City Council Regular Meeting · Monday, July 16, 2018 · City Council Digest

6. CONSENT CALENDAR

Accounts: Payables and Payroll of July 16, 2018, $4,592,945.10 ID 0249

Approve · packet pp.5–87

Topics: Budget

▶ Watch from 42:24 Open packet at p.5 ↗

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.

Minutes: City Council Regular Meeting, July 2, 2018

Approve · packet pp.89–93

Previously discussed: City Council Regular Meeting · Jun 18, 2018

▶ Watch from 43:44 Open packet at p.89 ↗

Staff report:

CONSENT CALENDAR b) 07-02-18 City Council Regular Meeting Minutes Page 8064

Minutes: Council Committee Work Session, July 9, 2018

Refer to Council Infrastructure Committee · packet pp.95–96

▶ Watch from 45:05 Open packet at p.95 ↗

Staff report:

CONSENT CALENDAR c) 07-09-18 Council Committee Work Session Minutes Page 8069

7. REGULAR BUSINESS

Parks Strategic Plan AB 7394

Approve Resolution; Direct Administration · packet pp.109–261

Topics: Parks

Previously discussed: Park Board · May 17, 2018 Planning Policy Commission · Jun 14, 2018

▶ Watch from 46:25 Open packet at p.109 ↗

Staff report:

UPDATED CITY COUNCIL AB 7394 - AGENDA BILL Regular City Council Regular Meeting - 16 Jul 2018 Business

High Street Conversion, Issaquah Highlands AB 7614

Carried 5-2

Approve · packet pp.263–378

Topics: Land UseTransportation

▶ Watch from 48:13 Open packet at p.263 ↗

Staff report:

High Street is an existing fully developed right-of-way built in 2003 as a result of the Issaquah Highlands Town Center plat (PP02-004IH, FP02-006IH). It currently consists of two 9 ft travel lanes, two 5 ft bike lanes, with a planting strip and 5 ft sidewalk on the eastside of the road. To convert High Street and accommodate the various proposed functions, about half of the existing High Street road surface would be removed to accommodate the adjacent recreational amenities. The remaining 15 ft or so of roadway would be resurfaced and preserved as the multi-use trail (Exhibit B). To replace High Street vehicular functions, the applicant proposes to build Street A/6th Pl NE, through the proposed plat, which parallels High Street, and to extend Ellis Drive to connect with West Highland Park. If converted, the design of High Street will preserve City access to maintain existing utilities…

Roll call:

Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by WINTERSTEIN

In favor: Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Victoria Hunt, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein

Opposed: Marts, Reh

Westridge North Preliminary Plat AB 7480

Carried 7-0

Adopt Ordinance · packet pp.379–562

Topics: Land Use

Previously discussed: Development Commission · Mar 13, 2018

▶ Watch from 50:02 Open packet at p.379 ↗

Staff report:

The Administration forwarded the Westridge North Preliminary Plat Application and the staff report (Exhibits A-B) to the Urban Village Development Commission (UVDC) on March 13, 2018. The first portion of the Public Hearing was held on March 20, 2018 (Exhibits C-D). In response to the comments, questions, and concerns raised, staff and the applicant provided further information to UVDC in the attached response memo (Exhibit E). The Public Hearing was continued with the UVDC on April 17, 2018. At the hearing, staff and the Applicant presented findings from the briefing response memo (Exhibit F-G). The primary focus of the

Roll call:

Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by WINTERSTEIN

In favor: Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Victoria Hunt, Tola Marts, Bill Ramos, Chris Reh, Paul Winterstein

8. GOOD OF THE ORDER

Upcoming Council Meetings

▶ Watch from 4:17:06

2795 segments .txt ↗

0:16 ↗ Good evening. I'd like to call the July 16th City Council regular

0:22 ↗ meeting to order and welcome everyone to join the Council and myself

0:28 ↗ in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of

0:34 ↗ the United States of America, and to the republic for which it

0:39 ↗ stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

0:45 ↗ The first item on our agenda this evening is audience comments. Audience

0:51 ↗ members may address the council at this time. There are guidelines on the meeting agenda.

0:56 ↗ Those who signed up on the list will be called first, forward first, and if

1:01 ↗ you did not sign up, I will ask for other speakers before closing this portion

1:07 ↗ of the meeting. When your name is called, please use the lectern and speak into

1:12 ↗ the microphone. State your name, address and relationship to the City and please limit your

1:18 ↗ comments to five minutes each. Submit any written comments you have to our City Clerk

1:23 ↗ who's sitting right beside me. If you are here as part of a

1:29 ↗ group, please identify yourself as a spokesperson for your group. And if you

1:35 ↗ are here in support of anyone speaking this evening, please raise your hand

1:41 ↗ while they're addressing Council so Council can see your support. Has anyone signed

1:47 ↗ up to speak this evening? Yes, Joe Verner. Mayor or City Council, my

1:52 ↗ name is Joe Verner. Residence is 1230 Oakwood Place

1:58 ↗ in the Summerhill subdivision off of Northwest Newport, or Newport

2:04 ↗ Way Northwest, correction, Issaquah. Thanks for the opportunity to address

2:10 ↗ you this evening. I just have a couple of brief

2:15 ↗ comments on AB 7641, which is the repair or strengthening

2:21 ↗ of the Tibbets Creek Bridge across Newport Way Northwest East.

2:27 ↗ just west of SR 900. Comments are

2:33 ↗ brief. Back in May, the city did

2:38 ↗ an announcement through Issaquah Insider indicating that

2:44 ↗ the bridge was in need of strengthening

2:49 ↗ because the WSDOT or the federal government

2:55 ↗ had increased its weight load expectations.

3:03 ↗ But subsequently, and this was for

3:09 ↗ westbound construction level trucks going from

3:14 ↗ SR 900 west up Newport. But

3:20 ↗ subsequently, there wasn't much control of

3:26 ↗ those loaded construction trucks traffic.

3:32 ↗ I get it that infrastructure deteriorates over generations

3:37 ↗ of use, but I have to ask the

3:43 ↗ question, where was city administration, development services, public

3:49 ↗ works, and IPD for the last three plus

3:55 ↗ years as Newport Way Northwest between SR 900

4:00 ↗ and Lakemont, was utilized for heavy duty construction equipment

4:06 ↗ travels. And that's perhaps one of the reasons why this Tibbets

4:12 ↗ Creek Bridge is deteriorating as rapidly as it had over the

4:18 ↗ last three or four years. But beside that announcement in Issaquah

4:24 ↗ Insider, there didn't seem to be much of anything else in

4:30 ↗ terms of information exchange. Although this Development services say they've

4:35 ↗ talked with the truckers and the developers to control this type of

4:41 ↗ thing. I've seen fully loaded trucks going west on Newport from SR

4:47 ↗ 900 and have done advisories to the city of such. There are

4:52 ↗ several other neighbors along Newport Way that have done the same thing.

4:58 ↗ However, that heavy duty truck traffic still continues west and east.

5:04 ↗ So I ask myself, what's the city doing about it? And I

5:10 ↗ got to say, there's some in the city that haven't a clue

5:16 ↗ what's going on because they're unaware of it or they've been misdirected

5:22 ↗ or misinformed. And that's the disconcerting part of it. Where's development services

5:28 ↗ and public works been rather than just a public announcement in Issaquah

5:34 ↗ Insider? Why aren't there some signs, some electronic reader boards on Newport in

5:40 ↗ both directions? No heavy duty trucks or no construction trucks going westbound from

5:45 ↗ SR 900 or eastbound towards SR 900 that keeps going over the bridge.

5:51 ↗ And so now the city wants to spend $175,000 to do some repairs

5:57 ↗ to that bridge to strengthen it for a couple of years. until

6:02 ↗ the city replaces that bridge and the roadway infrastructure for

6:08 ↗ the new design of Newport Way Northwest. If and when

6:14 ↗ that ever occurs. So I'm saying, city, can we get

6:20 ↗ some reader boards up there? Maybe tomorrow? Can we get

6:26 ↗ IPD maybe spending 45 to 60 minutes a morning for

6:31 ↗ the Monday through Friday for the next couple of weeks

6:37 ↗ citing violators? or just controlling it so thanks for listening and

6:43 ↗ i hope we can do something about it thank you joe who's next doug

6:49 ↗ anter i've never done this before so thank you for this opportunity i appreciate

6:55 ↗ it um it's pretty exciting my name is doug anter or douglas anter i'm

7:01 ↗ at 2412 northeast park drive isaac highlands i guess 98029 the group that i

7:06 ↗ represent are those two sitting right there and a 10 day old at home

7:12 ↗ and a wife I didn't really want to be here. I feel I have to

7:18 ↗ be here. My issue is traffic in the Highlands. I have called a city meeting

7:23 ↗ before with the police have come up to the Blakely Hall to discuss this. There's

7:28 ↗ something about driving on the roads in Issaquah Highlands that gets into people's heads. and

7:34 ↗ they think they can, it's like a launching pad, some of these roads, there are

7:39 ↗ long stretches and such. I live on Park Drive, it's a very busy, busy road.

7:44 ↗ I will not let these girls go out and play outside at all because of

7:49 ↗ the traffic. And so, However, having said that there have been a number of things

7:53 ↗ that have been done recently that the Highlands Council I think is the right term

7:58 ↗ has done a number of things, signage and that sort of thing which has been

8:02 ↗ great, flags and that sort of thing. But people still travel tremendously too fast. I

8:06 ↗ call the police all the time and I encourage others to call the police too

8:10 ↗ and they're very responsive. My specific issue is with I don't know what the word

8:15 ↗ is, it's the Circle Park up by Zeke's. There's a name for it, but I

8:19 ↗ don't know what the name of the park is. But the traffic in there is

8:23 ↗ 25 miles an hour. And I don't know if any of you have driven 25

8:27 ↗ miles an hour in the Circle Park area. It's insanely fast. There are a few

8:31 ↗ roads in this country that I would say, gosh, the speed limit here is twice

8:35 ↗ what it really is safe to drive. Because usually I often think I could drive

8:39 ↗ faster than this. But in that area, it's about twice the speed limit. I'll give

8:43 ↗ you a personal example. I was walking up by Blakely Hall the other day with

8:48 ↗ my wife and two kids, my pregnant wife then and two kids, and some young

8:53 ↗ dude was seemingly blasting through there and we yelled at him. He got out of

8:58 ↗ his car and maturely enough then wanted to fight me. But, and we yelled at

9:04 ↗ him, you know, slow down. He said, well, I was doing 25. And I thought,

9:09 ↗ and I didn't believe it at the time, 'cause I thought, well, that's the speed.

9:13 ↗ But then as I tried to drive 25 one time through there, I thought, oh

9:17 ↗ my gosh, maybe he was driving 25. It is ridiculously fast. There are blind spots

9:22 ↗ 100% of the way. There are six crosswalks. Blakely Hall is filled with people all

9:26 ↗ the time. There are kids going to this park all the time. 25 is insanely

9:30 ↗ high for that area. Traffic is horrible throughout the Highlands in many ways. I'm focusing

9:34 ↗ on this one issue. I have started a brief item on the Esquihallens Facebook

9:40 ↗ page, saying just what I'm telling you all here. And I got 66 people

9:46 ↗ saying I agree, two people saying no, it's fine as is. I've submitted this

9:51 ↗ to you all. I will submit it again to the council officially. So the

9:57 ↗ support is really widespread for what I'm asking here. Sometimes we have to make

10:03 ↗ some hard choices. And 25 is too high, 20 is too high, my request is

10:09 ↗ 15 or 10 miles an hour if that's possible. I also ask that even if

10:14 ↗ it's like, "Gosh, we've never done that before," that that not hinder our thinking, right?

10:18 ↗ Just because we haven't done something a certain way before doesn't mean that we shouldn't

10:22 ↗ do it now. We should do what's right. So, you know, I don't know what

10:26 ↗ you guys can do. You know, again, I've never done this before, but it is

10:30 ↗ very-- I challenge you to drive 25 through. Just give it a shot and see

10:34 ↗ if you think it's safe. I think that the cost of failure is too

10:40 ↗ high. It's just too high, right? So we really have to

10:46 ↗ do something. And that's my request. Lives depend on it. Thank

10:52 ↗ you. Thank you, Doug. And if you want to just walk

10:57 ↗ this way and hand that to Tisha, that would be great.

11:03 ↗ Or Emily. Next we have Nelson Still. Hi, hello. This one.

11:09 ↗ I stayed just down the road. I just moved, actually.

11:15 ↗ I'd say two years since I've been here. And it was a different mayor. I

11:21 ↗ think it's a lady mayor now, isn't it? Is it now? Anyway. Nelson, address the

11:27 ↗ whole council when you're speaking, but we won't be able to answer your questions. I

11:33 ↗ don't need to answer them. I did notice the traffic jams in that main road.

11:39 ↗ What's it called? The main road anyway. And the obvious answer is to cars

11:45 ↗ that are parked on the road, lift them onto the sidewalk and make the

11:50 ↗ road much wider. No problem. And if people object, well, unlucky. What else was

11:56 ↗ I going to talk about? I'm a civil engineer, actually. Have been all my

12:02 ↗ life. I never qualified. I was born in Glasgow in the 1930s and it

12:07 ↗ was scary. But it was magic when the Germans came. Three times

12:13 ↗ a week to bomb the Clyde. They flew through Norway. It was fantastic

12:19 ↗ to watch them. And the noise was incredible. Anyway, I got married. I

12:25 ↗ met my wife 75 years ago. And we've been married now for, I

12:31 ↗ don't know, 65 years. Anyway, we left Britain immediately. Britain decided to join

12:36 ↗ the Common Market. Gone. To South Africa. All the... Train, bus, boats,

12:42 ↗ trains again, all for $24. They needed white people to defend against the

12:48 ↗ black onslaught, which they knew was coming, and it did come, and it's

12:53 ↗ getting worse. We left there, well, we came to America, oh, 19, 10,

12:59 ↗ nine years ago. My children had already moved here, but we went to

13:04 ↗ South Africa, and as I say, I'm a civil engineer, and I do

13:10 ↗ a lot of research design work, and it's really a fantastic

13:16 ↗ job if you've got children. And we live near 32 miles from

13:22 ↗ the cradle of mankind, which is in South Africa. It's the home

13:27 ↗ of sapiens, 12 million years ago. There's evidence that they did live

13:33 ↗ there. So, and the South African themselves, the Boer, the Africana, and they

13:39 ↗ are fantastic people, although you got a lot of rubbish spoke about them. When

13:44 ↗ the Britain sailed to Africa in 1900 to attack the Boers, to move them

13:50 ↗ out, the Boers were Hollanders, but they never, Britain had half a million soldiers,

13:56 ↗ and the Boers were only about 15,000, and that's where it first started.

14:02 ↗ these gangs only fighting the British at night, just like we have

14:07 ↗ now the Green Berets and all that. They started that. The British

14:13 ↗ signed a peace agreement. Back to Britain. Upset. I'm actually related to

14:19 ↗ Prince Philip, the Royal Prince. He's a Greek and I'm Scottish. The

14:24 ↗ Russians, the Greeks and the Scots have all got the same, what

14:30 ↗ do you call it, flag. No flag. Statue all over.

14:36 ↗ I was in Chicago, no, when I was in Africa, I wrote

14:42 ↗ to the curator of the Tower of the Statue of Liberty, which

14:47 ↗ Americans don't own, actually. You're only the curators. We had a long

14:53 ↗ on-off on, and finally I flew to America to speak to a

14:59 ↗ very nice lady. But I moved in Chicago at the time, and I

15:05 ↗ left Chicago to go to New York to speak to her, and at the last

15:10 ↗ minute I changed my mind and came to Seattle to see my daughter. And she

15:15 ↗ took me two days to get there. And she woke me the day that the

15:20 ↗ plane hit the tower, the Twin Towers. Nelson, I just wanted to give you a

15:25 ↗ warning. You're getting close to the end of your time. Do you want to wrap

15:29 ↗ it up for council? Sorry? You're close to the end of the five-minute time. I'm

15:33 ↗ finishing off now. Anyway, when the plane hit the tower, I knew it was coming

15:38 ↗ down. That was the first thing. I'd seen them built. Anyway, and they weren't even

15:42 ↗ connected. There was no bridge between the two of them. And then I wrote a

15:47 ↗ poem after it come down and I got a prize for it, a citation. I

15:52 ↗ need to go now. Is there a party after this? No. Oh well. Thank you

15:57 ↗ and goodbye. I'll be back next time, next week. Thanks. Thank you. No one further

16:02 ↗ has signed up to speak. And I see a hand. Geraldine, would you like to

16:08 ↗ come up and address the council? If

16:14 ↗ anyone else wishes to address the council tonight, if you want to move towards

16:19 ↗ the podium, we'll be able to recognize you faster. Thank you. My name is

16:25 ↗ Geraldine Carey. I live at 955 17th Avenue, Northwest Issaquah. I'm here

16:31 ↗ to address agenda bill 7641, the same one that Joe

16:37 ↗ Verner addressed. I own property on both sides of Tibbett

16:42 ↗ Creek where it meets the Newport Way and my concern

16:48 ↗ about the $175,000 that the city wants to appropriate for

16:54 ↗ refurbishing part of the bridge or the culvert concerns me because this bridge

17:00 ↗ is probably not barely 15 years old. We own the property. It went

17:06 ↗ in as part of TELUS's, I don't know what you call it. They

17:12 ↗ agreed to replace a culvert under Newport Way for being allowed to build

17:18 ↗ out at TELUS. I've been talking to the city about this, I call it

17:23 ↗ a culvert because that's what it is. And I was recently told that they're planning

17:29 ↗ to put in a bridge. And I would like to know what the definition between

17:34 ↗ a bridge and a culvert is. I don't, to me they're not the same. Does

17:39 ↗ a bridge span an open waterway? Is that what's going to happen to Tibbetts Creek?

17:45 ↗ It's no longer going to be a culvert? And so before you address funding, I'd

17:50 ↗ like to know what the future of this waterway is gonna be. Is it

17:56 ↗ gonna be a culvert or a bridge? Is it gonna be widened so you

18:02 ↗ will have to remove what exists and replace it with a whole new structure?

18:08 ↗ And I would like to know why there is no signage. It seems like it

18:13 ↗ wouldn't cost $175,000 to put up some reader boards like Joe mentioned. And I think

18:19 ↗ that emergency vehicles can use the bridge because they would use, I mean they might

18:25 ↗ be heavy but they don't use it on a continuous minute by minute use like

18:30 ↗ construction vehicles would. It seems to me like maybe at most five times a day.

18:36 ↗ I don't know for sure. but it doesn't seem to me like the

18:42 ↗ City Fire Department is aware that there is a low limit. And

18:48 ↗ I'd like that answered. Nobody that I've talked to, and I haven't

18:53 ↗ talked to that many, but they aren't aware that their department is

18:59 ↗ limited to fire trucks and I don't think it's unsafe for fire trucks or emergency

19:04 ↗ vehicles to use as it is. It will be if you let the big, if

19:09 ↗ it were to continue and you let the big construction vehicles use it. So I

19:14 ↗ would say put a sign that says no large trucks and emergency vehicles only and

19:18 ↗ then it'll solve a lot of the problems and down the road when you redo

19:23 ↗ Newport Way, you'll have $175,000 more to help pay for that improvement. Thank you. Thank

19:29 ↗ you, Jaledeen. So you move up to the front. Do you want to come

19:34 ↗ to the microphone? Your name and address and relationship to the city. Hi, my

19:40 ↗ name is Brian Smith. I live in the West Highlands Park and I'm here

19:46 ↗ to talk about the conversion of Highlands Park High Street so I know I've been

19:51 ↗ talking and I've had Chris come out and partake in one of our community park

19:56 ↗ parties I've sent emails to the City Council I know that you guys are probably

20:01 ↗ already gonna go ahead and approve it but just to put a final stamp on

20:06 ↗ it I'd like to just give my last two cents but But a couple of

20:10 ↗ things just I did a little bit digging and I just wanted to make sure

20:14 ↗ a couple of things. Paul, one of the things I did, I think you mentioned

20:18 ↗ in the last Land and Shore meeting. - I'm sure you addressed your comments to

20:22 ↗ the entire council. Thank you, Brian. - One of the members on the city council

20:26 ↗ mentioned last in the Land and Shore meeting to go out and do a kind

20:30 ↗ of download an app and see what the slope of the drive was. And I

20:34 ↗ did that and I came up with anywhere from 10 to 14% slope. So just

20:38 ↗ FYI. A couple other things is I'm very curious if the committee or

20:43 ↗ the council has actually had any feedback from other members in the

20:49 ↗ community and the Issaquah Highlands about having an additional park and closing

20:55 ↗ that down. From what I understand, the only feedback has been from

21:00 ↗ the Land and Shore and the Urban Development Committee members. So therefore, I'm very

21:06 ↗ curious and I understand that they are living, some of them in their area, but

21:10 ↗ for instance, I'd be very curious to see if there's other people that have given

21:14 ↗ feedback other than the standard three. A couple other things is I did do a

21:19 ↗ little bit of digging and I just have a question to the council is that

21:24 ↗ there was I guess an agreement with the Polygon group to give them parcel D

21:29 ↗ in that area in lieu of I think some other land area and I just

21:34 ↗ want to make sure and I was reading some of the articles that are posted

21:39 ↗ online and I can give these to folks that by way of giving this street

21:44 ↗ back to the so-called community. This is not another way for them to be able

21:49 ↗ to put the extra 100 homes into that area. So I know that there was

21:54 ↗ an agreement. Kudos to the mayor not calling out one of the members on the

22:00 ↗ committee that did not want to put all the income qualified housing in one area

22:05 ↗ wanted to spread them out kudos to you for standing up for that because I

22:09 ↗ agree with that spread it out but the one thing I want to do is

22:13 ↗ make sure that we are not giving up that street to basically appease this agreement

22:18 ↗ that we did about a year ago, which gave them an extra 100 homes in

22:23 ↗ that area, as well as the income qualified. Because now they're using that street to

22:29 ↗ do one of the things that's in this memo, which is basically Make more parks

22:34 ↗ make more green spaces and so forth and by I think jamming in other homes

22:39 ↗ This is how they're getting around it. That's my opinion on it So take a

22:43 ↗ peek at that a couple other things that I have real concerns about and I

22:48 ↗ can give up a few more minutes Drainage on the park. So if we do

22:53 ↗ have this park it is important for me and my family to actually have it

22:57 ↗ in be well drained because there are parks in the area that are not well

23:03 ↗ drained. Parking, I think we heard about it earlier that the gentleman earlier at the

23:08 ↗ beginning of the meeting, Highlands Park, just Highlands in general parking is crazy. So therefore

23:13 ↗ I would encourage you to make sure that there's adequate parking for this new park.

23:18 ↗ The other thing is that I, I know that there's been some discussions around that

23:23 ↗ there's additional parking in this new community, but I can assure you that in my

23:28 ↗ neighborhood, and not that I'm stalking everyone, but there are 21, I counted 21 in

23:32 ↗ the last three days that are outside parking on the street and not in their

23:36 ↗ garages. So there are a lot of people that use their garage as a storage

23:41 ↗ vessel instead of using it as a parking garage. So you think you might have

23:45 ↗ this fixed with housing or parking in the area, but that's not true at all.

23:50 ↗ A couple other things is that this park doesn't connect to other parks. I think

23:54 ↗ that's a big concern of mine. And then the other thing, and last but not

23:59 ↗ least, is the ongoing cost to the community. One of the most expensive pieces in

24:04 ↗ our community is insurance and landscaping. So with this additional park, I believe that

24:10 ↗ those fees will then be passed upon to the homeowners in that area. And

24:15 ↗ that's something that's important. My dues went up basically $125 as well as my

24:21 ↗ taxes. So that's starting to add up. It starts creeping, creeping up. So one

24:26 ↗ last thing in conclusion, again, I strongly believe

24:32 ↗ that by eliminating the high street that we will be doing a

24:38 ↗ disservice to traffic. Generally, we always come, we talk about, hey, how's the weather? And

24:44 ↗ how is your traffic? How is your commute? So therefore, I believe in my heart,

24:48 ↗ by keeping High Street, it will not be a bypass as one of the members.

24:53 ↗ And then it also will not allow an opportunity for us to have congested an

24:57 ↗ area without having all the development completed. So thank you very much for listening. Thank

25:02 ↗ you, Brian. Is there anyone else that would like to address Council this

25:08 ↗ evening? I'm going to go with the gentleman and get Elizabeth to move

25:14 ↗ further down the road. Elizabeth, you'll be next. Good evening. Whoops, killed the

25:19 ↗ mic. How's it doing? Can I do this off? My name is Bernard

25:25 ↗ Garbusiuk. I'm owner of Wombs Candies in Issaquah. I have a few remarks

25:31 ↗ in regard to the zoning or zoning changes, what you have in mind

25:37 ↗ or what the City is deciding. and I would like to probably

25:43 ↗ use some notes along the way here. Mooms is in Issaquah over 65

25:49 ↗ years. I'm here for 46 years. I live in, well I didn't state

25:55 ↗ my address, at 375 Mount Kenya Drive, southwestern Issaquah. So I've

26:00 ↗ been doing the Bomskandi for 46 years. I'm at the helm of it

26:06 ↗ for around 40-some years, actually longer than Julius Boms did. But he's definitely

26:12 ↗ the cloud over all of us and keeps us in place. We are

26:17 ↗ proud to be here and representing the city as well as making Issaq-Kwan-Un

26:23 ↗ worldwide because that's what we actually do. We do it the old fashioned

26:29 ↗ way. We have trees there who are all 65 years old and we build or

26:35 ↗ live around them because we believe in this. We believe in a lot of things,

26:40 ↗ what the city council or the citizens like to do and it's not that easy

26:46 ↗ to be a business to adhere to this. Often rather respectfully than logically. That's very

26:52 ↗ important to us. Over the last five years, as you probably all know yourself,

26:58 ↗ Business environment, the employment base we are pulling from, the manufacturing, all of it

27:04 ↗ has changed dramatically. And so it also has changed to BOMS. We're doing very

27:09 ↗ well still what we're doing here. But the reason I'm coming to the point

27:15 ↗ where I'm talking here tonight is that we have to have at least options

27:21 ↗ to reinvent ourselves, to stay an active business here in the city. We

27:27 ↗ have never pursued with one exception. We made it remodeling maybe like 25 years ago,

27:32 ↗ but we're trying to be really the old-fashioned place. But it's not always the best

27:37 ↗ thing, but we are moving slower, and in some ways, I think we have the

27:41 ↗ respect for that. We do however want to have options. Options we are

27:47 ↗ not exercising, options we don't have in front of us, options we are not exploring,

27:53 ↗ but we would like to have them. With that in mind, we have now for

27:58 ↗ the last six, eight weeks gone to a lot of PPC meetings and city meetings

28:04 ↗ with the city members. And I have a question now for you. I would

28:10 ↗ like to ask for a public or any explanation why the summary of

28:16 ↗ the proposed amendments to rezone our East Gilman Boulevard where we are located

28:21 ↗ and what we all are accepted and worked on so much, why they

28:27 ↗ came more to the surface as something what is like accepted from the

28:33 ↗ Council or the PPC on the 25th in a meeting and also on

28:38 ↗ the 28th in a meeting here why isn't this coming forward we love old

28:44 ↗ town issaquah and we shop and dine here obviously my family and me but

28:50 ↗ we aren't really a part of old town issaquah no matter what you do

28:55 ↗ if you cannot extract the the dairy and the the the lazy boy people

29:01 ↗ and throw them this way and that way and this way, they'll be coming apart.

29:07 ↗ We're really not. So I'm not anti old Issaquah or the city or the old-fashioned

29:13 ↗ ways what so many citizens like to feature or have. But I do have to

29:19 ↗ say for us to continue most of the ways that we are doing, I would

29:24 ↗ like to have not been pressed in the situation that we have to make decisions

29:29 ↗ because it looks like it's very hard for the city, the city council and people

29:35 ↗ to make decisions because now we're having another It's not called a moratorium, but

29:40 ↗ we have another timeout for another month or two months or maybe to the

29:46 ↗ end of the year or this or that. That all is a little bit

29:52 ↗ in the rumor mill. I'm just asking you now to clarify this and give

29:58 ↗ us, BOEMS, a direction. We don't need a direction to go aggressively forward, but

30:04 ↗ we like a direction what's going on with East Gilman Boulevard. Thank you. Thanks,

30:10 ↗ Bernard. Elizabeth? My name is Elizabeth Maupin. I own the

30:16 ↗ house at 100 Big Bear Place. I've lived there a long

30:22 ↗ time and unexpectedly I'm here to talk to you about housing

30:28 ↗ affordability. The county now thinks my house is worth a fortune

30:34 ↗ and I don't know how we are ever going to solve

30:40 ↗ the problem of homelessness in our community in this

30:45 ↗ hot housing market. I am trying to figure out

30:51 ↗ how do you cool a housing market that is

30:57 ↗ displacing more and more of our residents. I'm also

31:03 ↗ concerned that our city has written some beautiful things

31:08 ↗ into our comprehensive plan related to affordable housing and

31:14 ↗ yet We have dormitory housing that the city doesn't

31:20 ↗ recognize as housing and is ready to allow to be

31:26 ↗ demolished. I think that we've come to a time where

31:32 ↗ incomes are not keeping pace with housing costs and we

31:38 ↗ need to start looking a little more innovatively at housing.

31:44 ↗ Those of us who went to college and lived

31:50 ↗ in dormitories believed that we were housed at that

31:55 ↗ time. Why is that housing not considered housing anymore?

32:01 ↗ Can we look at ways of being a little

32:06 ↗ more flexible? Ideally, we would have low-income housing in

32:12 ↗ amongst all the rest. And ideally, a lot of

32:17 ↗ it would be close to transportation. But are we going to

32:23 ↗ throw away a place that could house 400 people because it's

32:29 ↗ two-thirds of a mile from a park and ride?

32:35 ↗ I just wonder if we couldn't find ways to be more flexible so

32:41 ↗ that more of the people who love Issaquah and whose social network is

32:47 ↗ here might continue to live in our community and not be priced out.

32:53 ↗ I thank you. I know you are working on this, but I just

32:59 ↗ wanted to offer my encouragement to go from a beautiful, comprehensive plan into

33:05 ↗ something that allows the permit department to hold on to existing

33:11 ↗ affordable housing and to allow the creation of transitional housing or other

33:17 ↗ affordable housing when it doesn't happen to fit the ideal criteria, but

33:23 ↗ it's still a whole lot better than not having it. Thank you.

33:28 ↗ - Thank you, Elizabeth. Is there anyone else who would like to

33:34 ↗ address council? Come on up.

33:42 ↗ hi i'm john maven and i run the grange 145 northeast gilman

33:48 ↗ boulevard thanks for hearing me out thanks for keeping it to five

33:53 ↗ minutes because i'm bound to ramble so this is my fourth meeting

33:59 ↗ advocating for the zoning around the grange we had in june we

34:05 ↗ had uh uh kind of a loose discussion of what we wanted

34:11 ↗ and what we were hoping for in our zone, as a destination retail. The idea

34:16 ↗ was we were gonna be changed to retail, which had restrictions on it that would

34:22 ↗ have been just that, restrictions, the setbacks would have been just that, setbacks. And so

34:28 ↗ our second meeting was so much more collaborative and so much more positive, and I

34:34 ↗ feel like Bernard from Bomes and Tyson and I said, "Yeah, let's go 10 feet

34:40 ↗ back off of the street. We want to have some curb appeal and some

34:46 ↗ pop, but let's not do that on the sides of our business and along

34:51 ↗ the back." There's reasons to allow us to use the property that we own.

34:58 ↗ And that meeting actually ended in what I think was a real good

35:04 ↗ collaborative government meets business manner. And then in this room, as Bernard said,

35:10 ↗ we watched these recommendations be moved, seconded, and carried and passed. And it

35:16 ↗ feels like now they're being pushed off or undone. I feel like the

35:22 ↗ work of of these legacy local businesses has been ignored. And actually the

35:28 ↗ legacy of these local businesses is ignored. We're really busting our humps

35:33 ↗ to stay in business in this environment. And frankly, it's just simply

35:39 ↗ bad form to make anxious a legacy business that's in your city.

35:45 ↗ My hope is that we can get some idea of exactly why

35:51 ↗ what we recommended, what we've agreed to is a bad idea or why it can't

35:57 ↗ just be done. It just seems to me as though everyone in the room and

36:02 ↗ everyone on the commission thought that we'd finished this. And I actually texted my board

36:08 ↗ and texted my staff and said, "Hey, I think we got this thing done." And

36:13 ↗ now it feels like it's been undone. So I kind of wonder what the point

36:19 ↗ of that collaboration was. Yeah, and I would just ask

36:25 ↗ someone to explain to us what happened to the process. I know that in the

36:31 ↗ second meeting, it was crunchy. This stuff is crunchy. But we came to a solution

36:37 ↗ which now feels like it's being ignored. The Grange is going to be around a

36:42 ↗ long time and Bomes is going to be around a long time. But let's not

36:48 ↗ make it despite the efforts of local government. Thank you. Thank you, John.

36:54 ↗ Did anyone else like to speak this evening? Mr. Kapler. Good

37:00 ↗ evening. David Kapler, 255 Southeast Andrews. Our park plan is a

37:05 ↗ strategic plan, not just a comp plan. And you've put extra

37:11 ↗ time and money, resources into its development, and it's great. So

37:16 ↗ keep it up. High street conversion. If we're gonna

37:22 ↗ do that, we're tremendous, to me, there's a tremendous increase in value to the lots

37:28 ↗ that will adjoin that. Some of that money needs to be invested in doing

37:33 ↗ a high quality park there. And since it's still the city's property, that's an issue.

37:39 ↗ And the Homeowners Association for the whole Highlands are gonna be paying for its maintenance.

37:45 ↗ And you owe it to those, rest of those residents up there to do something

37:50 ↗ that's worthwhile to the whole community and not just to the adjoining lot owners. Thank

37:56 ↗ you. Thank you, David. Anyone else? I have an expert right here

38:02 ↗ to help on that. Thank you. Anyone else wishing to address the

38:08 ↗ council? Steve? Hi, Steve Perrera, Old Town. So first of all, I

38:13 ↗ second Elizabeth's comments on finding affordable opportunities for housing that is currently

38:19 ↗ in stock. Before we lose that, I think we have some great

38:25 ↗ opportunities there. Moving on to two topics I wanted to touch tonight.

38:31 ↗ One was the AB 7606, the King County Funded Homeless Shelter Services outside Seattle. I

38:36 ↗ think that's a great opportunity. I think if anything, I think Issaquah supports doing this

38:41 ↗ type of things and should be fully supported. Kind of related though, I've kind of

38:46 ↗ seen the City of Issaquah going from item to item to item, figure out what

38:50 ↗ it is we want to do from a human services campus to a TOD project

38:55 ↗ to a service opportunity, we don't seem to be able to pick on

39:01 ↗ one thing and just sell this what we want to do. I'm still not convinced

39:06 ↗ that the TOD project and the human services opportunity there are the best thing that

39:11 ↗ we can do. I think there's still a lot of questions that we need to

39:16 ↗ answer before that and I think there needs to be a better way to reach

39:20 ↗ out to the community to say what all the pros and cons and decide before

39:24 ↗ we have votes coming to City Council to decide things piecemeal. We need to look

39:28 ↗ as a whole, pick one thing and move on. I don't say that because of

39:31 ↗ cost, I just think we're spending all this time spinning our wheels and not coming

39:35 ↗ up with one thing we'd like to do. So keep that in mind going forward.

39:39 ↗ The second was the AB 7394 Park Strategic Plan. I guess I don't

39:45 ↗ see that there's enough of the things in the IZGUAL aspirational statements in

39:50 ↗ the parks plan to warrant it going forward. I think things like urban

39:56 ↗ forests and environmental stewardship and wildlife habitat can be found in aspirational statements

40:02 ↗ that need to be included in the document going forward. So I just

40:07 ↗ think that needs more review before implementation. If those get added tonight, I'm in favor

40:13 ↗ of that. I don't want to keep discussing things over and over again, but I

40:17 ↗ don't think we're where we should be. I think unless we fail to put those

40:20 ↗ things into the code, what the aspirational statement we're going forward is that we want

40:24 ↗ to become a regional growth center and we'll prioritize that over the things that make

40:28 ↗ us unique and special. And we're going to lose those things because we're going to

40:32 ↗ become a regional growth center, but we're not going to be unique and special because

40:36 ↗ we haven't. Built that into our structure and our code going forward. Thank you. Thank

40:41 ↗ you Steve Is there anyone else who would like to address the council this evening?

40:46 ↗ A second call anyone else wishing to address the council and a final call anyone

40:51 ↗ wishing to address the council? Seeing no other residents wanting to address it, I'd

40:57 ↗ like to thank everybody who came. We had a couple residents who talked

41:02 ↗ about the Newport Bridge reinforcement, asking for, talking about reasons for deterioration and

41:08 ↗ signage. We heard about Highlands driving in the, safe driving in the Highlands.

41:14 ↗ A concern over traffic on Front Street, the conversion of High Street in Issaquah Highlands

41:19 ↗ from a street to a park, zoning changes on East Gilman Boulevard. Several people spoke

41:24 ↗ to that this evening. Also about housing affordability, the parks plan, and some comments on

41:29 ↗ this evening's agenda. And I thank you all for coming this evening. The Council and

41:34 ↗ I both appreciate, we all appreciate that you show up and spend your time passing

41:39 ↗ on the information. I'm going to close the comments and we'll move to committee and

41:45 ↗ regional reports. Council Member Hunt. Thank you, Madam Mayor. The Council Services and Safety Committee

41:50 ↗ met on July 10th. We had one item on the agenda and that was AB

41:56 ↗ 7606, King County funded homeless shelter and services outside Seattle funding requests. This is an

42:02 ↗ agenda bill that seeks Council authorization to expend a total of $14,000 over a three-year

42:07 ↗ period from 2018 to 2020. The committee discussed how this would provide much needed services

42:13 ↗ and pools funding from multiple cities and how that was a good way to fund

42:18 ↗ these very much needed services for the region. The committee recommended unanimously that council approve

42:24 ↗ the authorization of the funding and it was recommended to go on the consent calendar

42:29 ↗ and it is on the consent calendar for this evening. The next meeting of the

42:35 ↗ Council Services and Safety Committee is scheduled for August 14th at 6:30 here in Council

42:41 ↗ Chambers. And this concludes my report. Thank you, Council Member Hunt. Council Member Wray. Thank

42:47 ↗ you, Mayor Pauly. I attended the Eastside Fire and Rescue Board meeting on July 12th

42:52 ↗ with Mayor Pauly. Key items on the agenda is we received a PFAS update from

42:58 ↗ the Chief. We also participated in promotion ceremonies for three new captains and four

43:04 ↗ new lieutenants, so some new leadership at Eastside Fire and Rescue. And then finally we

43:10 ↗ approved an inter-local agreement with the State Department of Ecology, the City of Issaquah and

43:16 ↗ Eastside Fire and Rescue related to monitoring of PFAS in the Issaquah Valley. And that

43:21 ↗ concludes my report this evening. Thank you, Councilmember Wray. Council Member Ramos. Thank you,

43:27 ↗ Mayor. The Council Infrastructure Committee will be meeting this Thursday, the 19th, here in Council

43:33 ↗ Chambers at 6.30. There's three items on the agenda, one of which is AB 7641,

43:38 ↗ the Newport Way-Tibbets Creek Bridge Reinforcement Project. There are a few folks that talked about

43:44 ↗ that on comments. I encourage anyone to come to that meeting. That will be an

43:49 ↗ in-depth conversation on that topic, and more public comments can be taken then as well.

43:55 ↗ Other than that, there'll be an update on the Gilman Boulevard Public Outreach Project

44:01 ↗ and also project updates. Both my emergency management and regional transit committee

44:07 ↗ meetings were canceled this month so I was not at those. But last Friday on

44:12 ↗ the 13th I was at the Washington State Public Works Board meeting in Olympia working

44:18 ↗ on a long range strategic plan and just a reminder for us here that the

44:23 ↗ Public Works Board is there to help cities particularly and other utility districts fund their

44:28 ↗ water and sewer and infrastructure projects of that nature to it helps Those cities save

44:33 ↗ quite a bit in funding rather than bonding and other ways of funding those projects.

44:37 ↗ So as we go into our water study that we've been working on quite a

44:41 ↗ bit, I just want to mention that in the long term that those are the

44:44 ↗ funding sources we should just keep aware of. And that concludes my report. Thank you.

44:49 ↗ Council Member Winterstein. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Last Thursday on the 5th

44:54 ↗ of July, the Puget Sound Regional Council's Growth Management Policy Board met

45:00 ↗ at PSRC headquarters in Seattle. The principal topic for discussion was the

45:06 ↗ housing update to the Vision 2040, which will be known as Vision

45:11 ↗ 2050. That's the long-term vision strategic plan for the four county region, including

45:17 ↗ Snohomish, King, Pierce, and Kitsap counties. And we got a presentation. There's a

45:23 ↗ very good background paper. It's over 50 pages long. I can refer anybody

45:28 ↗ to that if you're interested. It's a regional look, a lot of information

45:34 ↗ that we here have addressed over the last few years there was no topics that

45:40 ↗ we weren't familiar with but it is a summary of many housing facts here

45:45 ↗ in the four county region so then we held a breakout re a number

45:51 ↗ of breakout sessions where a lot of brainstorming done about what the growth management

45:57 ↗ policy board should be recommending for updates to the housing component of vision 2050.

46:03 ↗ We also had a briefing on the Regional Open Space Conservation Plan and

46:08 ↗ lastly a briefing on the Regional Transit Oriented Development Advisory Committees recommendation to

46:14 ↗ updates to Vision 2050. That concludes my report. Thank you. Council Member Goodman. Thank you,

46:20 ↗ Madam Mayor. Council's Land and Shore Committee met on July 5th and we had two

46:25 ↗ items on our agenda and they are both on the agenda tonight under regular business

46:31 ↗ and they are regarding the High Street conversion proposal and the Westridge North preliminary plat.

46:36 ↗ The Land and Shore typically meets the first Thursday of each month so the next

46:41 ↗ meeting would be August 2nd and I don't have an agenda and I'm not a

46:46 ↗ hundred percent sure we're meeting so I'm looking in the back to keep but so

46:51 ↗ stay tuned it'll be on the website if we're meeting. Thank you. That's my report.

46:56 ↗ Thank you. Deputy Council President Bautiste. Thank you, Madam Mayor. First, I have an

47:02 ↗ update on the Economic Development Council of Seattle and King County. As you remember, we've

47:08 ↗ been talking about this for a little while. They have been looking to form into

47:14 ↗ a new regional economic development organization, and that has all gone through and been approved,

47:20 ↗ and the new name of the organization is called the Greater Seattle Partners. It's described

47:26 ↗ as a best-in-class regional economic development organization driven by comprehensive analytics and data to competitively

47:31 ↗ market the region across the globe. They had also been searching for a new chief

47:37 ↗ executive officer, and that person has been hired and will be announced in the next

47:43 ↗ two weeks. So that's just an update on that. And then as I go forward

47:49 ↗ to the next board meeting, I can give another update. And then I

47:54 ↗ attended the Puget Sound Regional Council's Economic Development District Board on

48:00 ↗ July 11th and at that meeting we adopted the fiscal year

48:06 ↗ 2018-2019 supplemental budget and work plan and then ratified the members

48:12 ↗ of the executive, the board's executive committee for that term. And

48:17 ↗ then we listened to two very interesting overviews. The first

48:23 ↗ was an Economic Development District Board going through a commercial

48:29 ↗ space sector study, talking about the space sector in general,

48:34 ↗ but how prevalent that is becoming in Washington state and

48:40 ↗ competitive studies to better understand that within Washington state. And then

48:46 ↗ side by side with that, an aerospace competitive economic study that is being kicked off

48:52 ↗ by Governor Inslee, the Choose Washington New Mid-Market Airplane Council is commissioned to do that

48:57 ↗ study. So those will be coming out in future months. And I can give you

49:03 ↗ an update at that time. that concludes my report thank you council president martz thank

49:09 ↗ you thank you madam mayor first of all i want to thank um i think

49:14 ↗ in the end it wound up being vicky who uh covered for me at land

49:19 ↗ and shore vicky covering for chris covering for me uh as i was out of

49:24 ↗ town attending a funeral so i appreciated it very much sound cities association public issues

49:29 ↗ committee meeting was held I think I have the wrong day listed here.

49:35 ↗ It was held last Wednesday the 9th and we talked about a number of things.

49:40 ↗ We led off with a pre-pick workshop discussion, Vision 2050. Council Member Witterstein has already

49:45 ↗ talked about that a little bit. I'll just mention that I brought up the concern

49:50 ↗ that we have as a city with the fact that as they go forward making

49:55 ↗ Vision 2050 plans, they need to take into account which communities have been generous in

50:01 ↗ their welcoming of new folks to the community. And so, uh, is equal, I believe

50:06 ↗ will hit its vision 2040 targets in the next year or two. Uh, and I

50:12 ↗ certainly hope that that will be considered, uh, when, uh, they start doling out allotments

50:18 ↗ for the next, um, large number of people that are there and continue to come

50:24 ↗ to our fair corner of the country uh as i sit on gmpc

50:29 ↗ growth management planning council and gmpc will actually have some responsibility for helping

50:35 ↗ determine king county's portion of psrc's growth targets We will have a seat at

50:41 ↗ the table for that part of the conversation. That process hasn't actually been documented out

50:47 ↗ well yet for GNPC, but I will, of course, keep everyone apprised. Then I'll also

50:53 ↗ mention there was a conversation on the responsible recycling task force. I think everybody

50:58 ↗ on the dais probably knows, but China has enacted its national sword policy,

51:04 ↗ which has to do with basically they're going to stop accepting. They have

51:10 ↗ basically applied standards to recycling that makes it effectively impossible to recycle most

51:15 ↗ compounds. And this is going to hit recycling efforts in North America like

51:21 ↗ a giant ton of bricks. And so, yeah. The net effects are yet unknown

51:27 ↗ as to what this is going to do to recycling efforts, but there's a lot

51:33 ↗ of concern that a number of recycling streams may not be viable going forward. And

51:38 ↗ so, you know, there's just an initial conversation about how do we as a region

51:44 ↗ maintain our strong commitment to recycling. This concludes my report. Thank you, Council President Martz.

51:50 ↗ The next item on the agenda is the Mayor's report. There will be

51:55 ↗ an executive session held this evening to discuss pending and potential litigation per

52:01 ↗ 42.30.110:1:i. This item is expected to last 15 minutes and action is anticipated

52:07 ↗ to follow in open session. On July 12, I attended the Puget Sound

52:13 ↗ Regional Council's Transportation Policy Board Caucus and Board Meeting. Two action items were to recommend

52:18 ↗ approval of the 2018 adjustment of the Federal Transit Administration funds, and this is a

52:24 ↗ truing up that occurs once projects have been bid and allows for projects that did

52:30 ↗ not get funded originally and are on the contingency list to to move up and

52:35 ↗ be funded. The second item was recommending approval of the proposed project list for

52:41 ↗ 2021-2022, Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit Administration funds. There were no projects on

52:47 ↗ either of these lists pertaining to Issaquah. These funds apply regionally to the four-county

52:53 ↗ region that Councilmember Winterstein earlier talked about. Next meeting will be September 13th at

52:59 ↗ 9:30 a.m. at the PSRC boardroom on 1011 Western Avenue and the agenda has not

53:04 ↗ been set. I also attended on July 12th the Issaquah Chamber of Commerce candidate forum.

53:10 ↗ The chamber was able to invite and have host 24 candidates for this year's state

53:15 ↗ and federal races. On July 12th I attended Eastside Fire and Rescue board meeting with

53:20 ↗ council member Christopher Wray. Community Outreach. On July 4th, I attended a flag-raising ceremony hosted

53:26 ↗ by the Latter-day Saints in honor of our veterans and walked in Issaquah's 4th of

53:31 ↗ July parade with residents from several local life enrichment option houses. On July 5th, I

53:37 ↗ toured the Derrygold plant with their plant manager and city staff and on July 9th,

53:42 ↗ Issaquah hosted a question and answer session with the mayor at the Senior Center. On

53:47 ↗ July 12th I attended a small group dinner with the residents of Timber Ridge. I've

53:52 ↗ got a couple of issues updates here. Cougar Mountain Berksma update. We have been partnering,

53:57 ↗ the city has been partnering with the Trust for Public Lands in exploring acquisition options

54:01 ↗ for the parcels known as the Berksma property. I do not have new information to

54:06 ↗ provide this evening. I did have a sad note to pass on.

54:12 ↗ Issaquah's 2004 Hall of Fame recipient, Marty Budzias, has passed away. He

54:18 ↗ was a former school principal and he passed away last week. His

54:23 ↗ funeral is scheduled for Wednesday, July 8th at the Cross of Christ

54:29 ↗ Lutheran Church in Bellevue. And I thought this evening I would provide a local

54:35 ↗ development update and touch on several projects that are currently under construction. Costco is planning

54:40 ↗ to expand in town. They are constructing a nine-story office building with one level of

54:46 ↗ underground parking and a 10-story parking garage with exhibit space and fitness uses on the

54:52 ↗ ground floor. The office building will be approximately 600,000 square feet and the parking structure

54:57 ↗ will be approximately 740,000 square feet. This is going to be built as part of

55:03 ↗ the current Costco campus on the north side of I-90 in Pickering Place. The project

55:08 ↗ will go to the Development Commission late summer, early fall this year, with construction permits

55:13 ↗ reviewed over winter and construction beginning in the spring of 2019. It will take approximately

55:18 ↗ 18 months. I also want to provide an update on the Gateway Apartments which is

55:23 ↗ named Anthology and also the roundabout for this project. Anthology is 400 residential units on

55:29 ↗ 23 acres off of Newport Way located just west of Arena Sports. Project elements include

55:34 ↗ a public multi-use trail and a two acre public park, a clubhouse and a private

55:39 ↗ park for the residents and also enhancement of critical areas on site.

55:47 ↗ The roundabout permit has been issued and construction of the roundabout is expected to last

55:52 ↗ approximately six months overall. We have another apartment project on 7th Avenue called Vale.

55:58 ↗ It is a five-story apartment building currently under construction, 110 units with four stories

56:04 ↗ of residential units over the ground level under building and surface parking. They're currently

56:09 ↗ completing the framing and hoping to occupy in February 2019. It's located on 7th

56:15 ↗ Avenue and Locust just behind the Safeway in the Gilman neighborhood. Also, Raleigh

56:21 ↗ Properties is constructing an office building. It will be a four-story office building with ground-level

56:26 ↗ retail. The building will have a total of approximately 72,000 square feet, including 50,000 square

56:32 ↗ feet of office and additional retail and/or daycare space. This is located next to the

56:37 ↗ Arena Sports Complex and adjacent to two other Raleigh properties, the Homewood Suites and Hilton

56:43 ↗ Garden Inn. Construction is expected to begin in the summer of 2019 and go through

56:48 ↗ the summer of 2020. Elkari Phase 2 and 3 is the construction of approximately

56:54 ↗ 75 three-story townhouse units in 19 buildings. The project is located on Sunrise Place Southwest

57:00 ↗ off of Wildwood Boulevard on the south side of Squawk Mountain. Construction may begin in

57:05 ↗ fall 2018 and last one and a half to two years. And the last project

57:11 ↗ I wanted to talk about is Mallard Bay and this construction of 34-lot single-family detached

57:16 ↗ subdivisions on 43rd Way just above the roundabout on East Lakes/Mamish Parkway. Site work may

57:21 ↗ begin as early as fall 2018 with plat build-out over the next two years. For

57:27 ↗ those who are interested in tracking development projects in town, there's more information available on

57:32 ↗ our website on the active projects list. under your government tab and the development services

57:37 ↗ department. And that concludes the mayor's report. Proceeding to the consent calendar. The consent calendar

57:43 ↗ was distributed to council in advance. If authorized, the items on the consent calendar will

57:49 ↗ be considered together and approved by one motion. Have the payables and payroll been reviewed?

57:55 ↗ They have. Thank you. Does any council member desire to remove any item from the

58:01 ↗ consent calendar and consider it under regular business? Would you

58:07 ↗ care to make a motion? Yes, Madam Mayor. I move we adopt the consent calendar

58:12 ↗ as listed in tonight's council meeting agenda. Second. Thanks. It has been moved and seconded

58:17 ↗ to approve the consent calendar. All those in favour signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed?

58:22 ↗ That carries unanimously. The next item on our agenda this evening is regular business and

58:28 ↗ we have four items this evening for Council to consider. First item

58:34 ↗ is AB 7394, Park Strategic Plan. This item is coming out of

58:39 ↗ the Council Services and Safety Committee and I'd like to invite Jeff

58:45 ↗ Watling, our Parks and Recreation Director, to make a presentation. Thanks, Jeff.

58:51 ↗ Good evening. Apologize as I pull up. It's a PDF apparently. And

58:57 ↗ there it is. Let me start from the top. Show me how

59:03 ↗ to start from the top. I apologize.

59:20 ↗ Let's go from here. All right. Thank you. So

59:25 ↗ following our services and safety meeting in June, I'm

59:31 ↗ back before you tonight for you to consider and

59:37 ↗ look at our recommended adoption of the park strategic plan. This has been a lot

59:42 ↗ of work in the making. I think for the purposes of tonight's presentation, we've certainly

59:47 ↗ discussed this a number of times, both here in work session and in committee. I'm

59:53 ↗ going to highlight the feedback that we heard at our services and safety meeting

59:59 ↗ as well as goals and policy discussion we had at planning and policy. Highlight

1:00:05 ↗ those changes as they were made in the plan and open it up for

1:00:11 ↗ your deliberation following that. So at the June 2nd council meeting you referred this

1:00:17 ↗ item to the services and safety meeting in June. On June 12th,

1:00:22 ↗ we had a very robust discussion about the full plan. We

1:00:28 ↗ really, in that conversation, also began looking at and focusing on

1:00:34 ↗ how this plan would be used moving forward. Following that 90-minute

1:00:39 ↗ discussion, we had a unanimous recommendation for adoption. There were four

1:00:45 ↗ changes or points that were discussed with committee. The following pages

1:00:51 ↗ I'll highlight three of these edits that we made within the plan. The fourth

1:00:56 ↗ bullet point you see in terms of providing an annual progress report to a

1:01:02 ↗ council work session. We will certainly work with administration on scheduling those on an

1:01:08 ↗ annual basis and certainly look forward to seeing how we progress with this plan

1:01:13 ↗ and how this plan remains a very actionable document.

1:01:20 ↗ So first item that we discussed really at length at the committee meeting was the

1:01:26 ↗ green necklace itself and how do we recognize that work that we did early this

1:01:32 ↗ year that really is certainly a key element to the park strategic plan but also

1:01:37 ↗ an element of the the central Issaquah plan. In the initial draft that we had

1:01:43 ↗ prior to the committee meeting, that incorporation, that blending of the necklace plan with

1:01:49 ↗ the rest of the plan felt a little bumpy. So what we proposed was some

1:01:54 ↗ modifications which I highlight here in the table of contents. Where it is in the

1:02:00 ↗ document is pages 105 to 109. But what we really tried to do following that

1:02:06 ↗ discussion was build a little bit clearer and cleaner bridge from the summary and the

1:02:11 ↗ next steps of the park strategic plan which really take, if you will,

1:02:17 ↗ a 40,000 foot look at our entire parks, open space and

1:02:23 ↗ trail system, introduce this green necklace work, which is at a

1:02:28 ↗ more granular level, addressing both parks and right-of-way and private property

1:02:34 ↗ opportunities, and really tee that up a little bit better with chapter seven.

1:02:40 ↗ So that's what we sought to do. We feel like it certainly improves the

1:02:45 ↗ document and allows that green necklace work to stand out as important work to

1:02:51 ↗ both our overall park system, but also our goals as a city, our redevelopment

1:02:57 ↗ goals within Central Issaquah and how our public system can support that The

1:03:03 ↗ next item that we talked about and we made some

1:03:09 ↗ clarifying modifications to have to do with within our strategic

1:03:14 ↗ projects. The strategic projects comprise multiple pages of the document,

1:03:20 ↗ roughly pages 57 to 73. If you recall from prior

1:03:26 ↗ discussions, each of these projects ran through a filter, a prioritization

1:03:32 ↗ process that we worked on with the Park Board. That prioritization

1:03:37 ↗ put these 50 strategic projects into three categories: near-term, a mid-term,

1:03:43 ↗ and a long-term priority. What we found after we put those in those buckets

1:03:49 ↗ though, a number of these projects have a high level of complexity and will likely

1:03:54 ↗ have work that will bridge between multiple terms. So we just wanted to, with discussion

1:04:00 ↗ of the Services and Safety Committee, clarify those projects that had maybe lived in a

1:04:06 ↗ certain term but we're going to have either some prior planning work done. One of

1:04:11 ↗ the examples that I just wanted to draw out here, and it's through all those

1:04:17 ↗ pages, you'll see that middle project here. This is in the connectivity theme. We

1:04:23 ↗ have a project looking at development of our Front Street Park, the properties that

1:04:29 ↗ we've been assembling across from the pool for a number of years. Though its

1:04:35 ↗ development prioritized out as a midterm priority, we recognized, and you'll see in the

1:04:40 ↗ text, there's some near-term work that we see opportunity to work on. Some continued

1:04:46 ↗ acquisition, likely some planning work, some public outreach work, potentially some interim use. for

1:04:52 ↗ those sites. So just a way of recognizing that the

1:04:58 ↗ complexity of this work might fall into multiple terms. The

1:05:04 ↗ third item we discussed and we're bringing before you some

1:05:09 ↗ edits to the plan have to do with what's called the green,

1:05:15 ↗ what we've dubbed Green Issaquah Initiative. It really is taking a look at our

1:05:21 ↗ urban forest and creating an urban forest management plan. So on page 49 of

1:05:27 ↗ the plan, along with the strategic projects that we've recommended in this document, we

1:05:33 ↗ have some, what we're calling operational strategic projects. These are recommendations coming out of this

1:05:39 ↗ work that we heard from the community that don't necessarily fit as one specific capital

1:05:44 ↗ project or a site project. And one of those four is that second one down

1:05:49 ↗ that's highlighted in purple. That's initiate an urban forest slash green Issaquah program. As we

1:05:55 ↗ talked about this work and really the importance of better understanding and assessing

1:06:01 ↗ our publicly owned urban forest, our 1300 acres, there was a lot of

1:06:06 ↗ conversation both in public but certainly as we talked with the committee about

1:06:12 ↗ recognizing how we can incorporate into the scope of that work some

1:06:18 ↗ initial work on tree coverage, tree cover, our tree canopy, and looking at

1:06:24 ↗ incorporating an update of that work into that urban forest work. So there

1:06:29 ↗ was a desire to place some language into that, into that definition, that description,

1:06:35 ↗ which we did. Certainly the final scope of that work would be determined

1:06:41 ↗ in the future as we identify some budget for that work. That tree

1:06:46 ↗ cover work is also one that will likely involve multiple departments as well.

1:06:52 ↗ So as that scope's defined, we would certainly also define with administration how

1:06:58 ↗ that work would be accomplished.

1:07:03 ↗ Along with that work from the Services and Safety meeting, we also

1:07:09 ↗ took, as this document will be an amendment to the Comprehensive Plan,

1:07:15 ↗ we had a presentation and a work session agenda item with the

1:07:21 ↗ Planning Policy Commission on June 14th. Following that discussion, they made a

1:07:27 ↗ unanimous recommendation for park plan adoption as well. noting that this

1:07:33 ↗ plan, once adopted by you council, would replace the 2015 park plan

1:07:38 ↗ within the comprehensive plan. They did make a conditional recommendation in that

1:07:44 ↗ they desired the goals and policies themselves within this plan to be

1:07:49 ↗ revisited, to be reworked within a year. That is something that certainly

1:07:55 ↗ as we've talked with staff and administration, something that we would upon

1:08:01 ↗ your approval as well, seek to get completed. Within that

1:08:07 ↗ goals and policies rework and revision, they were seeking some

1:08:12 ↗ stronger language around signage and wayfinding. They too, That

1:08:18 ↗ last bullet sought to further define and formulate the scope of

1:08:24 ↗ that green is a quad program that I had just mentioned

1:08:30 ↗ earlier. But certainly as that work is budgeted and identified, refinement

1:08:35 ↗ of that scope definition of that scope would be really the

1:08:41 ↗ first task of that work. So with that work and in

1:08:47 ↗ total, We're excited. This has been a lot of work. We feel in many

1:08:53 ↗ ways that this is the starting line and really not a completion. As we move

1:08:58 ↗ forward to this, this plan is one that we feel provides the big picture vision

1:09:04 ↗ for our public system. and really a strategy for how we look at

1:09:10 ↗ making future improvements and future investments. This really reflects the voice of this

1:09:16 ↗ community, hundreds of voices of this community as public outreach was a real

1:09:21 ↗ cornerstone of this work. We feel that this work, the strategic projects really

1:09:27 ↗ seek to position the system to serve both our current and our future

1:09:33 ↗ residents as we and work through growth in this

1:09:38 ↗ community. The projects, the plan itself is certainly

1:09:44 ↗ one that's ambitious. It's going to require some innovation.

1:09:50 ↗ It's going to require some new approaches on our part. But it's

1:09:56 ↗ one that I think as we, as staff, at least in working

1:10:02 ↗ with the many, many voices and many community members that worked on

1:10:07 ↗ this document are really excited to jump into and begin to address.

1:10:13 ↗ I'll finish with this. with this slide, this graphic that's in the

1:10:19 ↗ document that I've shared a couple of times, but I think it really

1:10:24 ↗ reflects what it means for this to be an actionable plan. It's not

1:10:30 ↗ actionable by itself. I parallel it to a map. I love maps, but

1:10:36 ↗ just as a map itself isn't going to get you to your destination, in

1:10:41 ↗ order to get to your destination you still need intentionality, you still need to make

1:10:47 ↗ some decisions along the way, you still need to invest in gasoline. This is very

1:10:53 ↗ much the same. This is a great roadmap but it won't do anything by itself.

1:10:59 ↗ It really sets the course and allows us and becomes a foundation for and supporting

1:11:04 ↗ how we look at our five-year CIP, how we incorporate this work into other city

1:11:10 ↗ planning. It's exciting to see that that's already happening. I think as the central Issaquah

1:11:16 ↗ and the green necklace work as we're completing this plan reflects that the current work

1:11:22 ↗ on Gilman Boulevard, it's been exciting working with public works engineering and seeing how this

1:11:28 ↗ plan can incorporate into that visioning work. Certainly as we move forward with budgeting,

1:11:33 ↗ I really look forward to how this will reflect itself and represent itself in

1:11:39 ↗ the future work. And I sincerely hope following this discussion should be adopted that

1:11:45 ↗ you too as council see this as a tool and something that you will

1:11:51 ↗ want to use as we move forward. some really really quick thank

1:11:57 ↗ yous if you don't mind jennifer fink our park planner has really been a partner

1:12:03 ↗ in this effort i appreciate that we had a great consultant team with burger partnership

1:12:09 ↗ and burke consulting the park board our chair brad book is here they really served

1:12:14 ↗ as a steering committee as we've been building and refining and creating this document and

1:12:20 ↗ really a great work we had a reader team As we spent so much time

1:12:26 ↗ in this, ingrained in this document, we felt there was a key moment earlier this

1:12:32 ↗ year where we needed a reader team to take a look at that. David Kapler,

1:12:38 ↗ Connie Marsh, Ken Koenigsmark, John Hillock, and Robin Kelly served on that reader team and

1:12:44 ↗ gave us some great, great feedback. The many voices that I mentioned before from our

1:12:49 ↗ general public and our residents who helped to inform this plan, and you as

1:12:55 ↗ well, Council. I think this really started with your goal in getting a document that

1:13:01 ↗ provided a bigger picture and provided a more cohesive vision for the system as we

1:13:07 ↗ start to make these individual collective investments. So thank you. Thank you, Jeff. Are there

1:13:13 ↗ any questions for Jeff? Really? For all this time? No.

1:13:18 ↗ Okay. Oh, no. Someone? Oh, I got a question. Two questions. Okay. Council Member Ramos.

1:13:24 ↗ I'm sorry, I apologize to the lady in the back. Nelson, you need to sit

1:13:30 ↗ down now because it's time for them to talk with staff. Thanks, Nelson. Council Member

1:13:36 ↗ Ramos. I guess if it's here. When I was trying to look at this, I

1:13:42 ↗ was trying to look at how new things would fit into it right the point

1:13:47 ↗ is is give us this big picture so we could weigh things and and and

1:13:51 ↗ take a look at stuff so I just thinking back to just show the before

1:13:54 ↗ I came on this Council there's a big issue with a tennis courts and changing

1:13:58 ↗ of Tibbetts Park and so forth and I was trying to figure out myself looking

1:14:01 ↗ at I didn't quite get to the best answer so I'm going to come to

1:14:05 ↗ you on that so if a project kind of came from the outside is a

1:14:09 ↗ push to do something that wasn't you know at this point kind of mentioned in

1:14:13 ↗ the plan at least is one of those strategic projects you know how would we

1:14:17 ↗ use this plan to look at those new options because new things always come about

1:14:22 ↗ that's just part of life right so how we use this to help us make

1:14:26 ↗ wise choices in the future to see how they fit within this or not within

1:14:31 ↗ it um that's that's kind of i guess the question of how we would You

1:14:35 ↗ mean we didn't nail down every every every project? No, you're right. And this came

1:14:41 ↗ up at length early on with the Park Board. We talked about this with services

1:14:46 ↗ and safety. I'm sorry I don't have the plan up. But on page 92, you'll

1:14:52 ↗ see this checklist, this toolkit that is really intended to do just that. There's a

1:14:57 ↗ two-phase that we would seek that next new thing that's gonna come

1:15:03 ↗ up next year or two years from now, this two-phase checklist would

1:15:09 ↗ mirror the same process that these other 51 projects went through. So

1:15:15 ↗ it's a tool for us to see You can be disciplined but also

1:15:21 ↗ adapt should a new project come up. That checklist would then allow us to screen,

1:15:26 ↗ figure out, all right, is this an immediate near-term opportunity that we need to seize?

1:15:32 ↗ Great. Or give us the context that, you know what, this can wait for our

1:15:37 ↗ next park plan update. So hopefully it has a tool built in to do just

1:15:42 ↗ that. So so thank you, I saw that I tried to kind of think through

1:15:48 ↗ that and and if it it's in again I didn't look at it and I

1:15:52 ↗ was involved in the committee meetings, but if we were going to fund something like

1:15:56 ↗ that I think that to work really well. Right. It just it has all the

1:16:01 ↗ process if something like I'm thinking of that project because it would come from outside

1:16:06 ↗ funding actually, you know, wouldn't cost the city anything actually will return revenue to the

1:16:11 ↗ city the way that project was proposed and but it would change the use of

1:16:15 ↗ of a park. Right. And so those kind of things gets a little more complicated.

1:16:20 ↗ And so just ask a question about that. You think those checklists would answer all

1:16:25 ↗ those questions of, you know, projects that came in different than the normal you know

1:16:30 ↗ something at the city and there would be could be a lot of public you

1:16:34 ↗ know uh support of something that's that's very new uh kind of thing so how

1:16:38 ↗ it would weigh all those things you feel confident you could weigh those yes just

1:16:43 ↗ as just as the other 50 some projects and all of the diversity that those

1:16:47 ↗ projects represent i think it would do a good job of giving some context it

1:16:51 ↗ wouldn't be the end all be all i bet you there would still be some

1:16:56 ↗ public engagement discussion about that but it would give I think a good groundwork and

1:17:01 ↗ a good foundation for those conversations. Thank you. Thank you. And I saw Council Member

1:17:06 ↗ Hunt's hand up. thank you i i think it's important that this is

1:17:12 ↗ a living document and i saw on the previous slide that you have a circle

1:17:17 ↗ of feedback from public outreach to the plan itself and i think that's a terrific

1:17:22 ↗ idea i wondered if you could explain a little bit how that how that will

1:17:27 ↗ work because i think it's important Yeah, in terms of public

1:17:33 ↗ outreach being-- Right, and implementing this as a living document where we have public input

1:17:39 ↗ over time as things change. Yeah, I think what's going to be important and is

1:17:44 ↗ pretty clear, we didn't want to-- I think that outreach is gonna represent itself different

1:17:50 ↗ ways. First, as we do these singular projects, we want public engagement to still be

1:17:55 ↗ a key part of any of these site-specific projects we do. So that engagement's gonna,

1:18:01 ↗ though we're calling out a set of strategic projects that we want some capital funds

1:18:07 ↗ to to go do as we then go do that they'll be public outreach that's

1:18:12 ↗ going to really frame up that project and program i think overall in general as

1:18:18 ↗ we work with the park board on what that public outreach looks like and sort

1:18:24 ↗ of the how are we doing we We know that though this is a 20

1:18:29 ↗ year vision, we're gonna need to update it in six years. We'll want to either

1:18:35 ↗ use Peak Democracy or some of our other tools to really ask the community how

1:18:41 ↗ are we doing? How are those investments happening? So that circle of outreach will be

1:18:46 ↗ some different ways that we'll be able to do that. - Thank you. Any other

1:18:52 ↗ questions? Seeing none, is there a motion? - There is. I'd like to move to

1:18:58 ↗ approve resolution number 2018-12. Adopting the 2018 park strategic plan. Is there a second? Second.

1:19:03 ↗ It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? Councilmember Ray. I just want to

1:19:09 ↗ make a couple of comments and start with there was a great deal of effort

1:19:14 ↗ went into putting together this plan and and Jeff spoke to much of it and

1:19:19 ↗ this was the effort of a lot of people coming together. This is not a

1:19:25 ↗ This plan has a great deal of intentionality to it, which I think will make

1:19:30 ↗ for a better plan. I was very gratified with the responsiveness of the Parks Department

1:19:36 ↗ and all of the people involved in the responsiveness to services and safety when we

1:19:41 ↗ brought up some issues at the end to see those incorporated. I think it provides

1:19:46 ↗ a good decision-making framework to Councilmember Ramos' point. It provides a structure for investment that

1:19:52 ↗ aligns us to a common and future vision of what we want parks to look

1:19:57 ↗ like, recognizing we can't achieve the vision in a single day or in a single

1:20:02 ↗ cycle. It provides us that path and that alignment to that long-term vision. But I

1:20:08 ↗ think Jeff said this to me before the council meeting started. This is a start.

1:20:13 ↗ This is not the conclusion of the process. This is the beginning of this journey.

1:20:17 ↗ But it does allow us to think differently about parks and to think strategically about

1:20:22 ↗ parks. And this is going to be good for the City of Issaquah to have

1:20:26 ↗ this level of intentionality and rigor around how we invest in our parks for the

1:20:31 ↗ benefit of the people who live here. Thank you, Council Member Ray. Are there any

1:20:35 ↗ other comments? Deputy President Bautiste. So I just wanted to echo what Councilmember

1:20:41 ↗ Ray has talked about. I really wanted to thank everyone who has worked

1:20:47 ↗ on this across the years and having this come to fruition is incredible

1:20:53 ↗ to see. As Councilmember Ramos talked about, which I think is really important,

1:20:59 ↗ is just having the ability to look at projects as they come up

1:21:05 ↗ and that kind of thing and having this plan in place I think is just

1:21:09 ↗ going to be a great addition. So again, I just wanted to thank everyone who's

1:21:14 ↗ been associated with this. It's a lot of hard work and I too really appreciated

1:21:19 ↗ all of the feedback that came from safety and services and being able to take

1:21:24 ↗ that and the changes that I see here look really good. Thank you. Thank you.

1:21:29 ↗ Council President Martz. So I was actually services and safety chair when this

1:21:34 ↗ first came up. And so I want to also echo, you know,

1:21:40 ↗ We asked you to go back and add a number of things to this and

1:21:46 ↗ you all did that cheerfully and enthusiastically and I really appreciate it and I think

1:21:51 ↗ that we have something in front of us now that will really, really help inform

1:21:57 ↗ both our decisions as a council and future councils and future administrations. So thank you.

1:22:02 ↗ Great. Any other council members? Council Member Winterstein. Thank you. There's a lot in here.

1:22:08 ↗ I just want to address the green necklace. And how did you describe it a

1:22:13 ↗ moment ago, Jeff? It was bumpy or something about when it was first introduced as

1:22:17 ↗ part of the central area when we were working on the visions? And that indeed

1:22:23 ↗ was the case. In that context of the central area plan,

1:22:28 ↗ there's a lot in that plan that will direct what happens

1:22:34 ↗ in that portion of the city. And the detail behind what

1:22:39 ↗ was just known as the green necklace, we were wanting for

1:22:45 ↗ a lot more information. There are quite a few identified, projects in the

1:22:51 ↗ central area now, generally known as the green necklace. There are attributes, it's very

1:22:57 ↗ purposeful in what they're trying to obtain. I for one am a fan of

1:23:02 ↗ that idea of that the connectivity to the open spaces around us, that would

1:23:08 ↗ be a central theme Not of the whole not only of the whole city but

1:23:13 ↗ especially as we develop those connectivity pieces and those open spaces that are in the

1:23:18 ↗ central area And with other signage and wayfinding to connect people, you know to the

1:23:23 ↗ regional open spaces around us I am a big fan of that element of the

1:23:27 ↗ plan. There's a lot of this that I like I appreciate some of the comments

1:23:32 ↗ and questions made earlier I think the tennis question is a is a really good

1:23:37 ↗ one. I think we've moved pretty far. I mean, I've read what it says about

1:23:41 ↗ Tibbetts and I can see how there's some pretty, there's more guidance there on what

1:23:46 ↗ to do when something like a tennis facility comes up specifically for Tibbetts Valley Park

1:23:50 ↗ that we didn't have before. So in that way, It's quite an improvement on where

1:23:55 ↗ we were when that question came to us a couple years ago. So those are

1:23:59 ↗ just a couple highlights I wanted to thank you and the team and everybody who

1:24:03 ↗ contributed and put in this time. You know, parks are an amazing legacy. They're not

1:24:08 ↗ just for us, they're not just for our children, but they are for generations and

1:24:12 ↗ hopefully for centuries to come. I love the concept of an urban forest. There are

1:24:16 ↗ not too many trees over a couple decades, maybe few of them, or even over

1:24:21 ↗ a century old that stand within Issaquah today. But there's no reason, there's no reason

1:24:26 ↗ at all within that there can't be trees 300, 400, 500 years old. that far

1:24:31 ↗ into the future. It takes this kind of vision and planning and a commitment that's

1:24:36 ↗ embodied in this plan right here tonight to make that even possible. So I really,

1:24:41 ↗ I think that's a strong, important part of this plan. I'm looking forward to seeing

1:24:46 ↗ its implementation. Thank you. - Thank you. Council Member Hunt. - Thank you. I agree

1:24:51 ↗ with my fellow council members that this is a great start and I'm excited to

1:24:56 ↗ see a lot of these plans become reality over time and I also really appreciate

1:25:02 ↗ all of the hard work from the public and the parks department and the parks

1:25:08 ↗ board and many individuals that contributed I Did I do think one thing that I

1:25:14 ↗ would like to see is the is a refinement of the parks strategic

1:25:20 ↗ plan goals and policies. And so to that end, I'm going to make

1:25:25 ↗ a motion to amend the main motion to add the following wording and

1:25:31 ↗ direct the administration to return to the Planning Policy Commission in one year

1:25:37 ↗ with the recommended refinements to the park strategic plan goals and policies. Is

1:25:42 ↗ there a second? Second. So the amendment is to amend the main

1:25:48 ↗ motion to add the words and direct the administration to return to the Planning

1:25:54 ↗ Policy Commission in one year with a recommended refinement to the park's strategic plan,

1:26:00 ↗ goals, and policies. Is there discussion? Council Member Hunt. This would return the motion

1:26:06 ↗ to the recommendation from the administration, and I am making this proposed amendment because

1:26:12 ↗ I think that the Planning Policy Commission had an interesting discussion as a starting place

1:26:18 ↗ for looking at the goals and policies. It is one area where I think the

1:26:23 ↗ plan could use some refinement. They had some good beginning discussions about the needs for

1:26:28 ↗ wayfinding and policies around signage wayfinding as well as the Green Issaquah Program. And I

1:26:34 ↗ think that the goals and policies, if people wanted right now to go and look

1:26:39 ↗ at the goals and policies and find something like where are the city's policies around

1:26:44 ↗ trails or where are the city's policies around open space? It is a bit, it's

1:26:49 ↗ a bit organized around sort of bigger themes, but it could use, I think, some

1:26:55 ↗ reorganization to make it more intuitive for people to find where our policies are. And

1:27:00 ↗ I think that's important. To that end, I would like to see the Planning Policy

1:27:06 ↗ Commission look at this so we can have the benefit of the review within one

1:27:11 ↗ year. Additional discussion? Seeing none, all in favor to the main motion, which is to

1:27:16 ↗ add and direct the administration to return to the Planning Policy Commission in one year

1:27:21 ↗ with the recommended refinements to the park strategic plan goals and policies. I got Chris's

1:27:27 ↗ hand in the air. And you said main motion, but you're really just talking the

1:27:32 ↗ amendment? Sorry. Yes, I am. So this is voting on the amendment, not the main

1:27:38 ↗ motion. The amendment to the main motion is end direct the administration to return to

1:27:43 ↗ the Planning Policy Commission. All those in favor of the amendment, please say aye. Aye.

1:27:48 ↗ Opposed? The amendment carries unanimously. Are there any more comments or amendments? Councilmember Hunt. i

1:27:54 ↗ have another further amendment i move to amend the motion further directing the administration to

1:28:00 ↗ initiate urban forest green issaquah program as identified in the 2018 park strategic plan within

1:28:05 ↗ one year with the scope of that work to include one a city-wide tree canopy

1:28:10 ↗ cover analysis two an update to the city's targets for tree canopy cover and a

1:28:16 ↗ timeline for achieving those targets and three identifying the role of the parks and recreation

1:28:21 ↗ department in achieving those targets second Thank you. So it's been moved and

1:28:27 ↗ seconded to provide direction to the administration regarding the Initiate Urban Forest Green

1:28:33 ↗ Issaquah Program. Is there discussion? Member Hunt, followed by Council Member Ray, followed

1:28:38 ↗ by Council Member Patis. Firstly, I agree that the Parks and Recreation Department

1:28:44 ↗ made changes based on the Services and Safety Committee meeting and added in the tree

1:28:50 ↗ canopy cover. And so I really appreciate that the wording tree canopy cover now appears

1:28:56 ↗ in the green Issaquah urban forest part of the plan. I still think that the

1:29:01 ↗ rest of this amendment is important because it gives a timeline firstly and it also

1:29:07 ↗ gives more specific direction regarding the need for that tree canopy cover.

1:29:13 ↗ So our city will be joining a number of neighboring cities if this

1:29:19 ↗ goes forward in terms of having a green Issaquah, green city program or

1:29:24 ↗ urban forest program. I think our region is experiencing really fast growth and

1:29:30 ↗ so we need to define what open spaces, what forests, what parks,

1:29:36 ↗ we need to have and so this urban forest plan, I think it's really,

1:29:41 ↗ really timely. And I think that urban forest is important to the community. It's

1:29:47 ↗ important whether it's tree-lined streets or whether it's hiking or whether it's for the

1:29:53 ↗ views. I think that the tree canopy assessment belongs in the urban

1:29:58 ↗ forest program. It has been a part of other cities' urban forest programs such as

1:30:04 ↗ Seattle, which has an urban forest stewardship plan, which includes a plan for increasing tree

1:30:09 ↗ canopy. That's the focus. And Sammamish, which has an urban forest management plan.

1:30:14 ↗ And really the tree canopy is a good baseline because it's something that's intuitive.

1:30:20 ↗ I think people know what we mean and it's something that gives us a

1:30:26 ↗ baseline that we can track our change over time as the city is developing.

1:30:33 ↗ Additionally, I think it's important that we do this update, and so I would really

1:30:38 ↗ like to call it out. Tree canopy is something that the city has looked at

1:30:44 ↗ before. The last time I was updated was 2012, and it was one of 26

1:30:49 ↗ sustainability indicators. in our sustainable city report so we could go into a lot

1:30:55 ↗ more detail we could get a lot more scientific analysis of where our urban forests

1:31:01 ↗ are now what percentage of tree canopy is in private private ownership or single family

1:31:07 ↗ ownership versus in the parks and i um i expect that this canopy

1:31:12 ↗ cover analysis will be a good starting point for a lot of discussions about tree

1:31:18 ↗ retention and our tree ordinance and how we as a city can have tools to

1:31:23 ↗ make sure that we remain a tree city into the future. Thank you. And I

1:31:29 ↗ believe Council Member Ray was next. I just have a question for the Parks and

1:31:34 ↗ Rec Director. Would this work fall within your current work plan for 2018-2019?

1:31:40 ↗ No, we would need to, it sounds like if this is a goal, we

1:31:46 ↗ would work with administration and identifying funding to start this work this year or

1:31:52 ↗ make it a 2019 work plan item. As we have it incorporated as a

1:31:58 ↗ strategic project in the park plan, And as we discussed pending work plan in 2019,

1:32:04 ↗ this is one of the initiating this in 2019 is something we've talked about as

1:32:10 ↗ a department, have not yet had that conversation with administration. Do you have any idea

1:32:16 ↗ what the order of magnitude level of effort would be? No, not at this time.

1:32:22 ↗ Thank you. Actually, I think I had Batiste and then I'm going to go to

1:32:27 ↗ Ramos and then back to Hunt. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I

1:32:33 ↗ am supporting this amendment as we talked about during committee

1:32:39 ↗ We talked extensively about the tree canopy. That was something that

1:32:45 ↗ I was very much in favor of seeing the tree canopy

1:32:50 ↗ and analysis come forward. We talked about the best place for

1:32:56 ↗ this going into the urban forest. This amendment expands that. citywide

1:33:02 ↗ and does give some targets and some timelines, which I think is important. I

1:33:08 ↗ think I mentioned during committee that I was very taken while sitting on the

1:33:14 ↗ King County Conservation Board. The number of cities that had gone forward, many of

1:33:20 ↗ those on the east side going forward with a tree canopy analysis, which is

1:33:26 ↗ something that the King County Conservation Board works with cities to to help

1:33:31 ↗ provide that analysis and just hoping that that was something that we could have

1:33:37 ↗ accomplished in Issaquah. So I'll be supporting this amendment. - Thank you. Council Member

1:33:43 ↗ Ramos. - Thank you. I will be supporting this also. I think is it...

1:33:49 ↗ as an old forester i think we have some important hillsides here to to use

1:33:55 ↗ some good urban forest management practices to keep them healthy particularly if you think of

1:34:00 ↗ possibilities such as climate change coming they could cause some interesting situations to our forest

1:34:06 ↗ and if we have some disease or bug infestation that came and wiped out at

1:34:10 ↗ one of our hillsides, we'd be pretty devastated. And that's something we need to work

1:34:14 ↗ to maintain the health, I think, as we go into the future. So this is

1:34:18 ↗ part of that step to really maintain that, not just leave them there and let

1:34:21 ↗ them hang out and do what they want and not worry about them. I think

1:34:25 ↗ we have to actively manage because they are critical and they're very important to us.

1:34:29 ↗ So we want to maintain their health for the long haul. As Council Member Winterside

1:34:32 ↗ mentioned that But we do want to have some old trees in the future. We

1:34:36 ↗ want to plan for that length of longevity and so forth. So we do need

1:34:41 ↗ to actively take care of them for that. Before I go back to Councilmember Hunt,

1:34:45 ↗ I just want to give the three councilmembers who haven't had an opportunity to talk

1:34:49 ↗ yet. Council President Martz. So I'll just the nerd in me has to point out

1:34:54 ↗ that so I looked it up the trees on my property, which are about 45

1:34:59 ↗ years old. The conifers sequester about 100 pounds of carbon a year each. So to

1:35:05 ↗ Council Member Ramos' point about climate change, you know, the Earth is

1:35:10 ↗ a big place, but every tree does its part, and we are

1:35:16 ↗ blessed with such wonderful carbon sequestration engines right here in our town.

1:35:22 ↗ Thank you. Council Member Goodman? Council Member Wintersau? I'll support the amendment.

1:35:28 ↗ I think that I think we certainly could afford to have

1:35:34 ↗ more resources, more of our resources and more of our efforts being put where

1:35:39 ↗ our mouth is, so to speak, with the kind of city that we say

1:35:45 ↗ we are and the kind of city that we want to be. Councilmember Winterstein.

1:35:51 ↗ Thank you. That diagram Right in the bottom, kind of outlines, it does

1:35:57 ↗ outline relationship between this plan, our comprehensive plan, operational budgets, capital funding. It says

1:36:03 ↗ we have to identify funding sources as part of all of this. I'm curious,

1:36:08 ↗ seems odd to have that up there right now and then outside of that

1:36:14 ↗ process, let's just pick one and say let's do it in 2018. Am

1:36:20 ↗ I missing something here? Because I'm sure this isn't free. This is going to have

1:36:25 ↗ to cost some money. It's not on the 2018 work plan right now. So we

1:36:31 ↗ haven't even really gone through the process and given, kind of looked at all the

1:36:36 ↗ potential action items and then kind of vetted, you know, what should be proposed, what

1:36:41 ↗ would be the potential funding sources and what should be proposed in the next operational

1:36:47 ↗ budget. So I don't, i i don't understand how this one is pulled out when

1:36:53 ↗ what we're considering is this framework for decision making and this one is boom right

1:36:58 ↗ immediately outside of that framework question for staff or question for council member hunt maybe

1:37:03 ↗ anybody who can illuminate me chef or council member hunt who would like to step

1:37:09 ↗ in and talk about that I'll take a shot and I don't think

1:37:14 ↗ this is specific to this initiative, this urban forest program, but just recognizing

1:37:20 ↗ as I said earlier on page 49, those operational strategic projects are a

1:37:26 ↗ little different than the 51. These aren't what I would consider capital

1:37:32 ↗ projects. They're not site-specific projects. There's an operational element to how we

1:37:38 ↗ accomplish those and fund those. So in that case, it is a

1:37:44 ↗ little bit different than those 51 more capital-focused projects.

1:37:49 ↗ but that still doesn't answer how and when they get accomplished and when they're funded.

1:37:55 ↗ And so I recognize that. Yeah. And let me just, just if I may, I

1:38:01 ↗ mean, it's July. I know you're putting together your plan, your budget now for next

1:38:07 ↗ year. So I, so that's just the concept isn't, there's nothing wrong with the concept.

1:38:13 ↗ I just, again, when we, have this framework right in front of us and we

1:38:18 ↗ want to take one and kind of fast track it through you know to make

1:38:22 ↗ sure it gets done sooner I don't know why we wouldn't just follow the process

1:38:26 ↗ that's in the plan thank you council member Hunt thank you um i have

1:38:32 ↗ a couple of thoughts based on my fellow council members comments firstly there are a

1:38:37 ↗ number of funding potential funding opportunities and grants and those sorts of things that could

1:38:43 ↗ be leveraged for this and king conservation district has funded this sort of work or

1:38:48 ↗ partnered with jurisdictions to do this kind of work for other Also, it's pointed out

1:38:54 ↗ that a potential partner could be the Urban Ecology Research Lab. This is a

1:38:59 ↗ group that I know very well and previously worked for. And so I think

1:39:05 ↗ that that has real potential. That was also a group that worked with sammamish on

1:39:11 ↗ their urban forest plan so i think there's a number of potential partners

1:39:17 ↗ as well as potential grants and funding sources for this i also do

1:39:23 ↗ not think it would be a huge lift in terms of funding compared

1:39:28 ↗ to many of the more parks infrastructure type projects i i also um

1:39:35 ↗ I just wanted to point out, I don't think of this as fast tracking the

1:39:40 ↗ urban forest program. I think the urban forest program, it's an operational program. Hopefully it

1:39:45 ↗ will go on for a long, long time. This is really to get a baseline

1:39:50 ↗ so that we can start the program. And I'm putting a timeline on it because

1:39:56 ↗ there was no timeline on it and all most of these projects do have a

1:40:00 ↗ timeline. They have a near, potentially a near-term facet or mid-term facets and long-term facets,

1:40:06 ↗ and there was no facets, there was no indication of when this work would be

1:40:11 ↗ done. And I think to get it started, we need to have a baseline. So

1:40:16 ↗ this isn't, in my estimation, this isn't fast tracking. the completion of a project, it's

1:40:21 ↗ saying that to initiate this, we need to have this done first. And so I'm

1:40:27 ↗ proposing to get the baseline done first. And I'm also just worried that it will

1:40:32 ↗ be pushed off. And one reason why I'm worried about that, if it doesn't have

1:40:37 ↗ a timeline, and one reason that I'm worried about that is that in the Sustainable

1:40:42 ↗ City report from 2016, it said it was expected to have a update in 2016,

1:40:48 ↗ and it was reporting on the 2012 values. And I consulted with Jeff and that

1:40:53 ↗ wasn't done. So the last update was still 2012 and a lot of change has

1:40:57 ↗ happened since 2012 and our city is changing really rapidly. So I would just like

1:41:02 ↗ us to get the baseline so that we can start this urban forest program. Thank

1:41:06 ↗ you. Council Member Reyes, I saw your hand go up. Since this work, which I

1:41:11 ↗ think is the right thing to do, make no mistake about it, is not in

1:41:15 ↗ the 2018 work plan, I'd like to make an amendment to the amendment - Now

1:41:21 ↗ you're confusing me. - No, I-- - That's okay. - That is possible. - I

1:41:27 ↗ can do that. - Let's do it. - So in the third line, it says

1:41:32 ↗ after the word park strategic plan, it currently says within one year. I would like

1:41:38 ↗ to amend that to say to strike within one year and replace it with in

1:41:44 ↗ the 2019 Parks and Recreation Department work plan and budget,

1:41:50 ↗ with the scope of the, and then continue with. So instead of saying within

1:41:55 ↗ one year, directing the administration to put that within the Parks and Rec 2019

1:42:01 ↗ budget and work plan. - Second. - So it's been moved and seconded to

1:42:07 ↗ amend the amendment to include the words in the 2019 Parks and Recreation Work

1:42:12 ↗ Plan and Budget. So any discussion on that before we vote on the amendment

1:42:18 ↗ to the amendment? Council Member Winterstein, Council Member Hunt. I appreciate

1:42:24 ↗ the proposed amendment. It does, I think, capture what my point would be. And it's

1:42:29 ↗ just a procedural one. It's not a, my point has nothing to do with judgment

1:42:34 ↗ on the value or the quality or intention or the purpose of what's being proposed.

1:42:39 ↗ I just think that it's really easy for us to sit here and add

1:42:44 ↗ without fully understanding the current burden, the current backlog, current budgetary issues to just

1:42:50 ↗ say, "Hey, prioritize, move this forward." And I think there's a, I think we

1:42:56 ↗ have processes in place. And I think at this time of the year, it's

1:43:01 ↗ good to let those execute. and let the administration, the Parks Department kind of come

1:43:06 ↗ back in the context of a budget to show us how to get that done.

1:43:11 ↗ I think that's just a good way for us to operate. It's irregardless of what

1:43:15 ↗ we think about the value of this. But as was pointed out earlier, if there

1:43:20 ↗ are potential external funding sources to help with this, then it gives a little bit

1:43:26 ↗ more time to kind of line up the timing and the feasibility of actually using

1:43:31 ↗ those. So that's why I support this amendment to the amendment. - Thank you. I

1:43:37 ↗ had Hunt and then Bates. - I have a question. Does this amendment, does it

1:43:42 ↗ change how your department would work on this item? No, not at all. Like

1:43:48 ↗ I said, we anticipate as we look at the 2019 work plan, we would be

1:43:54 ↗ seeking this into the 2019 budget. So it's very complimentary. Okay. Council Member Bautista. I

1:44:00 ↗ think having the timeline is important, but I think specifying that it would go into

1:44:06 ↗ the 2019 work plan makes really good sense. I'll support the amendment. Great. Are there

1:44:11 ↗ any other comments? So we are voting on the amendment to the amendment.

1:44:17 ↗ which adds the phrase in the 2019 Parks and Recreation Work Plan and

1:44:23 ↗ Budget. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Amendment to the amendment

1:44:28 ↗ carries. Any more discussion on the amendment itself, which I can reread if

1:44:34 ↗ you'd like me to. Council Member Goodman. reiterate that I support it. And

1:44:40 ↗ I also want to recognize Councilmember Hunt's work on this. I thoroughly appreciate the thoughtfulness

1:44:45 ↗ and the detail and the homework that you did to bring forth a very, very

1:44:51 ↗ thoughtful amendment. I want to thank you. Any other comment? And I will read the

1:44:57 ↗ amendment to the main motion, which is and further directing the administration to initiate

1:45:03 ↗ urban forest green issaquah program as identified in the 2018 park strategic plan with the

1:45:08 ↗ scope of that work to include one a city-wide tree canopy cover analysis two an

1:45:13 ↗ update to the city's target for tree canopy cover and timeline for achieving those targets

1:45:18 ↗ and three identifying the role of the parks and recreation department achieving those targets as

1:45:23 ↗ amended earlier by council member ray's amendment i don't think you got it you didn't

1:45:28 ↗ get it um Do I read in the amendment to the amendment? Or

1:45:34 ↗ you could specify as amended. So that includes your words from earlier. So

1:45:40 ↗ at the end I added as amended. Any discussion? All those in favor

1:45:46 ↗ say aye. Opposed? The amendment carries unanimously. We'll now go to the main

1:45:51 ↗ motion. The main motion is to approve resolution number 2018-12, adopting the 2018

1:45:57 ↗ park strategic plan as amended. Well, that sounds weird,

1:46:03 ↗ actually, because it's the motion that was amended and not the

1:46:09 ↗ parks plan. So can you give me better words for that?

1:46:15 ↗ And including the direction to the administration as amended. Thank you.

1:46:21 ↗ I will read that again. So the motion is to approve

1:46:27 ↗ resolution number 2018-12, adopting the 2018 park strategic plan and including

1:46:33 ↗ the direction to the administration as amended. All those in favor

1:46:39 ↗ say aye. Aye. Opposed? The main motion carries unanimously.

1:46:44 ↗ Thank you. That was good work. Next item on our

1:46:50 ↗ agenda this evening is AB 7614, High Street Conversion, Issaquah

1:46:56 ↗ Highlands. And this item is coming out of the Council

1:47:01 ↗ Land and Shore Committee. And I'm inviting Lucy Sloman, Land

1:47:07 ↗ Development Manager, to make a presentation. Good evening. Good evening.

1:47:12 ↗ So tonight we have a preliminary plat. that has come

1:47:18 ↗ forward to you. When it came out of the commission, it

1:47:24 ↗ was split into two pieces. The first piece is the Platte

1:47:30 ↗ and the second piece is High Street, which was separated from

1:47:35 ↗ that. Part of the reason that that happened is under the iskwa highlands

1:47:41 ↗ development agreement preliminary plats are the decision maker is the council and that makes it

1:47:47 ↗ a quasi-judicial matter which is limited to things that are within the record created at

1:47:52 ↗ the urban village development commission that meant there could be no more public discussion and

1:47:58 ↗ that was probably the most interesting part to the community and so the administration determined

1:48:03 ↗ that since the property that was being platted, High Street was separate from that and

1:48:09 ↗ therefore it could be in two separate pieces. So I just provide that because we're

1:48:14 ↗ going to talk through both pieces tonight but High Street comes first.

1:48:20 ↗ So to give you some context to where we are, the plat is

1:48:26 ↗ in this parcel here. Polygon, the applicant, has all of this property, which

1:48:31 ↗ they have done a series of land use permits on. And the piece

1:48:37 ↗ that we're looking at is High Street, which is blue along the edge

1:48:43 ↗ between the Lakeside gravel mine, which also has a development agreement, and the

1:48:49 ↗ Westridge properties. Westridge properties are further surrounded by shelter properties, West Highlands

1:48:54 ↗ Park, as well as some other notable land uses such as Swedish

1:49:00 ↗ and Grand Ridge Plaza and the Park and Ride.

1:49:06 ↗ So High Street was built as part of the town center plat

1:49:12 ↗ in the early 2000s and it's shown below in the lower right

1:49:18 ↗ hand corner. The part that we're talking about considering for conversion is

1:49:24 ↗ shown in sort of an orange color along the edge.

1:49:29 ↗ It's about 15 feet would be retained and the rest would be of

1:49:35 ↗ the road and sidewalk would be removed and replaced. So just to give

1:49:41 ↗ you an estimate, the part that is shown as roadway here would remain.

1:49:47 ↗ The part that is highlighted in yellow would be removed. and the

1:49:53 ↗ recreational activities would be located in that area. The lots of the plat

1:49:59 ↗ are on this side. Lakeside gravel pit is on this side. Just to

1:50:05 ↗ show in a little more detail, Lakeside has a neighborhood F, which this

1:50:10 ↗ is at the right scale for the plat. So this edge right here

1:50:16 ↗ fits in about right here. We're retaining or the plat proposes to

1:50:22 ↗ retain about 100 feet of roadway that would accommodate this future access, vehicular access

1:50:28 ↗ to neighborhood F. The rest of the roadways I'll talk about later when we

1:50:34 ↗ get to the plat. So if we're taking out a road, how does that

1:50:40 ↗ work? Currently, West Highlands Park is served by High Street and by

1:50:46 ↗ Discovery, so north and south entrances. If High Street is no longer

1:50:51 ↗ the vehicular access to West Highlands Park, what's going to replace it?

1:50:57 ↗ The plat proposes a road which is in the plat called Street

1:51:03 ↗ A, which parallels High Street, as well as an extension of Ellis

1:51:09 ↗ and Discovery Drive remains unchanged. So what is currently

1:51:14 ↗ two means to access West Highland Park becomes either

1:51:20 ↗ remains at two or might be considered three. Why

1:51:25 ↗ are we doing this? Well, there is been this

1:51:31 ↗ sort of incremental building of multi-use trails, pedestrian ways,

1:51:37 ↗ And so we have quite a bit down here. This

1:51:43 ↗ is Discovery Drive. And you can see anything that is

1:51:49 ↗ solid yellow is a multi-use route. West of 9th Avenue--

1:51:55 ↗ Westridge is building, you can see a whole series of roads

1:52:01 ↗ that accommodate bikes, trails, and along this edge, this piece that

1:52:06 ↗ is proposed for conversion would create about a third of a

1:52:12 ↗ mile of ped bike only use. We are currently reviewing a

1:52:17 ↗ land use permit for this property, which would include this segment. The

1:52:23 ↗ last segment would be through shelters property and we are not in

1:52:29 ↗ land use review right now. What are the amenities? That is probably

1:52:35 ↗ the biggest regional piece, but the amenities are more localized. Because this

1:52:41 ↗ came in with a preliminary plat, Most of what we're doing with a preliminary

1:52:47 ↗ plat is reviewing the size of things. Is the track the right size to accommodate

1:52:52 ↗ the road? Is the park the right size, the track park the right size to

1:52:58 ↗ accommodate the recreational amenities? So there wasn't a lot of design. What our typical process

1:53:03 ↗ is that we have a preliminary plat, it's approved, and then the park tracks come

1:53:09 ↗ in for administrative site development permit process. In meeting with the Urban Village Development

1:53:14 ↗ Commission, as well as the public, there was a real desire for additional process. Because

1:53:20 ↗ this is in public right-of-way, there was a desire to not just leave this to

1:53:26 ↗ an administrative process, but to have a public process. And so what we've outlined right

1:53:32 ↗ now is to use the... new survey tool that we have and

1:53:38 ↗ do a broad Issaquah Highlands community survey to elicit ideas and

1:53:44 ↗ preferences. Have those sorted by the Issaquah Highlands Community Association applicant

1:53:50 ↗ and city. This isn't to take things out, but we would

1:53:56 ↗ have, the Issaquah Highlands Community Association would maintain this. The applicant would build

1:54:02 ↗ this and the city needs to confirm that the uses that are coming out of

1:54:07 ↗ it are consistent with the development agreement. So all uses can go back to the

1:54:12 ↗ UVDC for a public conversation, but we would want to make sure that they're consistent

1:54:17 ↗ with the development agreement and particularly that the Iskwax Highlands Community Association is willing to

1:54:23 ↗ maintain them. Sorry, sure. Council Member Goodman, question. One

1:54:28 ↗ of the questions we heard tonight earlier in audience comments was a question

1:54:34 ↗ about whether this conversion would allow the developer to meet its park obligations.

1:54:40 ↗ So I will say that the plat includes facilities as well. We can

1:54:46 ↗ talk -- there is no specific requirement of X amount of square

1:54:52 ↗ feet of park per residential unit under the development agreement. So they

1:54:58 ↗ have provided park facilities with the plat. They were relying partly on

1:55:03 ↗ these, but they are also building larger park facilities in adjacent parcels.

1:55:09 ↗ So overall we feel that it is consistent with the kinds of

1:55:15 ↗ the amount of recreation that is typically built with other plats and parcels. - You

1:55:20 ↗ have that slide with you that you showed at Land and Shore about the square

1:55:26 ↗ footages that are being provided, or is that in the next agenda bill? - I

1:55:31 ↗ think I have it in here, let me see. Is this the one you're referring

1:55:37 ↗ to? - Yes. So this is one of the applicant slides.

1:55:43 ↗ They are comparing three different single family neighborhoods in Issaquah

1:55:48 ↗ Highlands. The top two have already been constructed. Forest Ridge

1:55:54 ↗ is along Falls Drive. Westridge South is down by Swedish

1:55:59 ↗ Hospital. So you can see that this one, including the

1:56:05 ↗ recreational spaces, not the trail, that is included with Westridge

1:56:10 ↗ North provides more park space. The North Entry Park and the

1:56:16 ↗ South Entry Park are the two that are associated with the

1:56:22 ↗ Platte. The other facilities that they're showing in the middle are

1:56:28 ↗ the ones that are associated with High Street. - Does that

1:56:34 ↗ answer your question? - Mm-hmm. - So do you wanna continue?

1:56:49 ↗ So there we go. Let's see, that was process. To build

1:56:55 ↗ on that, there are certain elements that, if approved, are fixed.

1:57:00 ↗ So we would have a 15-foot multi-use trail from the north

1:57:06 ↗ edge to the south edge. There would be three nodes or

1:57:11 ↗ overlooks. The numbers on the list correspond to the numbers on

1:57:17 ↗ the map. So there is a north, a central, and a southern

1:57:22 ↗ node, and these tie into walkways in the Platte. And there are

1:57:28 ↗ three recreational amenities which are in this sort of central zone.

1:57:37 ↗ because of the sort of process of one doing the preliminary plat and then two

1:57:43 ↗ coming back to the community. Um, we've, we have some performance standards that are associated

1:57:49 ↗ with that that come out of the development agreement originally proposed by the applicant for

1:57:55 ↗ consideration was a set of sort of special swings, a discovery trail, which has certain

1:58:01 ↗ kind of animal themes and opportunities to explore and escape park.

1:58:07 ↗ Different audience, community members who attended the Urban Village Development Commission also brought

1:58:12 ↗ up pea patches or community gardens, a small dog park, and adult fitness

1:58:18 ↗ facilities. We have written a condition that sort of captures the performance standards

1:58:23 ↗ from the development agreement. First of all, we need diverse uses. We don't want to

1:58:29 ↗ keep repeating the same ones. So the ones that are here that we end up

1:58:33 ↗ with need to complement the ones that are in West Highlands Park, Westridge and nearby.

1:58:39 ↗ We want it to serve both children's play but also a variety of users of

1:58:44 ↗ a variety of ages and not be a nuisance. So I think we feel pretty

1:58:50 ↗ confident that a skate park is out. A small dog park might be out as

1:58:56 ↗ well. However, the piece that I will add is that these facilities are

1:59:02 ↗ you know, if they are in place or well informed of people who are buying

1:59:07 ↗ their houses, some people like to be next to things that you and I might

1:59:12 ↗ not want to be next to. So if the community decides, for instance, that a

1:59:18 ↗ small dog park is the right thing to put there, we would just want to

1:59:23 ↗ make it clear so that homeowners knew what their next door neighbor was going to

1:59:29 ↗ be. Views. There were a lot of questions around views. Lakeside. Council Member Goodman. So...

1:59:35 ↗ Going back to your comments about different homeowners might like different amenities. So typically

1:59:41 ↗ the city doesn't, as I tell me if I'm wrong, I don't think the

1:59:47 ↗ city typically makes sure that people buying property know it's not the city's burden

1:59:53 ↗ to do the due diligence for somebody buying a piece of property. So I'm

1:59:58 ↗ trying to figure out what you're suggesting the role of the city might be

2:00:04 ↗ because I think that's different than what the role of the city typically is. So

2:00:09 ↗ I would say that when we are preparing to final plot property where there might

2:00:15 ↗ be a trail and that trail might come at a later phase or stage or

2:00:20 ↗ in the future, we do require that the property owner sign that trail so that

2:00:26 ↗ no one is surprised when a trail comes in in the future. So I don't

2:00:31 ↗ think that the city would necessarily be informing the property owner,

2:00:37 ↗ or future owner. It might be signage, it might be some

2:00:43 ↗ kind of agreement with the builder about how they would market

2:00:49 ↗ the homes. I think the point was just that there are

2:00:54 ↗ some people, people like to live in different circumstances and that I think that

2:01:00 ↗ we are going to have a broad, hopefully a broad community involvement and we

2:01:06 ↗ see that as a great opportunity to vet the kinds of uses that we

2:01:11 ↗ want and what the community thinks is appropriate. I just would say that I

2:01:17 ↗ think that withholding judgment about what is a nuisance and letting that be a part

2:01:22 ↗ of the community conversation may be an appropriate way of figuring out what a nuisance

2:01:27 ↗ is. Okay, I think you answered it and made it clear. I was concerned that

2:01:32 ↗ we somehow were going to treat these, potentially if this is converted, treat this park

2:01:37 ↗ or amenity a little bit differently and somehow in the future when homes change hands,

2:01:42 ↗ we were going to somehow take a role. But I think what you've clarified is

2:01:47 ↗ that Maybe when homes are on the market, they won't necessarily know what the

2:01:53 ↗ future amenity is. So letting people know that clarifies. Thank you. Right. You bet.

2:01:58 ↗ Thank you. So views. This is kind of complex and I apologize. I've had

2:02:04 ↗ a hard time trying to simplify it. Here is High Street. And

2:02:10 ↗ so there have been a lot of questions about which sections can we see from

2:02:15 ↗ because there are trees currently along High Street. You can't really see what's there. Also,

2:02:20 ↗ Lakeside is going to be building neighborhoods. How much will they impact the views? There

2:02:25 ↗ are two neighborhoods, B and F, which are going to be built right alongside

2:02:31 ↗ High Street and the buildings would be at an elevation, we suspect, that will

2:02:36 ↗ block views. So we are assuming that B and F will preclude views out

2:02:42 ↗ from High Street. Those neighborhoods are represented by the big red arrows here. There are

2:02:48 ↗ two additional neighborhoods that are in between the red arrows, D and E, which are

2:02:53 ↗ much lower down. We're basing that on the final grading plan that was in the

2:02:59 ↗ development agreement as well as the building heights. And so we are saying that between

2:03:04 ↗ neighborhood B and F that there would be views out. The applicant

2:03:10 ↗ proposed and we concur that this location which is shown in orange in

2:03:16 ↗ both of these slides and is highlighted in yellow on the aerial snippet

2:03:21 ↗ would be the best place. The reason is there is about 25 feet

2:03:27 ↗ of bench between the edge of the roadway and the edge of the

2:03:33 ↗ right-of-way. That would be a good opportunity to build an outlook that would, I mean,

2:03:39 ↗ there's a good place to build an outlook. There were concerns about how trees might

2:03:44 ↗ impact the views in the future. If we've gone to the trouble to establish this

2:03:50 ↗ outlook, will it be obscured in the future? And subsequent to our first land and

2:03:56 ↗ shore meeting, the applicant provided us with a view covenant that was recorded between Port

2:04:01 ↗ Blakely communities and Lakeside Industries. The point of the covenant was to allow distant views

2:04:07 ↗ out while screening views into the gravel pit. I think that's both because some

2:04:13 ↗ people may not find gravel pit activities appealing. That wouldn't be me. And attractive

2:04:19 ↗ nuisance. I think there's a very great concern that some people may find the

2:04:25 ↗ gravel pit activities interesting and want to go in, and that would be extremely

2:04:31 ↗ unsafe. And so this view covenant was drafted. There

2:04:36 ↗ were questions from the council committee about how enforceable that was.

2:04:42 ↗ There is a memo that was written by the city attorney

2:04:47 ↗ and provided in your packet to address the enforceability of that.

2:04:53 ↗ So what would you see if this outlook was built?

2:04:59 ↗ It would be to, we estimate that it would be from Cougar Mountain

2:05:05 ↗ to Lake Sammamish and then the sort of upper ridge near close by

2:05:11 ↗ of the North Fork of Issaquah Creek. So you can kind of see,

2:05:17 ↗ you're seeing the North Fork ridge here, Lake Sammamish and Cougar Mountain in

2:05:23 ↗ the distance. And to sort of estimate that, friend

2:05:28 ↗ flew a drone to

2:05:34 ↗ give us a sense

2:05:40 ↗ if you got above

2:05:46 ↗ the trees, what would

2:05:52 ↗ you see? So in

2:05:58 ↗ conclusion, there is duplication

2:06:04 ↗ or replacement of the

2:06:10 ↗ vehicular circulation that would

2:06:16 ↗ be removed and that

2:06:22 ↗ we would provide a

2:06:28 ↗ length of multi-use trail,

2:06:34 ↗ additional recreational amenities and

2:06:40 ↗ views. Other questions? and uh

2:06:46 ↗ council member ramos uh council member hunt it gets into a little bit into the

2:06:51 ↗ next one too but trying to figure out it sounds good but there's an actual

2:06:57 ↗ transition that takes place so my question is would this street the new street be

2:07:03 ↗ built before high street is eliminated so there would never be a loss of access

2:07:08 ↗ vehicular wise so it would be there until that was a totally usable Street because

2:07:13 ↗ I'd hate to have the new all the construction that would be on that street

2:07:18 ↗ I assume they'd like to keep that closed while it's all that construction is going

2:07:23 ↗ on so this would be done after all that is done right either the Ellis

2:07:28 ↗ Drive extension or Street a would have to be complete before high street construction could

2:07:33 ↗ begin and that is a plaque condition thank you councilmember hunt thank you and the

2:07:39 ↗ previous slider refers to a land drop off abruptly from high street and

2:07:45 ↗ i wondered with that slope and has there been a geotechnical review process

2:07:50 ↗ question and what's that what is that geotechnical review process for this or

2:07:56 ↗ the area around so um When High Street was built, or when

2:08:02 ↗ we did the preliminary plat that resulted in High Street's construction, there

2:08:08 ↗ was a steep slope evaluation as well as geotechnical evaluation that occurred

2:08:14 ↗ before the street was constructed. There has been geotechnical analysis of Westridge

2:08:19 ↗ overall. There'll be probably some more detailed or site-specific geotech that comes

2:08:25 ↗ in with each building permit. And then, you know, to keep kind

2:08:31 ↗ of moving around, West Highlands Park also had a series of geotechnical evaluations

2:08:36 ↗ as part of their preliminary plot process and building permits. To clarify, this

2:08:42 ↗ area has had a geotechnical evaluation as part of the high, when High

2:08:48 ↗ Street went in. And would that geotechnical evaluation also be applicable to the

2:08:53 ↗ kinds of buildings with the new, with the proposed park plan?

2:08:59 ↗ Yeah, you know, I thank you for letting us know ahead of

2:09:05 ↗ time. I did have a chance to grab our engineer and he

2:09:11 ↗ the way he viewed it was that this was a less intense

2:09:17 ↗ use and so that the G he felt that the geotechnical evaluation

2:09:22 ↗ was sufficient. So member Ray. So can you go back to the

2:09:28 ↗ slide that Councilmember Goodman had you bring up around Park space. Sure.

2:09:34 ↗ It was a little confusing. So Which of these

2:09:40 ↗ tracks are the new park, the linear park? Any of them?

2:09:46 ↗ So the trail itself is not included. In terms of different

2:09:51 ↗ activities that are proposed where the roadway and the sidewalk are

2:09:57 ↗ being removed, that would be the Discovery Trail, the Center Activity

2:10:03 ↗ Area, the Overlook Plaza, and Skater Lane.

2:10:09 ↗ All right. So the estimate of 25,000 square feet is based on the 6975 that's

2:10:15 ↗ the north entry and the 169 that is the south entry. Are you asking what?

2:10:20 ↗ No, no, no. So down at the very bottom where the little asterisk is, it

2:10:26 ↗ says does not include multi-use trail approximately 25,000 square feet. So that's a whole other

2:10:32 ↗ thing. Right. So the estimate, if I take out all the things that are the

2:10:38 ↗ road, It's about 25,000 feet. Yes. 6.9 and 16.9, so 26,000 square feet. I

2:10:43 ↗ think the question, Lucy, is the first item and last item that's left on

2:10:49 ↗ that list. Yeah. 24. No. Not the 25th. 717. 24. 24,000 square feet. Right.

2:10:55 ↗ Yeah. So if I take out all the stuff that is the road that

2:11:00 ↗ we're creating new, I get about 24. So that's less than we'd see in

2:11:06 ↗ those other neighborhoods. Right. So how many homes are going

2:11:12 ↗ into this particular area? 72. Oh, that's the-- and the

2:11:18 ↗ South Park entry and the North Park entry is for

2:11:23 ↗ both Westridge South and Westridge North or just for Westridge

2:11:29 ↗ South? Just Westridge North. Those are existing? Okay. So there

2:11:35 ↗ will be additional open space goes in with Westridge South. Westridge South, yes. Their open

2:11:41 ↗ space is already under construction. It's the 31,000 that you see here. Okay, I got

2:11:47 ↗ it. I got it. I'm tracking. Thank you for-- Yeah, absolutely. More questions? I just

2:11:53 ↗ have a couple more. Deals with traffic. So what's the impact on traffic going to

2:11:59 ↗ be of moving the-- vacating this one road and turning it into a park?

2:12:05 ↗ on overall traffic flow within the area? So, we don't

2:12:11 ↗ think that there's going to be a significant impact. The

2:12:17 ↗ original traffic study that was performed for the full build

2:12:23 ↗ out of Westridge North as part of evaluating whether 100

2:12:28 ↗ TDR's transfer of development rights could be added, looked

2:12:34 ↗ at all of the intersections along High Street and 9th which are

2:12:40 ↗ the most intense locations the Westridge North plat was part of the

2:12:46 ↗ numbers that were evaluated as part of that traffic study the thing

2:12:51 ↗ is that the way the city's traffic model works is that we

2:12:57 ↗ look at intersections not corridors So these were identified as

2:13:03 ↗ the most intensely used intersections, signalized intersections, and so those

2:13:08 ↗ were the ones evaluated. By removing High Street, the vehicular

2:13:14 ↗ traffic from High Street, and moving it onto this new

2:13:20 ↗ road in Westridge-Platt, it essentially is the same facility provided

2:13:25 ↗ slightly to the east. I'm not sure I agree with

2:13:31 ↗ that, but because that's a residential street, right? Yes. And High Street is not a

2:13:36 ↗ residential street. Tell me what you mean by residential street. Do I have driveways that

2:13:40 ↗ empty onto it? Sure. As opposed to High Street, which does not. So I don't

2:13:45 ↗ think there's, I think it's a false equivalency to say that this is the same

2:13:50 ↗ as that. And I think that's what we've heard from the public too. So I

2:13:54 ↗ think I'm good for now. okay um i saw council member hunt raise her hand

2:13:59 ↗ again but i wondered if anybody else has some questions and then we'll come back

2:14:04 ↗ to you uh deputy council president batiste followed by member winterstein thank you for the

2:14:09 ↗ presentation lucy i was wondering if you could just speak a little bit uh beyond

2:14:14 ↗ what i'm reading here about the community engagement in regard to the amenities it looks

2:14:19 ↗ like there would be a survey and if you could just tell me a little

2:14:24 ↗ bit more about that So we haven't really designed it yet, but we

2:14:30 ↗ do, I think the important thing for us is that we engage

2:14:35 ↗ with the community to gather ideas. The people who were willing to attend

2:14:41 ↗ the meeting may, you know, don't represent the full extent of the people that may

2:14:46 ↗ be using the facility. We've had some community members who have offered to help share

2:14:52 ↗ it. I assume that the Iskwax Highlands Community Association would be willing to use their

2:14:58 ↗ email list. to distribute it to the larger community. And so our goal would be

2:15:03 ↗ to design this survey in a way in which we are able to look at

2:15:07 ↗ where people live, the kind of facilities that they're interested in, and learn more about

2:15:12 ↗ it. We would want to work with the communications department to design it

2:15:18 ↗ in a way where we're going to get meaningful information. So that would be the

2:15:23 ↗ first step is to try and collect ideas and desires from the community and priorities

2:15:28 ↗ for that matter. The second piece is that when we collect all

2:15:34 ↗ of that, the city needs to evaluate any of those just to make sure that

2:15:40 ↗ none of them are in conflict with the development agreement. I think that's unlikely, but

2:15:46 ↗ that would be our responsibility because that is the regulations under which we're reviewing this.

2:15:52 ↗ The other the applicant obviously has to be willing to build it, but I think

2:15:57 ↗ more importantly, the Iskwax Highlands Community Association has to be willing to maintain it. And

2:16:02 ↗ I think part of what we've heard from them, for instance, is that a skate

2:16:07 ↗ park was too great a liability that they would not want to be responsible for

2:16:12 ↗ that kind of facility. So there would be that kind of communication. We would, I

2:16:18 ↗ would assume, take all the ideas that we heard, bring them back to the community,

2:16:24 ↗ including some recommendations based on what the development agreement directs us to do and what

2:16:30 ↗ the Isquah Highlands Community Association is willing to maintain as well as the applicant is

2:16:36 ↗ willing to build. and then have that conversation at the urban village development Commission, we

2:16:42 ↗ have the parties of record, we would again send out a broad based notice and

2:16:47 ↗ and some kind of report ahead of time so that everyone had an opportunity to

2:16:53 ↗ consider it in advance and then meet and make a decision about what are the

2:16:59 ↗ appropriate uses to have for those 3 amenity spots. Thank you.

2:17:05 ↗ You jumped into my next question, and I think you've answered it,

2:17:10 ↗ just in terms of how things are maintained between the Issaquah Highlands

2:17:16 ↗ Association and what would come in. So that is a negotiation and

2:17:22 ↗ something that would go to UDVC? Right. The Issaquah Highlands Community

2:17:28 ↗ Association generally maintains most of the spaces that are even things that are owned

2:17:34 ↗ by the city such as trails and stormwater ponds. And they have seen the

2:17:40 ↗ plat before it came in. They've attended several or all of the UVDC meetings

2:17:45 ↗ and some of the land and shore meetings. So they're aware of the conversations

2:17:51 ↗ that we've been having. then we would return to the UVDC. They have, they're very

2:17:57 ↗ interested in this. They were very engaged. As I think one of the community members

2:18:03 ↗ mentioned, several of the UVDC members live in Issaquah Highlands and are happy to facilitate

2:18:09 ↗ that kind of conversation. And we're hoping that we would have a robust engagement with

2:18:15 ↗ neighbors who see this as a, facility that they would use and have

2:18:21 ↗ interest in what actually shows up there. Thank you. Council Member Winterstein.

2:18:27 ↗ Thanks Lucy. Back regarding views. So thank you for the memo that's

2:18:33 ↗ in the packet from our city attorney.

2:18:38 ↗ If you could, do you, you just said refer to that, you said answer the

2:18:44 ↗ questions. Do you have any additional information on a slide regarding this or can I

2:18:49 ↗ ask you a specific question? If you have questions about the memo, I would suggest

2:18:55 ↗ you direct them to the city attorney because he drafted that. I think hopefully this

2:19:00 ↗ will be easy. And it's regarding the point number three in the event of a

2:19:06 ↗ conflict. In the, at one point it says,

2:19:12 ↗ the last sentence of the first paragraph in the last age of it of

2:19:17 ↗ the letter it says Thus if the city were to enact regulations that prohibited

2:19:23 ↗ the topping trimming or removal of trees for vegetation on the pit parcel I

2:19:29 ↗ like that name Those regulations would control over the Covenant and the Covenant would

2:19:34 ↗ not be enforceable. So there finally was something that was kind of getting to

2:19:40 ↗ the question that I had and it It says if we were to enact

2:19:46 ↗ regulation, so there's no existing regulations regarding the topping trimming or removal of trees that

2:19:52 ↗ would that is enforceable on that parcel and So I didn't

2:19:57 ↗ research that but I'm thinking not because as a mining parcel they are able

2:20:03 ↗ to do quite a few activities and I think they are able to remove

2:20:09 ↗ trees as you know this is very lightly regulated by the city and primarily

2:20:15 ↗ regulated by I think the Department of Natural Resources and. So it reflects the

2:20:21 ↗ current land use. It reflects the state rules for mining. Okay,

2:20:27 ↗ okay. So that if, that's a big if. So there's, once

2:20:33 ↗ that land use would change, then it may be the prerogative

2:20:38 ↗ of the city to put some type of, some type of,

2:20:44 ↗ regulations in place. Well, I would even add that the Lakeside Development Agreement,

2:20:50 ↗ I don't believe would allow topping, but right now the development agreement comes

2:20:56 ↗ into play when they end the mining activities and reclaim the property. So

2:21:02 ↗ at that time, there would be the two sets of regulations. But right

2:21:08 ↗ now the topping of trees two sets of regulations, neither of which would

2:21:14 ↗ allow topping. Right now, I believe Lakeside is allowed to top trees. Okay, so as

2:21:19 ↗ long as its current land use is as a mining or a pit, what have

2:21:24 ↗ you, this agreement between the two property owners, the covenant is enforceable.

2:21:30 ↗ But as that land use changes, if it converts to some type

2:21:35 ↗ of residential development, then it could come into play part of the

2:21:41 ↗ development agreement, which could potentially lead to obstructed views. i'm not sure that

2:21:47 ↗ it would lead to obstructed views i think it might lead to the need to

2:21:51 ↗ replace trees if they get too tall you just couldn't use topping as the means

2:21:56 ↗ to address it okay so okay so the but it would be it would be

2:22:00 ↗ action you know once that development agreement is actually once their land uses start to

2:22:05 ↗ change where it may take some future council or administration to maybe address that if

2:22:09 ↗ they wanted to retain the views because depending on what they plant there They could

2:22:15 ↗ go away, but that's some time in the future and but that would I'm

2:22:20 ↗ gonna I am actually gonna let Jim speak the Department of Natural Resources for

2:22:26 ↗ all mining operations approves a reclamation plan So as long as the reclamation plan

2:22:32 ↗ is still underway and they're reclaiming the site from the mining operations They would

2:22:37 ↗ be governed by that permit which is issued by the Department of Natural Resources

2:22:43 ↗ and I spoke to Lucy prior to writing the memo and asked whether

2:22:49 ↗ there were provisions that would relate to the chopping of trees and my

2:22:54 ↗ understanding was that currently that would not be the case, but once it

2:23:00 ↗ is taken out of the reclamation plan and then any regulations that the

2:23:06 ↗ city has controls over the covenants to the extent that to the extent

2:23:12 ↗ that both can't be complied with. So if the covenants allow you to do something

2:23:17 ↗ and the city's regulations prohibit you from doing it, you can't do it. If the

2:23:23 ↗ city regulations permit you to do something, but the covenants do not permit you to

2:23:29 ↗ do something, then usually the covenants control under those circumstances. okay thank you my

2:23:35 ↗ assessment is that given the current use of the land today and the

2:23:40 ↗ covenant that exists that should in the should this be converted should we

2:23:46 ↗ build this viewpoint that is that given the existing land uses we would

2:23:51 ↗ be able to maintain the view but it's possible that in the future

2:23:57 ↗ reclamation or whatever land use change comes about because the development agreement

2:24:02 ↗ We may need That may need to be addressed again in order to

2:24:08 ↗ retain the views. It may or we may just have fewer tools. Maybe Jim will

2:24:14 ↗ remember the language better than I do. But I think that it allows the removal

2:24:19 ↗ of trees. So topping was one means, topping is not a technique that we use

2:24:25 ↗ in typical land development areas. But I think it does allow the removal of trees.

2:24:31 ↗ Now obviously if you're removing too many trees, that would be a problem. But I

2:24:36 ↗ think that if you're removing a select tree that has grown up and is blocking

2:24:42 ↗ a portion of the view, that would meet the intent of the covenant. Okay, thank

2:24:48 ↗ you. You've addressed my concern. Thank you. I have Councilmember Hunt still having questions, but

2:24:54 ↗ I have three councilmembers we haven't heard from yet. Council President Martz. How wide is

2:24:59 ↗ this along most of the length? How, what

2:25:05 ↗ is this? The parcel of land that we're

2:25:11 ↗ talking about. Let me think. It's going to

2:25:17 ↗ be at least 40 feet or something. I

2:25:23 ↗ mean, we have a sidewalk, a planting strip,

2:25:29 ↗ which are like 12 feet, then two 10-foot

2:25:35 ↗ lanes, and then another 10 feet of bike

2:25:40 ↗ lane. And along the... gravel pit side sometimes the right

2:25:46 ↗ of way is very close to the curb and sometimes it is quite a distance

2:25:52 ↗ because they used a very geometric parcel line as opposed to following the roadway edge.

2:25:58 ↗ The reason that I ask is when you showed that slide that talked about the

2:26:04 ↗ square feet associated with it right and you said it was 25,000 square feet. If

2:26:09 ↗ it's 1400 somewhere between 14 and 1600 feet long So if you take

2:26:15 ↗ 25,000 and you divide it by 140, you only get about 18

2:26:21 ↗ feet. Sorry, 25,000 over 1,400. You get about 18 feet. And if

2:26:27 ↗ it's 1,600 feet long, you get about 15 feet wide. I think

2:26:33 ↗ it's closer to, I was measuring it today, I think it is

2:26:38 ↗ closer to 1,600 feet long. And I will tell you that the

2:26:44 ↗ numbers that we were looking at were prepared by the applicants, so I don't

2:26:50 ↗ know quite what the assumptions are underneath them. But I think that if 15

2:26:56 ↗ feet times 16 or 1,700 gets you to the right number, that would be

2:27:01 ↗ the number I would have started with. Okay. So that's narrower than... and that

2:27:07 ↗ that would be 15 feet wide not 30 feet wide or or 40 feet wide

2:27:12 ↗ right so let me ask the question i think that that that 25 000 square

2:27:17 ↗ feet is referring to the trail only so at 15 feet that is the expected

2:27:22 ↗ width is 15 feet and then 16 or 1700 feet long okay let me ask

2:27:27 ↗ the question differently in the materials that were provided with this bill there's a number

2:27:33 ↗ of sections and nodes and things like that yes um do any of those i

2:27:38 ↗ i worry that those reflect where uh the the park is wider and that i'm

2:27:43 ↗ not sure that any of those show the sort of a standard section do any

2:27:48 ↗ of those show what you would describe as sort of a standard section away from

2:27:53 ↗ the from where the bump outs are. So are you

2:27:59 ↗ referring to the drawing set that was provided with the agenda bill?

2:28:05 ↗ Is that the one that you're referring to? Yeah, I'm referring to

2:28:11 ↗ the big pages that are hard to load on my computer.

2:28:17 ↗ Right so say through page 3, 18 or right around there is where the various

2:28:21 ↗ sections are shown. Yeah, there's just some beautiful pleasant nice white sections, but when I

2:28:26 ↗ go to look at them on the map it sort of looks like there were

2:28:30 ↗ the bump outs are there where there's interesting features that widen the trail and that

2:28:35 ↗ it's not sort of the standard was wondering if there's a standard session because it's

2:28:39 ↗ just I'm just trying to understand how narrow this trail is for most of its

2:28:44 ↗ length. And I

2:28:48 ↗ have a concern

2:28:54 ↗ that it might

2:28:59 ↗ be fairly narrow.

2:29:04 ↗ So this has

2:29:10 ↗ been rotated, just

2:29:15 ↗ so you're aware.

2:29:21 ↗ So for instance,

2:29:26 ↗ if you're looking

2:29:31 ↗ at section B,

2:29:37 ↗ which is on

2:29:42 ↗ page, gosh the

2:29:48 ↗ numbers get, page

2:29:53 ↗ 314 in your

2:29:58 ↗ packet. That is, I

2:30:04 ↗ think, a fairly standard section. There's no special activities that

2:30:10 ↗ are provided adjacent to the trail. There's a landscape buffer

2:30:16 ↗ and a trail that is shown in that section. And

2:30:22 ↗ I can go to that on the slide if that's

2:30:28 ↗ helpful as well. Probably for everybody else. I'm looking at

2:30:34 ↗ it, but... Sure. Is that showing a width of 47

2:30:40 ↗ feet or 48 feet? And 48 feet times 1,400 is

2:30:46 ↗ a lot. So

2:30:52 ↗ for instance, in this location, if I just keep getting it a

2:30:58 ↗ little bit bigger, what you're seeing is, so this is the property

2:31:04 ↗ line on this edge. So you can see that there's a three

2:31:09 ↗ and a half foot strip that is on the side of the

2:31:15 ↗ pit, 15 feet for the trail and then the balance

2:31:21 ↗ is where a sidewalk planting strip and roadway have been removed. Yeah, so

2:31:27 ↗ I'm just trying to understand right if you take 48 feet and you

2:31:33 ↗ multiply it by 1,400 you get like 70,000 square feet. Right, so the

2:31:39 ↗ chart that was shown and I'll be glad to pull that up if

2:31:44 ↗ that's helpful. The 25,000 square feet was the trail only. Then they were

2:31:50 ↗ identifying specific areas. The other square footages that were shown were specific areas that

2:31:56 ↗ they were enhancing with either an overlook or recreational amenity. I believe that areas

2:32:02 ↗ like this where they are simply planting that, they did not include as part

2:32:07 ↗ of the square footage of amenities that they were providing. It's not that it

2:32:13 ↗ isn't an amenity, I just don't think they were taking Credit for that

2:32:19 ↗ as part of their recreational facilities the bottom line is this is a

2:32:25 ↗ typical section away from the bump outs is about 48 feet wide. Okay,

2:32:31 ↗ thank you Councilmember Goodman or Ramos if you have any questions, otherwise, I'm

2:32:36 ↗ going back to councilmember hunt councilmember hunt and one of the slides you

2:32:42 ↗ had the You had the condition 32 which was about complementary

2:32:48 ↗ uses and oh right yes thank you thank you for reminding me yeah that

2:32:54 ↗ one um so i think one issue for me is that there are there's

2:33:00 ↗ a whole spectrum of quality of of any of these amenities and they could

2:33:06 ↗ require more or less maintenance some really um really high quality children's play equipment,

2:33:11 ↗ for example, might require a lot less maintenance. And since this is going to, if

2:33:17 ↗ the conversion is approved, this will be maintained by the Issaquah Highlands Community Association. So

2:33:23 ↗ I think that quality of the amenities is important. It was also brought up in

2:33:28 ↗ public comments about drainage and these sort of issues that could make it hard

2:33:34 ↗ to maintain. There's also all of that landscaping, which I assume would have to be

2:33:40 ↗ maintained. So I didn't see anything in the condition about quality or about the Issaquah

2:33:46 ↗ Highlands community association having sort of veto power over the plans. And

2:33:51 ↗ so I wondered if you could speak to how they could make sure that

2:33:57 ↗ the facilities are maintainable and that they're what what the community wants and and

2:34:03 ↗ also that there aren't these issues with things like drainage or other foreseeable problems

2:34:08 ↗ that could come about. So the Issaquah Highlands Community Association, the

2:34:14 ↗ landscape plans, which would likely contain most of the improvements that we're

2:34:20 ↗ talking about, they review and approve those. Well, first of all, once

2:34:26 ↗ we get through deciding what facilities are going to be there, when

2:34:32 ↗ we're ready to do construction permits, We have a joint meeting with

2:34:37 ↗ the applicant, the IHCA and the city. And then when they are

2:34:43 ↗ ready to actually submit for approval, the IHCA or ARC must stamp

2:34:49 ↗ those, must approve them before they're submitted. Drainage has been something I

2:34:55 ↗ think Mr. Smith has identified a concern that when Some of the more

2:35:01 ↗ recent community association managers have taken over, directors have taken over, have been a concern.

2:35:07 ↗ I know that Sarah Hoy spends a lot of time working with her facilities people

2:35:13 ↗ to make sure that the design is such that there is good drainage because they've

2:35:18 ↗ had to go back and retrofit some parks. you know, I would say that

2:35:24 ↗ Sarah is very clear about the kinds of facilities and she gets the first say

2:35:30 ↗ before we it is come in for city review and approval. And they again also

2:35:36 ↗ inspect Once the plant materials are installed and the kind of

2:35:41 ↗ recreational amenities are installed, they will inspect it before they accept it.

2:35:47 ↗ So there's many different points at which they have the opportunity to

2:35:53 ↗ review and approve what's there and how well it's been constructed and

2:35:59 ↗ the types of benches, the types of play equipment to make sure

2:36:05 ↗ it meets their expectations. Thank you. Any other questions? I'm

2:36:11 ↗ looking for a motion. Sure. Member Goodman. Did you have anything else,

2:36:16 ↗ Lucy? Okay. I would move to approve, this is the committee, the

2:36:22 ↗ committee unanimously recommended. I would move to approve the proposed conversion of

2:36:28 ↗ a portion of High Street to a multi-use trail with adjacent recreational

2:36:33 ↗ amenities and an overlook relying on a future UVDC meeting to identify

2:36:39 ↗ appropriate and suitable recreational amenities. Second. Moved and seconded. Is there any discussion?

2:36:45 ↗ Councilmember Wray. I'll go first. One of the things that we have talked a lot

2:36:51 ↗ about as a council and as a city over the last several months as we

2:36:56 ↗ have worked on our strategic plan is about being intentional in our decision-making. And one

2:37:02 ↗ of the things that we identified in the strategic plan around environmental stewardship was being

2:37:08 ↗ intentional about where we cited parks and where we cited green spaces. What I

2:37:14 ↗ find is this proposal lacks intentionality. It is very opportunistic. It is very reactive

2:37:20 ↗ to an opportunity that presented itself. In the conversations I've had with people in

2:37:26 ↗ West Highlands Park and the emails that I've read and the comments today, the

2:37:32 ↗ community doesn't like this idea. They don't see the value in it. I'm also

2:37:38 ↗ struck that This is coming as a land use decision when this is a parks

2:37:43 ↗ decision and this is a road vacation decision. And we've not really heard from either

2:37:48 ↗ the parks department about how this fits into the overall strategic plan for parks, nor

2:37:53 ↗ have we heard from public works engineering about the impact of vacating this road will

2:37:58 ↗ have on traffic. I'm not convinced that this won't have an impact on traffic. And

2:38:03 ↗ I'm absolutely not convinced that this is part of our park strategic plan that we

2:38:08 ↗ just approved. And I think the comments that, you know, this won't cost the city

2:38:13 ↗ anything to maintain is disrespectful to the neighbors who live in the Highlands because they

2:38:18 ↗ will be paying for this because there is, as I learned in economics 101, there

2:38:23 ↗ is no such thing as a free lunch. And so someone is going to pay

2:38:28 ↗ for this. I just don't think this is in the best interest of the city

2:38:33 ↗ with the work that's been done so far. I'm not saying no, never. I'm just

2:38:38 ↗ saying that we have not approached this with intentionality. We've not approached this with looking

2:38:44 ↗ at all the different dimensions of this proposed park. And I think we still have

2:38:49 ↗ a lot of work to do before we can make a decision to move forward

2:38:55 ↗ with this park. Thank you. Other comments? Ms. Goodman. Thank you. I support supported

2:39:00 ↗ this at the committee level because I think we have a great

2:39:06 ↗ opportunity here. And I understand the optics of how it was presented

2:39:12 ↗ and I understand we have a lot of work to do. But

2:39:18 ↗ I do think we have a great opportunity. I was persuaded by

2:39:24 ↗ the comments that I heard from members of the community who spoke

2:39:30 ↗ to this as being a something that would benefit

2:39:36 ↗ the broader community. I was not persuaded by the folks who

2:39:42 ↗ currently live nearest to this proposed new park being concerned about

2:39:47 ↗ what I'll summarize as a matter of convenience of no longer

2:39:53 ↗ having lack of a better description, sort of a straight shot

2:39:59 ↗ to that neighborhood. So folks in the Highlands don't, get straight

2:40:05 ↗ shots at their neighborhood. I have to drive fairly deep into Issaquah Highlands to

2:40:11 ↗ get to my place and it's a lot of times slow going because

2:40:16 ↗ there's lots of parking and there's lots of activity and there's children and families. And

2:40:22 ↗ the concerns about being stuck when it's cold out and there's snow, the city deals

2:40:28 ↗ with a lot more steep areas all over the city than just the in and

2:40:34 ↗ out to West Highlands Park. I did cite some concerns that I had that other

2:40:40 ↗ community members had. One is drainage issues. And I said at the community level, I

2:40:46 ↗ live across the street from a city park that has a very, very high water

2:40:51 ↗ table, so much of the year, sometimes right in the middle of summer, and maybe

2:40:56 ↗ even now, you can't really play in the middle. And that's Grandview Park, because the

2:41:01 ↗ water table is so high. So it probably is not the best place for a

2:41:06 ↗ park. So I do have concerns about making sure that there's not just a muddy,

2:41:11 ↗ unusable trail. and that's going to take some planning

2:41:17 ↗ and some careful thought. I also agree with the

2:41:23 ↗ concerns that I heard from UVDC members that we

2:41:29 ↗ shouldn't start off our survey to the community about what they might

2:41:34 ↗ like, the broader community, by starting off with a list, but that should be a

2:41:39 ↗ blank slate so we get the community's creative ideas about what they would like there.

2:41:45 ↗ I also think that it's really important that we work carefully, closely with the IHCA

2:41:50 ↗ so that if they're going to maintain it, they are going to have to know

2:41:55 ↗ and be involved in what is there. But I do think it's

2:42:00 ↗ a great opportunity. I think having more parks is better. And

2:42:06 ↗ so I do support it. I think it is-- sometimes we

2:42:12 ↗ get presented with opportunities that don't fit with processes that we are

2:42:18 ↗ involved in, not quite done with. And my understanding is that there is a maybe

2:42:24 ↗ you can speak to this because I intend to support this, but speak to the

2:42:29 ↗ timing of this and the next agenda item and how much time we have. And

2:42:35 ↗ if there was any opportunity for this to be reviewed by Services and Safety, either

2:42:41 ↗ before it might be approved or after, and maybe the park planning part

2:42:47 ↗ of it could go to services and safety. We also did mention, one

2:42:52 ↗ or more of us mentioned that we need to work closely with Parks

2:42:58 ↗ Department on this because I do think that Council Member Ray is right.

2:43:04 ↗ I don't know that we worked so closely with them on this proposal

2:43:09 ↗ yet. We're happy to make presentations at any

2:43:15 ↗ council committee meeting to which we're asked. We have

2:43:21 ↗ Jennifer Fink attends our weekly coordination meeting between departments. I have probably spoken

2:43:27 ↗ to her almost a half dozen times taking various issues and I appreciate

2:43:33 ↗ you bringing up the Parks Department because I didn't really include them as

2:43:38 ↗ one of the members that we would coordinate with as we're getting the

2:43:44 ↗ survey results back because absolutely we would want to get their take

2:43:50 ↗ advantage of their fine knowledge of the kinds of things that have come up through

2:43:55 ↗ the work that they've done in the area and I'm hoping that they will help

2:44:00 ↗ us shape the survey based on all the kind of work that they've done to

2:44:05 ↗ collect information both in this neighborhood and the best way to achieve that. I think

2:44:10 ↗ that's a great point. I think Councilmember Ray brought up a great point about this

2:44:15 ↗ being a park and so can you speak to the the issue, any

2:44:21 ↗ issues that might create, and I'm not proposing it,

2:44:27 ↗ but if, for example, it were to go to

2:44:32 ↗ services and safety before the council considers adopting this.

2:44:38 ↗ Relative to the plat? Right now, there were several

2:44:44 ↗ options presented for the plat. There were three options

2:44:50 ↗ that we presented, one of which both the community and the UVDC rejected,

2:44:55 ↗ so I won't speak to that one. One option was to approve

2:45:01 ↗ the plat with High Street unchanged. The other one was the plat

2:45:07 ↗ and High Street converted. The other one was to not leave High

2:45:13 ↗ Street unchanged. The UVDC supported the plat and High Street as was

2:45:19 ↗ shown. community supported leaving high street unchanged. Um there would be

2:45:24 ↗ some work that would need to be done if high street was

2:45:30 ↗ not going to be converted because there are elements of the guidelines

2:45:36 ↗ and development agreement that are in conflict. That's why high street conversion

2:45:42 ↗ was proposed. Um so I don't I I don't know, it's partly timing, but it's

2:45:48 ↗ also uncertainty around the plat and what actions would be necessary to bring it into

2:45:53 ↗ compliance if High Street was not converted. - I think at the interim city administrator

2:45:58 ↗ wanted to add some comments and maybe attorney. It is Jim. I

2:46:04 ↗ just mentioned that the current findings which you have before you, I believe, assume

2:46:10 ↗ that High Street is converted. So if you were to make the decision to

2:46:15 ↗ accept the other alternative, which is to leave High Street unchanged, the findings would

2:46:21 ↗ have to be rewritten as well. The next agenda bill, you mean? Yes. I

2:46:27 ↗ mean, if that was the decision you were going to make, yes. they'd

2:46:33 ↗ have to be rewritten before you made that decision. Additional questions? I'm going

2:46:38 ↗ to move to Councilmember Ramos. So I'm, you know, just coming off our

2:46:44 ↗ previous agenda item, I'm having a little trouble with this because I would

2:46:50 ↗ look at this and agree with Councilmember to my right here. I asked

2:46:56 ↗ a question earlier if an opportunity came with our new parks to treat you plan

2:47:00 ↗ be able to handle this something that was totally unique and different. And regardless of

2:47:05 ↗ cost because if it's going to cost the city something obviously there comes a thing

2:47:09 ↗ but often the things can come without a cost directly to the city which this

2:47:13 ↗ one is you know a $0 cost to the city directly. I wonder if this

2:47:18 ↗ was coming to the city where we as a city had to now maintain this

2:47:24 ↗ as a park feature. How this discussion would go differently. or not. So that's my

2:47:29 ↗ big question. I think that would change this whole discussion. And that's, I guess, what

2:47:34 ↗ I think we're missing here because we just said something has to go through this

2:47:39 ↗ plan we just accepted and the next item on the agenda doesn't go through our

2:47:44 ↗ strategic thinking process. And I understand how it's coming about, but I guess we're just

2:47:49 ↗ kind of, we took a step forward and tripped on our own foot, I think,

2:47:54 ↗ in this process for me. Lucy, could you address the history of

2:48:00 ↗ the proposed park, whether or not it was included in the

2:48:06 ↗ development agreement concept plan and why the street would have been

2:48:12 ↗ constructed not to standard originally, what the intention was? So the

2:48:18 ↗ development agreement talked about parks, but it did not lay out

2:48:23 ↗ any particular metrics or locations. for park facilities. It did

2:48:29 ↗ have a capital facility section that identified certain kinds of

2:48:35 ↗ activities that were required to be built. and certain timing

2:48:41 ↗ for those facilities. In addition, as I mentioned earlier, there were performance standards

2:48:47 ↗ for parks in terms of how they would fit and function within the

2:48:52 ↗ community. So a lot of the Iskwax Highlands Development Agreement was built around

2:48:58 ↗ the idea of flexibility and that it would evolve as the community grew.

2:49:04 ↗ With regard to the Parks Strategic Plan, the Platte and the Strategic Plan

2:49:10 ↗ have kind of evolved at the same time, which is why we've been

2:49:16 ↗ checking with the Parks Department to get their feedback and see if they

2:49:22 ↗ had concerns along the way. I guess the one thing I would add,

2:49:27 ↗ Councilmember Ramos, is that Jeff's, Director Watling's perspective has been that not

2:49:33 ↗ every single facility is reflected in the parks plan. And so he felt that

2:49:39 ↗ this was not in conflict because it was not, the strategic plan was not

2:49:45 ↗ meant to address every single park. Now, I'm sure there's a great deal more

2:49:51 ↗ conversation that could be had and I wouldn't be the person to be able

2:49:57 ↗ to represent that. But that was his thoughts when we were discussing that topic.

2:50:04 ↗ If I can finish that thought. And that's what I'm looking for. I'm not saying

2:50:09 ↗ this is a bad thing. It might be a great thing. I just don't know

2:50:13 ↗ yet because we didn't talk about the park side of it. We didn't talk about

2:50:18 ↗ the infrastructure side of it. Vacating roads usually goes through infrastructure. So we actually have

2:50:22 ↗ a project here that actually could go through any three of these committees in many

2:50:27 ↗ ways to look at those items. I just agree that I think there's a little

2:50:31 ↗ more discussion should be had before we jump onto this decision. I saw Council Member

2:50:36 ↗ Goodman's hand, Council Member Winterstein, Council Member Hunt, and then Tola, did I see you

2:50:41 ↗ raise your hand as well? Okay, that's Goodman, Winterstein, Hunt, and Martz. I just wanted

2:50:46 ↗ to clarify, I actually made the mistake a couple of meetings ago in calling it

2:50:51 ↗ a street vacation. It's converting the use of this street to a park. And I

2:50:56 ↗ understand that practical, the practical effect, but I just want folks who are watching to

2:51:02 ↗ know that this is not vacating land, which would be turning it over to somebody

2:51:08 ↗ else. That's not what we're doing. So the developer does not get 25,000

2:51:13 ↗ square feet of land or 75,000 square feet of land. This is still

2:51:19 ↗ the city's property. The city still owns it. So that's just a technical

2:51:25 ↗ but important detail that I just wanted to clarify. Okay. Council Member Winterstein.

2:51:31 ↗ Thank you. And that is important. It's public land now. This is a proposal that

2:51:36 ↗ keeps it in the public domain. So, and I do think it actually is very

2:51:42 ↗ important that to consider the cost at this level because as, and I think it's

2:51:47 ↗ fair to look at this in the context or through the lens of the strategic,

2:51:53 ↗ the park strategic plan. because honestly, and I'm not sure how explicitly it may

2:51:59 ↗ be said in there, but there is at least definitely an assumption laid in

2:52:04 ↗ there that everything we're doing there has a cost to the city. We're talking

2:52:10 ↗ about using some type of funding, whether it be capital or for operational purposes,

2:52:16 ↗ to bring forth this vision for the strategic vision for parks. i think it

2:52:22 ↗ is significant that a park could be developed at no additional cost to the city

2:52:28 ↗ i think that's that's that's a pretty significant uh consideration you know as far as

2:52:34 ↗ stormwater or runoff or something like that i mean that roadway has stormwater under management

2:52:40 ↗ underneath it right now uh and so and so i would i i'm really satisfied

2:52:45 ↗ with what you said earlier about the the checks and balances that would be

2:52:51 ↗ in place, but also remembering that there's existing stormwater management system there right

2:52:57 ↗ now. So that is really pretty significant. I thought significantly, we did receive

2:53:03 ↗ quite a few comments from the public. I considered them extensively, made my

2:53:09 ↗ own visits to the area to try to understand what those concerns were.

2:53:15 ↗ And it seems to me the largest argument that came forward would be

2:53:21 ↗ that this, taking this street off the grid would provide, would be inconvenient.

2:53:27 ↗ I mean that seems, I would summarize the majority of comments really focusing

2:53:32 ↗ on that. And yet that was not a persuasive argument to me. because

2:53:38 ↗ if you could put up the map, I mean, Ellis Drive is a really good

2:53:44 ↗ alternative. And so earlier when that question came up, what's known being labeled as Avenue

2:53:50 ↗ A or whatever, just a little bit offset as being, you know, for traffic analysis

2:53:56 ↗ purposes, somewhat equivalent. I think that's actually accurate. One of the things we didn't talk

2:54:02 ↗ about this evening, we have one traffic count I think it's a single data point.

2:54:08 ↗ It's not over a long period of time. The ratio of trips on High Street

2:54:14 ↗ now versus Discovery Drive is about five to one, if I remember. So the measure

2:54:19 ↗ that was taken on there, there's less than 200 trips a day on High Street

2:54:25 ↗ today. That capacity, if you look at the built out network on the right side

2:54:31 ↗ there, is easily absorbed by the network that will be in when the build out

2:54:37 ↗ is complete. And Ellis Drive, which is the East West Street right in the middle

2:54:42 ↗ there, is a pretty significant viable alternative. So I wasn't persuaded by the inconvenience argument.

2:54:48 ↗ Ellis Drive is a really good option and there will be others I think that's

2:54:54 ↗ a, I mean, if I couldn't get past that argument, I wouldn't have gone any

2:54:58 ↗ further, but I didn't, to me it wasn't difficult to get past. And unfortunately, very

2:55:03 ↗ few people ever commented on that. They all talked about Avenue A. Well, Ellison Drive

2:55:08 ↗ is a pretty significant new option, and in fact, maybe better. Yes, there will be

2:55:13 ↗ cross streets. Yes, there will be parking on there, but there will not be any

2:55:17 ↗ there won't be any stop signs or traffic controls So once you're on that street,

2:55:21 ↗ you'll be able to travel to West Highlands Park out to 9th Avenue back and

2:55:26 ↗ forth without any stops or traffic lights so that I think that's pretty significant a

2:55:30 ↗ number of other comments a lot of comments we had had do with safety and

2:55:35 ↗ And yes, High Street today sees very little traffic. It also sees very little non-pedestrian

2:55:40 ↗ traffic as well when it comes to both whether it be cyclists or walkers

2:55:46 ↗ or whatever, or runners. There's not a lot of automobile traffic at less

2:55:52 ↗ than 200 trips a day. And the idea that, yeah, then you take

2:55:57 ↗ all those trips off and you put them on streets that maybe have

2:56:03 ↗ more non-motorized use, Avenue A and Ellis Drive, that'll have cars parked on the side.

2:56:09 ↗ So I could see, yeah, that sounds and it looks, the optics are that that

2:56:14 ↗ wouldn't be as safe as the option is today. But we don't have anything that

2:56:19 ↗ suggests when it comes to true measurable safety problems that in that configuration that already

2:56:24 ↗ exists throughout the Highlands that we have, I know we have complaints about speeding and

2:56:30 ↗ I get that and I take that very seriously. But when it comes down to

2:56:35 ↗ actual safety, measurable safety issues. We don't have anything that says Ellis Avenue is gonna,

2:56:40 ↗ or Ellis Drive is gonna be any less safe than what's there today. There's nothing

2:56:46 ↗ to indicate that this is an unsafe option. So I think that for me, as

2:56:51 ↗ I thought about that, that I gotta take this argument that this will be less

2:56:57 ↗ safe Well, the baseline is such that, and I think the evidence, 'cause this road

2:57:01 ↗ will be, the travel lanes will be, and I will say drive I think are

2:57:05 ↗ 10 feet, which are, it was a foot wider than many of the travel lanes

2:57:10 ↗ with side parking of many of the streets in the Highlands already. So it'll be

2:57:15 ↗ even better than some. So I don't feel that we're introducing an

2:57:20 ↗ unsafe element to our community members should the traffic that's currently on

2:57:26 ↗ High Street find its way either on Avenue A or Ellis Drive.

2:57:31 ↗ I just didn't feel that that was a real unsafe condition. the idea

2:57:37 ↗ of having a park that's got a view a park that's got a view that's

2:57:43 ↗ in proximity to what's going to be many hundreds of future isaac residents i think

2:57:48 ↗ that's pretty significant and and whereas yes the so the strategic plan doesn't identify this

2:57:53 ↗ one and it doesn't really there's a quite a built infrastructure in for parks in

2:57:58 ↗ the highlands today already this one uh the comment earlier about concerned at not being

2:58:03 ↗ connected is very connected There are sidewalks all over there. There will be other regional

2:58:08 ↗ trails that we'll connect to. There will be neighborhood trails that will provide people access

2:58:14 ↗ to this linear park. It's gonna be very connected. It is an open space that

2:58:19 ↗ will provide a view. I'm very concerned, I think, of the unique opportunity in addition

2:58:24 ↗ to just the recreation and just whatever amenities are put in there, for the opportunity

2:58:29 ↗ for the views are very significant. So we have a place where there is not

2:58:34 ↗ a park today that could come to us at no cost to the city, and

2:58:39 ↗ it would provide an amazing amenity, which would be a view that wouldn't be available

2:58:45 ↗ to many of the users otherwise. It's very accessible without an automobile. I don't think

2:58:50 ↗ we're introducing any unsafe situations and there's really good viable alternatives, especially with Ellis Drive.

2:58:55 ↗ I couldn't find a reason to be against this and I can only find reasons

2:59:01 ↗ to be in favor of that. And nothing that I've heard tonight has changed my

2:59:06 ↗ perspective on that. So I'm enthusiastically still supporting the conversion of this to a park

2:59:11 ↗ as I did in the committee. Thank you. I have Councilmember Hunt next. Oh, sorry,

2:59:17 ↗ Lucy. Could I say one thing? I just wanted to correct one small piece of

2:59:22 ↗ information that Councilmember Winterstein, the 200 trips is in peak hour, not a day, just

2:59:28 ↗ in case, because I didn't show that slide and I wanted people to have that

2:59:33 ↗ piece of information. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Lucy. Councilmember Hunt followed by Councilmember Martz.

2:59:39 ↗ Thank you. So Lucy mentioned that we do have a couple alternatives here and one

2:59:45 ↗ of them was not considered a viable alternative by the UVDC or the community and

2:59:50 ↗ so I won't talk about that one at all. But there's the other one which

2:59:56 ↗ involves not converting High Street and it would then it says a significant

3:00:02 ↗ component of non-motorized trail will not be built in the area, will have less parks

3:00:07 ↗ and open space. And so as I read this, and you can correct me if

3:00:12 ↗ I'm wrong, but I think the option that we have here is to either have

3:00:18 ↗ a linear park along this edge or not and keep High Street the way it

3:00:23 ↗ is. And I think that the parks plan does lay out a lot of specifics

3:00:29 ↗ and it does have a lot of great detail about how the city is going

3:00:34 ↗ to allocate resources in the future. And I appreciate Council Member Ray's concerns about this

3:00:40 ↗ not specifically fitting into the parks plan, but... For me, I think there are a

3:00:45 ↗ number of reasons for that. One has to do with the timing and that the

3:00:49 ↗ parks plan, which we just recommended for approval earlier tonight, it was developing at the

3:00:53 ↗ same time. And I also think that there are a lot of high level guidance

3:00:58 ↗ in the parks plan that has to do with how parks will evolve over time

3:01:02 ↗ and some of that will have to change as developers build houses as we see

3:01:07 ↗ how neighborhoods change over time as we see how land uses change over time and

3:01:12 ↗ parks become more or less important in different areas and so in this case It's

3:01:17 ↗ a very densely populated area already and it's going to become more densely populated with

3:01:22 ↗ residential in the future, or that's the plan anyway. And so I think that as

3:01:28 ↗ I read the parks plan, the direction of the parks plan would be to provide

3:01:34 ↗ more needed amenities and to have that community input to see what amenities are needed,

3:01:39 ↗ but to have those parks amenities as our community grows. I also wanted to acknowledge

3:01:45 ↗ that we have gotten a lot of comments from the community. We have received comments

3:01:51 ↗ both for or against and a lot of concerns, especially from people that use the

3:01:56 ↗ High Street Road. I think that it will actually be a lot more safe for

3:02:02 ↗ people that want to use this with strollers or walking or multimodal if they want

3:02:08 ↗ to use bikes or anything other than vehicles. So I think that it makes

3:02:13 ↗ a lot of sense to me to have it converted to a non-vehicular roadway for

3:02:19 ↗ safety purposes if we look at this it's a straight shot and we hear so

3:02:24 ↗ much from the community about speeding and there's no um there's no driveways there's no

3:02:30 ↗ nothing that slows down cars along this way right now and there potentially wouldn't be

3:02:35 ↗ if um if if it weren't converted I think the other proposed street not to

3:02:41 ↗ get too much into this, but I think that there will be other options and

3:02:45 ↗ I think that we've heard so much about the need for traffic calming that I

3:02:50 ↗ think this road as it is does not conform with the way that the Highlands

3:02:55 ↗ community wants roads to function actually as a whole. I know that there's differences in

3:03:00 ↗ opinions, but the way i see it this will be safer and so i'm in

3:03:05 ↗ favor of having a safer option for people that are not using cars there it's

3:03:10 ↗ not clear to me how connected this will be to other trails i think i'll

3:03:15 ↗ just i think as this other trails develop and As the area develops, that'll be

3:03:20 ↗ something that I will try to keep track of because it seems like a lot

3:03:25 ↗ of the other trails and other connections are in flux. But it would be really

3:03:30 ↗ great if this is converted, if this trail could then connect to other things because

3:03:35 ↗ I think that really increases the functionality of the trail. I was glad to hear

3:03:40 ↗ about the checks and balances that the the Issaquah Community Association will have on uses

3:03:46 ↗ if this is converted because I think that's really important since they will be maintaining

3:03:51 ↗ it and they should be able to have a veto power if it's something that

3:03:56 ↗ is not maintainable or if it's not what they see as being a value for

3:04:02 ↗ their community. And so the last thing was I think in

3:04:08 ↗ the Issaquah Highlands as I see the Highlands, there's a lot of little parks, a

3:04:14 ↗ lot of them are coming about as developers build their developments and so

3:04:20 ↗ This being a relatively, this being a somewhat small park, I think it's in character

3:04:25 ↗ with the Highlands. There are a lot of these smaller parks, they're spread out. Lots

3:04:29 ↗ of people can use a park near their neighborhood and they have smaller yards so

3:04:34 ↗ they can use these community spaces. And again, I think that this is a use

3:04:39 ↗ that will be more attractive for the broader community as a park and I think

3:04:44 ↗ it is significant. safer option for people using for people walking or

3:04:50 ↗ people not in vehicles. So I see the park conversion as better

3:04:55 ↗ in line with the vision for the community overall. Thank you. I

3:05:01 ↗ have Councilmember Martz next. So It's funny how different people can see things differently.

3:05:07 ↗ Council Member Winterstein talked about not hearing anything tonight of reason to vote against it.

3:05:12 ↗ I'm on the exact opposite issue, which is that I'm not sure I've heard enough

3:05:17 ↗ to support it. As I wrote down what I feel like the little scorecard for

3:05:22 ↗ me is, first of all, I have public benefit. I've sort of plus question mark

3:05:28 ↗ because I feel like we have heard a lot of local folks that have that

3:05:33 ↗ aren't necessarily excited about it. It's not Cary Park, right? It's not going to be

3:05:37 ↗ a destination that people are going to be able to go to at sunset and

3:05:42 ↗ say, wow, I am so lucky I live in Issaquah. It's not going to have

3:05:47 ↗ that kind of access. And if if people do go to it at sunset, there's

3:05:51 ↗ houses right there. And those people are not going to want to see lots of

3:05:56 ↗ crowds showing up to do photography or whatever at sunset. So I've just, you know,

3:06:01 ↗ I've been in one of the Land and Shore meetings where we talked through this,

3:06:06 ↗ and I've just... i've been searching to hear for something to grasp hold of that

3:06:10 ↗ i was super excited about and and and i and i guess i didn't and

3:06:15 ↗ and to contrast that you know removing the street um i troubles me and i

3:06:20 ↗ get i get the issue that it's not necessarily built to the standard that the

3:06:25 ↗ highlands has nowadays but you know This body has been talking for a very long

3:06:30 ↗ time about how traffic is one of the biggest problems we have in the city

3:06:34 ↗ and I once suggested closing a bridge. I won't even say which one where but

3:06:38 ↗ the former mayor said because I said well what if we close that and then

3:06:42 ↗ we turn these streets into cul-de-sacs and he said you know tell there's no bad

3:06:47 ↗ ideas but that's a bad idea. And so I just, I reflexively, I have a

3:06:51 ↗ high bar to getting rid of a street during a time that I think that

3:06:56 ↗ this area will build out a lot more. And I think it's very possible that

3:07:02 ↗ in a few years when those other residential streets are full up, It'll be more

3:07:07 ↗ than 200 cars at a peak hour, and I have concerns that we'll miss that

3:07:11 ↗ street. Again, if it was a slam dunk on the benefit piece, I would say,

3:07:16 ↗ okay, and the fact that we're getting the street, we can deal with it. Process-wise,

3:07:20 ↗ not being part of the parks plan. I took a look at the checklist. I

3:07:25 ↗ think there's a number of things. Council Member Ramos said, we've got this checklist. I

3:07:29 ↗ think that it's not clear to me that this proposal meets the checklist that's in

3:07:34 ↗ the parks plan. And like Councilmember Hunt, I wonder about the connectivity. It's off kind

3:07:40 ↗ of a ways. I think it would be used locally, but I don't think you'd

3:07:45 ↗ get a lot of through traffic from people in the valley because it's quite a

3:07:50 ↗ ways west of the main traffic, the main bicycle and pedestrian traffic flow in the

3:07:55 ↗ Highlands. So I just come down to not feeling like there's enough It's not clearly

3:08:00 ↗ enough of a public benefit to address the negatives that I see with this. And

3:08:04 ↗ once more, if I saw more that I could grab hold of, if I thought

3:08:09 ↗ it was going to be a regional destination, if I thought it was going to

3:08:13 ↗ have real amenities that we don't see elsewhere in the Highlands, I could probably feel

3:08:18 ↗ more excited about it. So I am going to vote no this evening. Council Member

3:08:22 ↗ Batiste. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So I would just start by saying that this was

3:08:28 ↗ a complicated one for me and I had to read it a few different times

3:08:34 ↗ to really think about how I felt because I have sort of both sides of

3:08:39 ↗ the coin. I think that the biggest element that I keyed in on was getting

3:08:45 ↗ rid of the street, but Having the additional new road and

3:08:51 ↗ Ellis Drive really got me past that piece of this.

3:08:56 ↗ And I really do feel that after reading through all of the thoughtful work

3:09:02 ↗ done by the committee, that this is an added amenity to the residents and

3:09:08 ↗ the broader community. This is a park at no cost. And I feel like

3:09:14 ↗ it really is unique. I think that there are times when we are going

3:09:19 ↗ to have developments come forward and where there will be opportunities to develop

3:09:25 ↗ needed parks and while that does fall outside of what we were talking

3:09:31 ↗ about with the strategic plan, there's definitely the timing element with that. And

3:09:36 ↗ so I had to wrestle with that a little bit, but I, the,

3:09:43 ↗ The committee did a lot of work on this, a lot of deep dives.

3:09:49 ↗ I appreciated all the questions that were asked both by the community and the

3:09:54 ↗ committee. And again, I just feel like it's a unique opportunity in that area

3:10:00 ↗ and needed. And so I'll be supporting this. Is there any other discussion? Council

3:10:06 ↗ Member Ramos. I guess I got two questions. One for you

3:10:11 ↗ Lucy and one for Jeff because he's standing over there. First one we

3:10:17 ↗ talked about again, I say for me, The cost sometimes is changes the question

3:10:23 ↗ And just because something doesn't look like there's a cost you have a different discussion

3:10:28 ↗ to me That doesn't change it because there's a cost someone's gonna pay it whatever

3:10:33 ↗ I look at things always the same way Whether it's my dollar or somebody else's

3:10:37 ↗ dollar so the one question I have to follow that though is the Highlands you

3:10:42 ↗ talk about the Highlands taking on this cost and But you hinted at some point

3:10:47 ↗ about they have approval and so forth. But have they actually been jumping up and

3:10:51 ↗ down for joy saying yes, we want to take this this on when you when

3:10:56 ↗ you convert that that's something they really want and feel it is in an added

3:11:00 ↗ amenity to them and to their costs to pass on to their, you know, residents.

3:11:06 ↗ Jumping up and down, maybe not. But I would

3:11:12 ↗ say that in every conversation, both public and private

3:11:17 ↗ with Sarah Hoy, this has been part of what

3:11:23 ↗ she plans to be maintaining. So her responsibility is,

3:11:28 ↗ as she said at the last committee meeting, she's

3:11:34 ↗ neutral. And she is looking for ways to support the community decisions.

3:11:40 ↗ She's had an opportunity to participate in this planning process to shape it and she

3:11:45 ↗ will continue to do so going forward. So a little follow up to that is,

3:11:51 ↗ so say this goes on and then you get to the point and they go,

3:11:57 ↗ "Yeah, we don't really want to pay for that." They don't want to take on

3:12:02 ↗ the maintenance cost and the management of. Then where would that put us?

3:12:08 ↗ We'd probably be looking at the homeowners association that it would

3:12:14 ↗ be created for the Platte or for Westridge. So you're saying

3:12:20 ↗ we'd have to have someone else step up to pay the cost because the city

3:12:25 ↗ wouldn't just say, well, okay, I guess we got it now. I would not start

3:12:30 ↗ with the assumption that the city was going to do that. If at some point

3:12:35 ↗ it did not appear that there were other options, then we could certainly do that.

3:12:40 ↗ It isn't my decision. So I would be discussing that with the administration. Thank you.

3:12:46 ↗ Can I ask Jeff a question? Jeff, come on up. So, putting you on the

3:12:51 ↗ spot here, as I did earlier talking about the checklist and knowing what you know

3:12:57 ↗ about what we just said we want you to do in the future of all

3:13:03 ↗ these things. Standing there go through the checklist in your head. This was

3:13:09 ↗ brought to you basically as a I'm looking because we're saying I want to know

3:13:13 ↗ this is something that would fit through that strategic plan quickly You're better than I

3:13:18 ↗ am within the depth that you have How would you rate this is going through

3:13:23 ↗ that strategic plan right now as a project coming before you right now with the

3:13:27 ↗ approved strategic plan? I so i don't have all the questions of that checklist in

3:13:33 ↗ my head yes but knowing what i know and hearing this conversation and seeing the

3:13:39 ↗ opportunity also knowing in the strategic plan we have identified i think it's strategic project

3:13:44 ↗ number five I think it's under innovative action. We've identified the

3:13:50 ↗ need as residential begins to be built in West District, Ohio. The

3:13:56 ↗ need for a West District, Ohio neighborhood park is what we've identified

3:14:02 ↗ it as. Seeing this in its formation and location I'd say this fits

3:14:07 ↗ certainly as public benefit as connectivity. I see this more as a trail benefit than

3:14:13 ↗ necessarily I know we're calling it a park and I don't mean to dismiss that

3:14:19 ↗ word but it really has a from a general public use a connectivity feature as

3:14:24 ↗ we would begin thinking and filtering this through that process and knowing there's a need

3:14:30 ↗ to consider a neighborhood park in that area of a public scale neighborhood park

3:14:35 ↗ i would want to intersect this connectivity opportunity with how and where we might

3:14:41 ↗ locate that neighborhood park I'm kind of riffing here. I know. I put you in

3:14:47 ↗ a spot. I try not to riff too much, but that's, I think, some of

3:14:51 ↗ the thought process that we would be going through. Okay. So that's great, and thank

3:14:55 ↗ you, because that's what I wanted to hear from you. One little follow-up to that

3:15:00 ↗ is if the same proposal was here where you were taking it on, the builder

3:15:04 ↗ would build it, as many oftentimes with the city then takes ownership of a lot

3:15:08 ↗ of these facilities. would that change your mind in what you just said? So now

3:15:14 ↗ it's yours to take care of and maintain. - The thought process would be just

3:15:19 ↗ the same. Again, I think this is a connectivity benefit to, again, as that density

3:15:24 ↗ happens, I think we've identified development of a West Sisko Highlands Neighborhood Park as a

3:15:29 ↗ mid or a long-term, just realize that the density needs to be there, but I

3:15:34 ↗ think we'd be going through that similar feedback and thought process. - Any other

3:15:40 ↗ discussion, Council Member Ray? - This is just, don't go anywhere. So I'm unclear from

3:15:45 ↗ your answer to Council Member Ramos' question. Is this the West Highlands Park that's in

3:15:49 ↗ the strategic plan? - No. - Or is this something that-- - I would not--

3:15:54 ↗ - Okay, so that's something else. Okay, I just wasn't clear where you were going

3:15:59 ↗ on that one. Thank you. - Any other discussion? Seeing none, I will

3:16:04 ↗ call for the vote. All those in favor of approving the proposed conversion of

3:16:10 ↗ a portion of High Street to a multi-use trail with adjacent recreational amenities and

3:16:16 ↗ an overlook relying on a future UVDC meeting to identify appropriate and suitable recreational

3:16:22 ↗ amenities signify by saying aye. Aye. Hands for the ayes please. Thank you. Those

3:16:27 ↗ opposed? The vote passes 5 to 2 with Councilmember Martz and Ray opposed.

3:16:33 ↗ thank

3:16:45 ↗ you

3:16:57 ↗ lucy

3:17:10 ↗ oh

3:17:22 ↗ i'm

3:17:34 ↗ not

3:17:46 ↗ done

3:17:58 ↗ the

3:18:10 ↗ next

3:18:22 ↗ item

3:18:35 ↗ on

3:18:47 ↗ the

3:18:59 ↗ under

3:19:11 ↗ regular

3:19:23 ↗ business

3:19:35 ↗ today

3:19:47 ↗ and

3:19:59 ↗ actually

3:20:12 ↗ i

3:20:24 ↗ can

3:20:36 ↗ ask

3:20:48 ↗ would

3:21:00 ↗ you

3:21:12 ↗ like

3:21:24 ↗ to

3:21:37 ↗ have

3:21:49 ↗ a

3:22:01 ↗ five

3:22:13 ↗ minute

3:22:25 ↗ recess

3:22:37 ↗ recess

3:22:49 ↗ hours

3:23:02 ↗ okay

3:23:14 ↗ so

3:23:26 ↗ we

3:23:38 ↗ will

3:23:50 ↗ reconvene

3:24:02 ↗ at

3:24:14 ↗ 10

3:24:27 ↗ 25.

3:24:39 ↗ that

3:24:51 ↗ was

3:25:03 ↗ a

3:25:15 ↗ long

3:25:27 ↗ one

3:25:40 ↗ Thank you. We are back from our recess and the next item on our

3:25:46 ↗ agenda this evening is AB 7480, Westridge North Preliminary Platte. This is a quasi-judicial

3:25:51 ↗ hearing, quasi-judicial procedure with closed record. This item is coming out of the Council

3:25:57 ↗ Land and Shore Committee. Since this is closed record quasi-judicial hearing, we will begin

3:26:03 ↗ with an appearance of fairness doctrine disclosure by City Council members. And will

3:26:09 ↗ the City Attorney Jim Haney please explain and conduct the disclosure? Thank

3:26:15 ↗ you, Madam Mayor. As the Mayor said, this is a quasi-judicial action,

3:26:20 ↗ which means that the Council is to decide this matter based on

3:26:26 ↗ the evidence and testimony that was in the record before the UVDC

3:26:32 ↗ on the preliminary plat. The council acts like a judge would act

3:26:38 ↗ in that the council takes the evidence that is in the record and

3:26:44 ↗ applies the criteria that are applicable to preliminary plats and then makes a

3:26:50 ↗ decision based on those criteria. The fact that this is quasi-judicial means that

3:26:55 ↗ the appearance of fairness doctrine applies. And essentially what the appearance of fairness doctrine says

3:27:01 ↗ is that you not only have to be fair in fact in the treatment of

3:27:07 ↗ this application and in the treatment of any opposition to the application, but you must

3:27:13 ↗ conduct the proceedings in a way that would appear to be fair to a reasonably

3:27:19 ↗ disinterested person. The question that has to be asked overall is would

3:27:25 ↗ a reasonable disinterested person having no interest in these proceedings whatsoever

3:27:30 ↗ and knowing all that they could know about a council member's

3:27:36 ↗ background and relationship to this proposal Feel that you might not be able to

3:27:42 ↗ be fair and if the answer is that a reasonable person would think you might

3:27:47 ↗ not be able to Be fair then that potentially is an appearance of fairness a

3:27:52 ↗ challenge or a potential an appearance of fairness issue and would subject you to challenge

3:27:56 ↗ in these proceedings and So I think, Lucy, if you wanna pull up the

3:28:02 ↗ slide, there are a number of questions that need to be asked of council members

3:28:08 ↗ and that you have to ask yourselves in order to be sure that you are

3:28:14 ↗ acting properly under the appearance of fairness doctrine. These are listed here. First one,

3:28:20 ↗ does the decision maker have a personal interest, financial or otherwise, in which he

3:28:25 ↗ or she stands to gain or lose by the decision? If you do have

3:28:31 ↗ a personal interest in this matter, you need to disclose it and make sure that

3:28:36 ↗ that is on the record and potentially subject yourself to challenge. I don't see a

3:28:42 ↗ lot of people out here tonight who are ready to challenge you, but we'll run

3:28:47 ↗ through these anyway. Second, will there be any prospective employment for the decision maker or

3:28:52 ↗ his or her family as a result of the decision? Of course, if you're employed

3:28:57 ↗ by the applicant or some entity that has taken a specific position on this

3:29:03 ↗ proposal, you need to disclose that as well now. Is there any business competition

3:29:09 ↗ between the decision maker and any parties at the hearing? If you work for

3:29:15 ↗ or are in competition with the developer, with the property owner, or with any

3:29:21 ↗ of the people who have spoken for or against the proposal, you need to

3:29:27 ↗ disclose it now. Are there any familial relationships between the decision maker and

3:29:33 ↗ any of the parties at the hearing now? Obviously, the developer is a corporate entity

3:29:39 ↗ here, and so there's not gonna be a familial relationship there, but if you

3:29:45 ↗ do have a familial relationship with an officer or director of the applicant, or

3:29:51 ↗ if you have a familial relationship with any of the opponents or proponents of

3:29:56 ↗ this proposal whose names appear in the record, you need to disclose that now.

3:30:04 ↗ Does the decision maker owner control property near the subject property as

3:30:10 ↗ indicated by receiving a notice of application or meeting or hearing? People

3:30:16 ↗ who get notices of public hearings and notices of applications are people

3:30:22 ↗ who the law indicates are within a sphere that might be influenced by the

3:30:27 ↗ proposal or that might have been interest in the proposal or knowing what the proposal

3:30:33 ↗ means if you received a notice of the preliminary plat hearing or if you received

3:30:38 ↗ a notice of the preliminary plat there's a notice of application that goes out. or

3:30:44 ↗ you're within any of the radius where you get these types of notices for this

3:30:49 ↗ particular proposal, Westridge, you need to disclose that now. And then lastly, has the decision

3:30:55 ↗ maker made a final decision on the request before hearing any testimony or evidence? So

3:31:01 ↗ if you've already made up your mind and you don't feel that you can be

3:31:07 ↗ fair in these proceedings, you need to disclose that now. So Madam Mayor, with

3:31:13 ↗ those questions laid out, I would indicate that if any of the council

3:31:18 ↗ members wishes to make any disclosures regarding any of these questions, now is

3:31:24 ↗ the time to do so. Thank you. Do any council members wish to

3:31:29 ↗ make any disclosures? Seeing none. There being no disclosures, Madam Mayor, then I

3:31:35 ↗ think the next question is to ask whether anyone who is here present

3:31:40 ↗ this evening wishes to challenge any council member or the mayor based on

3:31:46 ↗ appearance of fairness. And if anyone wishes to challenge them, oh, we should actually

3:31:52 ↗ go through ex parte contacts as well, sorry. This is the last part of

3:31:58 ↗ the appearance of fairness doctrine. It says that while an application is pending before

3:32:04 ↗ you or is pending before the city that is quasi-judicial, you are not to

3:32:09 ↗ have contacts with the proponents or opponents of the project and discuss the project

3:32:15 ↗ with them while the project is pending except in any public hearing. So

3:32:21 ↗ if any council member has any had any ex parte communications,

3:32:26 ↗ that is communications outside the hearing process regarding this particular project

3:32:32 ↗ from proponents or opponents and that excludes staff, you should disclose

3:32:37 ↗ those now. Does anyone have anything to disclose? Seeing all head

3:32:43 ↗ nods no. Okay, so having seen all of the head nods no

3:32:48 ↗ and not hearing here heard any disclosure now's the time to ask if anyone here

3:32:54 ↗ wishes to challenge any of the Council members based on appearance of fairness. Anyone wish

3:33:00 ↗ to challenge. none madam mayor with no one having

3:33:06 ↗ stepped forward to challenge the council members all counts all objections based on the

3:33:12 ↗ questions that we've given and any disclosures that have been made are deemed waived

3:33:18 ↗ by the law and so all of the council members are able to sit

3:33:23 ↗ and decide this matter without any appearance of fairness challenge Thank

3:33:28 ↗ you, Mr. Haney. Next, I'd

3:33:34 ↗ like to invite Lucy Sloman

3:33:40 ↗ back to the lectern to

3:33:46 ↗ make a presentation. Thank you,

3:33:51 ↗ Mayor. So we've already talked

3:33:57 ↗ about the closed record. Excuse

3:34:03 ↗ me. I'm going to have

3:34:09 ↗ to pick a different one.

3:34:14 ↗ Somehow this is not the

3:34:20 ↗ right document. Oh, I know.

3:34:26 ↗ Apologies. So tonight we've already covered the conversion and we've

3:34:32 ↗ covered the quasi-judicial. I'm going to run through a series of sort of introductory

3:34:38 ↗ and framing slides about the plat. It's fairly brief. And then of course

3:34:43 ↗ we'll be open for questions. The context of the plat, as we've discussed,

3:34:49 ↗ images two and three show the nature of High Street. You can see

3:34:55 ↗ that the land is fairly high and looks out towards the view. When

3:35:01 ↗ you're down below, you can see the sort of way that it is

3:35:06 ↗ above the valley floor below it. The plat itself has

3:35:12 ↗ almost nine acres. It has 72 lots, which is a

3:35:18 ↗ reduction from the original 73. That was due to the

3:35:23 ↗ change of the Park Drive extension. There are eight tracks. The

3:35:29 ↗ two that I would particularly note are the recreational tracks at the north and

3:35:35 ↗ the south end. Every project in Issaquah Highlands has a neighborhood type and this

3:35:41 ↗ one is house and garden and the plat is adjacent to a steep slope

3:35:47 ↗ but not in it. The streets, there is a

3:35:52 ↗ center sub collector street that is the main road that serves. There

3:35:58 ↗ are two extensions, Park and Federal, which connect it to the street

3:36:04 ↗ system. High Street, the rest of Federal, and all of Ellis are

3:36:09 ↗ outside of the plat. And as I mentioned, part of the reason

3:36:15 ↗ for retaining a portion of High Street with vehicular circulation is to

3:36:20 ↗ serve the future neighborhood F of Lakeside. I'll just skip that.

3:36:26 ↗ Grades, there was a lot of discussion about grades.

3:36:32 ↗ The city currently allows a maximum of 12 percent grades. It used

3:36:38 ↗ to allow a maximum of 15 percent. All the routes that are

3:36:44 ↗ in the city, are in the plat, comply. I would add that

3:36:49 ↗ we did have the surveyor for the applicant go out and check

3:36:55 ↗ this portion of Ellis. It is under 10 percent, maybe nine something.

3:37:01 ↗ I realized today as I was putting my presentation together that it would be

3:37:07 ↗ good to look at High Street. So this isn't a surveyor's calculation. I used

3:37:13 ↗ our GIS contours and calculated it about eight or nine percent. So there will

3:37:19 ↗ always be some steep sections that will have to be navigated as part of

3:37:24 ↗ this. But in general, you can see that as we move further east, Iskwa

3:37:30 ↗ Highlands has slopes that are much steeper and as steep as Discovery Drive is, even

3:37:36 ↗ though it's outside of the plat. And this is kind of the nature of our

3:37:42 ↗ foothills community. It's part of our beauty, but there are some challenges that come with

3:37:48 ↗ developing it. Street a is a sub collector as I mentioned with

3:37:53 ↗ on street parking both sides. 2 lanes, it's narrow but functional and include

3:37:59 ↗ some traffic calming elements such as it's sort of lazy s shape. There

3:38:05 ↗ will be curb bulbs where there are trail crossings hydrants and intersections assuming

3:38:11 ↗ that it doesn't impact the ability of say fire trucks and garbage trucks

3:38:17 ↗ to get into turn into the street. Streets like this generally do not have

3:38:23 ↗ marked crosswalks, but because there are pedestrian crossings at to get to High Street,

3:38:29 ↗ those trail crossings will be marked both by the curb bulbs, but by crosswalks,

3:38:35 ↗ but also by crosswalks. There's a lot of discussion

3:38:40 ↗ about Park Drive extension that was not in the applicant's original proposal. In

3:38:46 ↗ studying the grades further while we were reviewing the plat, we realized that

3:38:52 ↗ it was possible for this extension to occur. It originally went to the

3:38:58 ↗ Commission as a VUNRF. That was staff's recommendation after public comment and the

3:39:04 ↗ Commission's discussions. they changed the condition to add segregated pedestrian facilities. So those may

3:39:10 ↗ be segregated with curbs, they may be segregated with bollards. We will work

3:39:16 ↗ on the design with the applicant, but we will not have a shared

3:39:22 ↗ surface with pedestrians and automobiles sharing the area. The pedestrian system, there will

3:39:28 ↗ be all the streets have sidewalk on both sides except for High Street.

3:39:34 ↗ And then there is a continuation of the streets, as I mentioned, to provide

3:39:40 ↗ through block passages called neighborhood trails that will connect through to High Street and

3:39:46 ↗ kind of break down these large super blocks that were originally created when this

3:39:52 ↗ was going to be Microsoft's campus. As I mentioned, there are two

3:39:58 ↗ parks in the Platte, one at the north and one at the south. These are

3:40:03 ↗ not the-- Hang on, we have a question from Council Member Ramos. -Go back one

3:40:09 ↗ slide. -Sure. You said all streets have sidewalks on both sides except High Street. High

3:40:15 ↗ Street has a sidewalk on one side. Okay, so you're coming off the trail there.

3:40:22 ↗ Right. So there right now when you come off the trail, there's a sidewalk on

3:40:27 ↗ the south side where the uses are. There was not a trail built next to

3:40:32 ↗ the gravel pit because that was not was determined not to be a place that

3:40:37 ↗ we wanted to place pedestrians. So I'm just I'm just trying to picture this. So

3:40:42 ↗ you're coming up with the trail there. The trail will go on and it'll just

3:40:46 ↗ be on the south side of high street to a curb there and no nothing

3:40:51 ↗ on the other side. Right. which will not, it'll be sort of

3:40:57 ↗ like the south end as well. There will be facilities on one side

3:41:02 ↗ but not the other. Thank you. Thank you, Lucy. So two parks, I

3:41:08 ↗ think we've talked about those. These, the requirement for further development

3:41:14 ↗ and design of parks will happen with those the future land use

3:41:20 ↗ permit and work with the ihca because they would be maintaining those

3:41:25 ↗ as well easements. I bring this up. This was not of a great

3:41:31 ↗ deal of interest to the UVDC, but because the approval of the Platte approves these

3:41:36 ↗ changes to easements, I just want to make sure that they are clear. I'll start

3:41:40 ↗ with what seems to me to be the easiest one, which is condition number 20,

3:41:46 ↗ easement three, which is a site distance easement over this tract right

3:41:51 ↗ here. The purpose of the site distance easement is to ensure that

3:41:57 ↗ drivers heading westbound can see drivers heading southbound and vice versa. Predominantly,

3:42:03 ↗ it limits plants and grading and other objects in a certain zone

3:42:09 ↗ to ensure you have good sight lines. The second easement that

3:42:15 ↗ would be changed is related to Ellis. When Microsoft was originally planning their

3:42:20 ↗ campus here, the assumption was that Ellis would continue straight. And so certain

3:42:26 ↗ easements were recorded where the red line is. But in fact, because Ellis

3:42:32 ↗ is going to be curving to achieve better grades, shallower grades for that

3:42:37 ↗ road, These will be abandoned in favor of the utilities and

3:42:43 ↗ facilities that are going to be built within Ellis. The first easement

3:42:49 ↗ on here is the wackiest. I'm going to actually make this bigger

3:42:55 ↗ so hopefully it's easier to see. When High Street was built, the

3:43:01 ↗ on-street parking was reserved. It was not dedicated to the city. That

3:43:07 ↗ was because Port Blakely wanted to allow, had negotiated with the mini storage, Isquah Highlands

3:43:12 ↗ mini storage, that they could park their trucks there. But those are considered signs, and

3:43:18 ↗ so we would not allow them to park their trucks there. So they retained this

3:43:24 ↗ as a separate, and you can kind of see it here in that

3:43:30 ↗ in our GIS that this is a separate element. Part of the easement said

3:43:36 ↗ that when this area developed, up to 100 feet of the easement could be

3:43:42 ↗ given back to the city and made right-of-way because knowing that there would be

3:43:48 ↗ intersections, you don't want to have reserved bands crossing an intersection, it would impair

3:43:53 ↗ its functionality. The way the condition 18 reads is that that there's a hydrant here.

3:43:59 ↗ We need to make sure there are good sight lines and turning radiuses. So the

3:44:05 ↗ applicant is required to do those studies to determine how much of this needs to

3:44:10 ↗ be given back. I've spoken with Bob Gregg who owns Isquahilan's mini storage. He's aware

3:44:16 ↗ of it. He agrees that that is a provision of the easement and is looking

3:44:21 ↗ forward to working with the applicant. And as I mentioned, there

3:44:27 ↗ are three alternatives that were included. Alternative three was the one that no one liked

3:44:33 ↗ because it-- One second, Lucy. Oh, I'm sorry. Was there a question? Sure. Can we

3:44:39 ↗ talk about that, the goofy easement for a second? Yeah. So I actually parked there

3:44:44 ↗ to fly my drone the other day. There's no signs that say that it's anything

3:44:50 ↗ private. It's just-- people might park there right so but it's private property it

3:44:56 ↗ has an easement that allows bob greg from the mini storage to park his trucks

3:45:02 ↗ there so i you know um it's called an easement but it does show up

3:45:07 ↗ more like a tract the recorded doc i think the important thing is that the

3:45:13 ↗ recorded document allows for the renegotiation of the last hundred feet But I don't

3:45:19 ↗ think, you know, the interesting thing in terms of parking there is I believe that

3:45:25 ↗ it is maybe not exclusive. So that's why it's not signed for the exclusive use

3:45:31 ↗ of the storage. It just allows them to park you there without being in conflict

3:45:37 ↗ with our sign code. All right. Thank you.

3:45:43 ↗ So as I mentioned with Alternative 3 set aside because neither the

3:45:49 ↗ community nor the UVDC supported that alternative, there were two. I think

3:45:55 ↗ having done the previous vote on High Street, that is a settled

3:46:01 ↗ matter, but that was part of the elements that we considered with

3:46:07 ↗ the plot. And that concludes my presentation. Thank you, Lucy. Questions? Ms.

3:46:13 ↗ Member Hunt. Can you speak to the geotechnical review that has

3:46:19 ↗ been done for this plot and will be done for this plot? Sure.

3:46:25 ↗ So as I mentioned, there was a geotechnical study that was performed to

3:46:31 ↗ evaluate the steep slope. along this edge in association with what

3:46:36 ↗ was called the town center plat that included High Street. Additionally, the

3:46:42 ↗ applicant performed a geotechnical evaluation of all of Westridge, which has been

3:46:48 ↗ reviewed by staff. And then additionally, they will provide geotechnical information on

3:46:54 ↗ each lot as the building permits are submitted. Okay,

3:47:00 ↗ thank you. One of the conditions, so you mentioned that a few conditions

3:47:06 ↗ had changed over the course of the plat, I guess. And so one

3:47:12 ↗ of them was condition 25, which you didn't talk about, but it's in

3:47:17 ↗ our packet. And that's the one having to do with corner lots.

3:47:23 ↗ And so I wondered about that, why that was changed, if

3:47:29 ↗ you could walk through that. And then also the corner activity

3:47:35 ↗ areas are very small. And so I wondered if you could

3:47:41 ↗ speak about what is the proposed use of those activity areas

3:47:47 ↗ and if there are any other options that could make those

3:47:52 ↗ more usable. So it's, I'm just in the

3:47:58 ↗ area. I didn't remember. Oh, I know

3:48:04 ↗ what changed. Originally, the condition 25 had

3:48:10 ↗ some specifics about lot widths. which

3:48:15 ↗ as the applicant was accommodating the Voonerf, which was

3:48:21 ↗ the extension of Park Drive that then evolved to

3:48:27 ↗ having segregated pedestrian facilities. They asked about the basis

3:48:33 ↗ for the 45-foot lot width where there were corners.

3:48:39 ↗ and other exposed sides of buildings and question the basis for the 45

3:48:45 ↗ feet and asked to have that removed while retaining all the enhancements on

3:48:50 ↗ those sides that are part of the development agreement. And so the specificity

3:48:56 ↗ of the lots and the kind of improvements that need to be placed

3:49:02 ↗ on those sides are retained, just not the lot width.

3:49:08 ↗ Does that make sense? And then just to give you a

3:49:13 ↗ sense, so these are the lots, the ones with the red

3:49:19 ↗ dots are the lots where because they have exposed sides, they're

3:49:25 ↗ required to add porches or additional windows and trim that we

3:49:31 ↗ will work through with the ARC. Okay. I think

3:49:36 ↗ maybe a separate question actually is about those corner

3:49:42 ↗ areas, the activity areas that are outside of the...

3:49:48 ↗ These too small. Right. So one of the things...

3:49:53 ↗ Let's see if I have a good... So my

3:49:59 ↗ question is, because they are very small and I'm

3:50:05 ↗ wondering what the proposed use is and if there are

3:50:11 ↗ any options for them that might be on the table.

3:50:16 ↗ So, a couple of things. They were originally shown, I

3:50:22 ↗ think I probably have a better slide of those.

3:50:31 ↗ So they were shown as very kind of passive spaces

3:50:37 ↗ with potentially gathering spaces for community events. I do think

3:50:43 ↗ that in single family neighborhoods, they are somewhat different because

3:50:48 ↗ people have backyards as compared to the townhouse projects where

3:50:54 ↗ there's more limited space. or much more limited open space. And

3:51:00 ↗ so I think the staff saw the value of this is only a small

3:51:06 ↗ portion of track D as you can see here it's fairly large and they're

3:51:11 ↗ just showing the southern portion. I think our thought was that really the trail

3:51:17 ↗ should remain closer to the road And so that the green space was

3:51:23 ↗ more open and that the trail buffered any active uses on the trail.

3:51:29 ↗ And that a larger green space is valuable immediately adjacent to the neighborhood.

3:51:35 ↗ However, just having a few benches and some art while visually pleasant, may

3:51:41 ↗ not really provide the right options. We did not identify alternatives because

3:51:47 ↗ again, we were planning to sit down with the IHCA and sort

3:51:53 ↗ out some of those. In this particular location, the next,

3:51:59 ↗ Area is a pea patch and then they there are two large green

3:52:05 ↗ areas that are on top of vaults So, you know the truth may

3:52:11 ↗ be that this may not be appropriate as a grassy area Given that

3:52:17 ↗ so I think we probably haven't taken it as far as we will

3:52:22 ↗ and last question that you talked a little bit about the Wohner versus

3:52:28 ↗ the neighborhood trail I'm unclear on um unclear on

3:52:34 ↗ why some are wounder from summer neighborhood trail i'm

3:52:39 ↗ sorry that i've thoroughly confused people with my discussion

3:52:45 ↗ of vuner so um i had the same problem

3:52:50 ↗ at the committee um so originally we had streets

3:52:56 ↗ which were high federal ellis and then street a

3:53:03 ↗ In addition to further break down the blocks, there was a pedestrian

3:53:09 ↗ trail here, one that continued Federal, and one that broke down this

3:53:14 ↗ large block between Federal and Ellis. Originally, after staff reviewed,

3:53:20 ↗ we proposed a Voonerf here. So that being the shared

3:53:25 ↗ surface. The UVDC felt that there was potentially too much

3:53:31 ↗ traffic on that road to be appropriate for cars and

3:53:36 ↗ pedestrians to share it and modified the approval condition to

3:53:42 ↗ segregate pedestrian and vehicular functions. So there are no

3:53:47 ↗ VNRFs that remain within the plat as it came

3:53:53 ↗ forward from the UVDC or Land and Shore. So

3:53:59 ↗ is it in the proposed plat, is it then

3:54:04 ↗ a a shared surface for cars and pedestrians, but it has a

3:54:10 ↗ separation for pedestrian and cars? So there, I wouldn't call it a shared

3:54:16 ↗ surface because there would be either bollards or a curb that was separating

3:54:21 ↗ the pedestrians from the vehicular travel lanes. It might be a single plane. for

3:54:27 ↗ instance, to make it a kind of, one thing that was important in

3:54:33 ↗ reviewing the plat was that if Park Drive is approved with it being

3:54:39 ↗ continued, that the difference between the non-residential uses and the residential neighborhood

3:54:44 ↗ needed to be distinct so that a driver that was continuing into

3:54:50 ↗ the residential area recognized they were entering a different kind of roadway,

3:54:56 ↗ changing their behavior, maybe thinking, "I'm not meaning to go to the

3:55:01 ↗ houses. I'm going to stay out here." Mostly we're looking for a change

3:55:07 ↗ in character while retaining the functionality and safety which would result in having the

3:55:13 ↗ pedestrians in a separate area. Okay. Council Member Ramos. Just trying to follow up

3:55:18 ↗ with that because I guess you haven't quite said it. Because up there it

3:55:24 ↗ still has the blue, which I can't tell the difference on the blue. So

3:55:30 ↗ to me it looks like that's still shown as a owner. Right. And

3:55:35 ↗ here... You're really saying it's a street. Yes. Maybe a not quite typical street, but

3:55:41 ↗ it's not a street with two sidewalks. And part of the thing that I've suffered

3:55:46 ↗ through trying to judge was how much I should change my slides since we're working

3:55:51 ↗ with a closed record. So I reused some of my slides without updating them. That

3:55:56 ↗ may have been a poor choice on my part because you're right, it still is

3:56:01 ↗ labeled Voonerf even though it is not a Voonerf. My apologies. But you're

3:56:07 ↗ saying it's not going to be a typical street either.

3:56:13 ↗ Right. It'd be something unique, but some safety separation of

3:56:18 ↗ some sort. Exactly. Questions? Any more discussion? Ms. Van Brouwen.

3:56:24 ↗ On the street that is, I'm not sure what the

3:56:30 ↗ name is, but the down one on the slide, that

3:56:36 ↗ street. So that street, also will have us it will

3:56:42 ↗ have a sidewalk on either side but less protected than this one will

3:56:48 ↗ look um like a more traditional street it will have two lanes some

3:56:53 ↗ sections have parking some sections don't curb planting strip sidewalks symmetrical okay and

3:56:59 ↗ i'm i'm trying to understand so you said the uvdc had had

3:57:05 ↗ concerns about a lot of traffic coming down on these

3:57:11 ↗ side streets. And so is that primarily concern about the

3:57:16 ↗ north? I'm not sure if they're northern, but they're on

3:57:22 ↗ the top of the orientation of this slide. The Park

3:57:27 ↗ Drive is one way westbound, which is advantageous for the

3:57:33 ↗ non-residential uses. It will allow a connection for both, for all modes,

3:57:39 ↗ you know, peds, bikes, cars, to continue into the neighborhood. But we didn't

3:57:45 ↗ want cars to just think that they could go endlessly, continuously into the

3:57:51 ↗ residential neighborhood without both, probably with signs, but also with design, communicating that

3:57:57 ↗ this was a different neighborhood that they were entering. So we

3:58:02 ↗ don't anticipate a lot of traffic, but we anticipate that there

3:58:08 ↗ will be traffic and that that should indicate a change in

3:58:14 ↗ character, change in driving, a change in use. Are there any

3:58:19 ↗ other questions? We're going to entertain a motion. Yes. So this

3:58:25 ↗ is the committee's recommendation. Move to approve the westward

3:58:31 ↗ north preliminary plat file number PP 17-00001. Is there

3:58:36 ↗ a second? Second. It's been moved and seconded. Is

3:58:42 ↗ there any discussion? Council Member Goodman. Thank you. I

3:58:48 ↗ just wanted to, the same comments were made at

3:58:54 ↗ committee, I don't recall exactly who made them, but about

3:59:00 ↗ the thoroughness of the preliminary plat and the proposal. So

3:59:05 ↗ I just wanted to say thank you. Any other comments?

3:59:11 ↗ Okay. If not, I will call for the vote. The

3:59:16 ↗ motion is to approve the Westridge North Preliminary Plat File

3:59:22 ↗ Number PP17-00001. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed?

3:59:28 ↗ The motion carries unanimously. Next and last order of regular business is AB7645,

3:59:34 ↗ extending the effective date of central Issaquah plan boundary adjustments, which would be

3:59:40 ↗ an amendment to ordinance number 2838. This is the first time this item

3:59:46 ↗ has been before council. I'd like to invite Keith Niven, economic and development

3:59:52 ↗ services director, to make a presentation.

4:00:05 ↗ Somebody close my file. That's

4:00:11 ↗ what you get for going

4:00:16 ↗ last. Right. All right. Sorry.

4:00:22 ↗ One second. Good evening, Madam

4:00:28 ↗ Mayor, City Council. This evening

4:00:34 ↗ we have Agenda Bill 7645,

4:00:39 ↗ which is Central Lousiqua Boundary

4:00:45 ↗ Adjustment. So with the adoption of Ordinance 2838, which was related

4:00:51 ↗ to Central Issaquah Visions, we removed two areas from Central Issaquah. One area

4:00:57 ↗ that was zoned intensive commercial and the other area which was destination retail.

4:01:03 ↗ And that ordinance provided that we put replacement zoning in place by the

4:01:09 ↗ 23rd of August of this year. So looking at that on

4:01:15 ↗ the map, really what we're talking about is East Gilman, which is this

4:01:20 ↗ area right here, which is our destination retail area, and then a portion

4:01:26 ↗ of the area on the north side of I-90 that's owned Intensive Commercial.

4:01:31 ↗ Both of these were recommended to come out of Central Issaquah because after

4:01:37 ↗ the Planning Policy Commission, studied the neighborhood visions really came to the conclusion that this

4:01:43 ↗ part of central is a car really wasn't the same as the rest of central

4:01:49 ↗ is a crime really should be taken out. So what we're talking about is this

4:01:54 ↗ is going to a very specific parcel map. Hopefully it shows up up on the

4:02:00 ↗ screen. So the areas on the north side of 90 are these parcels here. And

4:02:06 ↗ then on the south side is basically the north side of East Gilman and the

4:02:12 ↗ south side of East Gilman. And so What we're asking for this evening is

4:02:18 ↗ to give us some more time to finish those recommended zoning changes before

4:02:23 ↗ we bring it back to the city council. And given the fact that

4:02:29 ↗ August is coming quickly and I'm not sure whether we're having the second

4:02:35 ↗ council meeting in August, that leaves us maybe one council meeting left after

4:02:41 ↗ this one. So tonight, all we're asking for is an extension on the

4:02:47 ↗ timeline for this. So Keith as part of your presentation since we

4:02:53 ↗ did have business owners come in tonight to from this area and address the

4:02:58 ↗ council during audience comments I wonder if you could just provide some background on

4:03:04 ↗ what the process has been since the ordinance was adopted in terms of what

4:03:10 ↗ letters were sent how the property owners reacted what follow-up meetings were had

4:03:15 ↗ that would probably be helpful. Sure, absolutely. So the department sent

4:03:21 ↗ out letters to all the affected property owners, letting them know

4:03:27 ↗ that they were being taken out of Central Issaquah and that

4:03:33 ↗ the new zoning regulations were going to be proposed. And for

4:03:38 ↗ the north side of 90, The changes, basically what we assumed was

4:03:44 ↗ a rational course of action would be to take them back to what

4:03:50 ↗ their zoning was before they were brought into central Issaquah. For the north

4:03:56 ↗ side of 90, that would still be intensive commercial. Those properties were zoned

4:04:01 ↗ intensive commercial before central Issaquah. They just got basically bumped up in intensity

4:04:07 ↗ when we added them into central Issaquah. On the south side, this

4:04:13 ↗ area that currently is zoned destination retail, it was zoned straight retail. And destination

4:04:19 ↗ retail was a new category that was created with Central Issaquah. So the letters

4:04:25 ↗ that went out to these property owners suggested that what the city was contemplating

4:04:31 ↗ was to take them back to straight retail zoning. And the biggest concern

4:04:36 ↗ that was expressed to staff was that the impervious surface limits that

4:04:42 ↗ would go along with that prior zoning were significantly less than what

4:04:48 ↗ was allowed within Central. And so we had our first

4:04:54 ↗ planning policy commission. We had a number of property owners, both from the

4:04:59 ↗ intensive commercial and the destination retail, come to that meeting, express their concerns

4:05:05 ↗ about building setbacks and building heights and impervious surfaces. And so staff made

4:05:11 ↗ a commitment that we would sit down with them and talk through their

4:05:17 ↗ concerns and try to come up with a positive outcome

4:05:22 ↗ that would be maybe supported by the property owners. We

4:05:28 ↗ did that prior to the second Planning Policy Commission meeting.

4:05:34 ↗ And then we had that second Planning Policy Commission meeting

4:05:40 ↗ and then the agenda bill was due. So that's the

4:05:46 ↗ process that we went through. Thank you. Any questions?

4:05:53 ↗ - That's member Ray. - So what's the impact

4:05:58 ↗ of property owners in these two areas of delaying

4:06:04 ↗ this for, 90 days? Is that what you asked for? Yeah.

4:06:10 ↗ So good question. What I've heard, so I've talked to Tyson and Bernard

4:06:15 ↗ from BOEMS. I've talked to John from the Grange. I've talked to Sam

4:06:21 ↗ Kyle. And I've talked to three or four property owners from the intensive

4:06:26 ↗ commercial side. The concern I heard related to the delay was just not knowing that

4:06:32 ↗ predictability piece. I think you heard that this evening from Bernard. It's, you know, as

4:06:38 ↗ a business owner, you kind of want to know what your rules are because then

4:06:44 ↗ you can plan and make decisions from there. I think We've we've kind of created

4:06:49 ↗ a little bit of a bouncing ball here and I think their desire would be

4:06:55 ↗ that we can get this settled as quickly as possible if they were to ask.

4:07:01 ↗ Some of our most yet now question so normally if we try to down zone

4:07:07 ↗ something there would be difficulty in doing that. Yeah, and some cuts in this case

4:07:13 ↗ were you because we're just saying is we have zone and we're down zoning back

4:07:19 ↗ to original There's and not making a decision yet and the recommendation

4:07:24 ↗ of course that's an OK process. So so that's where we started the

4:07:30 ↗ process. What came out of planning policy Commission was a a close cousin

4:07:36 ↗ to what they had in central so even though there was some additional

4:07:42 ↗ setbacks. that would apply to the properties. The heights and the impervious levels were being

4:07:47 ↗ proposed to be the same. So that still has to come to council. You guys

4:07:52 ↗ need to deliberate on that, but that's what came out of Planning Policy Commission. It's

4:07:57 ↗ not just straight back, it's still going to be... We found a place in the

4:08:02 ↗ middle. Maybe not quite the middle, maybe a little bit high of the middle. But

4:08:07 ↗ that's kind of where we landed. Thank you. Additional questions? Council Member

4:08:12 ↗ Hunt. Okay, so Planning Policy Commission had that recommendation

4:08:18 ↗ that was similar to the zoning in Central Issaquah.

4:08:24 ↗ and that is also the recommendation that was you talked about working with the business

4:08:28 ↗ owners and sort of coming to it mutually and we heard some public comment about

4:08:33 ↗ that today so that was the same sort of close cousin as you said to

4:08:37 ↗ the central squad so um am i right then that really this is just this

4:08:42 ↗ is to give time to make the that zoning change in a comprehensive packet to

4:08:46 ↗ come before council, but it has already sort of gone through the process of where

4:08:51 ↗ that proposal would, what that proposal would look like. Yes. Additional questions? I've got a

4:08:56 ↗ couple. Let me do Council President Martz, followed by Council Member Ray. Nope, I thought

4:09:02 ↗ there weren't any more questions. Oh, you were going to make a motion? Oh, no,

4:09:07 ↗ I just have one more question. So what is the process we're going to go

4:09:12 ↗ through now, between now and... November. So bring this to closure sure and

4:09:18 ↗ can we short circuit that process. It can be as short as

4:09:23 ↗ you want. So what we had anticipated was coming back. Unfortunately, your

4:09:29 ↗ guys's calendars pretty busy. What we were hoping to do is come

4:09:35 ↗ back on September 24th and with an ID and not an AB and

4:09:41 ↗ talk through that process a little bit more deliberately about where what we did with

4:09:46 ↗ planning policy commission and the property owners and get a sense from you all whether

4:09:52 ↗ that would be supportable if so then now get turned into agenda bill go to

4:09:58 ↗ land and shore and come back but that that conversation really has to wait till

4:10:03 ↗ September 24th was the first open date we could find. Any other questions? Akeet,

4:10:09 ↗ just one more thing to make sure that it's clear to property owners that

4:10:15 ↗ are either here tonight or watching. The Moving it out of the central Issaquah plan

4:10:21 ↗ where it would have been covered by urban zoning and reverting it back to suburban

4:10:26 ↗ zoning was what upset the owners of the property and that the city is striving

4:10:32 ↗ to find an urban standard that fits outside of the central Issaquah. Correct. That is

4:10:37 ↗ the goal of the city. Right. Thank you. Any other questions? being none i

4:10:42 ↗ will ask for a motion yes thank you madam mayor i move to

4:10:48 ↗ adopt ordinance number 2842 amending section 6 of ordinance number 2838 in order

4:10:54 ↗ to delay the removal of property zone destination retail and intensive commercial from

4:11:00 ↗ the central isaac plan boundary until november 30th 2018 to provide for the

4:11:06 ↗ further consideration of zoning regulations second it's been moved and seconded is

4:11:12 ↗ there any further discussion councilmember winterstein yeah in the this may actually be a

4:11:18 ↗ question in the proposed ordinance in the whereas clauses it does i'm glad to

4:11:23 ↗ see it in here it does acknowledge that there were two ppc meetings i

4:11:29 ↗ think it should be understood that those were two extra ppc meetings their ppc

4:11:35 ↗ actually had three meetings in june And so the one on the 21st where this

4:11:41 ↗ was addressed that Keith talked about, and then another one on the 28th where they

4:11:46 ↗ actually took action there was a vote on that on that I've actually watched

4:11:51 ↗ that video of that meeting and I've seen I have up kind of the

4:11:57 ↗ material that they had here so that close cousin the details are all here

4:12:03 ↗ so PPC did actually take some action we also heard tonight from Mr.

4:12:09 ↗ Mabbitt, John Mabbitt from owner of the Grange. And I

4:12:14 ↗ think he and also Bernard from Bomes, they should get

4:12:20 ↗ an answer. I think John said it more clearly, I

4:12:25 ↗ thought, that at the conclusion of that meeting of the ppc on

4:12:31 ↗ the 21st it seemed like there was an agreement between the property owners

4:12:37 ↗ staff and ppc in fact ppc voted in favor of the recommendation from

4:12:43 ↗ staff and then this didn't come forward now we're asking for more time and

4:12:48 ↗ i think the question was they asked was you know what happened um it felt

4:12:53 ↗ like it was a it was done at the conclusion in terms of of a

4:12:59 ↗ formal recommendation by PPC in the May 28th, excuse me, the June 28th meeting, and

4:13:04 ↗ then now we're just asking for more time instead of actually just following through up.

4:13:09 ↗ So I think that was the question, and I think that would be, I think

4:13:13 ↗ that's a fair question for those that are involved, 'cause I know some of these

4:13:18 ↗ property owners invested their own time, some of them are here, to go to those

4:13:23 ↗ meetings, those extra PPC meetings that they had. So I was wondering

4:13:29 ↗ if that, you know, in the proposed, in the

4:13:34 ↗ ordinance, it says, the request for additional time for

4:13:40 ↗ consideration of the proposed zoning due to concerns about

4:13:46 ↗ the overall timing of the process and I assume

4:13:52 ↗ concerns about the impacts of the proposed zoning changes.

4:13:58 ↗ So I was wondering if we could just hear a little bit more about what

4:14:03 ↗ the concerns about the overall timing and what the concerns about the proposed zoning changes

4:14:07 ↗ are. Especially that second one, it says concerns about the proposed zoning changes. So again,

4:14:12 ↗ this is something that went through PPC. And so now we're being asked for more

4:14:17 ↗ time because now there are concerns about the proposed zoning changes. Sure. I'm actually going

4:14:22 ↗ to give Keith a pass on this one. Okay. The reason you don't have an

4:14:27 ↗ agenda bill in front of you tonight was because there wasn't one prepared that had

4:14:32 ↗ information that laid out all of the differences in standards. so I think staff did

4:14:38 ↗ an amazing job sitting down with the community and doing it on a really fast

4:14:42 ↗ turnaround time but there wasn't enough time to produce an agenda bill to put in

4:14:47 ↗ a packet tonight that could clearly explain everything that you heard so we had no

4:14:51 ↗ bill to present to you kudos to staff for being thoughtful and bringing the PPC

4:14:56 ↗ and the business community together fast enough but we didn't have an agenda bill to

4:15:01 ↗ bring you It's not so much about that the discussions that they had

4:15:06 ↗ weren't good or aren't leading us in the direction we're going, it's that we had

4:15:12 ↗ nothing in our packet for you. Okay, so the language that's

4:15:18 ↗ we're asked to I appreciate that that we're being asked to approve says that there

4:15:24 ↗ are concerns about the proposed and zoning changes I don't know what those concerns are

4:15:29 ↗ under the discussion coming from PPC creating a new zoning category for the first time

4:15:35 ↗ in the city Whereas we may have a zoning category that already exists that provides

4:15:41 ↗ the standards that the property owners asked for which was It had to

4:15:46 ↗ do with permeability impervious surface parking spaces all the rest

4:15:52 ↗ may already exist without Council having to create a new

4:15:58 ↗ category of zoning. Okay. Okay, I I'm That's the first

4:16:04 ↗ I've heard that okay. I just I just don't I

4:16:10 ↗ still don't know what the concerns about the proposed zoning

4:16:16 ↗ changes are so It's instead of creating something new there

4:16:22 ↗ could be we could just apply something that already exists

4:16:28 ↗ Are there any other questions?

4:16:36 ↗ If there's no further discussion, all those in favor of adopting ordinance number

4:16:42 ↗ 2842 amending section 6 of the ordinance number 2838 in order to delay

4:16:48 ↗ the removal of property zone destination retail and intensive commercial from the central

4:16:54 ↗ Issaquah plan boundary until November 30th, 2018 to provide for further consideration of

4:17:00 ↗ zoning regulations signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Passes unanimously. The next order

4:17:06 ↗ of business is good of the order. Do council members have anything for good of

4:17:11 ↗ the order? I have a few little items for good of the order. On July

4:17:17 ↗ 24th there'll be a special council meeting at 6 p.m. with an executive session to

4:17:23 ↗ discuss collective bargaining. Also on July 24th will be the Council of the Whole meeting

4:17:29 ↗ at 6:30 p.m. and the potential agenda items include the 2019 Community Fund Capacity Grant

4:17:34 ↗ recommendations, and the senior center letter of intent status update. August 6

4:17:40 ↗ will be a regular council meeting and potential agenda items include geotechnical report

4:17:46 ↗ on the city parcel, homeless response system and regional affordable housing efforts and

4:17:52 ↗ an interlocal agreement with Eastside Fire and Rescue on per and polyfluoroalkyl substances

4:17:58 ↗ or PFAS field study. That's all I had for good of the order.

4:18:05 ↗ There

4:18:21 ↗ is

4:18:38 ↗ an

4:18:55 ↗ executive

4:19:12 ↗ session

4:19:29 ↗ this

4:19:46 ↗ evening.

4:20:02 ↗ It

4:20:19 ↗ will

4:20:36 ↗ be

4:20:53 ↗ held

4:21:10 ↗ to

4:21:26 ↗ discuss

4:21:43 ↗ pending

4:22:00 ↗ and

4:22:17 ↗ potential

4:22:34 ↗ litigation

4:22:51 ↗ per

4:23:07 ↗ 42.30.110

4:23:24 ↗ per

4:23:41 ↗ N1

4:23:58 ↗ per

4:24:15 ↗ NI

4:24:32 ↗ and

4:24:48 ↗ this

4:25:05 ↗ item

4:25:22 ↗ is

4:25:39 ↗ expected

4:25:56 ↗ to

4:26:12 ↗ last

4:26:29 ↗ 15

4:26:46 ↗ minutes.

4:27:03 ↗ Action

4:27:20 ↗ is

4:27:37 ↗ anticipated

4:27:53 ↗ to

4:28:10 ↗ follow

4:28:27 ↗ an

4:28:44 ↗ open

4:29:01 ↗ session.

4:29:18 ↗ The

4:29:34 ↗ council

4:29:51 ↗ will

4:30:08 ↗ recess

4:30:25 ↗ into

4:30:42 ↗ executive

4:30:58 ↗ session

4:31:15 ↗ at

4:31:32 ↗ 11:18.

4:31:49 ↗ I

4:32:06 ↗ recognize.

4:32:25 ↗ I'll just look at baby pictures. Call the meeting back to order at 11:33 p.m.

4:32:30 ↗ And would somebody care to make a motion? Thank you, Madam Mayor. I move that

4:32:35 ↗ we authorize the Mayor to execute an extension of the tolling agreement with American Tower

4:32:40 ↗ as discussed in Executive Session. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion?

4:32:47 ↗ Seeing none, I'll call for the vote. All those in favor of authorizing

4:32:53 ↗ the Mayor to execute an extension of the tolling agreement with the American

4:32:59 ↗ Tower as discussed in executive session say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries unanimously.

4:33:04 ↗ There being no further business, the meeting is adjourned at 11:34.

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)

Mariah Bettise

Stacy Goodman

Victoria Hunt

Tola Marts

Bill Ramos

Chris Reh

Paul Winterstein

Motions and votes (9)

Approve Resolution No. 2018-12, adopting the 2018 Parks Strategic Plan.

Moved by REH · seconded by BETTISE

Amend the motion by adding: “and direct the Administration to return to the Planning Policy Commission in one year with the recommended refinements to the Parks Strategic Plan Goals and Policies.” .

Moved by HUNT · seconded by REH

Carried 7-0

In favor: Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Victoria Hunt, Tola Marts, Bill Ramos, Chris Reh, Paul Winterstein

Amend the motion by adding: “Further directing the Administration to “Initiate Urban Forest/Green Issaquah Program” as identified in the 2018 Parks Strategic Plan within one year, with the scope of that work to include: 1) a city-wide tree canopy cover analysis, 2) an update to the City’s targets fo…

Moved by HUNT · seconded by BETTISE

Amend the amendment as follows: “Further directing the Administration to “Initiate Urban Forest/Green Issaquah Program” as identified in the 2018 Parks Strategic Plan within one year in the 2019 Parks & Recreation Department work plan and budget, with the scope of that work….” AMENDMENT TO THE . . M…

Moved by REH · seconded by WINTERSTEIN

Carried 7-0

In favor: Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Victoria Hunt, Tola Marts, Bill Ramos, Chris Reh, Paul Winterstein

Approve the proposed conversion of a portion of High Street to a multi-use trail with adjacent recreational amenities, and an overlook; relying on a future UVDC meeting to identify appropriate and suitable recreational amenities. 07-16-18 City Council Regular Meeting Minutes Page [0000] . (Opponents…

Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by WINTERSTEIN

Carried 5-2

In favor: Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Victoria Hunt, Bill Ramos, Paul Winterstein

Opposed: Marts, Reh

Approve the Westridge North Preliminary Plat (File No. PP17-00001). . d)

Moved by GOODMAN · seconded by WINTERSTEIN

Carried 7-0

In favor: Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Victoria Hunt, Tola Marts, Bill Ramos, Chris Reh, Paul Winterstein

Adopt Ordinance No. 2842, amending Section 6 of Ordinance No. 2838 in order to delay the removal of properties zoned Destination Retail and Intensive Commercial from the Central Issaquah Plan boundary until Nov. 30, 2018 to provide for the further consideration of zoning regulations. .

Moved by MARTS · seconded by BETTISE

Carried 7-0

In favor: Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Victoria Hunt, Tola Marts, Bill Ramos, Chris Reh, Paul Winterstein

07-16-18 City Council Regular Meeting Minutes Page [0000] Authorize the Mayor to execute an extension of the tolling agreement with American Tower as discussed in

Moved by MARTS · seconded by BETTISE

Main motion as amended: Amend the amendment as follows: “Further directing the Administration to “Initiate Urban Forest/Green Issaquah Program” as identified in the 2018 Parks Strategic Plan within one year in the 2019 Parks & Recreation Department work plan and budget, with the scope of that work….…

Moved by (main motion as amended) · seconded by

Carried 7-0

In favor: Mariah Bettise, Stacy Goodman, Victoria Hunt, Tola Marts, Bill Ramos, Chris Reh, Paul Winterstein