 ↗ or slightly positive to the builder now other factors like you're saying may be affecting
3:35:34 ↗ a go no go decision but the land use affordability provisions have been we've
3:35:40 ↗ attempted to design those that that shouldn't necessarily be the factor that will make the
3:35:44 ↗ decision a go or no go I guess, so I'll just point out a quick
3:35:49 ↗ correction for Trish then. I think on the second page in point two up at
3:35:54 ↗ the top, it talks about decreasing the base FAR, and I think that's just a
3:35:58 ↗ typo, and it's supposed to be increasing. So that was going to be my next
3:36:01 ↗ question, Arthur, is that I don't, I think the FAR for Atlas was less than
3:36:05 ↗ two, less than two. So that's what was economically feasible for
3:36:11 ↗ that property, was something less than two, and And the new FAR that we're giving
3:36:16 ↗ them while we're requiring the inclusionary zoning is five. And so that's a building that
3:36:22 ↗ could be two times or two and a half times as tall as Atlas, which
3:36:26 ↗ is a totally different form of construction. So by giving them that ability
3:36:32 ↗ to go that high, which then turns them into a different form of construction, potentially
3:36:36 ↗ more expensive one, requiring them to add the inclusionary are we really going to
3:36:42 ↗ get it are we really going to get that product so in looking
3:36:48 ↗ at that part of the atlas is a somewhat unique site just
3:36:54 ↗ the way it's designed and laid out and you are now also looking more at
3:36:59 ↗ structured parking so that's going to change the kind of buildings people will be driven
3:37:03 ↗ to build the ratios that we looked at that you are doing and i'm looking
3:37:09 ↗ for my charts here that you went up to and i don't have the zoning
3:37:14 ↗ chart right in front of me here we go um you were going to heights
3:37:20 ↗ of 60 feet and that's in the mixed use zone in the urban core is
3:37:26 ↗ the new base height those are still heights that for the kind of buildings that
3:37:31 ↗ you're sort of profiling in your description which is a wood frame still but with
3:37:36 ↗ more structured parking which is what you see when you go around much of east
3:37:40 ↗ king county and when you look at downtown redmond or bell red and newcastle sammamish
3:37:45 ↗ that these are the types of densities and your far is that you are
3:37:51 ↗ looking at are in the and the 2.5 you're describing the very upper end
3:37:58 ↗ and you're also describing just the new area where you kind of made that's one
3:38:02 ↗ small area but for most of the area you're at 3.0 and 2.5 um
3:38:08 ↗ above from the 1.7 they may not go to the full 3.0 um they may
3:38:13 ↗ not need it to get to the type of densities where they're at 60 feet
3:38:16 ↗ that's you know you may be a little bit more than they need so i
3:38:19 ↗ would say that the profiles that we've changed are still a wood frame type building
3:38:23 ↗ They're not at the very high end of what your zones allow. But again, that's
3:38:27 ↗ the more voluntary. This is the new base that you've established. So we didn't go
3:38:32 ↗ to 5-0 for the most part. Yeah, so I guess my question is, if Atlas
3:38:36 ↗ is what the market would support now, this inclusionary zoning if if if
3:38:42 ↗ all we're going to get is a five-story building now which is 60 feet which
3:38:45 ↗ is atlas more or less and it has some structured parking in atlas there is
3:38:49 ↗ actually structured parking below those um how does adding inclusionary zoning
3:38:56 ↗ get us anything because it actually makes the pro forma for the builder
3:39:00 ↗ less doesn't make the pro forma better and the market right now around here is
3:39:06 ↗ only four or five story buildings. If the answer is you can put inclusionary zoning
3:39:11 ↗ in, but you're gonna chill it and you're probably not gonna see any kinds of
3:39:15 ↗ this construction for 10 to 15 years until the building form changes here, then that
3:39:20 ↗ I could get. But if what we're trying to do is add inclusionary zoning and
3:39:25 ↗ get it in our next developments, I don't know that I can see that we're
3:39:30 ↗ gonna get there right now unless we give them something else. unless we give them
3:39:34 ↗ an MFT or unless we're assuming that they're gonna be tax credit
3:39:39 ↗ projects, that they're getting money from other sources. So I just, I want some sort
3:39:43 ↗ of certainty that we're not setting ourselves up not to get it. Well,
3:39:50 ↗ part of where you were coming from is you were finding, you're trying to create
3:39:53 ↗ so that any development will have to provide. And I think that was what I
3:39:56 ↗ was telling the committee is, if you look at, looking at downtown Redmond, had the
3:40:01 ↗ same provisions in place for about 20 years now. And for about four or five
3:40:07 ↗ years, they didn't get anything. Then they started getting stuff. And in fact, I was
3:40:12 ↗ just driving a new teacher for the University of Washington around today. We went to
3:40:17 ↗ downtown Redmond, and I pointed out that the buildings that were built in the first
3:40:20 ↗ wave were very different than the buildings being built this year. But the provisions are
3:40:23 ↗ still basically the same. But every one of those buildings includes affordable units.
3:40:31 ↗ So you sort of hit on it. What we were, I think Mercer Island was
3:40:34 ↗ told a number of years ago is when they didn't do a mandatory approach and
3:40:39 ↗ nobody chose it, and they say, well, we didn't because you said we couldn't. And
3:40:44 ↗ the consultant corrected them and said, well, no, it just would have maybe been three
3:40:48 ↗ years later. So is it 10 years or is it three years if you're ahead
3:40:52 ↗ of the market? That's hard to exactly predict. I think what we've been seeing in
3:40:57 ↗ the last few years, Sammamish was wondering if anything would get built up there. And
3:41:01 ↗ yet they have now pretty much built out and people have bought all the extra
3:41:06 ↗ incentives that the city made available in their town center. So the economic,
3:41:12 ↗ so yes, the impact would be to maybe delay it sometime, but you set up
3:41:16 ↗ with this provision, the concern that some were getting, were doing it under provisions that
3:41:21 ↗ did not trigger requirements. we're now creating a situation where all would, and the impact
3:41:27 ↗ would be, is it gonna be a time impact on it? If you offer other
3:41:31 ↗ incentives, it might happen sooner. But the other thing we've learned over the years is
3:41:35 ↗ there are many different developers out there, and that list up there sort of shows
3:41:38 ↗ you that. And it can sometimes be hard to predict what
3:41:45 ↗ you hear versus what the actions are. So in 2009, the real estate world
3:41:50 ↗ changed. The last two or three years, we are seeing builders offering incentives that
3:41:56 ↗ we're finding amazing that they're agreeing to because the market is so strong right now.
3:42:02 ↗ So a builder in downtown Kirkland agreed with no extra capacity to just allow him
3:42:08 ↗ to switch some of his space from commercial to housing to give 10% of the
3:42:11 ↗ unit to 50% of median with no extra capacity and as a mid-rise. So the
3:42:17 ↗ economics right now are showing that builders have been taking
3:42:23 ↗ on these incentives or requirements because of the, you know, the market is
3:42:29 ↗ working. Markets, the analysis you did five, 10 years ago, a
3:42:35 ↗ very, very small change in rent levels makes a very big difference in the conclusions
3:42:40 ↗ of the analysis when you do a residual land analysis. And so one of the
3:42:44 ↗ things we're seeing is builders seem to be coming around quicker than might have been
3:42:48 ↗ originally anticipated. Can I call what will happen in the central? No. But what we
3:42:54 ↗ also tried to tell the committee is the approach we have used in the analysis
3:42:58 ↗ for you is the same approach in all these other centers that are in East
3:43:02 ↗ King County that about setting up the parameters. Some of them started seeing building right
3:43:07 ↗ away. Others, it took three or four or five years to start seeing development. I
3:43:12 ↗ mean, that's my whole, whatever, however residual land value is
3:43:18 ↗ calculated or whatever else, I wanna understand what we're doing here. And if, since we're
3:43:23 ↗ not doing it citywide and it was originally put in, the moratorium originally was citywide,
3:43:29 ↗ and then the work product was a housing strategy and we have a housing work
3:43:34 ↗ plan and then the moratorium item specifically related to central issaquah was this one just
3:43:41 ↗ look at this right now i guess i'm wondering if we're going to get what
3:43:46 ↗ we want or we're going to see development everywhere else but the core for the
3:43:51 ↗ next five years which would be an unintended consequence i
3:43:57 ↗ i can't i can't these numbers tonight i can't convince myself that this is a
3:44:01 ↗ good thing like i want it i want everything in central isquara to have affordable
3:44:06 ↗ units but is it going to at this current market condition not happen for five
3:44:11 ↗ to ten years and instead we're going to densify everywhere else except the core
3:44:17 ↗ i'm not sure any analysis can answer that question for you to be honest with
3:44:21 ↗ you okay I mean, that's part of the dilemma. When you're
3:44:27 ↗ introducing a new land use type, one of the things we've learned with the spectrum
3:44:31 ↗ development, your water table issue. So you have costs associated with that.
3:44:39 ↗ So those models have more assumptions in them. But there's also, every time you make
3:44:43 ↗ an assumption, you don't know if they're right. And so in any
3:44:49 ↗ modeling that you're doing to say, will the builders respond, It's hard to say. You
3:44:54 ↗ can't absolutely guarantee it. What we're trying, what we've been trying to say to you
3:44:59 ↗ is you put one variable on the table. We use the same approach. We wanted
3:45:03 ↗ to make sure that it was not a negative. Are there other factors? Because in
3:45:07 ↗ real estate development, they're accounting for so many factors. They may be looking at how
3:45:12 ↗ much is getting built in Bellevue, you know, as another consideration. When is your rail
3:45:16 ↗ coming to here versus other places? There's so many variables out there. you are
3:45:22 ↗ seeing to some degree, while it wasn't exactly what you were looking for, you are
3:45:26 ↗ still getting proposals in your center that are relatively close to what you were originally,
3:45:32 ↗ they're not exactly what you want. But they are in the ballpark of the type
3:45:38 ↗ of development. Adding another floor, adding structured parking, how much is that going to tilt
3:45:42 ↗ it? That is a hard thing to call.
3:45:50 ↗ I think we've tried to use the same approach as in other communities who have
3:45:54 ↗ moved forward.
3:46:01 ↗ So this is coming back from Land and Shore, referring it to the
3:46:06 ↗ full Council without a recommendation.
3:46:14 ↗ Mariah wants to. Mariah. Arthur, I've got a question. I have a question for
3:46:20 ↗ you. I'm not sure I've thought this all the way through, but what would it
3:46:25 ↗ look like to, you know, one of the concerns I have is that in
3:46:31 ↗ regard to these sorts of decisions is that, you know, that we have to start
3:46:36 ↗ somewhere. And if we were to go forward
3:46:43 ↗ with this plan, then could we mix in
3:46:49 ↗ doing one of the studies that has been talked about and
3:46:55 ↗ take a look at potentially adding another incentive?
3:47:02 ↗ I guess the point is that I'm totally understanding the concern that we're
3:47:11 ↗ that has been talked about by my fellow council members and being able to monitor
3:47:15 ↗ and understand where we're at and if that's providing a disincentive. In the meantime,
3:47:21 ↗ could we go forward with the study? Does that make sense?
3:47:28 ↗ Sure, you could do that. I think, I guess you have to ask yourselves a
3:47:33 ↗ couple questions in trying to think this through. What motivated the study in the first
3:47:38 ↗ place is wanting some level more affordability with what is being
3:47:44 ↗ built. And I think that what many of the jurisdictions elsewhere have done is either,
3:47:51 ↗ in the case of Bellevue, set such a low base that no one's gonna build
3:47:54 ↗ without using the incentive that's needed because the base is too low. And so if
3:47:59 ↗ to build anything you are going to, your base is than that kind of that
3:48:03 ↗ very low approach or what other jurisdictions have done which is saying we are going
3:48:08 ↗ to mandate it and then you can then ask yourself the question have we done
3:48:13 ↗ enough or do we want to add like you said add on other layers in
3:48:18 ↗ order to sort of help development occur and so that's where the economists you know
3:48:24 ↗ when we're doing the work seven eight years ago there was discussion about how should
3:48:29 ↗ mfte be used The analysis that we did then said, well, yeah, maybe that does
3:48:34 ↗ get the ball rolling quicker. But it also, when we did that analysis, showed a
3:48:39 ↗ 2 or 3% change in market rents would make that no longer needed to tip
3:48:45 ↗ the residual land value analysis to the positive without it. And so that's how close
3:48:50 ↗ the margins can be between go and no go. Your question as a council is,
3:48:55 ↗ do you want to, if you want the affordability, that's one question. If you want
3:48:59 ↗ development sooner than later, are you willing to consider other things in order to get
3:49:04 ↗ development sooner than later? Thank you. So
3:49:10 ↗ Keith, can I ask you a question?
3:49:18 ↗ So we already have an item that's gonna be worked on divisions.
3:49:23 ↗ And so in the interest of attempting to move forward, I'll just ask
3:49:29 ↗ a question. Could you speak briefly about what it might look like
3:49:36 ↗ if I were to ask you, I'll just ask you, could you come back to
3:49:42 ↗ the council at the first or second meeting in January and ask some information on
3:49:47 ↗ how we might be able to get some more analysis what that might look like
3:49:51 ↗ what the timeline might be and if there might be any additional costs involved costs
3:49:55 ↗ involved um if if the council wants to ask the administration to
3:50:01 ↗ put together a scope for services to further evaluate the impacts of
3:50:07 ↗ inclusionary zoning in central isaqua we could do that and by the
3:50:13 ↗ in january january second meeting meeting's the second.
3:50:19 ↗ Yes. Well, I said the second, but I thought that was probably too quick given
3:50:24 ↗ the where we are in December.
3:50:31 ↗ Mariah?
3:50:37 ↗ All right. Keith? Yes, sir. Unaccustomed as I am to
3:50:43 ↗ asking questions. I'm always a little bit skeptical of
3:50:49 ↗ commitments made at almost 11 o'clock at night on a council. And
3:50:55 ↗ so this is not work that we would do internally. We would develop
3:51:01 ↗ a scope for services and have a scope of work that
3:51:07 ↗ gets to the questions that have been asked this evening.
3:51:13 ↗ Yes, that's what I intended to say if I did not get all that out.
3:51:17 ↗ My apologies. We do not have the expertise on staff to do that economic
3:51:23 ↗ analysis. We would need to contract with someone who could provide that
3:51:29 ↗ service. And you would have responses to those questions by the
3:51:34 ↗ second meeting in January? I think what... between Arch and the
3:51:40 ↗ city, what we could do is put together what that scope of
3:51:46 ↗ services would include. Now, that may be a three-month, six-month endeavor. I have
3:51:52 ↗ no idea, but I think based on the questions that were being asked, I mean,
3:51:56 ↗ it's a pretty complex question, I think, that's being asked. in
3:52:02 ↗ terms of if you want to have surety on what the inclusionary requirement might
3:52:08 ↗ do to the development community here in Issaquah. I mean, a lot of it might
3:52:13 ↗ include interviews with multifamily developers. So,
3:52:20 ↗ at the end of January, you would have a scope of work, not a finished
3:52:25 ↗ product. We would have a proposed scope of work. Okay. Just wanted to clarify that
3:52:29 ↗ point. Yeah. The second meeting. On Mariah?
3:52:37 ↗ I think Paul was next. Oh, I'm after you. Yeah, yeah, that was after Mariah.
3:52:42 ↗ Go ahead, Paul. I was after Mariah. So I heard a question, I heard an
3:52:44 ↗ answer, I heard the question repeated, but the answer actually was very valuable to me
3:52:50 ↗ in that this model is one where, yes, you'd
3:52:56 ↗ be building more, but you can get more, and some of that will be less
3:53:01 ↗ revenue because of the affordable component. And then, so I heard an answer to the
3:53:06 ↗ question. I also agree that the, you know, we cannot perfectly
3:53:12 ↗ predict everything. And I'm not really sure,
3:53:18 ↗ I'm not sure what we're gonna be studying. So this is, that's a whole, if
3:53:21 ↗ we did that, completely different study. We're not on the cutting edge on this.
3:53:27 ↗ We are not on the bleeding edge if we were to do inclusionary zoning. Matter
3:53:32 ↗ of fact, there's not a better market than East King County to tell us how
3:53:37 ↗ we might do based upon this plan. Yes, there are differences in every one of
3:53:40 ↗ those. I think we have a foremost expert in the room
3:53:47 ↗ tonight who's talking about it could be quicker, it could be, or it could be
3:53:51 ↗ a couple years and you have some other tools to accelerate it if you want
3:53:54 ↗ it some more. if you wanna get it a little bit sooner. So getting
3:53:59 ↗ affordable housing is critical. We are not on the bleeding
3:54:05 ↗ edge what's proposed here. So I understand some
3:54:12 ↗ fear of unforeseen consequences, but
3:54:18 ↗ this, again, this doesn't feel or even in the analysis look risky to me
3:54:24 ↗ because we are not alone in this marketplace. We are not the only data point.
3:54:30 ↗ So I wanna have this, I wanna add this council to actually talk about this
3:54:33 ↗ tonight. So we'll see if we're gonna get a second, but I'm gonna make a
3:54:36 ↗ motion. I wanna move to adopt ordinance number. 2820. 2018. 2820.
3:54:47 ↗ AMENDING THE IMC AND CENTRAL ISSAQUA STANDARDS REGARDING INCLUSIONARY ZONING REQUIREMENTS FOR CENTRAL ISSAQUA.
3:55:03 ↗ YOU HAVE YOUR ANSWER. I HAVE MY ANSWER, YES. OKAY. I HAVE A QUESTION.
3:55:10 ↗ SO, IF WE I
3:55:16 ↗ didn't second Paul's motion is that what I think I hear
3:55:22 ↗ is the formation of a set of specific questions. What I don't want to do
3:55:27 ↗ is I don't want to leave this tonight with cook this more,
3:55:33 ↗ right? I would like to leave this tonight with a specific set of questions
3:55:39 ↗ that are going to get answered in in early 2018 and that are gonna get
3:55:43 ↗ scoped in January. So what I heard was what would inclusionary zoning do to the
3:55:48 ↗ development environment in Issaquah, right? What are the other specific
3:55:54 ↗ questions, I'm sorry? No, go ahead, I'm sorry. What are the other specific questions that
3:55:59 ↗ we want Keith to come back with a scoped set of work for? Because I
3:56:04 ↗ really, I wanna know, I wanna be able to put around what it is that
3:56:10 ↗ we want them to do because I worry that it'd be too negative this
3:56:12 ↗ otherwise. So you captured my concern,
3:56:18 ↗ which is does this have the unintended consequence of not getting us what we want
3:56:23 ↗ and getting something else? And the way you wrote your question, I think it's in
3:56:26 ↗ that question. So that's great. What does this do to the development market in Nisqa?
3:56:30 ↗ If what it says is anything here for 10 years you don't have inclusionary zoning
3:56:35 ↗ outside so you're just going to get regular housing there's an answer so you've got
3:56:40 ↗ my question if if that's similar to if that involves
3:56:48 ↗ some sort of analysis that never mind let me think about what i'm going to
3:56:53 ↗ say um i
3:57:03 ↗ want some type of analysis. The analysis that was mentioned to be by
3:57:09 ↗ somebody who knows way more than I do about this topic was residual land value
3:57:13 ↗ analysis. And so if that's
3:57:19 ↗ the analysis, then that's the analysis. If you get the answer with a different type
3:57:23 ↗ of analysis, that would be fine too. I am
3:57:30 ↗ I don't believe we've had the analysis that we need to make this decision. That's
3:57:35 ↗ my concern. So, for Hurt,
3:57:42 ↗ Mariah. So I just wanted to follow up on what Tola talked
3:57:48 ↗ about. I agree with the way that
3:57:54 ↗ Tola is looking at framing this. I do have a concern with.
3:58:00 ↗ with letting it go on too long, not being able to move forward on one
3:58:06 ↗ of the most critical issues that we've been talking about in regard to affordable housing.
3:58:12 ↗ But having that analysis, I think, would be really important if we could get that
3:58:16 ↗ back. And then also having some sort of just check-ins where we're
3:58:22 ↗ talking about how things are actually working in the central Issaquah area.
3:58:30 ↗ I would just like to add that.
3:58:36 ↗ So I believe that the intent expressed this
3:58:42 ↗ evening provides sufficient direction
3:58:48 ↗ to the staff to come back with a proposed scope of
3:58:54 ↗ services for additional analysis on
3:59:01 ↗ inclusionary zoning for affordable housing that would consider
3:59:07 ↗ residual, a residual land analysis.
3:59:13 ↗ Did I get that right, Stacey? So, or sim, can we expand that to or
3:59:19 ↗ something else? Yeah, a residual land value type analysis. And so,
3:59:25 ↗ do we need a motion for that?
3:59:31 ↗ I can make a motion if you want. Make a motion. I'd make a motion
3:59:36 ↗ to direct the administration to bring the agenda bill back to the
3:59:42 ↗ full council at the second meeting in January with a proposal for additional analysis
3:59:49 ↗ and scope of that. That makes sense. Second.
3:59:55 ↗ Moved and seconded. Any additional discussion?
4:00:03 ↗ none all those in favor of approving the motion signify by saying aye aye aye
4:00:08 ↗ those opposed nay that uh carries six uh
4:00:16 ↗ one with winterstein uh uh not supporting the motion
4:00:22 ↗ mr mayor maids uh question please we're
4:00:27 ↗ gonna we're gonna talk about mtfe
4:00:33 ↗ is delaying this just wipe that project out because the inclusionary zoning was part of
4:00:37 ↗ the assumption okay thank you for part of the assumption okay uh
4:00:47 ↗ where are we g f
4:00:55 ↗ uh uh and if i will
4:01:00 ↗ see okay Moving now to agenda bill 7506,
4:01:05 ↗ expiration of temporary moratorium related to certain permit applications. If we had
4:01:11 ↗ a public hearing earlier this evening,
4:01:17 ↗ what would you like to say about this, Keith? Keith Wolling, I'm back.
4:01:24 ↗ So I don't know that I need to say anything in, in,
4:01:31 ↗ you need me to. I mean, I think the list is up. We now know
4:01:37 ↗ the status. MFTE's still coming.
4:01:43 ↗ That's agenda bill 7488. I think technically we should have done this probably after that
4:01:47 ↗ one, but I think we're okay. So inclusionary got continued.
4:01:53 ↗ Architecture, urban design got approved this evening. District visions got
4:01:58 ↗ continued. So that's where we're at. Two are undone.
4:02:05 ↗ Okay, Stacy? So I'm gonna make a motion. Thank you. I move to adopt ordinance
4:02:10 ↗ number. 2821. findings and amending the
4:02:16 ↗ moratorium established by ordinance number 2778 as amended by ordinance number 2784
4:02:22 ↗ and as previously extended by ordinance number 2793 and 2800 to include only central issaquah
4:02:28 ↗ and to be extended for another six months setting the next moratorium public hearing for
4:02:31 ↗ june 4th 2018 second moved and seconded uh any discussion or
4:02:37 ↗ questions i have a question stacy so the um
4:02:44 ↗ The ordinance talks about the extension of the
4:02:49 ↗ moratorium for the sole reason of time necessary to complete
4:02:55 ↗ the visions piece. And so I guess my question
4:03:01 ↗ is mostly to Bob or the city attorney about if we need to
4:03:08 ↗ amend the ordinance at all to incorporate potentially inclusionary zoning.
4:03:16 ↗ So I'm not sure if we, so I'll ask you. Yeah, I guess it
4:03:22 ↗ depends on if that's a prerequisite or not to the
4:03:28 ↗ extension of the moratorium. If you do want to include it, I think it's fairly
4:03:31 ↗ simple in that the ordinance is set up to refer to one
4:03:37 ↗ piece remaining. And I think if you just directed
4:03:43 ↗ the ordinance to be changed to refer to the two pieces the affordable housing and
4:03:49 ↗ the central isaqua we could make those changes administratively and
4:03:55 ↗ uh the ordinance number would actually be 2820.
4:04:09 ↗ so it's been moved and seconded uh any discussion or questions paul just
4:04:15 ↗ six months can we just speak to why six months
4:04:24 ↗ um so state statute says unless you know better six months is your timeline
4:04:30 ↗ and every six months you need to have another hearing and to make a decision
4:04:34 ↗ to either extend lift or amend so um right now we have no idea um
4:04:40 ↗ based on scoping of services for inclusionary
4:04:46 ↗ housing. So I don't know any different than six months, I guess. So I would
4:04:52 ↗ recommend six months. So I've also heard comments about the work we have left,
4:04:58 ↗ the impression being that we don't have six months worth of work. I didn't make
4:05:03 ↗ that comment. But what is, what if we completed these items,
4:05:12 ↗ What options are available to us? So I think the way we wrote the last
4:05:16 ↗ ordinance, and I assume that the city attorney wrote this one similarly, is that when
4:05:22 ↗ you finish, when the council adopts the remaining work items, that the moratorium automatically
4:05:28 ↗ lifts. Yeah,
4:05:34 ↗ the way we drafted the ordinance is that it lasts for six months or until
4:05:38 ↗ you... it earlier or extend it.
4:05:44 ↗ So what you would do if you did the other pieces with the last
4:05:50 ↗ piece that you did where you felt you could lift the moratorium, you would adopt
4:05:54 ↗ that and at that point terminate the moratorium. Okay, so we can ask that question
4:06:01 ↗ At any time. You can terminate the moratorium. We made it for six months simply
4:06:07 ↗ because that's the longest you can do on this, and we weren't sure what
4:06:13 ↗ the timeline would be for completing the pieces. So we made it six months. But
4:06:18 ↗ you can terminate it at any time. Stacey.
4:06:26 ↗ I would like to amend the motion to include the affordable housing.
4:06:34 ↗ can we be specific on inclusionary zoning yes
4:06:40 ↗ thank you second degrees
4:06:47 ↗ so there's a motion's been seconded to amend it to include the inclusionary zoning piece
4:06:55 ↗ it's a subset of affordable housing so uh Questions or discussion on the
4:07:01 ↗ amendment? All those in favor of amending the main motion as
4:07:06 ↗ outlined by states, signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed? As unanimously.
4:07:13 ↗ Okay, moving now to agenda bill 7488.
4:07:28 ↗ You've amended the motion, but you need to have a vote on the amended ordinance.
4:07:33 ↗ Thank you. All those in favor of supporting the amended
4:07:39 ↗ ordinance signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed, that carries unanimously. Thank you,
4:07:44 ↗ Patricia. It's getting late.
4:07:48 ↗ Agenda Bill 7488, multi-culture.
4:07:56 ↗ housing property tax exemption. Jen, you're
4:08:02 ↗ still here. Good evening. Good evening. I'm here till the end. I have two items
4:08:06 ↗ tonight. This one is about the multifamily tax exemption. And knock on wood, it should
4:08:12 ↗ be a pretty quick one. I hope I'm not jinxing myself. But we were here
4:08:16 ↗ at the December 4th meeting, and there was some questions about bringing back the information
4:08:22 ↗ about the changes to the ordinance. And then there was a new request about an
4:08:26 ↗ update about the finances. So tonight we're going to review the ordinance edits. And so
4:08:32 ↗ these are the edits that were made to the ordinance from what was presented the
4:08:36 ↗ beginning of November. So that was a while ago. A lot of conversations have happened
4:08:40 ↗ since then. And we have done some things to make it a little more
4:08:47 ↗ clear. And so this just provides a quick timeline of what we've done around the
4:08:53 ↗ MFTE. starting again in September at the full
4:08:58 ↗ council. Well, September, the full council, one of the strategies was to explore the MFTE
4:09:03 ↗ by the end of this year. There are three ordinance edits that we'll be looking
4:09:07 ↗ at tonight. One is pretty minor as far as refining
4:09:13 ↗ the definition. The second one is being a little more specific about project eligibility and
4:09:19 ↗ the response to the December 4th request to link the MFTE to this project and
4:09:25 ↗ not to the property as much. And the third is clarifying the exemption
4:09:31 ↗ with clarifying about the state law versus just the law. So this is the actual
4:09:36 ↗ edits that were made to the definition of household annual income. And again, these are
4:09:42 ↗ pretty minor, but just helps to clarify and be more in line with what's used
4:09:48 ↗ nowadays. Are there any questions about this edit?
4:09:55 ↗ And so what we did for the second edit, so there was a footnote that
4:10:00 ↗ we had added at the last meeting to the description of the area. And we
4:10:05 ↗ actually combined the footnote and then if you read through this whole thing, the last
4:10:10 ↗ sentence States projects will be required to have a development agreement approved by the Issaquah
4:10:15 ↗ City Council binding the owner to construct the project as described in order to be
4:10:20 ↗ eligible. So this combines what the talking about the comply with the provisions of G,
4:10:26 ↗ H, and B of those other sections are talking about making sure that if
4:10:33 ↗ the design of the projects meet the proposed that was submitted, and so things aren't
4:10:39 ↗ gonna be drastically changed. They're not gonna say all of a sudden, okay, now we're
4:10:42 ↗ gonna put, create all the affordable units as studios, because we already, we know that
4:10:46 ↗ we wanna have them split out on different sizes and different affordability levels. So this
4:10:52 ↗ is the amended language for, to address those two issues. Are there any
4:10:58 ↗ questions about this? Great. Paul? Oh, yes.
4:11:05 ↗ part that adds, that ties it to the project, that language, is that what begins
4:11:10 ↗ with, and be substantially the same as the amended project description dated August 23rd? No,
4:11:15 ↗ it's actually starting at projects. So the other part was, we had it already in
4:11:20 ↗ the ordinance edits in December, and that was more tying it to that the description
4:11:25 ↗ of the project meets. Where is that? I'm sorry, the, where's what?
4:11:32 ↗ is it tied to the project where's the language that ties it to the product
4:11:35 ↗ projects projects right here projects will be required to have a development agreement approved by
4:11:40 ↗ the isaqua city council binding so that right now we're only talking about doing a
4:11:44 ↗ development agreement with the tod project so
4:11:51 ↗ we the okay so what does it mean then it says be substantially the same
4:11:55 ↗ as the amended project description dated august 23rd
4:12:03 ↗ What did we get on August 23rd? What does it mean to be substantially the
4:12:06 ↗ same? Sure. Okay. I was reading that as the part that actually
4:12:12 ↗ was tying it to the project. It does as well, but I think the development
4:12:15 ↗ agreement specifically ties it to something that you have control over because you as city
4:12:19 ↗ council approve that we move forward with developing an agreement and then of course
4:12:25 ↗ approve an agreement. The August 23rd project description, so in
4:12:32 ↗ In November 2016, we did the RFP and we had project
4:12:37 ↗ descriptions come in. We selected Spectrum and King County Housing Authority. As they continued
4:12:43 ↗ to refine their project, they submitted an updated project
4:12:49 ↗ which included additional affordable housing units in the King County building. It included a
4:12:55 ↗ redesign, a little bit of where the commercial spaces are going to be. And that's
4:12:59 ↗ what's in the August 23 proposal. So we wanted to refer to that proposal versus
4:13:05 ↗ the original proposal. And what that means as far as substantially the same,
4:13:11 ↗ again, that they have to comply with the
4:13:17 ↗ general, because in that proposal, it talks about how many units at what percentage or
4:13:23 ↗ what size. We don't want them to come back in and say, now we're going
4:13:26 ↗ to only build studios. We also want to make sure
4:13:32 ↗ that the overall levels of affordability and some of these
4:13:38 ↗ provisions are about the design and the materials of the units are going to be
4:13:44 ↗ the affordable units are going to be the same as the other units within that
4:13:48 ↗ building. So that they're not going to be cheap on
4:13:54 ↗ the affordable units. They're going to look the same, it'd be the same materials, the
4:13:57 ↗ same finishes. Okay? Everything after B ties it to the project. Sure.
4:14:07 ↗ Yeah. That's what I was trying to understand. Yeah. But the development
4:14:13 ↗ agreement, that's the, I think, the club, right? Because if somebody else came in and
4:14:18 ↗ said, oh, well, we're going to take what the proposal said and we're somebody else
4:14:22 ↗ doing it, they wouldn't be exactly to this project.
4:14:28 ↗ So we thought this was the better stick carrot to tie the two together.
4:14:40 ↗ since I assisted in the drafting of that language, maybe I can help.
4:14:47 ↗ The section in which this is proposed to be placed is the project eligibility section.
4:14:52 ↗ So in order for someone to come in and apply for the MFTE
4:14:59 ↗ exemption, they're going to have to meet the criteria in that section. And so what
4:15:03 ↗ we tried to do here, listening to the council's
4:15:09 ↗ last time was to make sure that, and as I understood what the council was
4:15:14 ↗ saying last time, is we wanted to make sure that we were gonna get the
4:15:18 ↗ project that was being presented. And so the language there
4:15:26 ↗ ties the projects in the Tibbetts Valley Transit Oriented Development
4:15:32 ↗ RTA, which is the only RTA that's been designated thus far. to be
4:15:37 ↗ substantially the same as what is in the proposal so that means you get the
4:15:42 ↗ project that has been presented to you and then the development agreement is the mechanism
4:15:47 ↗ by which you ensure that that project if developed over time will actually meet those
4:15:52 ↗ criteria so that all the language is taken together gets you the project
4:15:58 ↗ that's been presented So this will be a question for
4:16:04 ↗ Jim, I think, since you helped draft it. So I just was skimming
4:16:10 ↗ through here looking for project description dated August 23, 2017. So I don't, is there
4:16:16 ↗ anywhere in this code that has any
4:16:22 ↗ better reference to the project description that we're talking about with the exception of
4:16:29 ↗ a date of August 23, 2017? I think that practically speaking, if it's
4:16:35 ↗ five years from now or whenever it is, the only reference we have in this
4:16:38 ↗ code to what this must comply with is some project
4:16:44 ↗ that was amended on August 23, 2017. Right. And I spoke to
4:16:50 ↗ Jen about that and originally we talked about whether or not to lay out all
4:16:56 ↗ of the parameters of the project in detail in the code or whether we should
4:17:01 ↗ just refer to it by reference. And given the complexities of the project, we
4:17:07 ↗ decided that rather than write several pages of project description, that it
4:17:13 ↗ was sufficient to refer to it in this manner.
4:17:19 ↗ And presumably, the will still have copies of that proposal five years from now and
4:17:25 ↗ we'll be able to refer back to it. Would it be appropriate to just simply
4:17:30 ↗ put a link to that document, the August 23 amended project description?
4:17:38 ↗ Can we link from the ordinance to a document in our document center? Sure, we
4:17:43 ↗ could certainly do it in the document center. That's true. It just seems a little
4:17:47 ↗ odd, you know if you, so if I take myself away as a third party
4:17:52 ↗ and I'm reading the code, which project is that? Dated August, that just seems very
4:17:57 ↗ awkward. But if you link to that actual document, then I think that that works.
4:18:02 ↗ Yeah. And I think the other part is that with the development agreement, we'll have
4:18:06 ↗ more refined details. So that will have even, you know, better connection. But that's a
4:18:11 ↗ great point. Any other questions?
4:18:26 ↗ I would move to adopt ordinance number 2821. That's
4:18:29 ↗ good. Adding chapter 3.09, multifamily housing
4:18:35 ↗ property tax exemption to the Issaquah Municipal Code. Oh, I'm sorry. I heard you
4:18:41 ↗ say something, but you weren't very loud, Paul, and I couldn't hear you. It's okay.
4:18:44 ↗ Never mind. So this one is really quick, pretty easy. So again, we had this
4:18:50 ↗ before, so it's no different from what you saw on the December 4th when I
4:18:52 ↗ showed. But it just provides specific information to the RCW and the
4:18:58 ↗ IMC, so it's very clear. And then, asked about financing
4:19:04 ↗ so great news if i know that you all were cc'd but uh this tod
4:19:10 ↗ project was funded the full 10 million dollar request from the king county tod uh
4:19:15 ↗ fund so that's wonderful news they are expecting that we the city will you know
4:19:20 ↗ do our part as well as everybody else and as of right now um the
4:19:24 ↗ private activity bonds are in the the uh the tax bill at the federal level
4:19:29 ↗ that are moving forward The King County Housing Authority folks said that the MFT,
4:19:35 ↗ the TOD, and the private activity bonds are the big ones that they're looking at,
4:19:41 ↗ and that there will be some adjustment because of the corporate tax rate and how
4:19:46 ↗ the value of that private activity bonds are moving forward, but they are looking to
4:19:51 ↗ control project costs to kind of get to make sure that this project moves forward.
4:19:55 ↗ So they're not worried about moving forward with where things are now. Which one of
4:19:59 ↗ those items is a bond? So
4:20:05 ↗ it's the, yeah. And then low income tax, housing
4:20:11 ↗ tax credit, so that's connected to as well with the PABs and the 4% tax
4:20:17 ↗ credit. If I ask this question, so the status of all of those, that's the
4:20:21 ↗ list of them. Yes. So what happens is they go out and do a bond.
4:20:27 ↗ King County Housing Authority goes and does a bond. So once they are ready to
4:20:32 ↗ move forward with this project to go for the financing, they will go ahead and
4:20:35 ↗ do that. They have no concern if they do get the Senate or the
4:20:41 ↗ U.S. tax bill gets passed, they will move forward with that. The other things
4:20:47 ↗ are pretty much lined up. Yeah, I mean, I think the pieces that are...
4:20:55 ↗ The trust fund will come to the city council here early next year for discussion
4:21:01 ↗ about the awards. So that's timing wise will be pretty soon.
4:21:07 ↗ Yeah. So Stacy made a motion
4:21:13 ↗ that was just seconded. Additional questions or discussion?
4:21:30 ↗ I don't understand the tying it to a project. We talked about it last time,
4:21:34 ↗ and I don't, it would help me quite a bit if I could just hear
4:21:38 ↗ from more of my colleagues on the council on why this,
4:21:44 ↗ why that language that has to tie it to a project, this particular project.
4:21:50 ↗ There's creating the area, which we'll be doing. We're putting it on the area. All
4:21:54 ↗ that's normal. I asked about the funding. I didn't quite get exactly what I asked.
4:22:00 ↗ I was hoping to see what the status was of all of these. And now
4:22:05 ↗ there's an arts component. And we know that that has a timeline as well. So
4:22:09 ↗ I don't have as much clarity on the timing of the funding as I had
4:22:13 ↗ hoped. But the... Why tying it to the project? Because I
4:22:19 ↗ certainly recognize this is a very unique project. We've not had King County Housing Authority
4:22:23 ↗ come in and say, we can build 155 affordable units before. Well, no one else
4:22:27 ↗ is gonna come in and do that. And that certainly makes it pretty unique. But
4:22:31 ↗ of course, those affordable units aren't paying impact fees, so that's less revenue for the
4:22:36 ↗ city, as opposed to if 80% of them actually were market right. But still, why?
4:22:45 ↗ Why are we working so hard to tie it to a project? I'd
4:22:51 ↗ just like to hear from, I don't, I've never understood that.
4:22:58 ↗ If I can add maybe a little bit of primer for that, that might be
4:23:00 ↗ helpful. So we talked about this as a pilot project, as a way to introduce
4:23:06 ↗ the cities to MFTE. And I think as you talk about something as a pilot,
4:23:12 ↗ having it very specific to a project seems to have some connection. So that's why
4:23:17 ↗ it made sense for me, if that helps at all. At 11 o'clock or 11.30?
4:23:24 ↗ Yeah, just the way I look at it, it is very narrow, right? It's a
4:23:28 ↗ single piece of project. It's a single property, right? And so that's very narrow.
4:23:35 ↗ And yeah, there is a project with some great elements to it coming in, but
4:23:41 ↗ I don't know why we would put our code to tie it just to that
4:23:43 ↗ project.
4:23:54 ↗ I'm just trying to understand. Actually, could you put the funding sources back up again?
4:24:00 ↗ I know we don't have a table in front of us tonight, but the total
4:24:04 ↗ price of the project is $124 million.
4:24:10 ↗ And so the city's piece of this, with the city waived fees and the MFT,
4:24:17 ↗ not including the arch, is some amount of money, but it's not a significant
4:24:23 ↗ amount of money per unit because of all the other funding sources. And so
4:24:29 ↗ it is a way for us without taking cash to contribute to the project. However,
4:24:35 ↗ I'm not sure I as a council member understand what it would mean for us
4:24:40 ↗ to attach MFTE to land in terms of the range of that
4:24:46 ↗ might come and use it. So trying it out as a pilot, recognizing that it's
4:24:51 ↗ a way for us to make a contribution that's probably much smaller in magnitude
4:24:56 ↗ because of all the other funding sources. This is one I think I'd like to
4:25:00 ↗ wrap my head around before we have a broader citywide conversation about MFTE and where
4:25:05 ↗ else we might want to use it. Attaching it to the land,
4:25:12 ↗ maybe not getting the grant and having somebody come in with you know, luxury condos
4:25:17 ↗ with five units on the bottom floor and we're using MFTE. I don't know that
4:25:22 ↗ I could get around that. So this just provides a lot of certainty. It's our
4:25:27 ↗ contribution and it actually is a small part of the project just because of the
4:25:32 ↗ magnitude of the other contributors this time. So I was more comfortable tying it to
4:25:36 ↗ a specific project and especially a project of this magnitude where we see how many
4:25:41 ↗ units we're actually getting, which is way over any kind of minimum that we would
4:25:44 ↗ apply. Thank you, Mary
4:25:52 ↗ Lou. I was under the impression we could get up to 20% with MFTE.
4:25:58 ↗ Is there some percentage of units, is that bounded? Am I just wrong on that?
4:26:04 ↗ I think it's minimum. For the 12-year exemption, which is what we're proposing,
4:26:11 ↗ it's at least 20%. So Arch
4:26:17 ↗ and Arthur did an analysis, if you may remember, about looking at what's already required
4:26:21 ↗ with the land use and then what MFTE and not creating something where you talk
4:26:27 ↗ about unintended consequences. You say, OK, we want 50% units.
4:26:33 ↗ Well, somebody may not use this program if that's what you're requiring. Because we are
4:26:36 ↗ also not just limiting the affordability to the 12 years. We have gotten where it's
4:26:42 ↗ the life of the project, which is, you know, which is good for longer
4:26:48 ↗ than the exemption exists. So the
4:26:54 ↗ MFTEs, we have latitude on what percentage of units
4:27:01 ↗ we can make those available for. Yes.
4:27:06 ↗ But so when you, if it's 20%, if it's 25%, it's still all the
4:27:12 ↗ residential portion of the development. So it doesn't matter as
4:27:18 ↗ far as for property tax. The entire residential portion is
4:27:24 ↗ exempt, not just the 20% or 25% of the units for property tax.
4:27:33 ↗ So it wouldn't give a difference of, for the property owner, a difference of
4:27:39 ↗ more incentive. Well, now, the, the,
4:27:46 ↗ You answer my question, is that we are, this is structured really just to have
4:27:49 ↗ given us basically 7.5% more than
4:27:55 ↗ the base part. That was my confusion earlier, because it has in
4:28:00 ↗ here 12.5%, 60%. And then the total, the other part that would be,
4:28:08 ↗ it would take the next up to 20%, the MFTE would be four.
4:28:14 ↗ But you're saying that the 20% is not, that's just a limit that we get
4:28:18 ↗ to select. We get to choose. That's at 20%. Arthur,
4:28:22 ↗ that's correct.
4:28:28 ↗ You want to say. Okay. Okay. All
4:28:34 ↗ right. Well, that was a big part of my question because the...
4:28:42 ↗ I thought we had heard in committee that
4:28:48 ↗ we were just working within the framework of the law. We weren't just, it wasn't,
4:28:53 ↗ we didn't just choose this based upon this project. So at 20%.
4:28:59 ↗ Thanks. Stacy? So Paul, back to your question about why I tie this
4:29:05 ↗ to a specific project. The code was written with this specific project in mind.
4:29:12 ↗ And there were also certain limits in the code that
4:29:18 ↗ we could have had a broader ordinance, different options, but it was written with a
4:29:22 ↗ specific project in mind. And the last meeting, as I recall, there was a question
4:29:28 ↗ or a concern raised about, okay, well, what if, since the IRS tax revisions,
4:29:34 ↗ that was even less subtle than it is now, And also the $10
4:29:40 ↗ million grant hadn't been decided yet or we hadn't had notice of that yet. And
4:29:46 ↗ so the tie it to a certain project was to just create certainty
4:29:52 ↗ also in light of the comments that were made that if the project didn't happen,
4:29:57 ↗ we could change the code. And so that's what I always call as the reason
4:30:03 ↗ for tying it to a project. Thank you. My way of thinking is simply, you
4:30:08 ↗ know, this gets us even without, if it wasn't this project, we'd get 20% affordable.
4:30:15 ↗ And that's a good thing. It's higher than we have anywhere else. It's unique because
4:30:20 ↗ we have King County Housing Authority involved in this. So forget about all the funding,
4:30:24 ↗ whatever. 20% is a good thing. So it just seems odd to me that we
4:30:29 ↗ would say, you know what? There are projects out there that would give us 20%.
4:30:34 ↗ We probably won't want. i'm hearing so let's just tie it to this project
4:30:40 ↗ i i i think that's odd i think there were also other elements of this
4:30:44 ↗ project besides just the just the number of affordable housing units there were other elements
4:30:48 ↗ of the project that made it attractive too so that it wasn't just the percentage
4:30:52 ↗ but anyway that's that's just what i recall bill all we're saying is if this
4:30:58 ↗ project changes still gets approval to to accept a change project that's all we're
4:31:04 ↗ saying so we'll look at it one way or the other so something can't slip
4:31:07 ↗ in without us approving other questions or discussion
4:31:14 ↗ being none then all those in favor of adopting ordinance number 2821
4:31:20 ↗ signify by saying aye aye aye was opposed that carries unanimously
4:31:28 ↗ thank you thank you thanks
4:31:36 ↗ agenda bill 7462 steve ann and lisa
4:31:43 ↗ thank you for hanging with us so good news is this is the last time
4:31:48 ↗ you should see me this evening or it might be tomorrow pretty if you stay
4:31:53 ↗ here tomorrow all right I'm fast. All right. By one slide.
4:31:59 ↗ Here is the proposed increase in impact fees. This is coming
4:32:05 ↗ basically from the Zaqua School District. You can see the amount for both single family
4:32:11 ↗ and multifamily. That's the end of my presentation. This is coming back
4:32:16 ↗ from services and safety. Mr. Mayor, I'd like to move to adopt ordinance number.
4:32:27 ↗ 2822. 2822 amending IMC section 3.63.100A to modify the
4:32:33 ↗ school impact fees for single family and multifamily residential structures and establishing an effective date
4:32:38 ↗ of January 1st, 2018. Second. Moved and seconded. Questions or
4:32:44 ↗ discussion? So I'll say it came back to
4:32:51 ↗ services and safety. There are some from that that are
4:32:57 ↗ in your packet. There was a question, oh, there were various questions.
4:33:03 ↗ Questions in the community about what's legal and what's not legal. Basically
4:33:09 ↗ the runway is plowed wide for this from a legal standpoint. There is a
4:33:16 ↗ public document from Jim Haney addressing some of the legal questions that came up.
4:33:24 ↗ So this came back from services with a 3-0 recommendation to support.
4:33:32 ↗ Any additional questions or discussion? Mary Lou? Just a question for Tola. So
4:33:38 ↗ I don't know why it's not opening, but there were alternate motions in here as
4:33:43 ↗ well, right? You selected the one that says approve as requested by the school district.
4:33:49 ↗ Yes. And then there's, oh, thanks. And then there was one that was...
4:33:57 ↗ adopt the proposed fees as an interim step to be revisited in the second quarter
4:34:01 ↗ of 2018, and then there was one to say adopt them, third one to say
4:34:06 ↗ adopt them without the additional discount, and so that would put the single family fee
4:34:10 ↗ at $14,000. So when you were in safety and services, did you have all
4:34:16 ↗ those options and did the three of you talk about those options? I would say,
4:34:22 ↗ I don't remember, we certainly discussed them philosophically. I don't remember if the bill had
4:34:26 ↗ been rewritten at that point. I would say that the three of us did not
4:34:31 ↗ have any fundamental heartburn with the way,
4:34:37 ↗ I mean, I would say, I mean, you had, Mariah, you had a number of
4:34:39 ↗ questions that you asked staff. So I actually, I don't wanna speak for you and
4:34:44 ↗ Eileen, but I, as one of the committee members?
4:34:51 ↗ Yeah. So, well, I think that I did have several questions, and I think
4:34:57 ↗ that we've gone through this and gotten information back. We did get
4:35:03 ↗ quite a lot of comments from the community regarding this, and so I
4:35:09 ↗ think that that could have driven the second option here in terms of
4:35:15 ↗ the proposed fees as an interim step to be revisited in the second quarter of
4:35:19 ↗ 2018. I think that what I
4:35:25 ↗ had talked about and what I would like to see is that if we go
4:35:28 ↗ forward with the approval, that I would still, I still think that we need to
4:35:34 ↗ have a conversation regarding the impact fees and conversation with the
4:35:40 ↗ school district so we can better understand the discount portion of this.
4:35:46 ↗ So I'll add to that. I absolutely think more communication with the school
4:35:52 ↗ district is in our best interest. Hopefully the school districts as well. And so
4:35:59 ↗ I absolutely think it's a great idea. I'm not at present more than
4:36:04 ↗ because I would all things be equal. I would prefer not to have this entire
4:36:08 ↗ conversation again in three months or six months because I think that it does create
4:36:13 ↗ some confusion in the community. And so that's why I moved
4:36:19 ↗ the original, but I absolutely believe strongly that we should have better and more regular
4:36:24 ↗ communication with the district up to and including how fees are handled and how capital
4:36:29 ↗ projects between our organizations that are cross coupled
4:36:35 ↗ And just a comment. I guess that was very helpful, actually. Thank you for the
4:36:40 ↗ explanation. I was looking at it from the point of view of I'm still very
4:36:45 ↗ confused about the additional discount. I totally agree with Twola that we need to have
4:36:49 ↗ more conversations. So we're understanding what we're approving, even though it's a pass-through cost.
4:36:55 ↗ But also, you know, the I'm not sure what is in the pipeline
4:37:02 ↗ outside of Central Isqlua, if Central Isqlua is still caught up in a moratorium, and
4:37:05 ↗ how many units might be built somewhere else. But for every one that's built, there
4:37:11 ↗ is a potential loss of half of an impact fee of $15,000 is the correct
4:37:17 ↗ number. So I'm more in favor of option two, which is, I think it's as
4:37:22 ↗ we talked through the second quarter. Is that what was written in there?
4:37:30 ↗ proposed fees it's interim step to be revisited in the second quarter of 2008. I
4:37:35 ↗ think that offers ample time for the discussion. After the discussion council may just say
4:37:40 ↗ you know it's adopted as a regular one now we get it leave it at
4:37:44 ↗ 8000 or not. So it allows the time for the discussion allows it to stay
4:37:50 ↗ at 8000 potentially or it may be that the council does think 15000 is right
4:37:55 ↗ so I'm in favor of the second option. So
4:38:02 ↗ on this, there's There's a couple of things. The decision on how much
4:38:08 ↗ to discount this. First of all, I want to go back to if anybody's forgotten.
4:38:12 ↗ This is a minuscule portion of the overall funding for capital projects for the school
4:38:17 ↗ districts, right? This is a political decision for the district. I'm not on the school
4:38:21 ↗ district, but very akin to our decision to take 1% or not take 1% on
4:38:25 ↗ property taxes, right? It has to do with politics. It has to do with how
4:38:30 ↗ we vary our sources of revenue, and they have explained that for them,
4:38:37 ↗ they worry that if they took the maximum amount, that there could be political resistance
4:38:42 ↗ to allowing them to do it at all. And so they would rather take, you
4:38:46 ↗ know, better a bird in the hand than two in the bush. It's full of
4:38:49 ↗ aphorisms today. So, and here's where we get into a little stickier subject.
4:38:56 ↗ I don't actually believe that I I think the IMC 3.63 allows us
4:39:02 ↗ to latitude in this. I believe that it's a pass through. I think the language
4:39:07 ↗ is pretty clear. I think Jim Haney's, the public
4:39:14 ↗ response was delicately put. It basically said that the IMC would need to be rewritten
4:39:19 ↗ to clarify things. And so this is why I think we should just do the
4:39:23 ↗ whole year. I think if this council feels it should be
4:39:29 ↗ to the school district on how to manage growth. That's a separate topic and
4:39:35 ↗ something that I don't want to conflate with the decision that's in front of us,
4:39:39 ↗ particularly because we have a number of potential fundraising asks going out to the community
4:39:45 ↗ before too long. And so I realize that not everybody in council necessarily agrees with
4:39:50 ↗ my interpretation of 3.63, but that's how I see it.
4:39:58 ↗ Stacey. So I'm one of those.
4:40:05 ↗ I'm one of those that doesn't necessarily agree with that. That so
4:40:11 ↗ said, there are a couple of things that bother me.
4:40:17 ↗ One is that the...
4:40:24 ↗ the responsibility for development continues to be sort of laid at our feet here at
4:40:28 ↗ the council and that we have some sort of responsibility to, if schools aren't built
4:40:33 ↗ in time, somehow it's, you know, we've been derelict in our duties. And so for
4:40:39 ↗ that reason, along with the fact that I, not the fact, but my belief that
4:40:43 ↗ we do have the authority to, to,
4:40:50 ↗ I think we have an obligation to look at the fees that are recommended. But
4:40:57 ↗ also, as we have been considering this for the last couple of months,
4:41:03 ↗ I think, a lot more questions have been raised. In all of
4:41:08 ↗ my seven years on the council and going back to 1996 and all my coverage
4:41:13 ↗ of the city of Issaquah, I do not ever, ever recall any We had a
4:41:18 ↗ substantive discussion about school impact fees coming for the council. And I
4:41:24 ↗ think one reason is because we were, we just got through in, well,
4:41:34 ↗ when it was that we did the King County annexation, but we started that discussion
4:41:38 ↗ in early September, and that was, you know, that was quite a hot topic. And
4:41:41 ↗ the subject of providing for schools and accommodating for schools was a hot topic
4:41:47 ↗ before us, and I think that's one of the reasons that this has become a
4:41:51 ↗ more interesting topic that's more interesting to us, that we're more interested in. I
4:41:57 ↗ don't think it's as easy as... and why King County requires a discount.
4:42:03 ↗ And so there's the,
4:42:09 ↗ it's getting late, but there's the recommended impact fee that needs to be adopted. First
4:42:14 ↗ of all, we're not bound, the school district might be bound by the King County
4:42:17 ↗ code, but only in unincorporated areas. In incorporated areas such as Visqua, we can, I
4:42:23 ↗ believe that we can set different goals And even the King County Council doesn't
4:42:29 ↗ appear to be on the same page because on December 4th, they had a meeting
4:42:33 ↗ and they were adopting the impact fees. I think it was Federal Way proposed a
4:42:38 ↗ $20,000 fee for, I don't remember if it was single family or multifamily, and one
4:42:44 ↗ of the King County Council members made a motion to reduce it and that failed.
4:42:50 ↗ So there is some disagreement about what we're doing the fees should be and how
4:42:54 ↗ they should be set. All of that said, I think that there are a lot
4:42:57 ↗ of questions and the opportunity that we in the next few months is for the
4:43:01 ↗ school board and the Issaquah City Council to come together and at least have some
4:43:07 ↗ mutual agreement and understanding about the process for setting impact fees, the
4:43:12 ↗ obligations that we all have just in this huge topic and
4:43:22 ↗ I learned a few weeks ago about the King County Technical Schools Advisory
4:43:28 ↗ Committee or whatever it's called. Never heard of that before. And I tend to think
4:43:33 ↗ that I've been to more of my share of and I've never heard of that
4:43:38 ↗ before. So I think we have a lot of learning that we can do together.
4:43:43 ↗ I've talked to Lisa Callen several times. Every time I talk to her about this,
4:43:46 ↗ I learn something new. And I do believe that every time Lisa talks to me,
4:43:51 ↗ she learns something new because I can learn something new about this.
4:43:57 ↗ parameters in which she's doing her job and the lens through it which she looks
4:44:02 ↗ at things as a school board member. And then she learns the same thing about
4:44:06 ↗ me. And we just have different obligations. So
4:44:13 ↗ where am I going? I think we can, I think we have an opportunity to
4:44:18 ↗ get together and I like to do that. I am not super, super
4:44:26 ↗ jazzed about keeping the fee where it is. The trend started last year, only last
4:44:31 ↗ year, of further discounting that fee. And I would be willing to,
4:44:39 ↗ unexcitedly willing to let that fee be discounted again this year, only
4:44:45 ↗ because I would make only because I think we have the opportunity to get together
4:44:49 ↗ and because I do believe we can to get together and learn more about it.
4:44:52 ↗ But my opinion may change the middle of this year depending on what we learn.
4:44:57 ↗ Bill. So I guess there's a number of things I
4:45:03 ↗ don't understand as well. So, and I'd like to say one thing for certain is
4:45:10 ↗ as a city council, I don't want someone to tell me what to do. I
4:45:14 ↗ feel I don't want to be telling another government agency what they should do in
4:45:19 ↗ their business. So I'm kind of in that moral dilemma there. But at the same
4:45:24 ↗ time, I have a major concern. Stacy alluded to it.
4:45:30 ↗ Recently here, we had folks in this audience right now come before us and tell
4:45:36 ↗ us how it was the city's responsibility to provide land
4:45:42 ↗ affordable price because the other land they could not afford particularly relating to
4:45:48 ↗ our forested hillside versus land that was already cleared because there was that was more
4:45:54 ↗ expensive land and they couldn't afford to build schools on that more expensive land so
4:45:59 ↗ i'm trying to figure out why if they didn't have enough money
4:46:05 ↗ why they're not taking the full fee that they can legally take not something has
4:46:10 ↗ to go to the voters at all in any way it's just it's a formula
4:46:15 ↗ so why would you discount something when you've said publicly that you don't have enough
4:46:19 ↗ money to do what you can do and i really felt that the city was
4:46:24 ↗ kind of told put it was our responsibility to provide land at a reduced cost
4:46:30 ↗ even and that felt very strange to me and when i heard that and i
4:46:35 ↗ personally didn't like that, but that's what I heard when people address. So when I'm
4:46:41 ↗ hearing that kind of pressure put on the city to do that kind of work
4:46:45 ↗ and then not collecting the full fees that are eligible, I just get very confused
4:46:50 ↗ and it doesn't work for me. Same time, I don't want to tell someone else
4:46:55 ↗ how to run their business. So I do have one technical question for you
4:47:00 ↗ because I'm going to keep you here until tomorrow. Anyway, and that is if you're
4:47:06 ↗ talking about where it says adopt this for
4:47:12 ↗ three months, have some discussions with the school district and maybe change it in the
4:47:15 ↗ second quarter, okay? It becomes effective January 1, the fees, but when
4:47:21 ↗ do those actually, those fees, new fees actually get applied? So
4:47:27 ↗ in that time period, when do developers actually
4:47:33 ↗ pay the fee? So would there be a rush to get them in and when
4:47:37 ↗ they could do it in the first quarter before they might go up there? Or
4:47:39 ↗ is it, I'm just not sure when those are actually paid. So they're paid at
4:47:44 ↗ issuance of building permits. So nobody could take advantage of the window.
4:47:51 ↗ Let's say there's a six month window where you adopt these fees with an intent
4:47:56 ↗ that there's going to be a conversation with ISD and potentially a midyear adjustment to
4:48:02 ↗ these fees occurs. can accelerate the speed at which
4:48:08 ↗ they can get a building permit. So whoever's in the pipeline now will continue
4:48:14 ↗ in the pipeline towards permitting. And, you know, as much as they
4:48:20 ↗ might want to go faster, development services doesn't work that way exactly.
4:48:26 ↗ So particularly areas that may come out of the moratorium, would be an impact
4:48:32 ↗ there. Those wouldn't happen fast enough by any means whatsoever. Not even close. But there's
4:48:36 ↗ other ones that could be coming up now that are fairly large. Absolutely. I mean,
4:48:42 ↗ there's a lot of projects that are midstream right now that could get to building
4:48:46 ↗ permit in the first half of 2018. So there may be some difference there. But
4:48:51 ↗ I guess I'm, bottom line, I don't like this, but I have a hard time
4:48:56 ↗ telling somebody else they have to take the maximum. That just doesn't feel right to
4:49:02 ↗ me. So I guess I would go with the other alternative that says we're gonna
4:49:07 ↗ accept it, but let's sit down and talk because this is not making any sense
4:49:11 ↗ to me whatsoever in everything I know. So I either have to get better educated
4:49:16 ↗ and understand this, or I have to convince someone else that I know something
4:49:22 ↗ better. I don't know, but that's where I am. Hello? Question and comment. Do we
4:49:28 ↗ know how many uh units or multi-family
4:49:34 ↗ units are in the formula here for two 2018. it's
4:49:40 ↗ the projection in our area that would be built for the full calendar year just
4:49:45 ↗ the first half for the full calendar year that's part of the calculation of this
4:49:51 ↗ i mean is it is it in the uh it's somewhere yeah we
4:49:56 ↗ saw it i don't know I haven't seen it, but is it in the capital
4:50:01 ↗ plan? Wasn't there a projection that the higher fee would be another half a million
4:50:05 ↗ dollars? Sorry, yeah, $500,000, I thought. I don't
4:50:11 ↗ remember the exact number. We did. We did. Well, if anybody
4:50:17 ↗ can root around and find out, that would be good. No, you know, Paul, I
4:50:19 ↗ think it's on the second page of the AB in a paragraph.
4:50:29 ↗ The paragraph from the bottom. What are those numbers?
4:50:36 ↗ It is expected 63 single-family residences, 47 non-senior multi-family residents are
4:50:42 ↗ expected to be permitted by April 2018. If the council adopt the proposed fee
4:50:47 ↗ increases, the district would receive an additional $558,000 over the existing 2017 impact fees.
4:50:56 ↗ Thank you for that. Okay, $500,000 based upon those number of units. I think Tola's
4:51:02 ↗ comment is actually pretty important as well. I do also want for the record to
4:51:06 ↗ mention too that my recollection of how things went over the zoning and annexation was
4:51:12 ↗ quite different than what Bill just said. I listened and heard about an entity
4:51:18 ↗ that was seeking the best possible price available based upon a study of
4:51:23 ↗ alternatives. I don't recall hearing that we were told that we have to provide land
4:51:28 ↗ at a lower price. And it wasn't about not having the money, it was
4:51:34 ↗ just wanting to get some land at a lower price. Never heard anything about, we
4:51:40 ↗ don't have the money, we need that one, you're obligated to give it to us
4:51:42 ↗ at a lower price. It was, here's a piece of land, we don't know what
4:51:47 ↗ it's gonna cost, but based upon our analysis, it's gonna be less than the others,
4:51:50 ↗ that's a better alternative. That's what I recall vividly from that conversation.
4:51:58 ↗ So when we get to this step, I guess I'm looking at number two, which
4:52:05 ↗ reads adopt the proposed fees as an interim step to be revisited in the second
4:52:09 ↗ quarter of 2018. If that was something that came from some of the
4:52:15 ↗ comments I made, I think what I would like to see is that I would,
4:52:24 ↗ I still have questions and I'd like to get together with the school board and
4:52:27 ↗ have those answered that we go forward with the motion as
4:52:33 ↗ it's written and add that we would get together and have a discussion with the
4:52:39 ↗ school board, that the Issaquah City Council would get together with the school board and
4:52:44 ↗ have a discussion with the agenda item being the impact fees in the first quarter.
4:52:51 ↗ of the next year, as opposed to saying that this is an interim step,
4:52:57 ↗ which that language could be, I think, taken a couple of different ways to
4:53:03 ↗ be revisited. I just, I would tweak the language there.
4:53:14 ↗ I believe with that discussion and what we have heard that
4:53:23 ↗ And what I heard from the Issaquah School District is that they
4:53:29 ↗ agree that we should get together also. So I'm not sure that needs to be
4:53:34 ↗ a part of the motion. But unless you want to propose
4:53:40 ↗ an amendment, they're- I would propose an amendment.
4:53:48 ↗ Once we have the motion on the floor. The motion was made a while back.
4:53:52 ↗ Oh, the motion is on the floor. Okay. For the lower one, for this one.
4:53:55 ↗ Okay. I would make an amendment to the motion that is there. What is the
4:54:00 ↗ amendment? So it would be to move to adopt the ordinance amending
4:54:07 ↗ IMC sections 3.63-100A to modify the school impact fees
4:54:13 ↗ for single family and multi-family residential structures and establishing an effective date
4:54:20 ↗ of January 1st, 2018, and direct the administration to schedule a meeting with the school
4:54:25 ↗ board in the first quarter of 2018 with the main agenda item being school impact
4:54:30 ↗ fees. That'd be 2019 school impact fees?
4:54:37 ↗ Yes. Okay, then I second. Is there a second?
4:54:43 ↗ I second it. Oh, okay, got it. Any other questions on the amendment? Paul? We
4:54:47 ↗ heard this evening that the process is going to start in April of 2018 anyway,
4:54:51 ↗ and we were invited to anybody. It was an open invitation for anybody to participate.
4:54:58 ↗ I think it's slightly different, Paul, as I heard it. Bill?
4:55:04 ↗ Sorry, I'm not on the amendment. I have another issue. I'll wait. Anything on the
4:55:09 ↗ amendment? Mary Lou? I'm not going to vote in favor of the
4:55:14 ↗ amendment, Mariah, because I'm open to amending the
4:55:20 ↗ words on the alternative amendment two, if you think it sends a bad
4:55:26 ↗ message the way it's written. I actually just think it adds flexibility. The impact fees
4:55:31 ↗ go into place, we have our conversation, and we come back and leave the impact
4:55:36 ↗ fees as they recommended, or
4:55:42 ↗ after discussion with the school district, they agree that it should be $14,000. And so
4:55:48 ↗ then at least we have the option for them to be able to collect that
4:55:51 ↗ because collecting that over a nine-month period would be a significant
4:55:56 ↗ amount of money compared to we lock ourselves in for a nine-month period during a
4:56:02 ↗ building boom and to the lower rate. And so I agree with you that maybe
4:56:06 ↗ the wording I don't
4:56:12 ↗ want to get to a point where we find out that for whatever
4:56:18 ↗ reason we're on the same page and it should be at $14,000 and oh well,
4:56:21 ↗ we'll do it next year. That's lost revenue that our taxpayers will just have to
4:56:26 ↗ backfill on the next bond. So I'd like to have the option.
4:56:33 ↗ I'm just a little confused. I want to clarify what the word non-amendment is. looking
4:56:38 ↗ at the 2018 fees or 19 because you changed this to 19 and i thought
4:56:42 ↗ we're going to look at possibly 18 fees but they're looking at 19 starting in
4:56:47 ↗ april so the amendment is just to look at the 19 fees so 18 fees
4:56:53 ↗ would be adopted and that'd be a done deal no change there yes
4:57:00 ↗ any additional discussion on the amendment Those in favor of the amendment signify by
4:57:06 ↗ saying aye. Aye. Those opposed? Aye. One opposed, Mary
4:57:12 ↗ Lou. Back to the amended ordinance. Are you ready to vote on
4:57:18 ↗ that? Excuse me, Stacy.
4:57:25 ↗ I just wanna be...
4:57:32 ↗ I just want to be clear why I'm supporting the motion as it is amended.
4:57:40 ↗ Like I said, last year was the first year that the district or the board
4:57:44 ↗ adopted a discounted fee based on a recommendation, just additional discount. We never talked about
4:57:50 ↗ it because we, you know, we treat it as a housekeeping item. So this is
4:57:54 ↗ the first year we've ever talked about it substantively. As you saw
4:58:00 ↗ earlier, I try very hard to not support things that I don't
4:58:05 ↗ understand. And I have a feeling, my gut
4:58:11 ↗ tells me, that when we get together with a school board, I'm going to know
4:58:15 ↗ a lot more. And
4:58:22 ↗ that's why I'm supporting fee as is proposed and getting together.
4:58:29 ↗ I don't really like it, but that's why I'm supporting it.
4:58:36 ↗ I got anything, one technical question and a comment. And it's
4:58:41 ↗ maybe irrelevant, but I wanna know it anyway. If we propose to collect higher fee
4:58:47 ↗ than the school district did, then we'd collect those fees, we'd pass it to the
4:58:53 ↗ school district, and the school district could then do with them what they, I'm
4:58:59 ↗ assuming and you could spend them in Renton or Newcastle or whatever just be part
4:59:03 ↗ of your budget. So really it'd be collecting fees here but they could go anywhere
4:59:09 ↗ because your district is so huge. I'm getting a head nod. So I just I
4:59:12 ↗ guess I wanted to hear that. And then I guess I just want to make
4:59:15 ↗ a comment.
4:59:23 ↗ I don't want to feel corrected and I don't think you meant that Paul but
4:59:25 ↗ but a bunch of times about you hearing things different than me hearing things
4:59:31 ↗ so if you can say how you hear things but don't try to correct on
4:59:35 ↗ what you think i heard because i heard what i heard and that's what i'm
4:59:39 ↗ staying with okay let's uh come in mary lou sure
4:59:45 ↗ i'm gonna vote in favor of the main motion because it's just you know there's
4:59:50 ↗ want them to collect the fees i wouldn't vote against them collecting the fees and
4:59:54 ↗ it seems to be the will of the majority of the council right now that
4:59:58 ↗ that's the course we take and we begin a conversation and i think that's awesome
5:00:02 ↗ so i'm voting in favor of the amended motion all those in
5:00:08 ↗ favor of the amended ordinance 2822 signify by
5:00:14 ↗ saying aye aye those opposed that carries unanimously
5:00:20 ↗ Now to agenda bill 7250
5:00:27 ↗ transportation benefit district directing the administration to
5:00:33 ↗ set a public hearing. Who's speaking to this?
5:00:42 ↗ Well, I can. Oh, great, Bob. SO THE GOOD NEWS IS
5:00:48 ↗ WE'VE KIND OF THOROUGHLY HAD A PRETTY SIGNIFICANT CONVERSATION AROUND THIS AT THE COMMITTEE OF
5:00:53 ↗ THE WHOLE. AND SO THE COUNCIL GAVE PRETTY CLEAR DIRECTION TO SET A
5:00:59 ↗ PUBLIC HEARING HERE AND A DRAFT AN ORDINANCE. AND I'M SURE THERE WILL BE QUITE
5:01:03 ↗ A BIT OF ADDITIONAL DEBATE AT THAT TIME IN JANUARY. BUT THIS IS AT LEAST
5:01:09 ↗ THE OPPORTUNITY TO SET UP THE ORGANIZATION AT THAT MEETING FOLLOWING
5:01:16 ↗ the public hearing and the ordinance consideration
5:01:22 ↗ okay so i'm going to make a motion great um and it's
5:01:28 ↗ to direct the administration to schedule a public hearing for january 16 2018 and prepare
5:01:34 ↗ an ordinance to form a transportation benefit district for consideration by the full council in
5:01:38 ↗ january 16 2018 second it's moved and seconded discussion or questions
5:01:49 ↗ I'm going to vote against this. And the reason I am is that what I
5:01:53 ↗ stated when we talked about this in budget, which is I believe that we should
5:01:59 ↗ only be talking about these are what really needs to be a
5:02:05 ↗ grand solution to a fundamental problem with a collection of fundamental
5:02:10 ↗ mechanisms that includes more progressive taxation as i've mentioned before as i get
5:02:16 ↗ further down this road of being a public official i have a harder and harder
5:02:20 ↗ time with how regressive our taxes are in the state through the most regressive in
5:02:24 ↗ the western half of the united states and so i hope at some point
5:02:30 ↗ in 2018 that there will be a package in front of me that will have
5:02:33 ↗ a mix of progressive and regressive taxes that i will be able to support unlike
5:02:37 ↗ this evening I also will be voting
5:02:43 ↗ against this and I agree with what you said and I'll add a few more
5:02:46 ↗ things. So the tax structure is what bothers me. I think
5:02:52 ↗ what happened here a little bit and I may be wrong on this but the
5:02:55 ↗ financial committee got together and did a really deep dive in some stuff and I
5:03:00 ↗ don't think that information really didn't get to me anyway. And talked about a lot
5:03:05 ↗ of different options with the in-depth look at some of those things. So I've this
5:03:10 ↗ is a solution that that came up as one possible one there's many more that
5:03:15 ↗ i would like to look at to to see that bigger picture um and uh
5:03:20 ↗ to to make a more a larger strategic plan on the whole um this is
5:03:26 ↗ setting up a taxing structure which is the only reason to set up a taxing
5:03:30 ↗ structure is to impose the tax there's no reason to do that otherwise and this
5:03:35 ↗ this tbd can in without a vote of the people, a car tab tax, which
5:03:40 ↗ is again, even more regressive. And that can happen without a vote. If we wanna
5:03:46 ↗ do sales tax or something like that, it does take a vote. But
5:03:53 ↗ I also, as I mentioned earlier on the budget items, I think before you start
5:03:58 ↗ looking for more money, I need more justification on why we have to go get
5:04:02 ↗ more money. and taxes. I know there's big projects, but our budget, the way we
5:04:07 ↗ came at it this year, I'm still not convinced that there's not more money in
5:04:12 ↗ our budget and things that we could do in a different way, in a more
5:04:15 ↗ strategic way of looking at that. And so I can't look at adding more funds
5:04:19 ↗ until I know my base is really tight in I THINK I HAVE TO
5:04:25 ↗ TIGHTEN UP WHAT I HAVE THERE IF I WANT TO GO OUT FOR THE NEXT
5:04:28 ↗ THING AND KNOW WHAT'S THERE. FINANCIAL WISE THAT'S ME AND SO I
5:04:34 ↗ CAN'T SUPPORT THIS UNTIL I REALLY KNOW IT'S ABSOLUTELY THE WAY TO DO IT.
5:04:41 ↗ I'm actually going to support this tonight. It's the public hearing, and I'm kind of
5:04:47 ↗ interested to hear from the public about it. But also, I agree with Council Member
5:04:52 ↗ Ramos when he said that three council members who sat on the ad hoc definitely
5:04:57 ↗ got to do a deeper dive. I think I have a lot of faith in
5:05:01 ↗ future councils that as we use the financial model and as we get more used
5:05:06 ↗ to it next year and we plug in different funding sources to see how we
5:05:11 ↗ would do our book of transportation projects, I trusted them that they are going to
5:05:16 ↗ look for every option and this is one that's in there and they won't take
5:05:20 ↗ it lightly. They won't go to it first. They are going to, we are going
5:05:24 ↗ to be able to look at all of the sources at once and this is
5:05:28 ↗ a potential one. So I'm for it tonight because I want to have the public
5:05:33 ↗ hearing. And I'd like to, like I said before, with this tool in the toolbox,
5:05:38 ↗ I have confidence that future councils will be as thoughtful as you are being tonight
5:05:42 ↗ when you talk about your concerns about it. Paul?
5:05:48 ↗ I'm going to support it as well. Last year in 2016, when we did do
5:05:52 ↗ the bond, required 60% and failed. We
5:05:58 ↗ looked at a lot of different funding options then. So that was a vetting of
5:06:03 ↗ funding options. Actually, we went into that quite a bit of detail.
5:06:09 ↗ Then this July 10th, I'm looking at the presentation, it's in tonight's packet, is when
5:06:13 ↗ we started, was just the first of a couple presentations that this full council received
5:06:18 ↗ about this, more details about a transportation benefit district.
5:06:24 ↗ I believe that there's been lots of opportunities to
5:06:31 ↗ hear about this and some of the other options. I think the saving grace of
5:06:36 ↗ one of the reasons I'm supporting this is that should it be the will of
5:06:42 ↗ the majority of the council next year if we do this, to propose the sales
5:06:47 ↗ tax, then the saving grace is that it'll be a vote of the people. And
5:06:50 ↗ we have to go earn that trust and it has to be justified. All your
5:06:55 ↗ concerns are valid, they're on the table. But to me, a vote of the people
5:06:58 ↗ is what's gonna be very, would be very, very key. And the thing is, we
5:07:03 ↗ haven't said yet that that's the route it's gonna go because there are options. So
5:07:08 ↗ there's multiple steps we go through, but should it get to that point and that'd
5:07:12 ↗ be the choice, I think that's, a lot of faith in that part of the
5:07:17 ↗ that phase of the of the process
5:07:23 ↗ all those in right sorry that's
5:07:29 ↗ okay uh i uh thank you mr mayor i um i too uh
5:07:35 ↗ support this i i do see this as um The
5:07:41 ↗ reason I support it is that I also see this as just one
5:07:47 ↗ tool that we could potentially use and talk about. And so
5:07:53 ↗ for that reason, at this point, I would be,
5:07:59 ↗ obviously there's a lot of information that's going to go into this and a lot
5:08:03 ↗ of discussion that we're going to have, but just to have that option available, I
5:08:07 ↗ would support that. All those in favor of directing
5:08:13 ↗ the administration to schedule a public hearing for Jan 16, 2018, and prepare
5:08:19 ↗ the ordinance to form a transportation benefit district for consideration by the full council
5:08:25 ↗ on January 16, 2018, signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed?
5:08:31 ↗ No. No and no. That carries 5-2.
5:08:40 ↗ with Ramos and Martz in opposition. One nay and one no.
5:08:48 ↗ It was a nay and a no. It was a no and a nay. Sorry.
5:08:51 ↗ I have to have some laughter. Although it's a no and a may, they both
5:08:56 ↗ count as no's. Our final item under regular business this
5:09:01 ↗ evening is agenda bill 7503, short plat and boundary
5:09:07 ↗ line adjustment for city-owned parcel number. Wow.
5:09:13 ↗ going to say it because it's in your packet uh and this is
5:09:19 ↗ coming to us from jen again who's up there
5:09:26 ↗ jen would you speak to this one please good morning
5:09:32 ↗ um so this is another part related to the tod so thanks for hanging in
5:09:35 ↗ there and and uh talking about this so um as you know the city purchased
5:09:39 ↗ um the king county former king county roads uh parcel uh last
5:09:45 ↗ june and um passed annexation and zoning on that in last
5:09:51 ↗ fall so this is not a discussion about zoning not a discussion about any of
5:09:55 ↗ that it's about we own the property now and we're looking to create two parcels
5:10:01 ↗ and two tracks which will be the tracks will be open space um So we
5:10:06 ↗ are going through the short plat process because we are the owners. We are coming
5:10:11 ↗ to City Council to get approval for that. Typically, a short plat that happens for
5:10:14 ↗ any other development happens at its administrative level. So we're here to talk, to show
5:10:18 ↗ you the information about the short plat before we proceed and hope that you will
5:10:24 ↗ authorize us to proceed. So as a quick overview, here is the property location. And
5:10:30 ↗ so as you know, the lower shelf is more next to our city-owned RV
5:10:36 ↗ park and city shops. The sloped portion will be in open space, and
5:10:42 ↗ the upper parcel is behind Swedish.
5:10:49 ↗ Just a review of what the timeline is. And in general, again, the short plat
5:10:54 ↗ process overview. Typically, when property owners come in to do a short plat, they are
5:10:59 ↗ also coming in with a development overview. application or saying, I want to build some
5:11:04 ↗ houses here. I want to do this. We do not have any of the details
5:11:07 ↗ now. So we are not asking for any of that. We don't have any development
5:11:10 ↗ standards that we're applying at this point. That will happen when, for instance, if
5:11:16 ↗ the TOD project moves forward and the developer comes forward with what will be built
5:11:21 ↗ on the CenturyLink site. And if you guys decide in the future that the upper
5:11:25 ↗ parcel will be a school, they'll come forward with that information. You'll have opportunity to
5:11:30 ↗ look at that detail. time um so these are the
5:11:35 ↗ four uh so two tracks and two parcels so these are the
5:11:40 ↗ uh for this one right here again uh number one uh is currently zoned
5:11:47 ↗ ic intensive commercial um it's going to be about 4.2 acres and this will be
5:11:52 ↗ i'm sorry this will be uh where the century link relocation site is
5:11:59 ↗ or sorry, tract number, which is number two here, is currently zoned as
5:12:04 ↗ CFOS. So that's open space. That's about 5.86,
5:12:10 ↗ where's my thing? 5.86 acres. Number three is CFF, which
5:12:16 ↗ is community facilities facilities. And that's about just over seven acres. And I'll note that
5:12:21 ↗ on this one, we are also looking to do a boundary line adjustment. And I'll
5:12:24 ↗ provide some more details on that in a second. And then the fourth, is a
5:12:29 ↗ tract again open space at about 3.74 acres so this whole site is about 20
5:12:34 ↗ acres just over 20 acres any questions about what we're proposing at this
5:12:40 ↗ point no um you said there's a a
5:12:46 ↗ line change or something i'm looking at the looking for the width of three
5:12:53 ↗ it's about 340. it's going to be actually going to uh go
5:12:59 ↗ up a bit and so that's actually the next slide okay so go so go
5:13:02 ↗ back so it's 340 feet is the width yes okay that's what i'm trying to
5:13:08 ↗ track here and 660 feet is the length
5:13:16 ↗ uh 800 i keep finding 660 in there so nine it's 914 actually for the
5:13:22 ↗ boundary line adjustment LENGTH ON THE
5:13:27 ↗ LONG SIDE. THERE'S TWO SIDES, RIGHT? SO ONE IS A SHORTER SIDE. SIDEWAYS, WANT TO
5:13:33 ↗ READ THIS? NO, SEEMS LIKE A SQUARE PIECE OR RECTANGULAR PIECE.
5:13:40 ↗ LOOKING AT THREE. OH, I'M SORRY. I'M SORRY. I'M THINKING. FORGET IT. FORGET IT. YES.
5:13:45 ↗ SORRY. IT'S LATE. WAS IT 340 BY 660?
5:13:53 ↗ NO. I'M THINKING IT'S 850. before the boundary line adjustment the boundary line so
5:13:59 ↗ and those were approximate measures uh sorry about that so uh it is 914
5:14:06 ↗ feet that's because you added some yes yes so stuff that we
5:14:12 ↗ did not look at earlier above there that the city already owns
5:14:19 ↗ just go a little bit further that direction that's part of this process yes so
5:14:24 ↗ yes are there any questions about because i can get into those details are there
5:14:27 ↗ any questions about this general overlay of the
5:14:34 ↗ no okay thank you my math isn't i was doing some math in my head
5:14:39 ↗ which normally works really quickly but not okay good all right so So we'll
5:14:45 ↗ dive into the boundary line adjustment. So there's a short plat and a boundary line
5:14:49 ↗ adjustment, two things that we're doing in this application. So I'm working with the
5:14:55 ↗ school district. One of the things that we looked at is the requirement
5:15:01 ↗ for the property that would be necessary for an elementary school. So since we do
5:15:07 ↗ own the property to the north here, there are currently no trees, that allows them
5:15:12 ↗ to retain additional trees down here in the south portion of where we would draw
5:15:16 ↗ that line. And so we thought that made sense to, it's bumping it up 64
5:15:22 ↗ feet, basically, above where the line is. And this is an,
5:15:28 ↗ I overlaid, this is actually from the site plan that you have in your packet,
5:15:31 ↗ I know it's really small, but I overlaid it on top of here to give
5:15:36 ↗ you an idea of how it compares to where the current line is. It does
5:15:41 ↗ not even, it doesn't go up against this, the road still will remain.
5:15:47 ↗ This gives you an overview. Right here is West Ridge South, the name of it.
5:15:52 ↗ That sound right? Okay. And the Swedish parking lot here. So to give you an
5:15:58 ↗ idea of the area. So you cut 64 feet off the bottom there.
5:16:06 ↗ when we did the analysis of what was necessary, we would have, yes, if we
5:16:10 ↗ wouldn't have done that, we would have been here and that would have also meant
5:16:12 ↗ additional trees that would have had to been. So you did a daylight savings time
5:16:17 ↗ kind of thing. Okay, sure. You cut it off the bottom, put it on the
5:16:21 ↗ top. Okay, yes. I didn't understand that reference.
5:16:28 ↗ Sorry. Okay, any questions about this? Okay,
5:16:34 ↗ so I'm going to go ahead and do that. We hope that you'll allow us
5:16:39 ↗ to proceed to do the administrative review and approval of this. And if so, we'll
5:16:45 ↗ go through the normal process. And then just to remind you that this is not
5:16:49 ↗ the last time you'll ever hear about these properties, of course. We will be back
5:16:52 ↗ in... anticipated the first quarter of 2018 for both projects. So
5:16:58 ↗ for the TOD, looking at the development agreement, which we talked about earlier, but also
5:17:04 ↗ to talk with the school district about discussions further about that. So there is no
5:17:08 ↗ guarantee. We are not making any promises for any of this by doing the short
5:17:12 ↗ plat. Yeah. And just on
5:17:18 ↗ that last slide, there's been a lot of public comment about how far along we've
5:17:22 ↗ gotten with the Transitorian Development Project without actually having a public process around it yet.
5:17:29 ↗ So when you mentioned development agreement, is there a public touch point before we
5:17:35 ↗ start talking about a development agreement? it's tentatively scheduled but i will say that i
5:17:41 ↗ reserved the tibbets manor for february 28th 2017 for a public meeting a
5:17:47 ↗ community meeting like we've done with some of their projects we have uh put the
5:17:52 ↗ we have a tod web page as part of the city's web page um and
5:17:56 ↗ so we're trying to put information there um and we also plan on going to
5:18:01 ↗ i want to say it's january 25th ppc provide them an overview of
5:18:07 ↗ the project as well. So we are open to, and so what we're going to
5:18:10 ↗ do now with our development team is to talk about what will be the conversation
5:18:16 ↗ topics at that public meeting and what other things we feel are necessary. And I
5:18:21 ↗ think what I heard from the public quite clearly was that they really want to
5:18:25 ↗ understand what the city's piece is in this. I mean, we've done lots of different
5:18:29 ↗ kinds of deals in town over the decades, and they really want to understand how
5:18:34 ↗ does this one stack up since MFTE is new. And maybe that's a huge piece
5:18:39 ↗ as far as they're concerned. I don't know. But anyway, I'm glad you've got something
5:18:43 ↗ on the calendar. That's great. Yeah. I make
5:18:50 ↗ a motion. Other questions? Oh, okay. I make a motion to direct the administration to
5:18:55 ↗ move forward with processing the application to Short Plat and Boundary Line Adjust, the city-owned
5:19:01 ↗ property in the King County Island Exhibit A, to be consistent with the pre-annexation
5:19:07 ↗ zoning approved by the City Council in Ordinance Number 2803. Second. It's moved and
5:19:13 ↗ seconded. Questions or discussion? none
5:19:19 ↗ all those in favor of the motion as stated signify by saying
5:19:24 ↗ aye aye aye those opposed that carries unanimously uh that uh
5:19:31 ↗ completes our regular business the good of the order
5:19:37 ↗ i was just going to move to that tola sorry sorry mr mayor hey i'm
5:19:41 ↗ sorry
5:19:47 ↗ I just wanted to thank Keith Niven, who, amongst his many, many other talents, is
5:19:53 ↗ evidently a pretty good baker because he provided some cookies for
5:19:59 ↗ us, and they were great. So who knew, amongst his renaissance skills, it included baking.
5:20:03 ↗ Thank you. One last thing to...
5:20:10 ↗ So unless there is any objection, the leadership meetings for this week and next week
5:20:15 ↗ are going to be canceled? none uh looks like they've been cancelled
5:20:21 ↗ you hardly gave anybody an opportunity to another another thank you for
5:20:27 ↗ fred for running his last council meeting till 12 20 in the evening in the
5:20:32 ↗ morning 12 20 in the morning thank you fred i hope that
5:20:38 ↗ uh that's the last long one i i wish you luck mary lou we are
5:20:42 ↗ adjourned Oh.
Approved minutes
Extracted from the next meeting's packet, where this meeting's minutes were approved as a consent-calendar attachment.
Open PDF

Attendance

Council / Members (7)
Eileen Barber
Mariah Bettise
Stacy Goodman
Tola Marts
Mary Lou Pauly
Bill Ramos
Paul Winterstein

Motions and votes (17)

1) Adopt Ordinance No. 2818, adopting the 2018 budget; setting forth the estimated revenues and appropriations for each separate fund, and estimated impact on ending fund balances for all such funds combined of the city for the fiscal year commencing January 1, 2018; and 2) Adopt Ordinance No. 2819,…
Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by PAULY
Carried 6-1
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Paul Winterstein
Opposed: Bill Ramos
1) Authorize the Mayor to enter into and execute a partnering agreement with the Washington State Parks & Recreation Commission committing to the funding of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and traffic analysis for Lake Sammamish State Park and directing City staff to begin work on a developm…
Moved by MARTS · seconded by BARBER
Carried 7-0
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein
Approve the preferred corridor concept recommended in the Newport Way NW, SR 900 to SE 54th Street Design Report. . (Opponent: Ramo
Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by PAULY
Carried 6-1
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Paul Winterstein
Opposed: Bill Ramos
Remand AB 7344 back to the Planning Policy Commission for additional review and recommendation, returning to the full Council for referral to the Council Land & Shore Committee on Feb. 20, 2018.
Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by WINTERSTEIN
Carried 7-0
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein
Amend the motion to adopt Ordinance No. 2813 with the updates and corrections set forth in the staff memo [dated Dec. 8, 2017]. .
Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by PAULY
Carried 7-0
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein
Direct Administration to bring the AB back to the full Council Jan. 16, 2018 for a proposal for additional analysis and scope [regarding inclusionary zoning that would consider residual land analysis or other analysis exploring impacts on the development climate]. . (Opponent: Winterstei
Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by PAULY
Carried 6-1
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos
Opposed: Paul Winterstein
Adopt Ordinance No. 2820, adopting findings and amending the moratorium established by Ordinance No. 2778, as amended by Ordinance No. 2784 and as previously extended by Ordinance No. 2793 and 2800, to include only Central Issaquah and to be extended for another six months setting the next moratoriu…
Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by PAULY
Carried 7-0
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein
Amend the ordinance to include inclusionary zoning as an outstanding item justifying continuation of the moratorium. .
Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by PAULY
Carried 7-0
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein
Adopt Ordinance No. 2821, adding Chapter 3.09, Multifamily Housing Property Tax Exemption to the Issaquah Municipal Code.
Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by PAULY
Carried 7-0
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein
Adopt Ordinance No. 2822, amending IMC Section 3.63.100(A) to modify the school impact fees for single family and multifamily residential structures and establishing an effective date of Jan. 1, 2018.
Moved by MARTS · seconded by WINTERSTEIN
Carried 7-0
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein
Direct the Administration to schedule a meeting with the Issaquah School District to discuss 2019 impact fees within the first quarter of 2018. . (Opponent: Paul
Moved by BETTISE · seconded by MARTS
Carried 6-1
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein
Opposed: Mary Lou Pauly
Direct Administration to schedule a public hearing for Jan. 16, 2018, and prepare an ordinance to form a Transportation Benefit District (TBD) for consideration by the full Council on Jan. 16, 2018. . (Opponents: Marts, Ramo
Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by WINTERSTEIN
Carried 5-2
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Mary Lou Pauly, Paul Winterstein
Opposed: Tola Marts, Bill Ramos
Direct the Administration to move forward with processing the application to short plat and boundary line adjust the City-owned property in the King County Island (Exhibit A) to be consistent with the pre-annexation zoning approved by the City Council in Ordinance No. 2803. .
Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by PAULY
Carried 7-0
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein
APPROVE THE CONSENT AGENDA AS PRESENTED
Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by PAULY
Carried 7-0
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein
Main motion as amended: Remand AB 7344 back to the Planning Policy Commission for additional review and recommendation, returning to the full Council for referral to the Council Land & Shore Committee on Feb. 20, 2018.
Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by WINTERSTEIN
Carried 7-0
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein
Main motion as amended: Adopt Ordinance No. 2820, adopting findings and amending the moratorium established by Ordinance No. 2778, as amended by Ordinance No. 2784 and as previously extended by Ordinance No. 2793 and 2800, to include only Central Issaquah and to be extended for another six months se…
Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by PAULY
Carried 7-0
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein
Main motion as amended: Direct the Administration to schedule a meeting with the Issaquah School District to discuss 2019 impact fees within the first quarter of 2018. . (Opponent: Paul
Moved by BETTISE · seconded by MARTS
Carried 7-0
In favor: Eileen Barber, Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Tola Marts, Mary Lou Pauly, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein