Development Commission · Wednesday, September 23, 2015 · City Council Digest

2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES

Meeting Minutes from August 5, 2015

packet pp.3–14

Previously discussed: Development Commission · Aug 26, 2015

Open packet at p.3 ↗

Staff report:

CITY OF ISSAQUAH DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION MINUTES

Meeting Minutes from September 2, 2015

packet pp.15–21

Open packet at p.15 ↗

Staff report:

HICKS asked did the Fire Marshall and appropriate emergency services officials look at this proposal. Woods replied yes; the Fire Department and Eastside Fire and Rescue reviewed the proposal, added some comments and requests, and have approved the version presented tonight. She referred to Exhibit 4, “Fire Truck Access Exhibit.” HICKS asked so concerns raised during public comment tonight have been reviewed and resolved to the Fire Department’s satisfaction. Woods replied yes, that is correct.

3. AGENDA ITEMS

PUBLIC HEARING: Mull Gateway Apartments

Amy Tarce, Senior Planner · packet pp.23–179

Previously discussed: Development Commission · Aug 5, 2015

Open packet at p.23 ↗

Staff report:

Development Services th 1775 – 12 Ave. NW | P.O. Box 1307 Issaquah, WA 98027 425-837-3100 issaquahwa.gov

2242 segments .txt ↗

0:20 ↗ CHRIS JERRAM: Well, good evening. I'd like to call to order the September 23, 2015

0:25 ↗ meeting of the ISQA Development Commission. Just to give you a breakdown of what we'll

0:31 ↗ be doing tonight, we have a couple of things to do in terms of approving

0:36 ↗ minutes. And then we've got one project that we'll be hearing tonight, the Mall Gateway

0:41 ↗ Apartments project that I think we've got a very big crowd for tonight. The process

0:47 ↗ we'll do is we'll have a presentation by staff. a presentation by the applicant if

0:52 ↗ they want to do so. And then we'll open it up to public questions or

0:57 ↗ comments. And we'd like you to sign in at the sign-in sheet down in front

1:02 ↗ if you could. And when you come to the microphone, anybody that comes up to

1:07 ↗ speak, we'd like your name and address for the record. And then when we go

1:12 ↗ through the public comments, if we have-- a lot of comments since we don't want

1:17 ↗ to be here till midnight. We'd like people to limit their comments if they can

1:21 ↗ to three or four minutes. And if you just agree with something that somebody else's,

1:25 ↗ a comment that they've already made, a point you could get up and say, I

1:29 ↗ agree with the comment that so-and-so made, that we get that into the record. You

1:32 ↗ don't necessarily need to repeat the same thing over and over again if you'd like.

1:37 ↗ And then after that, we'll close the public meeting. We'll take a short break because

1:42 ↗ the commissioners received several numerous emails today that we need to read through. We'll take

1:48 ↗ a short break after that. Then we'll come back, and it'll be a time for

1:53 ↗ the commissioners to ask questions of staff and the applicant and discuss the project.

1:59 ↗ So with that, we'll move forward with the approval of minutes.

2:05 ↗ The first is from the August 5th, 2015 meeting. Does anybody

2:10 ↗ have any corrections or additions? Yes, I do. I'm sorry, could

2:16 ↗ you repeat which minutes we're looking at? August 5th? The first

2:21 ↗ one is August 5th. Okay, yes, I do have a correction

2:27 ↗ under, let's see, page eight, under Hicks. I have

2:33 ↗ lines down. She asked developer to reconsider item 22 on page 23. And brackets

2:39 ↗ include annuals at strategic locations such as community center, high volume pedestrian paths, and

2:45 ↗ at building entries. And after that bracket, I would like it to say too

2:51 ↗ low water native perennials as seen in other developments and city plantings. OK.

2:57 ↗ Could you repeat that, please? I surely will. After the last

3:03 ↗ bracket, in between that bracket and spoke, please put to low

3:09 ↗ water native perennials as seen in other developments and city plantings.

3:15 ↗ Thank you. Is that good? Great. Any other additions, corrections? Hearing

3:21 ↗ none, do I hear a motion? I make a motion that

3:27 ↗ we accept the minutes as corrected. Second. Moved and

3:32 ↗ seconded. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Those passed.

3:38 ↗ And the next would be the meetings from

3:43 ↗ September 2nd, 2015. Any corrections, additions, deletions? I

3:48 ↗ do. Great. Page 16 of 179 under Commissioner

3:54 ↗ discussion under Hicks. Asked about the walking distance from the

3:59 ↗ traffic center. Please change traffic center to transit center. Great. Anything else? No,

4:05 ↗ that's all. A motion? I'll make a motion that we accept the minutes

4:10 ↗ as corrected. Second. And moved and seconded to approve the minutes. All in

4:16 ↗ favor? Aye. Aye. And they're approved. So we'll move on to the public

4:22 ↗ hearing for the site development for the Mole Gateway Apartments, although Lucy Sloman

4:27 ↗ may want to Have a little discussion also about what we're doing tonight too. So

4:32 ↗ just first of all, I think I can see we have a full house. I

4:36 ↗ just want to let you know that I believe there's a speaker out in the

4:39 ↗ lobby. So if you want to sit and listen out there or stand out there,

4:43 ↗ I'm not asking anyone to leave. But if you're more comfortable out there, I think

4:47 ↗ you will be able to hear. So this is the public hearing for

4:53 ↗ the Gateway Apartments project on the former mall farm. I'm going to tweak slightly

4:59 ↗ the structure that Mel presented. Many of you are aware, because I would imagine

5:04 ↗ that you're -- we're parties of record and you received the briefing response memo,

5:10 ↗ that each -- that all of the comments that we heard from the commissioners

5:16 ↗ and the public after the first part of the public hearing on

5:21 ↗ August 5th up to the issuance of the memo a week ago,

5:27 ↗ we have consolidated everything by topic. And there were both applicant and staff

5:32 ↗ responses. So in the same format tonight, we'll go through the topics and both the

5:38 ↗ staff and the applicant will be available to talk about each of those. And we

5:44 ↗ have also clustered some of them that, you know, if something was of a similar

5:50 ↗ topic but occurred later in the memo, we've tried to put things together just so

5:56 ↗ that they're more logical. We would request that if the commissioners have questions

6:01 ↗ or continuing concerns or whatever, bring them up as we finish our

6:07 ↗ presentation on each of those topics, you know, in case we need

6:13 ↗ to draft conditions or look for materials that just helps us to

6:18 ↗ hear about anything that's still lingering for you guys at that time.

6:25 ↗ So you want to do the questions during the presentation as opposed to waiting for

6:30 ↗ the public hearing to -- Just related to the presentation that we're making. So if

6:35 ↗ we're talking about a topic and something we've said doesn't seem clear or you have

6:40 ↗ a follow-up question, just go ahead and share it with us then. You're of course

6:45 ↗ -- Commissioner's okay with that? That's fine. You're of course going to continue and have

6:50 ↗ your conversation afterwards. This is just related to whatever comes up with the memo.

6:56 ↗ The public will have their opportunity to speak. There is an opportunity, although we

7:02 ↗ don't often take it, that the staff or the applicant could rebut. So we

7:08 ↗ would do that before the public -- the speaking part of the public hearing

7:14 ↗ is closed if anyone, either staff or applicant, asks to rebut. And then we

7:19 ↗ would go into the discussion. The

7:25 ↗ other piece that I just wanted to do up front was one of the topics

7:31 ↗ in the briefing response memo that had come up from the Commission was topic 21,

7:37 ↗ which had to do with process and decision makers. And so we just thought we'd

7:43 ↗ review that up front since we're sort of talking about how this works. The decision

7:49 ↗ maker for this land use permit is the Development Commission. So, and if there

7:54 ↗ was an appeal that would be heard by the hearing examiner, the council, this was

7:59 ↗ the question, does the council have a role? And no, the council doesn't have a

8:04 ↗ role in this particular permit. The Commission's decision is based on whether the

8:10 ↗ proposal complies with the comprehensive plan, the central ISCWA plan, the

8:16 ↗ central ISCWA development and design standards, which you'll hear us call

8:21 ↗ central ISCWA standards. We sometimes abbreviate it because it's a mouthful

8:27 ↗ of words. And then other ISCWA municipal code sections that we

8:33 ↗ may have identified. I think that's the

8:39 ↗ main thing, unless you have any questions. Great. Any questions? Great. Well,

8:44 ↗ we'll go forward with the presentation by staff.

8:53 ↗ so good evening everybody my name is amy tars and i'm the senior planner

8:59 ↗ here at the city of isaac before i start my presentation i would like

9:04 ↗ to submit um the you know we we mentioned that there were um several

9:10 ↗ uh public comments that were submitted today um there's a total of basically 10

9:16 ↗ comments that we received from eight citizens and that will be submitted

9:21 ↗ as attachment aid for the public record. And just for everybody's

9:27 ↗ information, we did print out your comments and the commissioners have

9:33 ↗ been given a copy of it. There is one comment that

9:39 ↗ is not in your packet. And that is the final comment I

9:44 ↗ received at 5:14 today while I was rushing out. And so it's from Mary

9:50 ↗ Lynch and I just talked to her and requested that later when we open

9:56 ↗ it up for public comment, if she could just share with you what the

10:02 ↗ content of her email was to us. So I'm gonna go ahead and start.

10:08 ↗ Again, for just a little bit of background for the public, because some of you

10:14 ↗ were not here at the last public hearing. This is a continuation of that public

10:19 ↗ hearing. And what we do is at that first hearing, it was pretty much an

10:24 ↗ introduction of the project. And we try to use that as an opportunity to

10:30 ↗ collect information and questions both from the public and also from the commissioners. And

10:36 ↗ then we come back for this meeting to basically respond and provide whatever additional

10:42 ↗ information is requested. So that's the bulk of my presentation today will be

10:47 ↗ responses to what were the questions and comments that were brought up at

10:53 ↗ the last meeting. So what you're not going to see here tonight is

10:59 ↗ a detailed presentation, again, of the background information that we did at our

11:04 ↗ last meeting. Hopefully you had a chance to read about it. They were

11:10 ↗ available on our website. since the project was submitted back in May.

11:16 ↗ So just a quick, again, so Lucy had given us a

11:22 ↗ quick just kind of introduction of how we're gonna do it

11:28 ↗ tonight. Two things that I wanted to update everybody about. At our last

11:33 ↗ meeting, the SEPA was not concluded yet. So we just wanted to

11:39 ↗ bring up that as of this meeting, the SEPA comment period and

11:45 ↗ appeal period ended. on September 10th, and again, you had received comments,

11:51 ↗ and it's in your packet, from several citizens, and it includes

11:56 ↗ staff responses to those comments. And at the last meeting, we

12:02 ↗ also informed you about the citywide road and crosswalk safety study,

12:07 ↗ and Newport Way happens to be one of the streets that's

12:13 ↗ part of this study. So Lucy also

12:18 ↗ talked about the issue of what is the Development Commission's role

12:24 ↗ versus City Council. And there was a question about whether the

12:30 ↗ Development Commission has review authority over site ingress/egress from Newport Way.

12:36 ↗ And the other one was the traffic volume and improvements on

12:42 ↗ Newport Way. The Development Commission definitely has a role in determining

12:47 ↗ certain aspects of the design of Newport Way that is defined

12:53 ↗ by the Central Issaquah Development Standards. So things like what the

12:59 ↗ Parkway Standards describes in the Central Issaquah Standards, they basically make

13:05 ↗ that determination if this project actually complies with that. And to the

13:10 ↗ extent that ingress and egress is part of design standards, then that's also

13:16 ↗ part of their role. So can Development Commission approve this project without the

13:22 ↗ height amendment to the land use code? So one of the things that

13:28 ↗ we brought up last time is that the buildings the two five-story buildings

13:34 ↗ are currently designed with sloped roofs and the slope of the roof exceeds

13:40 ↗ the height limit as described today or defined today by the

13:45 ↗ land use code. So we notified the development commission and

13:51 ↗ the public that in discussing this particular issue with the

13:56 ↗ developers, they basically have an option of providing flat roofs.

14:02 ↗ And if they provided flat roofs, they would not exceed

14:07 ↗ the height limit. We encouraged them to show a design with pitch

14:13 ↗ roofs because we wanted to give the Development Commission and the public an

14:19 ↗ opportunity to determine which character of the architecture is more appropriate. And at

14:24 ↗ that time, the Development Commission leaned more towards the sloped roofs. And there

14:30 ↗ are several ways that they can, if the amendment to the land

14:36 ↗ use code does not pass, they have other options on how they

14:41 ↗ can adjust their design in order to meet the height limit. And we

14:47 ↗ invited the architects to come today and they'll talk about it a little

14:53 ↗ bit later when we talk about the details of the pitch roof versus

14:59 ↗ the slope roofs. So now I'm going to invite the traffic engineers and

15:05 ↗ our staff, Doug Schlepp, to talk about the next three slides.

15:19 ↗ Good evening, my name is Doug Schlepp and I am a Development Services

15:25 ↗ Engineer charged with review of this project. Good evening, my name is Jeff

15:30 ↗ Schramm. I'm a Traffic Engineer with 10W, responsible for the traffic study that

15:36 ↗ was conducted for the Gateway project. Can you provide your addresses too for

15:42 ↗ the record? Sure, go ahead. I reside at 21647 SE 33rd Place, Sammamish.

15:48 ↗ Again, they can be either business or personal too.

15:53 ↗ My business address, this is Jeff Schramm at 11400

15:59 ↗ Southeast 8th Street, Suite 200 in Bellevue, 98005. Thank

16:05 ↗ you. So I guess I'll start first. We were responsible

16:11 ↗ for conducting the traffic study for the Gateway project, worked closely with staff on identifying

16:16 ↗ the appropriate mitigation measures for the project. We were also in attendance at the first

16:22 ↗ public hearing of the Development Commission. We heard your comments, your questions, and those from

16:27 ↗ the public. A lot of our responses are detailed in the memo, the briefing memo

16:32 ↗ that you have in front of you. But for the purposes of tonight, what I

16:38 ↗ thought would be more appropriate is We broke down or kind of consolidated the comments

16:43 ↗ that we heard into three primary topic areas. So what I'd like to do is

16:48 ↗ go through the next three slides to talk about number one, traffic volumes on Newport

16:54 ↗ Way and the project impacts to Newport Way. The second slide I'll talk about is

16:59 ↗ a Newport Way road design. And the last one we'll talk about is how the

17:04 ↗ Gateway access, how the Gateway project accesses Newport Way. So in this first slide, Newport

17:10 ↗ Way currently is a two-lane road. It's a two-lane arterial that carries about 10,000

17:16 ↗ vehicles a day. It has a posted speed today of 40 miles an hour.

17:22 ↗ But as we know, the city council recently adopted a reduction and that will

17:27 ↗ soon go to 30 miles an hour posted. The city's long-term plan for Newport

17:33 ↗ Way accounts for the Gateway Project. Build out of the project along

17:39 ↗ with other properties along Newport Way corridor were included in the city's comprehensive plan,

17:45 ↗ the city's long-term traffic model, as well as the concurrency evaluation for the Newport

17:50 ↗ corridor. The gateway project itself at about 400 apartments will generate 2,650 trips a

17:56 ↗ day. When those trips are distributed along both directions of Newport Way, that accounts

18:02 ↗ for about a 10 to 12% increase in traffic on Newport Way. This is

18:08 ↗ well within the planned capacity of what Newport Way is intended to be, and

18:13 ↗ that is a three-lane road as development occurs along the corridor. The next slide

18:19 ↗ is... The next slide is intended to

18:25 ↗ address some of the comments related to the roadway design of Newport Way. The city's

18:30 ↗ central, the central Issaquah plan and the Issaquah design standards identify Newport Way as a

18:36 ↗ parkway. And as you can see from these cross sections up here, one of

18:42 ↗ the primary improvements will be a center turn lane. There will be continuous bike lane

18:47 ↗ on both sides. There will be a multi-use trail on the north side as well.

18:53 ↗ What the city has done in their planning is that they have anticipated as development

18:59 ↗ along this corridor occurs that Newport Way will be widened and improved to the standard.

19:05 ↗ What the Gateway project will do is it will improve its frontage along that portion

19:10 ↗ that they own on Newport Way to be consistent with this plan. The frontage improvements

19:16 ↗ will also be designed and constructed to meet site distance requirements and safe sight lines

19:22 ↗ for pedestrians, for bicycles, for motorists. And primarily the Gateway project will mitigate its impact

19:28 ↗ to the Newport Way and its corridor by constructing these frontage improvements paying its

19:33 ↗ traffic impact fee, paying the city's bike and pedestrian mitigation fee, as well as implementing

19:39 ↗ a new intersection control at its access with Newport Way, which is what I want

19:45 ↗ to talk about on the next slide. So this last slide is really just intended

19:51 ↗ to address some of the specific comments and questions that came up at the last

19:57 ↗ meeting and talk about the location of the project and its impact in Newport Way

20:03 ↗ as well as some of the comments we heard from the Sammamish Point condominiums. For

20:08 ↗ this project, a single access is proposed. A secondary access has been identified

20:14 ↗ separately through an easement to provide only access for emergency vehicles, which

20:20 ↗ meets the fire code requirements. A single access at this location will

20:25 ↗ be adequate to accommodate the additional traffic from the 400 apartment units.

20:31 ↗ At this access, the Gateway Project will construct a new intersection that

20:36 ↗ will include either a signal, signalization, or a roundabout. As you know,

20:42 ↗ the city, and as Amy mentioned, the city is currently evaluating Newport Way as

20:48 ↗ one of their corridors in the larger pedestrian crossing study. What we've been able

20:53 ↗ to determine so far is whether signalization or roundabout is determined to be implemented

20:59 ↗ at this location. Either one will implement new crosswalks and safe pedestrian crossings at

21:05 ↗ this location. The intersection control will also improve access across the street. to the

21:11 ↗ south to the residence of Spyglass Hill, which is currently access as Newport on the

21:16 ↗ south side at Pacific Elm Drive. Currently controlled with a stop sign, the roundabout or

21:22 ↗ signal will accommodate that development as well to provide a full access intersection. Regarding the

21:28 ↗ access to the Sammamish Point condos, We expect that either traffic control point, or

21:34 ↗ either traffic control, the signalization or roundabout, will be designed to address left turning

21:40 ↗ and all turning traffic to that driveway. We expect that driveway to remain. Depending

21:45 ↗ on whether it's signalized or roundabout, we'll have different channelization or control, but either

21:51 ↗ will be designed to maintain that access point. So Doug has a few

21:57 ↗ more comments about some of the. And I just wanted to add to

22:03 ↗ what Jeff said regarding the access. There have been a lot of comments

22:09 ↗ regarding access from Northwest Poplar. That's a private road. And so the city

22:14 ↗ cannot require the property owner to convey public access through their property to

22:20 ↗ this project. And I think that this would be a good point also to

22:26 ↗ stop. We've covered two slides with a lot of information. So if there's any questions

22:31 ↗ regarding this information, we would entertain any questions from the commissioners. Do we have any

22:37 ↗ questions on this right now? Just a couple quick questions. Um, as far as the

22:43 ↗ timing is concerned, so it's going to be a controlled intersection. You said either signalized

22:48 ↗ or with a roundabout about when will that decision be made? So we anticipate that

22:53 ↗ the city will have its draft report for Newport by the end of this month.

22:59 ↗ And at that time, we're also expecting an update to the traffic

23:05 ↗ impact analysis or the TIA, which needs to be updated to reflect

23:11 ↗ the current speed limit on Newport, the reduction from 40 to 30

23:17 ↗ miles per hour. So I would say probably within the next three

23:22 ↗ to four months, two weeks we would have information

23:28 ↗ to review in order to further this but the actual design

23:34 ↗ of the project related to the intersection control will take several

23:39 ↗ months I would expect. The thing I would add Commissioner Brennan

23:45 ↗ two things. One, The original proposal came in with a signal.

23:51 ↗ We've seen how that fits. The roundabout, we've seen preliminary roundabout layouts.

23:57 ↗ They don't change, they don't impact the site. They don't ripple into

24:03 ↗ the site. And condition, final recommended condition number four in attachment one

24:08 ↗ gives a date of October 1st for the city to have made

24:14 ↗ that decision as a consequence of getting that crosswalk study. Thank

24:20 ↗ you. It should be on all the time. Okay. I have a

24:26 ↗ question on the timing of the build out of the view that

24:32 ↗ you showed of Newport Way. The cross section view. There you go.

24:37 ↗ Will that be applied just to the area next to the property

24:43 ↗ or will this be done for all of Newport Way or is

24:49 ↗ this What's the plan there? Are we going to get

24:55 ↗ just part of it as it pertains to the property

25:00 ↗ of the development? So these are the improvements currently are

25:06 ↗ developer driven and right now we are reviewing three different

25:11 ↗ projects which extend generally from about 500 feet westerly of

25:17 ↗ SR 900 to the western limits of this project. So

25:22 ↗ I'm guessing it's a couple thousand feet, maybe a half a

25:28 ↗ mile. And so it would generally cover that distance of Newport

25:33 ↗ Way. I can't speak for the developers to when they would

25:39 ↗ complete these projects, but they're all starting about the same time.

25:45 ↗ and we would anticipate that they would, if they continue at the same

25:50 ↗ pace, that they would all be completed around the same time. But let

25:56 ↗ me clarify one thing just to make sure that we're not mixing apples

26:02 ↗ and oranges. The responsibility of this project is the half street improvements of

26:07 ↗ their frontage as well as the intersection control method That is selected so they

26:13 ↗ would be responsible to build both of those in association with their project Okay,

26:19 ↗ so we could end up with a Newport way that's got this for part

26:24 ↗ of it and not this for part of it Well, but it's it's not

26:30 ↗ connected to this project. It's not connected to this project, but I understand the

26:36 ↗ interest in the question and When this project and some of the

26:42 ↗ other developers who are looking at projects in this segment of

26:47 ↗ Newport contacted the city, we began to coordinate with Public Works

26:53 ↗ Engineering that does capital improvements. So we are looking at which

26:59 ↗ segments would be built by developers and how can the city's

27:04 ↗ pieces in between those be timed. So we don't have a specific

27:10 ↗ timetable for that. On the other hand, part of what the goal

27:15 ↗ in having the crosswalk study come out at this point is related

27:21 ↗ to city budget periods because this is the time for the council

27:26 ↗ to be deciding how they might want to phase in those pieces

27:32 ↗ that they're responsible for. okay thank you and if i could i've got

27:38 ↗ a slide that i'll show later and i can show you visually what the projects

27:43 ↗ are that are currently under review so you get a sense for the scope of

27:49 ↗ those improvements okay thanks other questions for the I've got one math

27:54 ↗ question, I guess. I saw 10,000 cars a day, I think, and

28:00 ↗ then 2650 added, and it was a 10 to 12% increase. Well,

28:05 ↗ yeah, good question. Doug said that would come up too. Traffic will

28:11 ↗ distribute kind of east-west on Newport Way. So at the intersection control point,

28:17 ↗ you'll have the 2,650, but it's about a 60/40, 50/50 distribution depending if

28:23 ↗ it's morning or afternoon. So what it will feel like on Newport Way

28:28 ↗ will be about 10 to 12%. Great, thank you. I have a follow-up

28:34 ↗ along those lines, Chairman. Okay, so that you say it can

28:40 ↗ absorb this project, but how does Newport Way stand or is there any information when

28:46 ↗ all the other projects get added in? So I'll have another slide here and I'll

28:52 ↗ be able to answer that question, I believe, because we're looking at right now the

28:58 ↗ access point, but it sounds like your interest is what's gonna happen along Newport. -

29:03 ↗ Holistically, yeah. - Yeah, and there was a question that came up at the last

29:08 ↗ meeting and I'll be able to address that somewhat. - Okay, thanks. - Done with

29:14 ↗ your presentation for now then? - I have a few more slides. - Okay, great.

29:19 ↗ And just to clarify too, Amy, are you coming up after this? Great, thank you.

29:25 ↗ Okay, so there was a question regarding services. Currently, there

29:31 ↗ are no transit services on Newport Way, and this project

29:36 ↗ has no direct influence on that. It's a process of

29:42 ↗ negotiation between the city and the transit service provider. And

29:48 ↗ so as the city continues to develop there may be

29:53 ↗ opportunity in the future to restore service to this corridor. I was

29:59 ↗ coordinating with the school district regarding the bus service to this project

30:05 ↗ as we do with all of our developments and there was some

30:11 ↗ question of whether or not the buses would actually enter the site.

30:17 ↗ The current operation for the school district, which is fluid from year

30:23 ↗ to year, but currently is for a westbound movement on Newport and

30:29 ↗ then eastbound return. And they pick up the kids off of Newport

30:35 ↗ Way and they don't enter the neighborhoods. And then there was

30:40 ↗ a question about the fire and emergency vehicle access into the site. The Eastside

30:46 ↗ Fire and Rescue has reviewed the plans. They review them with their largest ladder

30:52 ↗ truck vehicle to make sure that the turning movements are clear through the site

30:57 ↗ and that where they have to do a maneuver and turn around that there's

31:03 ↗ adequate room to turn around. And all of those criteria have been met. There

31:09 ↗ is a condition in the staff report that we tested in the field because sometimes

31:14 ↗ there's minor changes that can occur that we need to modify in order to make

31:20 ↗ sure there's adequate clearances. But the modeling to date shows that they have access to

31:26 ↗ the site.

31:32 ↗ There was a question too regarding the concurrency rating of the intersection at SR

31:38 ↗ 900 in Newport Way. And I think this Commissioner Ginther will get to your

31:44 ↗ question about what's happening on Newport Way. When the city did their concurrency update,

31:50 ↗ they analyzed various intersections along Newport. one of which is the

31:55 ↗ terminus of Newport at SR 900, or the intersection there. The

32:01 ↗ color for that intersection currently is green, and based on the

32:07 ↗ 2030 modeling together with the land uses in place currently and

32:13 ↗ the proposed improvements during that timeframe, that intersection would continue to

32:19 ↗ be and operating at green. There was

32:25 ↗ a question of whether or not there'd be a pedestrian or bike

32:31 ↗ overpass to the transit center over SR 900. And currently there are

32:36 ↗ no plans for that, nor is there a requirement for this project

32:42 ↗ to provide such an improvement. And if there's any further questions regarding

32:48 ↗ these, hopefully that I addressed Your questions, and I apologize, one

32:54 ↗ of the slides that I had prepared doesn't show the extent of

32:59 ↗ the Newport Way, but if there's another slide that comes up later,

33:05 ↗ perhaps we can show an overview of that and identify those improvements.

33:11 ↗ But essentially, from approximately 500 feet westerly of S0 900 up to

33:16 ↗ the western limits of this project, excluding the Sammamish

33:22 ↗ Point condominiums project would be improved with

33:28 ↗ three different projects if they continue forward

33:33 ↗ to completion. Any other questions at this

33:39 ↗ point? No? Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

33:45 ↗ Amy? So now we're going to take

33:50 ↗ you to item number four and number

33:56 ↗ 23 on your briefing memo. I'm going to

34:01 ↗ start off with just a big picture to address basically what those

34:07 ↗ concerns were. One had to do with the character of the architecture,

34:13 ↗ as you have seen last time. And also, there were comments about

34:18 ↗ how the buildings are very straight and the streets are very straight.

34:24 ↗ It seems a little different than what, I guess, a lot of

34:30 ↗ maybe residents are used to in this in the city. So

34:35 ↗ first, I'd like to bring up, you know, a lot of

34:41 ↗ the comments or address the comments about the division for the

34:47 ↗ Western Gateway. And there were several comments made about how the

34:52 ↗ the the buildings that were proposed didn't really meet the vision.

34:58 ↗ And so I included and quoted parts of what is written

35:04 ↗ in the Central Issaquah Plan under the vision statement for the

35:09 ↗ Western Gateway. And basically the key words were attractive gateway to

35:15 ↗ Issaquah, well-designed moderate density residential buildings, that use natural materials such

35:21 ↗ as timber and stone. So first, it definitely recognizes that this should

35:27 ↗ be a gateway project, that the architecture and design should be something

35:33 ↗ that would signal that you're in a very special part of the

35:39 ↗ city and it's and that the city itself is a very special

35:45 ↗ city. And then well-designed moderate density residential buildings. Again, in the Western

35:51 ↗ Gateway, it was, It's implied that it's not really meant to be

35:57 ↗ an urban village or something where it's really, really urban, like the

36:03 ↗ urban core of central Issaquah. It is intended to be residential and

36:08 ↗ moderate density. It's not meant, again, to be high density mixed use,

36:14 ↗ even though those types of development are allowed in this part of

36:20 ↗ Central Issaquah. And then the use of natural materials such as timber and

36:26 ↗ stone. And in our last meeting, we clarified that and what we understood

36:32 ↗ was there were examples that the commissioners had in mind of what

36:38 ↗ represented the kind of architecture for this gateway area. So, so I

36:44 ↗ just wanted to bring up that these three images here were pulled

36:50 ↗ out of the Central Issaquah plan. And this apparently gives a flavor

36:56 ↗ of what's intended. And then down here, just wanted to talk briefly

37:02 ↗ about the streets. So again, in the Central Issaquah plan, the

37:07 ↗ idea where you see these gray dashed lines, what it's meant to

37:13 ↗ convey is that whenever we have these large undeveloped tracts of land,

37:19 ↗ the intention is to break up those blocks, those large lots into

37:25 ↗ more manageable, walkable blocks by introducing a gridded street. And so

37:30 ↗ On the right is an image, basically a diagram that shows

37:36 ↗ how the internal streets and walkways of the Gateway Project was

37:42 ↗ conceived. And it shows basically using the grid concept that was

37:47 ↗ signified in the Central Isilkot Plan. So again,

37:53 ↗ as far as the character, one of the buildings that the Development

37:59 ↗ Commission mentioned last time as something for staff to look at is

38:04 ↗ Kalkari. So this is a photo of Kalkari, and it does have

38:10 ↗ those timber elements and pitched roofs. And again, board and batten treatment

38:15 ↗ for the walls or the exterior walls of the building. And

38:21 ↗ so I'm going to invite the architects and the designers to

38:26 ↗ now talk about, given the framework that I just explained, how

38:32 ↗ they're meeting and addressing and achieving the vision for the Western

38:37 ↗ Gateway. Can I access the purpose?

38:53 ↗ Good evening everyone. My name is Jim Bedoya. I'm with Viya Architects and I'm

38:59 ↗ the architect on the project. Our address is the Tower Building Suite 800 in

39:05 ↗ Seattle 98101. And I just want to start by thanking the Commission and the

39:10 ↗ staff for the comments and concerns and the public that came out of the

39:16 ↗ last hearing and Since that time, we've been working closely with staff, meeting on

39:22 ↗ a weekly basis to further refine our presentation to you this evening and also to

39:28 ↗ further refine the design and our ability to communicate the vision for this project. I

39:33 ↗ think at this point, though, for everyone's benefit, it's worth spending a little bit of

39:39 ↗ time talking about the site planning concepts that got us to this project and how

39:45 ↗ they were a major influence on what the architecture is trying to

39:51 ↗ do. And so just to quickly reiterate some of the points that

39:56 ↗ Amy made, our site, this is Newport Way for everybody's orientation. This

40:02 ↗ is the I-90 corridor. And our site is bounded by a wetland

40:07 ↗ reserve that's owned by SDOT. And then we have a series of

40:13 ↗ wetlands that are buffering the two creeks that flank our project. We

40:19 ↗ have I-90 along here and there's a wetland associated with that and a

40:25 ↗ buffer. And then we also have a wetland on the east side of

40:31 ↗ the property up against the arena sports. The residential project that's next to

40:37 ↗ Newport that buffers us to the south We intentionally put our park

40:43 ↗ space and additional buffer space along that boundary to soften the impacts

40:48 ↗ of the project on the neighboring properties. The site slopes about 20

40:54 ↗ feet from the arrival point coming off of Newport down to the

41:00 ↗ freeway corridor. And we intentionally put the largest buildings up against the

41:05 ↗ freeway to act as a a buffer, both a visual and an auditory

41:11 ↗ buffer to the noise of the freeway, and deliberately planned it so that the

41:17 ↗ internal part of the site is going to be composed of three-story buildings that

41:22 ↗ are going to be broken down, and they'll be 10 or 20-unit buildings. And

41:28 ↗ they're all connected, as Amy pointed out, by a singular loop road that meets

41:34 ↗ the neighborhood street design character. tied together internally by a series of

41:39 ↗ pedestrian streets or pedestrian connections that tie this corner of the site,

41:45 ↗ which is where the clubhouse and community center is, which is also

41:51 ↗ one of our more significant community open spaces, to a second open

41:57 ↗ space that's the central green. we've cited all the buildings so that the

42:02 ↗ outlook and the connection to the wetland buffer isn't impeded by having roads or parking

42:08 ↗ coming between the living units and those open spaces so you know all of these

42:14 ↗ moves that we've made in in planning the project are really consistent with the vision

42:20 ↗ that is in the central isaac plan in terms of design guidelines and and how

42:25 ↗ to make a space like this connected and make it a walkable community, make it

42:31 ↗ a safe place for kids to go out and play and be under the watchful

42:36 ↗ eyes of their parents or their neighbors and feel like it's not a place dominated

42:42 ↗ by cars, but a place for people. And so those were the really the guiding

42:47 ↗ forces that led us to doing a series of simple buildings that sort of play

42:53 ↗ off of a traditional Northwest farm vernacular with steep pitched

42:58 ↗ roofs and clapboard siding and a mix of colors

43:04 ↗ that'll help to brand the project as being a

43:09 ↗ pedestrian friendly place to live or to visit. So

43:14 ↗ this is a view as you come in the

43:20 ↗ main entry that we pointed out. where you're seeing the

43:26 ↗ clubhouse as the first element of the project that you come in contact

43:32 ↗ with. And the resultant community space that will have a series of garden

43:38 ↗ spaces and can act as a small amphitheater for neighborhood performances if that

43:43 ↗ becomes a desire. And a simple language of buildings that are three-story with

43:49 ↗ a relationship back to the street or to these pedestrian ways

43:55 ↗ that also serve as the primary entry for a lot of the buildings.

44:01 ↗ We understand the importance that this site plays in Issaquah. It is a

44:07 ↗ gateway site. It's extremely visible from I-90. And as I said before, the

44:13 ↗ way those buildings interact with the public on the freeway is

44:18 ↗ a different scenario than the way they're interacting with the public along

44:24 ↗ newport and and internally so we wanted to go back and spend

44:30 ↗ some time explaining exactly how the buildings behave along the freeway this

44:36 ↗ is one additional slide that shows that neighborhood green that's at

44:42 ↗ the east end of the property where the units look out. There's no

44:48 ↗ roadways going. All the entries to the buildings are coming off of this

44:54 ↗ pedestrian circle that accesses those buildings. And so there's a pretty substantial public

45:00 ↗ or private community space in the center that is a safe place for

45:06 ↗ kids. A lot of comments

45:11 ↗ came up at the last hearing concerning the big buildings that are along I-90, and

45:17 ↗ we wanted to give a chance to better explain what's happening there. There is quite

45:23 ↗ a bit of modulation both vertically and horizontally built into the plan and into the

45:29 ↗ architecture. we understand how important those first views of the project are we've

45:34 ↗ added some heavy timber elements as trellis that add some shadowing and some depth

45:40 ↗ to the elevation we have a mix of board and batten siding which is

45:46 ↗ a very traditional material and lap siding or clapboard siding And we've introduced a

45:52 ↗ strong vocabulary of sort of an accent color that plays into each of the buildings

45:57 ↗ and it acts as a bit of a way finding for people that are coming

46:01 ↗ there for the first time and also the people that live there.

46:07 ↗ So you can see there's quite a bit of modulation with the dormers and the

46:13 ↗ bearing roof forms, and we wanted to have this exaggerated steep-pitch roof as a common

46:19 ↗ element that exists in the smaller buildings as well as these two buildings that we

46:25 ↗ have along the freeway. And then between our buildings and I-90, which is here,

46:31 ↗ Our plan is to have a small evergreen forest eventually. I mean, there'll be smaller

46:36 ↗ trees going in, but eventually Douglas firs and cedars get to be quite large. And

46:41 ↗ that's a benefit, I think, both to the public as a foreground to the project

46:46 ↗ and to the people that are living there that have to look through them to

46:51 ↗ look across the freeway. So I think it benefits both the user and the public.

46:57 ↗ This is a view. as you're heading west along I-90. And it's a

47:02 ↗ similar treatment. We have the same sort of corner condition. Both buildings are

47:08 ↗ very similar and the corners play an important role in how those buildings

47:13 ↗ are perceived from the freeway. You can also see that You get

47:19 ↗ a glimpse into the smaller village beyond and the introduction of vibrant colors

47:25 ↗ and the scale of those buildings I think is a nice compliment to

47:31 ↗ the role that these larger buildings play along the freeway. This is just

47:37 ↗ a shot of The main entry to one of the four story buildings, we've

47:43 ↗ introduced some heavy timber elements as part of the entry statement. Because of the soil

47:48 ↗ conditions and the fact that we are parking underneath the building, which is why you're

47:54 ↗ not seeing parking lots from the freeway or parking lots surrounding these buildings, we've gone

47:59 ↗ to the expense to put all the parking for these larger buildings underneath the building

48:04 ↗ in a concrete garage. Because we have a high water table, we

48:10 ↗ have the buildings partially submerged. It's not completely buried, but it's partially

48:16 ↗ buried. And so we have the additional landscape berms along the street

48:22 ↗ edge to help soften that and a lot of decks that visually

48:27 ↗ connect back to the street. We talked earlier about the introduction of

48:33 ↗ color. The Northwest has a really special quality of light, very similar

48:39 ↗ to Scandinavia. This is kind of an inspirational shot of this kind of traditional

48:45 ↗ Scandinavian village. They're not shy about using color and we're not going this far with

48:50 ↗ it, but we thought it would be great to just get out of the beiges

48:55 ↗ and browns that you see so often in multifamily and have at least one part

48:59 ↗ of each building be memorable as far as the color. And so the strategy was

49:04 ↗ that we had five colors that were an accent color. and they'd be dispersed evenly

49:09 ↗ throughout the site so people can find their way back or they can use it

49:14 ↗ as a way of wayfinding for guests. So it's a simple language and it's a

49:19 ↗ simple kit of parts that's repeated throughout the entire project. And we have five building

49:25 ↗ types and each one shares that same kit of architectural parts. So

49:30 ↗ at the last meeting, I think people were having a hard time understanding the flat

49:36 ↗ elevations that we had that were required by the land use code to explain the

49:41 ↗ buildings. But we thought it would be better if we could put those elevations in

49:46 ↗ perspective so everyone could understand that there's really quite a bit of depth and modulation

49:52 ↗ and detail with the window openings, with the changes in siding, with the expanded roof

49:57 ↗ overhangs that were mentioned and we've responded to. So this is one of the 10

50:03 ↗ unit buildings that we have and we have two different types of the smaller 10

50:08 ↗ unit buildings and this is the other one so you can you can see there's

50:14 ↗ a consistency of how each of these is handled and then we have a building

50:20 ↗ that's twice as as large as that a 20 unit building and then finally we

50:25 ↗ have the the four-story building so that that are up against

50:31 ↗ the i-90 so amy had mentioned uh a small

50:36 ↗ discussion about the pitched roof. We embrace the idea of wanting to keep a

50:42 ↗ pitched roof on the four-story buildings because they think it's in more keeping with

50:48 ↗ the rest of the project. And even if the amendment doesn't pass before we

50:53 ↗ submit for a building permit, we have the option of either reducing the floor-to-floor,

50:59 ↗ reducing the pitch of that roof, or employing the bonus density

51:05 ↗ for affordable housing to achieve the additional height. So

51:10 ↗ one way or another the buildings will continue to

51:16 ↗ have a pitched roof. So this is one last slide of the community

51:22 ↗ building, which is very much a Northwest Farm building. And it'll be the focus for

51:26 ↗ a lot of activity within the project. People will pick up their mail there. There's

51:30 ↗ a swimming pool and an outside area and a performing area and quite a bit

51:35 ↗ of open space surrounding that. And that, as I said, will be the first part

51:39 ↗ of the project you see as you come in. So I just want

51:45 ↗ to thank everyone for their patience and if there are any questions or if

51:51 ↗ I can help clarify anything, I'm happy to do that. I'll give it back

51:57 ↗ to Amy. Thank you. No questions? It's been one talk about the design right

52:03 ↗ now or quite specific questions for the architect? Just a process question.

52:08 ↗ - Real quick, this is for staff. Timing wise, so this project was designed and

52:14 ↗ as designed is in excess of the height allowed in the current code. It's relying

52:20 ↗ on a code change if I recall from the last discussion. So timing wise as

52:25 ↗ far as the decision, I know staff's working on that, but I'm just curious about

52:31 ↗ timing wise with regard to consideration of the code amendment versus the schedule for this

52:37 ↗ project. Is there the ability for this project to benefit from a code change or

52:41 ↗ is this coming too soon for that benefit and we're going to see a design

52:45 ↗ change as a result? So the code amendments on the schedule

52:51 ↗ they have right now, and you know how those things go, but right

52:56 ↗ now they would be approved December 7th, which would be prior to when

53:02 ↗ we're anticipating building permits. So there would be the opportunity for this project

53:08 ↗ to retain the current design and move forward. They have

53:13 ↗ also, I believe Jim's last slide identified a couple of

53:19 ↗ ways that it's not a big difference in height. And

53:25 ↗ so by several different small things, they could retain the

53:30 ↗ character of the building, the pitched roofs, and comply with

53:36 ↗ the height requirements. The important thing for us is

53:42 ↗ that the character that's being presented can be achieved either with these small changes or

53:48 ↗ if the code amendment is approved on the schedule that it currently has. Great. Thank

53:54 ↗ you. Just one thing. This is the first time I think I've heard

54:00 ↗ of a bonus density that would have an affordable housing element. Could you let

54:06 ↗ us all know how many units that might be, the affordable housing element? So

54:12 ↗ I don't know off the top of my head. The way the bonus density

54:18 ↗ program works in central Issaquah, there is a base height and a base

54:23 ↗ floor area ratio. And if you exceed one or both of those, there's

54:29 ↗ a calculation that is based on the amount that you exceed that. So

54:35 ↗ for instance, and I'm not saying this is applicable to this building, but

54:41 ↗ if one floor was all that, you know, a part of one floor

54:47 ↗ exceeded the base height and that floor was 1,000 feet, then part

54:53 ↗ of it would be to be allowed to exceed that base height. Part

54:59 ↗ of it would be provided through affordable housing, and part of it would

55:05 ↗ be provided through one of three mechanisms which the builder can choose between,

55:11 ↗ which is either more affordable housing, open space, open space for the

55:17 ↗ public open space or money that is paid into a fund that the city

55:23 ↗ can use to either buy open space or provide affordable housing. And so the

55:28 ↗ builder can choose between those options. So one portion of meeting it, I think

55:34 ↗ it's a third, has to be done through affordable housing. Okay. The other two

55:40 ↗ thirds, they can do through one of those three or a combination. and

55:46 ↗ affordable housing is part of it, but they could also do the public open space

55:51 ↗ or pay into the fund for open space and affordable housing. Thank you for that

55:57 ↗ clarification. Yeah, you bet. Those are the two sort of priorities that were identified as

56:02 ↗ public needs to achieve the vision of Central East Quad. Excellent. Thank you. Any other

56:08 ↗ questions for the architect right now? Thanks, Amy. Okay, so

56:14 ↗ I did want to cover all the other small items under

56:20 ↗ architecture that was brought up last time. Commissioner Morgan, you did

56:25 ↗ mention about the eaves and how it's important to have eaves and I guess

56:31 ↗ illustration does show that they do have eaves now. And then other things that

56:37 ↗ were asked by of staff last time had to do with whether or not

56:43 ↗ we can condition this project to to keep the steep, the pitch

56:49 ↗ roofs. And based on the response from the architects, they're saying that

56:55 ↗ they will be able to do that. But in other words, last

57:00 ↗ time what we tried to explain to the commission is it's not

57:06 ↗ a requirement in the standards that this project has pitch roofs, but

57:12 ↗ there are other ways that they will be able to keep their

57:18 ↗ pitch roofs. So Oh, I guess I was a little ahead of myself. So the

57:24 ↗ other thing that we did mention in our response to the briefing memo is that

57:29 ↗ In the case where you were concerned about the flat roof, that this

57:35 ↗ wouldn't be appropriate for this building. So we provided you illustrations of another

57:40 ↗ building that you brought up as a representative of a Northwest building, and

57:46 ↗ that's these two bottom photos. And this is the group health building in

57:52 ↗ Bellevue. And in fact, it does have flat roofs. But with the use of,

57:57 ↗ again, a very expressive architectural element that's basically an extension of their roof,

58:03 ↗ they're still able to create that Northwest character. Not saying that this is

58:09 ↗ how we're going to, that we'll end up with this for this project,

58:15 ↗ given that we do have three options for keeping the pitch roofs. But

58:20 ↗ I wanted to make sure we cover all those responses. So item six

58:26 ↗ and seven has to do with basically the parking. There were concerns about

58:32 ↗ how this project does not have adequate parking for its residents

58:38 ↗ and concerns that the parking will spill over to Newport Way.

58:43 ↗ Apparently, that's kind of what's going on right now. So regarding

58:49 ↗ automobile parking, the project has required a minimum of 400 spaces,

58:54 ↗ and they are providing a total of 690 spaces both in

59:00 ↗ covered or garage parking and surface parking. So the standards has

59:06 ↗ a minimum and a maximum requirement. And based on the standards,

59:12 ↗ their maximum would have been $650. However, the intent of

59:17 ↗ Central Issaquah is to encourage parking to be in

59:23 ↗ garages. And so there's a footnote in the standard

59:29 ↗ that says that we only that the standards, the parking standards actually

59:35 ↗ apply only to surface parking because we are trying to discourage surface parking and we

59:41 ↗ really want to encourage more garage parking, which is what they're providing. For bicycle, so

59:46 ↗ the other question has to do with with Newport Way. As you have

59:52 ↗ seen in the previous diagrams for Newport Way, when the new design

59:58 ↗ for Newport Way is implemented or built, there won't be any space

1:00:04 ↗ where people can park. It was never intended for on-street parking. So

1:00:10 ↗ in fact, the current condition of Newport Way because of this

1:00:15 ↗ it is going to be very different than the future. And while

1:00:21 ↗ the current conditions allow or are in so many ways created that

1:00:27 ↗ on street parking situation that's a problem to the community right now,

1:00:33 ↗ that problem will be addressed by the new design of Newport Way.

1:00:39 ↗ Bicycle parking, this was more for clarification. I erroneously included wrong

1:00:45 ↗ numbers in the staff report. So no real issues. We just

1:00:51 ↗ want to come back with the correct numbers. They're required to

1:00:57 ↗ provide 99 spaces at 0.15 per bedroom. And so they are

1:01:03 ↗ providing 276 spaces. And that's a combination of bike parking in

1:01:09 ↗ their park or community spaces and also in each of the buildings,

1:01:15 ↗ which will be more long-term parking for the residents. - Amy, before

1:01:21 ↗ we move on, question on the parking again. Are we at or

1:01:26 ↗ below 655 surface stalls then? - Let me get that. So we,

1:01:32 ↗ so we, oh, it's not doing it. Previous, okay. So, As far

1:01:38 ↗ as the project, it is providing 690 spaces. So we are way above. But I

1:01:44 ↗ mean, that's the maximum, but that's the maximum surface dolls are 655. Are we at

1:01:49 ↗ or below the maximum number of surface dolls then? Oh, we are below. Yes, this

1:01:55 ↗ project is below. Yeah, great. It's closer to the minimum. Right. Thank you for clarification.

1:02:01 ↗ Thank you. Any other questions about parking? Just for future

1:02:07 ↗ reference, just educational on how this part of the code works. So you said that

1:02:11 ↗ below grade parking doesn't count. So if you have a project that has essentially most

1:02:16 ↗ of the parking below grade and you still have a minimum 400 space parking requirement,

1:02:20 ↗ how -- So, yes, so I got that clarification today from the

1:02:26 ↗ person who wrote this. So the intent, again, because the intent is

1:02:32 ↗ to discourage surface parking, then they're not required to provide 400 spaces

1:02:38 ↗ all on surface. It's just to ensure, again, like what the community,

1:02:43 ↗ you know, conversations. comments have said, you know, I mean, how do we know that

1:02:48 ↗ there's enough parking here? So we want to ensure that new projects do provide enough

1:02:53 ↗ parking so they don't impact their neighbors. But we're not going to penalize them by

1:02:58 ↗ forcing them to provide surface parking at the minimum. As long as they provide a

1:03:03 ↗ total that meets the minimum. All stalls count towards the minimum. Surface stalls only count

1:03:08 ↗ towards the maximum. That's a great way to explain it. Thank you. Just to add

1:03:13 ↗ on to Amy's explanation that part of the reason that we

1:03:19 ↗ don't count structured parking, one of the main reasons is there's

1:03:25 ↗ an economic disincentive to build unnecessary structured parking at $20,000 or

1:03:30 ↗ $30,000 a stall. It's unlikely that someone would build gratuitous parking,

1:03:36 ↗ whereas surface parking is relatively inexpensive to build and

1:03:42 ↗ easy to overbuild. So surface parking, everything, as you

1:03:47 ↗ said, everything counts towards meeting the minimum, the maximum.

1:03:52 ↗ It's only the surface parking that's restricted. Any more

1:03:58 ↗ questions? Okay. So now I'd like to talk about

1:04:03 ↗ item A, the neighborhood park. There was a question about

1:04:09 ↗ what type of activities will be programmed and will it

1:04:15 ↗ have opportunities for multi-generational use? And so what I did was

1:04:21 ↗ I included just a diagram. It's a bubble diagram that shows

1:04:27 ↗ what types of activities and spaces could be accommodated. So again, I

1:04:33 ↗ wanted to clarify that the neighborhood park will be developed at a very, very

1:04:39 ↗ basic level where it's going to have an open area where you can have

1:04:44 ↗ free play, but ultimately it will be dedicated to the city and city staff

1:04:50 ↗ will be responsible for planning and programming the spaces. So this is, if you

1:04:56 ↗ can think of this as a two-step planning and programming. The applicant

1:05:02 ↗ is providing something that's very basic, but we will, as staff,

1:05:08 ↗ we will reach out to the community to eventually determine what

1:05:13 ↗ are the appropriate types of uses for all these little bubbles.

1:05:19 ↗ But there's definitely, at the very basic level, we had worked together

1:05:25 ↗ with the developers and the applicants to at least identify what

1:05:30 ↗ could happen in those spaces. Regarding the location, there were some

1:05:36 ↗ questions about why isn't the park in the middle of the

1:05:42 ↗ site. And Jim mentioned earlier how part of the ideas for

1:05:47 ↗ the neighborhood park, first of all, to provide a buffer between

1:05:53 ↗ this new development and the existing Sammamish Point neighborhood. So while this green

1:05:58 ↗ area only shows this as the neighborhood park, there's also the shared

1:06:04 ↗ use trail that goes along here. So Sammamish Point condominiums will be

1:06:09 ↗ protected through this green green space between this project and

1:06:15 ↗ their community. The other purpose of locating it here is

1:06:21 ↗ we had to take into consideration that this park is

1:06:26 ↗ meant for everyone, not just and really not for the residents

1:06:32 ↗ themselves. So the closer it is to Newport Way, the more it's

1:06:38 ↗ going to be accessible to the larger Western Gateway neighborhood. And again,

1:06:44 ↗ we also provided a very convenient 10 foot wide multi-use trail Again,

1:06:50 ↗ to make it easy for people to find it, this trail connects out to Newport

1:06:55 ↗ Way and then this also connects all the way out to 19th Avenue Northwest, back

1:07:01 ↗ to, again, the other parts of the city. Parking and for park users,

1:07:07 ↗ there was a question about that. And so here where I provided the circle,

1:07:13 ↗ there will be eight parking spaces provided. We have talked to our park staff

1:07:19 ↗ about how many parking spaces they require and they think that this is adequate.

1:07:25 ↗ Again, it's because this is not meant to be a park for large sports

1:07:31 ↗ activities. activities and events. It's really meant to be a park that people in

1:07:37 ↗ the neighborhood can walk to or bike to. And in certain situations, you know,

1:07:43 ↗ special situations where you need to drive, then you do have those spaces, including

1:07:49 ↗ one ADA van accessible parking. And as far as ownership, as I

1:07:54 ↗ mentioned earlier, the park will be dedicated to the city and the maintenance

1:08:00 ↗ will be determined at a later time after we we work it work

1:08:06 ↗ out with our park staff on all the different programming and improvements that

1:08:11 ↗ will happen in this part. Oh, I'm sorry. Do you have any questions

1:08:17 ↗ regarding the park? How does that parking compared to a similar park

1:08:23 ↗ that size within the city? - I'm not sure that we do have, so

1:08:29 ↗ we didn't get to that level of discussion with our park staff. We did

1:08:34 ↗ check with them and they didn't have any issues with the eight spaces. -

1:08:40 ↗ Are you talking about the size of the park or the amount of-- -

1:08:46 ↗ Yeah, the size of the park relative to the amount of parking spaces the

1:08:51 ↗ public could use. - So, No parking is required. We

1:08:57 ↗ discussed with the Parks Department the amount of parking that

1:09:03 ↗ they thought would be appropriate and the applicant was willing

1:09:09 ↗ to provide that and so that's how we arrived at

1:09:15 ↗ the number of stalls that are provided. Thanks. Any other

1:09:20 ↗ questions on the park? No? Okay, Amy. Thank you. Sorry.

1:09:27 ↗ Okay, so the other aspect of the open spaces

1:09:33 ↗ that was brought up is the safety of children

1:09:38 ↗ and shade. So, So this applies to all the parks, not just

1:09:44 ↗ the significant open space, community spaces, which includes the neighborhood park and the shared

1:09:50 ↗ use route, but also the community spaces that are private and for their residents.

1:09:55 ↗ So for children's safety, I'll start with the bottom photo or illustration because this

1:10:01 ↗ shows you how Basically, three sides of their central green is

1:10:07 ↗ surrounded by sidewalks and only one side is close to

1:10:13 ↗ a vehicular path. And they also are going to provide

1:10:19 ↗ plantings and some natural barriers to enclose this area so

1:10:24 ↗ that children can play here safely. This photo here may be

1:10:30 ↗ a little bit harder to see, but basically they are providing a

1:10:36 ↗ low wall along here where they have their community sign for the

1:10:41 ↗ development. And also, again, if hopefully you remember what was on

1:10:47 ↗ the site plan, but over here they have terraces and outdoor seating

1:10:53 ↗ and they're all actually enclosed by low walls. So all the area

1:10:59 ↗ that's open and for the public will actually have some sort of

1:11:05 ↗ an enclosure, some natural or manmade barrier. And as far

1:11:11 ↗ as shade, there was a comment about why don't we have

1:11:17 ↗ more evergreen trees throughout the site that seems that we need

1:11:22 ↗ more shade and trees in the neighborhood park in the central

1:11:28 ↗ park. So again, we have to balance both shade and sun

1:11:34 ↗ given our lovely weather here, which I really love. Nine months

1:11:40 ↗ out of the year, we don't usually get sun. So it seems

1:11:45 ↗ like in this particular case, we do want more open areas for

1:11:51 ↗ something that's more pleasant. So item number

1:11:57 ↗ 10 about affordable housing question was why aren't we requiring it? And so

1:12:03 ↗ the answer is it's not required or why are they not providing it?

1:12:09 ↗ Again, we can only ask for what's in the in the standards and

1:12:14 ↗ we have and may have an opportunity to get affordable housing with

1:12:20 ↗ the bonus density if that's what becomes the option for the applicant

1:12:26 ↗ regarding the pitch roofs. The mix of uses, again, the question,

1:12:32 ↗ so for item 12, the question was the central isoquavision is

1:12:37 ↗ for a mix of uses. So why don't we have mix

1:12:43 ↗ of uses here? So in the Western Gateway section, this particular

1:12:48 ↗ property is zoned Village Residential. Not Urban Village,

1:12:54 ↗ Village Residential. So what Village Residential conveys is that

1:13:00 ↗ this is going to be more residential. Although when you look at

1:13:06 ↗ the list of uses that are allowed, surely, you know, mixed use

1:13:11 ↗ developments are allowed here. So we cannot require a mixed use development

1:13:17 ↗ here. But we, you know, so we are so what they are

1:13:23 ↗ providing is compliant to what the standards requires. Regarding

1:13:29 ↗ plantings, item 11, again, a question about evergreen trees. I touched on

1:13:34 ↗ that with the park. They are providing evergreen trees along the edges

1:13:40 ↗ of the property where it is most appropriate in the wetland areas. Native

1:13:46 ↗ plants, we acknowledge that in fact in the development standards, we do

1:13:52 ↗ have requirements for 30% of trees and 30% of shrubs to be

1:13:58 ↗ native. So that's a given. There will be at the minimum 30%

1:14:04 ↗ native trees and native shrubs. Annuals and edibles, again, this is

1:14:09 ↗ already in the standard. We do have a revised condition, and I

1:14:15 ↗ included that in here. Basically, to clarify that we will be requiring

1:14:21 ↗ annuals and annuals at strategic locations and edibles in the appropriate context. So

1:14:27 ↗ for instance, if they're already having some sort of a pea patch,

1:14:32 ↗ those would be great places for edibles. Again, it's requiring something and

1:14:38 ↗ being reasonable as to where we require those things. So I'd like

1:14:44 ↗ to pause here to see if there are any questions. to

1:14:49 ↗ share just a clarifying question um so the revised conditions are included as attachment

1:14:55 ↗ one is that yeah staff report and condition 22 is talking about the

1:15:01 ↗ park impact fees and dedication of parks property i'm trying to match up

1:15:06 ↗ that revision to the appropriate condition just to make sure we captured it

1:15:12 ↗ i don't see any conditions so it's so renumbered as c1

1:15:18 ↗ C1, attachment 1. Oh, okay, in the back. Okay, gotcha. So if you look,

1:15:24 ↗ see, attachment 2 shows the original conditions with the original numbering, and then we

1:15:30 ↗ renumbered them all because we had eliminated so many. Okay, now I get it.

1:15:35 ↗ Thank you for that clarification. Thanks for asking. Any other questions? Is there a

1:15:41 ↗ PPATCH element planned? Not that I know of right now.

1:15:48 ↗ And can anyone answer that? That would be great to know. No. No? No

1:15:54 ↗ pea patch element? No pea patches. That would be a good addition, I think,

1:16:00 ↗ if we're going to include elements of edibles. I'd just like to talk

1:16:06 ↗ a little bit about the guiding principles of the CIP and address the affordable

1:16:12 ↗ housing. And I see that the whole thing is in compliance, but I'm just

1:16:18 ↗ going to read from the guiding principles of the CIP on page 14. Housing

1:16:23 ↗ calls for adding housing to the area in a variety of types and affordability

1:16:29 ↗ levels, including new mixed-use projects on existing commercial sites. to accommodate people of

1:16:35 ↗ all income levels in all stages of life. So as we're moving forward

1:16:41 ↗ and planning and developing, I think we need to really keep that guiding

1:16:47 ↗ principle in mind because a lot of people worked very hard on the

1:16:52 ↗ CIP and should be acknowledged. And I think every effort should be made

1:16:58 ↗ to add affordable housing element to this project. Thank you. Anything else? Any

1:17:04 ↗ other questions at this point? - No, okay.

1:17:10 ↗ - So now we're going to item

1:17:16 ↗ 13 and 15. So item 13 was a

1:17:21 ↗ question about a fence along, an existing fence along the wash

1:17:27 ↗ dot mitigation site and whether that could be replaced. So given

1:17:32 ↗ that that site is not owned by this property owner, we

1:17:38 ↗ created a condition that gives us some sort of or gives them

1:17:44 ↗ and gives us some sort of a way to address this. It's a good

1:17:50 ↗ idea, but again, we can't force people to do something in another person's property.

1:17:56 ↗ So the proposed new condition says if changes to the fencing are allowed by

1:18:01 ↗ the easement protecting the Washedat Wetland Area and the existing fence is inconsistent

1:18:07 ↗ with the Central Issaquah Development and Design Standards, the

1:18:13 ↗ fence will be changed to comply with the standards.

1:18:18 ↗ So that is condition 41 in attachment one. -

1:18:23 ↗ Any questions? Okay. Okay, so item 15 has to do with

1:18:29 ↗ a connection on Schneider Creek. So the question was, you know, why can't

1:18:35 ↗ there, well, one of the question has to do with a sidewalk on

1:18:41 ↗ this edge. If you recall last time, we talked about an administrative

1:18:46 ↗ adjustment of standards for this street because they're not providing a sidewalk

1:18:52 ↗ here in lieu of providing a 10-foot wide sidewalk on the other

1:18:57 ↗ side of the street where we as staff determined that there's going

1:19:03 ↗ to be logically more people walking on this side and then the

1:19:09 ↗ other The other concern for us is that this is the edge of

1:19:15 ↗ the wetland buffer, so minimizing the impacts of people walking next to the

1:19:21 ↗ wetland and the wetland buffer. And then the question, and so in addition

1:19:27 ↗ to providing this 10-foot-wide walkway, They are also providing this soft surface trail

1:19:33 ↗ that allows people to still have a connection to the wetland or to

1:19:38 ↗ the natural area. And this soft surface trail will be provided at the

1:19:44 ↗ outer 50 feet of the buffer so that the inner 50 feet of

1:19:50 ↗ the buffer will be heavily vegetated and where the concentration of the

1:19:56 ↗ enhancement will be. So it's basically benefiting both the community and

1:20:02 ↗ also the natural environment. Another question has to do with the

1:20:08 ↗ connection across Snyder Creek. to what we call the phase

1:20:14 ↗ two, the senior housing project. So we are also, we have

1:20:19 ↗ included condition from the first meeting that requires this property owner

1:20:25 ↗ to provide an easement both for this connection and then the other

1:20:31 ↗ comment has to do with a connection through I-90. And again, as

1:20:37 ↗ I presented last time, we are also requiring an easement for a

1:20:43 ↗ connection for a future I-90 bridge from this property to across I-90.

1:20:49 ↗ Any questions about that? that future bridge idea where would

1:20:55 ↗ that land on the other side of we have so that's up to the city

1:21:01 ↗ - that's a responsibility of the city and we're not anywhere close to planning that

1:21:07 ↗ bridge but it's shown on the it's shown on the central is a clock plan

1:21:13 ↗ that there's supposed to be some sort of connection and it lands fairly it's meant

1:21:19 ↗ to connect close fairly closely to Sammamish State Park okay

1:21:26 ↗ Any questions on this? Amy, I have a question. Sorry. The soft trail

1:21:32 ↗ terminates at where the easement would be for the pedestrian pass going across,

1:21:37 ↗ but it doesn't appear to show a connection from that back to the

1:21:43 ↗ street. That's a good point. It seems like if you just get the

1:21:49 ↗ end and go all the way back around or just go through the

1:21:54 ↗ woods and back up onto the road. Yeah, I'm not

1:22:00 ↗ sure. Yeah, do you mean at the left or the right where her

1:22:06 ↗ cursor is now? So the phase two would be building that segment and

1:22:12 ↗ bridge and we've asked them to provide an easement so that if for

1:22:18 ↗ some reason they weren't building the second phase, Because that's a requirement

1:22:24 ↗ that project parcels are interconnected that the future subsequent owner would

1:22:29 ↗ be responsible for connecting that. But in the phase one, I

1:22:35 ↗ guess it seems strange. You would get to the end of

1:22:41 ↗ a trail and just stop and turn around or seems fairly

1:22:46 ↗ easy to connect it back to the... Bill Shields. 15020

1:22:52 ↗ Bear Creek Road, Northeast, Woodinville 98077. We looked at this project initially

1:22:58 ↗ with the idea that there would be a crossing. There is one

1:23:04 ↗ there right now, which is used for farm equipment. And that has

1:23:10 ↗ essentially the same alignment as shown on the drawing here.

1:23:16 ↗ It should have shown it was the idea that it not be a loop that

1:23:20 ↗ would take you out to the end and you have to walk all the way

1:23:25 ↗ back. So it was intended that it come in and I guess the drawing just

1:23:29 ↗ doesn't show that. So I think it's a good point. And of course, anyone coming

1:23:34 ↗ from the north crossing that may not want to take that long, long loop around.

1:23:38 ↗ So it's really intended to be for kind of a nature experience. So the connection

1:23:44 ↗ in the future to the senior housing on the west

1:23:50 ↗ side, there would be more of a direct connection into

1:23:55 ↗ the Gateway project. - I'll work on an edit to

1:24:01 ↗ condition 18 to clarify that. - Clarify that it connects,

1:24:07 ↗ great, thank you. - Can I get your name again?

1:24:12 ↗ - Bill Shields. - Are you just saying it? -

1:24:18 ↗ No, I'm a consultant. - Thank you, Amy. - Are

1:24:24 ↗ we okay? Okay, next one. So

1:24:29 ↗ there was a question about the extent of the boardwalk

1:24:35 ↗ that is part of the shared use route to Tibbetts

1:24:41 ↗ Creek and how whether or not it will terminate basically at the property

1:24:47 ↗ line or it would cross through the neighboring property, which is the Rowley

1:24:53 ↗ properties up to 19th Avenue. So the simple answer is it will be

1:24:58 ↗ connected all the way to 19th Avenue Northwest. And the applicant is

1:25:04 ↗ working with the Rowley properties to allow them to build that

1:25:10 ↗ section of the shared use route through the Rowley properties. And

1:25:16 ↗ we also basically provided a new condition that says the boardwalk will be

1:25:22 ↗ designed. Oh, I'm sorry. So the other question has to do with whether

1:25:27 ↗ the boardwalk will be designed to allow for wildlife passage underneath. Basically, it's

1:25:33 ↗ like a trestle or a trestle structure. And so the answer

1:25:39 ↗ is yes. And that is currently being designed. And so we

1:25:45 ↗ added a condition to say very clearly that it will be

1:25:51 ↗ provided with adequate clearance to allow for wildlife passage. Questions about

1:25:57 ↗ any questions? Okay. Okay, so impacts to existing city

1:26:02 ↗ and its residents. So we receive a lot of comments about concerns

1:26:08 ↗ regarding how such a big development will impact current fire and school

1:26:14 ↗ and police. and park services. And so first I'd like

1:26:20 ↗ to just mention again that there are, the developer is

1:26:25 ↗ providing community benefits which include a neighborhood park and a

1:26:31 ↗ shared use route. And also they will be required to

1:26:37 ↗ provide all the impact fees, both parks, fire, school, and

1:26:43 ↗ police And as mentioned earlier by Doug, by Doug

1:26:48 ↗ Schlapp, all the other transportation related impact fees and

1:26:54 ↗ also pedestrian and bike mitigation fees. And as far

1:27:00 ↗ as item 18 so the question is why are

1:27:05 ↗ these rental units and why aren't they condos or owner

1:27:11 ↗ occupied again we do not or the Central Issaquah Development

1:27:17 ↗ Standards does not specifically require development to be rental or property owned.

1:27:23 ↗ And having rental with home or owner occupied units is more consistent

1:27:29 ↗ with the vision of having a diversity and a mix of uses

1:27:35 ↗ in the central that was, you know, earlier referred to in the

1:27:41 ↗ Central Issaquah Plan. And again, I don't know if

1:27:46 ↗ the applicant wants to respond to this. You

1:27:52 ↗ guys, you're good? Okay. Any questions on this

1:27:57 ↗ one? No. Okay. So wetlands. So this is

1:28:03 ↗ where I'm going to invite the consultants to

1:28:09 ↗ talk a little bit. Commissioner Hicks last time

1:28:14 ↗ requested that more elaborate, I can't think of the

1:28:20 ↗ right word right now, but to expound on the whole proposal for

1:28:26 ↗ wetlands and critical areas enhancements. So I'd like, oh okay. So yes,

1:28:32 ↗ so I'm gonna start off by having them talk about that and

1:28:38 ↗ then I'll address the other wetland questions. Good

1:28:43 ↗ evening. My name is Anne Olson. My business address is 15020

1:28:49 ↗ Bear Creek Road, Northeast, Woodinville, Washington, 98117. So the question came

1:28:55 ↗ up as what are the categories of the wetlands? And there's

1:29:01 ↗ three wetlands on the project site, one along I-90. You could

1:29:07 ↗ use this. Yeah. Oh, okay. All right. One along I-90, we

1:29:13 ↗ call that Wetland B. One along the Arena Sports right here, which is Wetland A.

1:29:19 ↗ And then the large Tibbets Creek Wetland that extends off-site to the south along Tibbets

1:29:24 ↗ Creek. And they're all Category 3 wetlands, and these wetlands have been reviewed by the

1:29:29 ↗ city's peer review consultant and the categories have been verified. The category

1:29:35 ↗ requires that the wetlands have a 50 foot buffer and so the site is

1:29:41 ↗ bound by wetlands and then of course Schneider Creek up here and so the

1:29:47 ↗ wetlands are giving a 50 foot buffer on both the east and the

1:29:53 ↗ north and then an average 100 foot buffer for Schneider Creek on the west side

1:29:59 ↗ of the development. No development is proposed adjacent to the Tibbetts Creek Welland. It's a

1:30:05 ↗ portion of the site that is unaccessible except for the proposed shared used trail and

1:30:11 ↗ boardwalk. So what we are proposing to do is that all of

1:30:16 ↗ the buffers for the wetlands and Schneider Creek are going to be extensively

1:30:22 ↗ enhanced as part of this development. It will include a lot of evergreen

1:30:28 ↗ trees as requested by during the last development commission meeting as well as

1:30:34 ↗ many other native plants and trees, shrubs and so I guess that's all

1:30:40 ↗ I have. Are there any other questions? I was

1:30:46 ↗ reading through Matt Corsi's comments about the canary

1:30:51 ↗ reed grass and the plantings that will be

1:30:57 ↗ done to shade it out. And I wanted

1:31:03 ↗ to get some clarification on the species of shrubs and ground cover that will completely

1:31:08 ↗ shade out and smother the canary reed grass. So what we're doing up in the

1:31:14 ↗ Schneider Creek buffer area is we're actually going to bury the reed canary grass.

1:31:20 ↗ We're gonna bury it with some peat and some other soils to create

1:31:26 ↗ an undulating berm and create the trail. So that will basically eradicate the

1:31:32 ↗ reed canary grass within the Schneider Creek buffer area. The other buffer areas

1:31:38 ↗ along I-90 and wetland A along the arena sports club is we will

1:31:43 ↗ be planting a diverse collection of evergreen trees, Doug fir, western red

1:31:49 ↗ cedar, maybe some pinus, sicca spruce, and then along with that we'll

1:31:55 ↗ be planting deciduous trees and large shrubs. So what these will do

1:32:01 ↗ is they, reed canary grass is a tall grass, and so we

1:32:07 ↗ intend to plant species that are taller in the beginning of the

1:32:13 ↗ grass. They will grow and then eventually shade out the remaining grass

1:32:19 ↗ underneath them. brown covers would not be appropriate in some of

1:32:25 ↗ these areas because they would just be overtaken by the grasses and

1:32:30 ↗ probably smothered. I also had a question about the grading of the

1:32:36 ↗ stream banks. I want to make sure that it's clear that there

1:32:42 ↗ will be no grading of the stream banks below the OHWM. I'm

1:32:47 ↗ sorry, I'm not really sure what that acronym means. And

1:32:53 ↗ that the SEPA was revised to, I don't know, reflect that

1:32:59 ↗ there won't be any grading of the stream beds yes we have we are not

1:33:04 ↗ proposing any grading below with ordinary high water mark and that's what ohwm stands for

1:33:10 ↗ of schneider creek and we we clearly depicted that on the conceptual grading plan that

1:33:16 ↗ we proposed and and presented to the city and that's one of the agreements we

1:33:22 ↗ had with the city's environmental planner thank you for that clarification any other questions on

1:33:29 ↗ - Landscaping? Wetlands, I should say. Thank you very much. - You're welcome.

1:33:35 ↗ - Okay, I guess Anne answered all the questions on the wetlands, so

1:33:40 ↗ I will proceed unless somebody has a question for me. Okay,

1:33:46 ↗ density. So again, this is one of the topics that was brought

1:33:52 ↗ up last time. There was a request for clarification on how we

1:33:58 ↗ came up with the number that I had last time. So we

1:34:04 ↗ went back and recalculated the the lot area and we got more

1:34:09 ↗ clarification from the applicants also about the lot area. So first, let

1:34:15 ↗ me clarify that in the Central Issaquah standards, we do not use

1:34:21 ↗ density in terms of number of units for residential development. Everything in

1:34:26 ↗ Central Issaquah is based on floor area ratio. So the top

1:34:32 ↗ numbers show you how they complied with the floor area

1:34:38 ↗ ratio. For this particular part of central Issaquah, which is

1:34:43 ↗ zoned in the village residential, there is a minimum required

1:34:49 ↗ FAR of 0.75 for properties that are three acres or

1:34:54 ↗ more. So this applies to their site. Here is just basically

1:35:00 ↗ the calculation. And the calculation is also based on, again, this is

1:35:06 ↗ based on the standard, the developable area. So the developable area is

1:35:12 ↗ not the total lot area if you were to calculate from boundary

1:35:18 ↗ to boundary. The developable area takes out all the critical areas. And

1:35:24 ↗ so what remains is, what we base the FAR on. And so

1:35:29 ↗ based on that FAR, they are basically meeting the minimum requirement. And

1:35:35 ↗ actually, they're very close to the minimum FAR, which is .7. They're

1:35:41 ↗ proposing .78. So just to help respond to the question, is

1:35:47 ↗ this development actually what you would consider a medium density development

1:35:53 ↗ based on the Central Issaquah vision for the Western Gateway? So

1:35:58 ↗ one way that we looked at this is to look at

1:36:04 ↗ other existing residential development along Newport Way that was originally built under

1:36:10 ↗ a medium density standard. So these are the developments that are existing right

1:36:16 ↗ now that were built, except for Spyglass Hill. So Sammamish Point Condos and

1:36:22 ↗ Bentley House. So the Gateway Apartments using the traditional density

1:36:27 ↗ calculation of dwelling units per acre, again, not what the

1:36:33 ↗ standards require, but just to clarify how we determined that

1:36:39 ↗ this is a medium density development. It shows that it

1:36:45 ↗ is within the range of a medium density residential development.

1:36:51 ↗ Any questions on this one? Item 24, the question had

1:36:56 ↗ to do, and I think I already responded to this, but regarding

1:37:02 ↗ these parking and not having a sidewalk on this edge, there was

1:37:08 ↗ a question about the width of these parking spaces. There was a

1:37:14 ↗ concern that if we reduce it from eight feet to seven feet, that we'll

1:37:20 ↗ have some conditions that somebody had referred to the Issaquah Highlands where, you know,

1:37:26 ↗ parking where the parallel parking in the street were very, were the

1:37:31 ↗ experience was that they were very narrow. And so,

1:37:37 ↗ and the question about whether, how does these standards

1:37:42 ↗ compare to the Issaquah Highlands standards? So basically learning

1:37:48 ↗ from the lesson from the Issaquah Highlands, And Lucy answered

1:37:54 ↗ this question before since she was experienced on the Issaquah Islands. Those

1:38:00 ↗ spaces that were very tight were actually six feet wide. And so

1:38:05 ↗ these are obviously They're going to be seven feet,

1:38:11 ↗ and given the amount of open spaces on

1:38:16 ↗ one edge and this street, that there will

1:38:22 ↗ be what we believe will be adequate space

1:38:27 ↗ for parking. So I think I answered all.

1:38:33 ↗ So, Amy, I just want to clarify one thing. When we originally came to you,

1:38:38 ↗ we were talking with the applicant about seven feet. That's why I'm doing hand signs

1:38:44 ↗ out here. But in further discussion, they want to actually stay with the eight feet.

1:38:49 ↗ They would have the flexibility of going to seven, and we think that seven could

1:38:54 ↗ be appropriate. But I want to clarify that their design right now is for eight

1:38:59 ↗ feet. - Let me ask a question. So was that part, going to

1:39:05 ↗ seven would have been part of administrative adjustment of standards? - Right, so it's an

1:39:11 ↗ option that was recommended for approval within the staff report. And that was their previous

1:39:16 ↗ design. But I think partly in response to the commission's comments, partly, where they are

1:39:22 ↗ planning to stick with eight. So if they want to go to seven,

1:39:28 ↗ do they have to come back for an administrative adjustment of standards then?

1:39:34 ↗ That's that tricky word in there, administrative. So, no. They just go to

1:39:39 ↗ the administration for the adjustment, as anybody could in any development. Yes. So

1:39:45 ↗ what we'd be approving would be eight-foot wide stalls. They showed eight. We

1:39:51 ↗ had recommended approval for seven, so they could still have -- they would still have

1:39:56 ↗ the right to go to seven. Their plan proposes eight, and they don't anticipate a

1:40:01 ↗ need to use the seven. Right. So tonight we're approving eight-foot-wide. They would have to

1:40:05 ↗ go back to the staff -- back to the administration to get an adjustment if

1:40:10 ↗ they wanted to do that later. That would not be in our -- come in

1:40:15 ↗ front of us? It would not come in front of you. Okay. Any questions on

1:40:20 ↗ that? Thank you, Amy. Thank you

1:40:26 ↗ for the clarification. So the other question has to do

1:40:32 ↗ with the design of one of the streets serving the

1:40:37 ↗ five-story buildings. This was a situation where We instead

1:40:43 ↗ of having parallel parking with the standard street trees, they have garages and

1:40:49 ↗ parking on one side and then parallel parking on the other side.

1:40:55 ↗ So our neighborhood street standards obviously would have required the

1:41:01 ↗ same treatment on both sides of the street. This is

1:41:07 ↗ one situation where we balanced several goals and intent in

1:41:13 ↗ central Issaquah and the idea of encouraging parking obviously

1:41:18 ↗ inside garages and not having surface parking is reflected in

1:41:24 ↗ these smaller buildings here. And then at the same time,

1:41:30 ↗ we wanted to create a pedestrian friendly environment for just

1:41:36 ↗ the edge of the taller buildings. So the compromise was

1:41:42 ↗ to basically allow allow one side of the street again similar

1:41:48 ↗ to the rationale we had for the 10 foot wide sidewalk here.

1:41:54 ↗ understanding that it's highly unlikely that people will be walking right along a row

1:42:00 ↗ of parking that's not the most pleasant place to walk when you know that

1:42:06 ↗ you can walk on this edge of the building where you're going to have

1:42:11 ↗ benches, you know, they will there will be benches and and other pedestrian amenities

1:42:17 ↗ on this side of the street. Any questions for this one?

1:42:26 ↗ Okay, so off-site sewer main, there was a question about whether

1:42:32 ↗ the off-site sewer main will result in construction interruptions on Newport

1:42:38 ↗ Way. So the off-site sewer main that is required for this

1:42:44 ↗ project is actually going to connect on Poplar Way. So Newport

1:42:50 ↗ Way will not be impacted at all. And as far as

1:42:55 ↗ the dog park versus dog run, first, we wanted to clarify

1:43:01 ↗ that we were using those words interchangeably. And originally, we had

1:43:07 ↗ a condition which is struck out here where it talks about

1:43:12 ↗ requiring them to provide a dog park or dog run. However,

1:43:18 ↗ because this is not a requirement in the Central Sequoia Standards,

1:43:24 ↗ and although it is encouraged, and we did discuss this extensively

1:43:30 ↗ last time about the value of having one. So we revised

1:43:36 ↗ the condition to basically acknowledge that as much as we cannot

1:43:41 ↗ require a dog park, we know that there will be people living

1:43:47 ↗ here with dogs and they'll be walking their dogs. So there is a very

1:43:53 ↗ specific standard in the Central Sequoia Standards and Design, I'm sorry, Design,

1:43:59 ↗ Central El Salvador Development and Design Standards that does

1:44:05 ↗ require for a developer or an applicant to provide

1:44:11 ↗ some way of basically managing pet waste. And so

1:44:17 ↗ we did revise the condition 41 to basically

1:44:23 ↗ state that. And it's renumbered as condition C3

1:44:28 ↗ in your attachment, in attachment one of your

1:44:34 ↗ briefing memo. Any questions? So item 29. This

1:44:40 ↗ was also something that was a concern to the Development Commission and there

1:44:46 ↗ was some confusion about why are we asking for a special paving for

1:44:52 ↗ crosswalks? And there was a concern that it wasn't safe. So on the

1:44:58 ↗ right, we are basically providing two different types of treatment for crossings, for

1:45:04 ↗ pedestrian crossings that are in our street standards. and we are planning to

1:45:10 ↗ use both of them in this development. For areas where The crossing

1:45:16 ↗ are at the intersection of two streets. We will use the T36,

1:45:21 ↗ which is the standard painted crosswalk that as one commissioner had noted

1:45:27 ↗ last time is more intuitive because it's what people are used to.

1:45:33 ↗ And we recognize that there will be where you have intersections where

1:45:39 ↗ you have a lot two different directions of traffic going

1:45:45 ↗ on. That's probably appropriate. And then for areas where

1:45:50 ↗ they're simple connections and also connections for their pedestrian

1:45:56 ↗ circulation, we are going to use the paved, the

1:46:02 ↗ special paving as a way to distinguish those two

1:46:07 ↗ types. So both of them are acceptable and are covered in

1:46:13 ↗ our standards. The special paving is what was in the Central Issaquah standards as

1:46:19 ↗ a requirement. - I guess I'm being really dense, but I can't tell the

1:46:24 ↗ difference. They're both detailed T36. - Oh, I'm so sorry. - The top one's

1:46:30 ↗ 36, the bottom one's 37. - Yeah. - Okay, thank you. - So this

1:46:36 ↗ one is T37. So this is a special paving. T36, my

1:46:42 ↗ typo. So I want to also identify a

1:46:48 ↗ feature of this special crossing. The paint or

1:46:54 ↗ the application of Durastripe or paint that is shown here would

1:46:59 ↗ be the same bordering the decorative painting or decorative crossing so you would be able

1:47:04 ↗ to see this crossing as you would this here. So they have the similar features

1:47:09 ↗ in identifying where people would cross and it's reflective and you'd be able to see

1:47:14 ↗ it at night as well as during the day and the color would be white.

1:47:20 ↗ Thank you. So the circles are showing the special paving that's

1:47:26 ↗ shown in the lower right corner. Okay, thank you. Any more

1:47:32 ↗ questions? So roof collar, this question came

1:47:38 ↗ up because we do have a standard that talks about roofs

1:47:44 ↗ should provide a reflective, a solar reflective index of 78. And

1:47:49 ↗ so we got clarification about that. And basically for roofs with

1:47:55 ↗ that, solar reflective index, they're pretty much white roofs. And given that

1:48:01 ↗ these buildings have pitch roofs and they're shown, as someone had

1:48:06 ↗ rightly commented last time, they're shown as more dark colored roofs.

1:48:12 ↗ So we did get some clarification that the solar reflective index

1:48:17 ↗ is only applicable to flatter roofs. And so it won't apply

1:48:23 ↗ to pitch roofs. Now I have

1:48:28 ↗ to look at item 33.

1:48:39 ↗ Okay, so item 33 was basically Commissioner Morgan's question to the

1:48:44 ↗ applicant last time if they had any concerns and they'd like

1:48:50 ↗ to express. And so we definitely heard their concerns and we

1:48:55 ↗ have been working with the applicant very closely on, and as

1:49:01 ↗ you can see in the briefing responses, We have responses and they

1:49:07 ↗ have responses. So we work together to basically address all the

1:49:13 ↗ concerns and the comments both from the public and the commission

1:49:18 ↗ last time. And we we have come to a point where

1:49:24 ↗ we really think that we have worked out a lot of those

1:49:30 ↗ questions and concerns from the last meeting. And so I'd like to

1:49:35 ↗ close out my presentation with just saying that we do feel very

1:49:41 ↗ good about the process and we are very appreciative about both the

1:49:47 ↗ public comments we've received and also just how the applicants have and their consultants

1:49:53 ↗ have worked very well with us to address a lot of these concerns. And

1:49:59 ↗ I would just add that Attachment 1 has these new conditions that we've met

1:50:05 ↗ many times and did a lot of email work with the applicant. And if

1:50:11 ↗ the commissioners have any comments or questions about how we got to them,

1:50:18 ↗ the final form, feel free to let us know. So

1:50:24 ↗ that's the end of your presentation, Amy. Does the applicant

1:50:30 ↗ have a presentation to make? No? Okay. Okay, so just

1:50:36 ↗ to close out my presentation, based on the submitted application

1:50:42 ↗ and plans, both from the August 5th, 2015 public hearing

1:50:47 ↗ and today's public hearing, the administration recommends that the Development Commission

1:50:53 ↗ move to approve the site development permit for the Issaquah Gateway

1:50:59 ↗ Apartments project file number SDP 15-00002 as described and evaluated

1:51:05 ↗ in the staff report dated August 5, 2015 with

1:51:10 ↗ attachments 1 to 10 and project drawings received August

1:51:16 ↗ 1, 2015 briefing response memo dated September 16, 2015

1:51:21 ↗ with attachments one to eight, because today we added one more, and

1:51:27 ↗ subject to the conditions therein and as amended tonight. And secondly, direct the

1:51:33 ↗ Development Services Department to prepare findings of fact and conclusions for review and

1:51:38 ↗ approval by the Development Commission Chair, affirming the Development Commission's decision to approve

1:51:44 ↗ the Issaquah Gateway Apartments project. File number SDP 15-00002 as described and

1:51:50 ↗ evaluated in the staff report dated August 5th, 2015 with attachments

1:51:55 ↗ one to 10 and project drawings received August 1st, 2015 briefing

1:52:01 ↗ response memo dated September 16, 2015 with attachments one through eight

1:52:07 ↗ and subject to the conditions therein as amended tonight. Thank you.

1:52:13 ↗ - Great, thank you, Amy. Question for the commissioners. The plan had

1:52:19 ↗ been to at this point go to public comments and then take a break and

1:52:23 ↗ go through things. We're almost two hours in. Would we want to take a break

1:52:27 ↗ now, get a chance to read through the comments that came in today, let anybody

1:52:31 ↗ else sign up to speak if they want to, and then come back and do

1:52:35 ↗ public comments after the break? Do you have a preference either way? I'm fine

1:52:41 ↗ either way. Appreciate a break. I think, yes, I think the red liquid. Appreciate a

1:52:47 ↗ break. So we're going to take about a five-minute break. Again, if you want to

1:52:52 ↗ speak tonight with comments or questions, we've got a sign-up sheet down here that we'll

1:52:58 ↗ be going off of. We've got some comments to read through here on our break,

1:53:03 ↗ and we'll come back in about five minutes and start the public comments portion of

1:53:09 ↗ the meeting. Speed reading? Speed reading.

2:06:53 ↗ We'll call the meeting back to order again. And so we're at the point where

2:06:58 ↗ we'll have public comments and questions. Again, when you come to the microphone, please give

2:07:04 ↗ us your name and your address, either personal or business address. We'd like to keep

2:07:09 ↗ comments to three minutes or less if we can. And again, if you're just repeating

2:07:14 ↗ what somebody has already said, given that we're already well over two hours now into

2:07:19 ↗ the meeting, we don't want to extend it. any longer than it needs to be,

2:07:24 ↗ you can always just say I agree with what somebody said before. So we'll start

2:07:29 ↗ off, I'll go through the list. If I butcher your name, please forgive me. When

2:07:34 ↗ we're done going through this list of people that have signed up, if you decide

2:07:38 ↗ you do wanna speak, we'll still have time for that as well. So we'll start

2:07:43 ↗ out with Geraldine Carey.

2:07:49 ↗ My name is Geraldine Carey and I live at 955 17th Avenue,

2:07:54 ↗ Newport Way. 17th Avenue, 17th Avenue, in Issaquah. My driveway exits off

2:08:00 ↗ Newport Way. Sorry. I hate being at meetings like this because I

2:08:06 ↗ get nervous, but this is such a project that has so much

2:08:11 ↗ emotional turmoil to me. I hate it. I have lived in Issaquah 37

2:08:17 ↗ years and I see nothing but gridlock on Newport Way. I see nothing but headaches

2:08:23 ↗ for the city of Issaquah when this project and the other developments are done. You're

2:08:28 ↗ doing a disservice to the people in Issaquah. Nobody's gonna be able to get into

2:08:34 ↗ and out of Issaquah on Newport Way. When you dump 400 units of traffic

2:08:40 ↗ onto Newport Way, they're gonna either go west onto 90 and they can't get

2:08:45 ↗ on 90 because 90 is already gridlocked. I mean, unless you widen I-90 to

2:08:51 ↗ 10 lanes in each, going into Seattle, you're not gonna be able to get

2:08:57 ↗ off of Newport Way. If you go into Issaquah on Newport Way, it's already

2:09:03 ↗ gridlocked past Summerhill. I just don't understand how you can

2:09:09 ↗ let this kind of traffic within the city of Issaquah

2:09:14 ↗ without making major changes to Newport Way. I mean, it's

2:09:19 ↗ just, I can't believe any of you guys You know, you're

2:09:25 ↗ doing something, you're getting paid, you're putting in a development, but you're messing with my

2:09:30 ↗ life. You're messing with the people in Issaquah. You're ruining our quality of life because

2:09:35 ↗ you're going to put this huge amount population that has nowhere to go on our

2:09:41 ↗ roads and you just pat yourself on the back and say I'm doing a good

2:09:47 ↗ job I'm making a nice apartment well to me they're dumpy looking they remind me

2:09:52 ↗ of what low-income housing looks like on SR 900 going down into Renton on the

2:09:58 ↗ right side of the road I mean, I see no quality. I see nothing

2:10:04 ↗ desirable about it. You're making the access into your development beautiful, easy, everything. But the

2:10:09 ↗ rest of us who have to get on the Newport Way can't do it because

2:10:15 ↗ of the traffic you're gonna put on that road. And you know, I don't understand

2:10:21 ↗ why you can't get it. I drive that road probably three or four times a

2:10:26 ↗ day into the city, into Bellevue, into Renton, And, you know, traffic is

2:10:32 ↗ bad enough. They lowered the speed limit to 30 miles an hour. You know, that's

2:10:37 ↗ good, but when you add 600, 2,000 more car traffic, car trips a day, I'm

2:10:43 ↗ not going to be able to get out of my house. You can, you know,

2:10:48 ↗ your people will be fine, but the rest of us who live on Newport Way

2:10:53 ↗ are just going to be locked in our driveways, broadsided because your traffic is going

2:10:58 ↗ to hit us. And I hope you understand I hope you read and

2:11:04 ↗ you understand what you're doing to the city, to me, to residents. You're

2:11:10 ↗ gonna ruin the rest of my life here with your development. And I

2:11:16 ↗ hope what goes around comes around to you. Thank you. - Thank you,

2:11:22 ↗ Ms. Kerry. - Sorry, I just get emotional when I think about it.

2:11:28 ↗ - Thank you. The next is Tina Confort. - Hello, my name is

2:11:34 ↗ Tina Confort and I live in 1220 Oakwood Place, Northwest Issaquah.

2:11:41 ↗ And I believe we're here tonight for all of the

2:11:46 ↗ same reason. The Gateway Project 400 units will triple the

2:11:52 ↗ traffic along the Newport Way corridor. This project needs to

2:11:57 ↗ be postponed until all the traffic start is completely done.

2:12:03 ↗ The Gateway Project second exit should be looking in the

2:12:08 ↗ for construction vehicles Newport Way is another homely way

2:12:14 ↗ for the construction projects. Here are some of the alternatives. Mr.

2:12:20 ↗ Wolf should negotiate with the owner of the private road, Mr.

2:12:26 ↗ Raleigh, for the use of the private road along the High

2:12:32 ↗ 90, or the use of the road Northwest Gilman Boulevard, which

2:12:38 ↗ connects to the private road along the High 90.

2:12:44 ↗ Road easements are for the purpose to provide for current

2:12:50 ↗ or future improved public roadways. To avoid the land lack

2:12:56 ↗ of parcel or for general public accesses, these easements are

2:13:01 ↗ acquired through a number of ways. The most common are

2:13:07 ↗ easements dedicated by property owners during the development process.

2:13:13 ↗ court ruling, imminent domain, subdivision, exercise of prescriptive

2:13:19 ↗ rights and by voluntary action. Please take into

2:13:25 ↗ consideration the suggestion and the alternative because Newport

2:13:31 ↗ Way cannot take any more traffic. Newport Way

2:13:36 ↗ cannot take another child's life, mortality. I am

2:13:42 ↗ the next door neighbor of that child. I feel every day

2:13:48 ↗ the parents, what they go through, it goes through in me.

2:13:54 ↗ You don't understand, but I do as a neighbor. So this,

2:13:59 ↗ the Newport Way development gateway, it need to be more traffic

2:14:05 ↗ study, how they gonna handle the traffic go through only Newport

2:14:11 ↗ Way. And where are the vehicles from the construction, the

2:14:16 ↗ trucks are going to go by? Are they going to go by

2:14:22 ↗ Newport Way? Newport Way is a design corridor, no trucks allowed. So

2:14:28 ↗ find other way to direct the traffic. And I am going to

2:14:34 ↗ conclude with my comments by, I am concluding the City of FISA

2:14:40 ↗ Quad Government to postpone the Gateway Project. and to improve the

2:14:46 ↗ crosswalk along Newport Way for traffic and pedestrian cyclist safety.

2:14:51 ↗ Remember, safety comes first. We don't want to see no

2:14:57 ↗ more lives, no little child lost life on the corner

2:15:03 ↗ of Summer Hill and Newport Way. Thanks for listening. -

2:15:09 ↗ Thank you. And next up is Joe Verner. Okay, we'll

2:15:15 ↗ go to Jim Lippincott.

2:15:23 ↗ I'm Jim Lipencott. I'm at 2258 Newport Way Northwest in the

2:15:29 ↗ Sammamish Point condominiums. I sent a couple emails today, one to

2:15:35 ↗ you guys and one to Amy. We did receive those. OK.

2:15:40 ↗ Yes. Hopefully you had a chance to review them. That's what

2:15:46 ↗ we did on our break. Good. My concern is I'm very

2:15:52 ↗ concerned personally with Newport Way being widened to an extent where it

2:15:58 ↗ infringes on our current land. I understand there's going to be a parkway. I

2:16:04 ↗ understand there's going to be a 10-foot sidewalk and a 4-foot vegetation side area

2:16:10 ↗ and a center lane and two bike lanes. And I don't know how they're

2:16:16 ↗ going to do that without saying, you know, we need your fence. We're going

2:16:22 ↗ to come into your front yard. I want to

2:16:27 ↗ extend an invitation to Doug Schlepp, Jeff Stram, come meet me. Come have

2:16:33 ↗ a cup of coffee. Come bring a tape measure. Let's talk about it.

2:16:38 ↗ Let's look at it seriously. Provide some sort of confidence to the Sammamish

2:16:44 ↗ Point that we're being considered in this. I know there's power lines on

2:16:50 ↗ the south side run by the PUD. I really think those could be

2:16:55 ↗ moved back to where there's a a chance for both the north

2:17:01 ↗ and south to share some of this widening that's going to go on instead of

2:17:07 ↗ everything coming off the north side and Samaritan's Point. That needs to be discussed. We

2:17:13 ↗ got a chance to get this project right. And if it takes an extra month

2:17:19 ↗ and another development board meeting to do that, let's have the integrity to do that.

2:17:25 ↗ Take a little more time. Thank you for your time. CHRIS JERRAM: Thank you. Next

2:17:31 ↗ would be Hart Sugarman. Good

2:17:37 ↗ evening. My name is Hart Sugarman and I live at 2550 Northwest Oak Crest Drive.

2:17:42 ↗ Resident of Issaquah for over 19 years. Watching the city grow in population from when

2:17:48 ↗ I arrived here it was 13,000. Now it's 34,000. So we know the city's growing

2:17:54 ↗ but it has to be controlled and you're the folks that have the say of

2:17:59 ↗ what goes on here and controlling the growth of the city. when i last spoke

2:18:05 ↗ in the august 5th meeting i threw out some numbers and i wanted to just

2:18:10 ↗ present them more on a platform here we can read it in our current community

2:18:16 ↗ of summer hill we're 55 homes spyglass is 50 sammamish point is 132 bentley is

2:18:21 ↗ 47 and pine cone neighborhood is 78. so today we have 362 residents With the

2:18:27 ↗ developments on the books, we have Gateway Apartments at 400, the senior apartments at 136,

2:18:32 ↗ Bergsma at 78, and Reeve at 33, so we're up to 647. So as the

2:18:38 ↗ lady mentioned, the first public comment this evening, we can't get out of our driveways,

2:18:44 ↗ we can't get out of our roadways because of the traffic that's flowing on Newport

2:18:49 ↗ Way. So increased volume of traffic is impacting the entire community where we live. Now,

2:18:55 ↗ this evening we saw cross sections of two proposed roadways, one with the center third

2:19:00 ↗ lane and the other one with the tree line in the center. The tree line

2:19:04 ↗ in the center is definitely not the way to go because with the backup of

2:19:09 ↗ traffic today, if you're only going to have one lane in each direction and there's

2:19:13 ↗ an emergency vehicle that has to get through, where does the car in the single

2:19:18 ↗ lane pull over to and how can a fire truck pass that car when there's

2:19:22 ↗ a tree in the center? The center tree line also prevents people from seeing the

2:19:28 ↗ roadway. We have curves in the roadway. We have sight lines to deal with. So

2:19:33 ↗ we have to be able to see the cars that are approaching and the pedestrians.

2:19:39 ↗ I'm an advocate for pedestrian safety, cyclist safety, and motor safety. So we have to

2:19:44 ↗ keep that in mind. So as you go through with the decisions on these projects,

2:19:50 ↗ You have to make the roadway improvements first before the development begins construction. A petition

2:19:56 ↗ was submitted to the City of Issaquah to do that, and I suggest that we

2:20:02 ↗ all pause at this time, make the improvements as a whole, not piecemeal. You can't

2:20:08 ↗ do one section now and another section later. Complete the improvements of the infrastructure and

2:20:14 ↗ then start the development. Thank you very much. Thank you.

2:20:21 ↗ Next would be Bob Crotchy. Close. Crotchy.

2:20:27 ↗ Crotchy. Bob Crotchy. I live at 2150

2:20:33 ↗ Newport Way, northwest in Sammamish Point.

2:20:39 ↗ I've been in this area, Issaquah, for 13 years, and Newport Way is

2:20:44 ↗ from this new project, the Gateway Projects. It's just going to make Newport

2:20:50 ↗ a mess. And I suggest that I know that there was a traffic

2:20:56 ↗ study, but It needs to be more comprehensive. And now that

2:21:01 ↗ the speed limit is 30 miles an hour, it needs

2:21:07 ↗ to be redone. I understand it was done by the

2:21:13 ↗ developer. It needs to be done independently and a thorough

2:21:19 ↗ traffic study done. And that's the big thing with me.

2:21:24 ↗ But anyway, that's it. Thank you. Carol Lopez. Hi, good

2:21:30 ↗ evening. I have a list here of 10 items that I put together since the

2:21:36 ↗ last public hearing. And I want to once again start by thanking all of you

2:21:40 ↗ for your hard work. I do appreciate your hard work, the attention that you all

2:21:45 ↗ are putting into this project. and the considerations, I appreciate that Amy was going through

2:21:51 ↗ some of the things that I have on my list as concerns. Just by way

2:21:56 ↗ of background, I need to back up a little bit and identify myself. Carol Lopez.

2:22:01 ↗ I live at 2262 Newport Way Northwest, Issaquah. I've lived at Sammamish Point Condominiums for

2:22:06 ↗ 17 years. For five years I served on the board, the HOA board at Sammamish

2:22:11 ↗ Point Condominiums as a vice president, as a treasurer, and until March of last year

2:22:16 ↗ I served my final year there as president of the HOA at Sammamish Point Condominiums.

2:22:21 ↗ So I'm well aware of the various concerns that we do have in our community.

2:22:27 ↗ I'm very appreciative. Ms. Lopez, just letting you know too, we did get a copy

2:22:32 ↗ of your 10 points. Very good, thank you. You're welcome. I'm just going to run

2:22:37 ↗ through these very quickly. Some have been addressed by Amy, so I'll just dig in

2:22:43 ↗ here. First of all, the traffic studies. I appreciate that there have been various traffic

2:22:48 ↗ studies referenced. However, I am still not convinced that there has been a traffic study

2:22:53 ↗ done independently that is validated by a third party that adequately addresses

2:22:59 ↗ the concerns of the community. It seems, my impression is, that we are

2:23:05 ↗ relying on traffic studies and projections done by the developer and while I

2:23:10 ↗ appreciate their work, it seems to me there's a conflict of interest here.

2:23:16 ↗ So that's number one. I don't understand why we're relying on that type of study

2:23:21 ↗ rather than running an independent study. And again, as Bob was saying earlier, now that

2:23:26 ↗ the speed limit has been reduced from 40 miles per hour to 30 miles per

2:23:32 ↗ hour, it seems to me that we do need to reevaluate the traffic and congestion

2:23:37 ↗ and projections for Newport Way. I'm also very concerned that tonight I saw and it

2:23:42 ↗ became more clear to me that there are plans to turn Newport Way into a

2:23:46 ↗ three-lane arterial. This is a huge concern. We at Sammamish Point Condominiums are going to

2:23:51 ↗ be the next-door neighbors should you proceed with this complex. And to turn Newport Way

2:23:56 ↗ into a three-lane arterial, where in the world are you going to find the room

2:24:01 ↗ for this? We have backyards, we have patios, we have a whole

2:24:07 ↗ group of homeowners in a 132 unit community who have purchased property. And

2:24:12 ↗ these are homes, these are investments, this is where we live. and the

2:24:18 ↗ prospect of widening Newport Way says, "Okay, well where are you going to get that?"

2:24:23 ↗ Our property line is at risk. Our 10-foot easement is at risk. And our safety

2:24:29 ↗ is at risk. So I'm concerned about that. Number two, my item number two is

2:24:34 ↗ one entrance and egress. I heard the comment earlier that the applicant feels that one

2:24:39 ↗ entrance and egress is adequate. I disagree. I think that too, we in our

2:24:45 ↗ smaller unit, smaller property, have two and we depend on them, we

2:24:51 ↗ use them. And so it does seem to me that two entrances

2:24:56 ↗ is more than appropriate should you proceed with this complex. Number three,

2:25:02 ↗ the width of Newport. Why I already addressed that. Also, I wanted to note on

2:25:07 ↗ this that when we have snow, and we do still get snow, we didn't get

2:25:12 ↗ much snow last year, but when snow occurs, and this has occurred many, many times

2:25:17 ↗ through the years where in Issaquah the snowfall comes, and guess what? A lot of

2:25:22 ↗ the surrounding communities, which we are a foothill community, have issues where the cars are

2:25:27 ↗ not able to drive up the streets because of the snow. So Newport Way

2:25:33 ↗ becomes where they park. We're talking about the residents of Lakemont, of Squawk Mountain,

2:25:38 ↗ of Tallis, of the Issaquah Highlands, Oftentimes, we have had instances where they have not

2:25:44 ↗ been able to get up into their communities. So this needs to be taken into

2:25:49 ↗ account. Newport Way becomes where they park in those instances until the snow melts down

2:25:54 ↗ enough to where they can retrieve their cars. Number four, parking spaces. I heard the

2:25:59 ↗ comments tonight about parking spaces. It appears that they're enough. We are very

2:26:05 ↗ concerned at Sammamish Point Condominiums that the residents of this proposed community will

2:26:11 ↗ be using our guest parking spots. Part of the reason people have purchased property in

2:26:16 ↗ Sammamish Point is the various amenities. We don't have a community center. There are various

2:26:21 ↗ things we don't have, but we do have, we have a beautiful landscape. We have

2:26:26 ↗ a certain density. It's not above a certain density. And we have guest parking. So

2:26:31 ↗ where, you know, what's going to happen to our guest parking once this community that

2:26:36 ↗ you're proposing opens up? We are very concerned that it will be at risk. Item

2:26:42 ↗ number five, we have a 10 foot easement surrounding the perimeter of our community and

2:26:48 ↗ we are very concerned that some of the maps do not reflect this 10 foot

2:26:54 ↗ easement. So we would like to strongly encourage that it be taken into account and

2:27:00 ↗ really it should be even wider. So Ms. Lopez, I'm going to ask you again

2:27:04 ↗ with a three minute limit. Yes. Give everybody the time to speak. If you can

2:27:09 ↗ get through the rest of these things in a minute, that would be great. I

2:27:13 ↗ will. I will. Sure. Again, we have all these. You have all those. Yes, but

2:27:17 ↗ they don't. Okay. So I'm going to run through them very quickly. Apartments. I heard

2:27:21 ↗ that the issue of why are apartments versus homeowner residents being built and being proposed

2:27:25 ↗ here. Um, Still, I am not, personally, I am not satisfied

2:27:31 ↗ that this has been addressed properly. Apartments do bring in residents who

2:27:37 ↗ are not property taxpayers and this complex will add to the taxpayer

2:27:42 ↗ burden for Issaquah. Number seven, again, just here, this is a request

2:27:48 ↗ for mitigation that any of the construction vehicles should you proceed, will

2:27:54 ↗ not use Newport Way. Newport Way will be a nightmare for the next many years,

2:28:00 ↗ for the next foreseeable years because of construction where you can imagine where there's one

2:28:06 ↗ lane in each direction and you've got flaggers with construction and turning it into literally

2:28:12 ↗ one lane and people trying to commute to work and from work. Wetlands, the land

2:28:18 ↗ itself is wetlands. Our property itself is saturated most of the year. We have

2:28:23 ↗ buildings that are now having to have budget where we have gaps appearing, where

2:28:29 ↗ the base of our building is appearing because the land is saturated and we

2:28:35 ↗ are uphill from this proposed complex. So we are concerned that the construction itself

2:28:41 ↗ will put the soundness of our buildings at risk. Number nine, school bus traffic

2:28:46 ↗ days. There's no current plan for mitigating the increase in number and frequency, school buses

2:28:52 ↗ along Newport Way. And number 10, the proposed two acre park, that would be inside

2:28:56 ↗ the complex here. From my understanding, the proposal is for land grading only and the

2:29:01 ↗ property taxpayers of Issaquah, not the residents of this complex, would end up covering the

2:29:06 ↗ cost of creating and maintaining the park itself. So just trying to run through these

2:29:11 ↗ very quickly with a little bit of elaboration, but I appreciate your comments and that's

2:29:16 ↗ all I have tonight. Thank you. - Thank you very much. Next is Matt Corsi.

2:29:25 ↗ I'm sorry, we're going to have

2:29:31 ↗ to charge you anyway, so sorry.

2:29:36 ↗ Next is Jessie Claussen. OK. Great,

2:29:42 ↗ thank you. Peggy Foster. OK. Hi.

2:29:48 ↗ I'm Peggy Foster. I live at

2:29:54 ↗ 2254 Newport Way Northwest. I've been

2:30:00 ↗ living on Issaquah-- excuse me, Newport

2:30:06 ↗ Way for about 8 and 1/2

2:30:11 ↗ years. And I've noticed-- oh, thanks.

2:30:19 ↗ I've noticed that the traffic concerns have gotten worse over the last several years. There

2:30:24 ↗ are times when I'm sitting at my entrance, the west entrance, just trying to merge

2:30:30 ↗ onto traffic. And I sit there and I wait and I wait and I wait

2:30:36 ↗ because there's already so much traffic. But anyway, wanted to -- sorry, I digress.

2:30:41 ↗ I know that the project proposed is apartments, but I would like

2:30:47 ↗ to invite the committee to consider an urban village, which I believe

2:30:53 ↗ was something that was considered early on in the plan. And I'm

2:30:59 ↗ wondering, does the Gateway Apartment project align with the vision and the

2:31:05 ↗ goals of the Central Issaquah plan? I'm not so sure how that

2:31:11 ↗ works. Oh, thanks. Thank you. So taken just directly from the plan,

2:31:17 ↗ the vision to inspire an animated and connected urban community where pedestrians are priority,

2:31:23 ↗ buildings and open space. The apartment project addresses a lot of this, but it's

2:31:28 ↗ just for the residents in the apartment. It doesn't integrate anyone else in the

2:31:34 ↗ community. There's two little or two public parks, but again, the city taxpayers are

2:31:40 ↗ paying for that, not the developer. And then it talks about the goal

2:31:45 ↗ to create a compact, attractive, mixed-use urban community that prioritizes pedestrian safety and comfort

2:31:51 ↗ and enhances the quality of life for the community, not just the project. So

2:31:57 ↗ I have a couple of examples. I've done quite a bit of research since

2:32:03 ↗ I've been getting involved in this. And it's working in other cities, the urban

2:32:08 ↗ villages. There's no reason why it can't work in Issaquah as well.

2:32:15 ↗ Here's another example, the Juanita Neighborhood Plan. It's a little colorful, it's kind of

2:32:21 ↗ fun, but they've got restaurants and coffee shops and things that people can walk

2:32:27 ↗ to and anyone in the community can go there. It's not just for the

2:32:33 ↗ residents of the building. Again, in Bothell, same thing. They've got apartment buildings that

2:32:38 ↗ have retail on the bottom floor.

2:32:44 ↗ So I guess my question is why are we doing apartments instead of multifamily residences?

2:32:50 ↗ You're proposing 400 apartments, 18 buildings. There's a little bit of talk about affordable housing,

2:32:55 ↗ but it's not a requirement. But it is in the Issaquah plan, so I don't

2:33:01 ↗ quite understand why it's not included. There's a proposed neighborhood park, but it's just an

2:33:07 ↗ open space. And we're concerned that it does infringe on our protected buffer by

2:33:13 ↗ Sammamish Point. The site entrance egress which you've heard time and time again, one access

2:33:19 ↗ for a complex of 400 units, probably 800 or more people, does not make sense.

2:33:25 ↗ A smaller community of 132 units has two entrances. So one entrance

2:33:31 ↗ just doesn't make sense at all. A private clubhouse is not a public gathering space

2:33:36 ↗ and the Issaquah plan talks about promoting public gathering spaces. And the proposed parkway is

2:33:41 ↗ not pedestrian friendly. It's not a good idea for anybody. The traffic study that I

2:33:47 ↗ keep hearing about seems to me to be very narrow minded. It's just talking about

2:33:52 ↗ the impact that this one project will have on Newport Way. There are several others

2:33:58 ↗ that also should be considered. So, not to, I don't mean to criticize, but there's,

2:34:03 ↗ you know, I think there's a better plan. I think there's a better way to

2:34:09 ↗ use this land to integrate it so that the people of the community are involved

2:34:15 ↗ more. And I don't need to go into that. So, just in closing, anyone can

2:34:21 ↗ build an apartment project. but it takes vision and a passion to create a

2:34:26 ↗ livable, sustainable, and interactive community. I've heard several council members, I've been going to

2:34:32 ↗ a lot of council meetings, several council members have said, "We need to be

2:34:38 ↗ more forward thinking in our decision making process," and I agree with that.

2:34:44 ↗ I want this growth to be a positive change and how we implement it is

2:34:49 ↗ going to make a big difference in not only our generation but generations to come.

2:34:54 ↗ So I just want to say what's the rush? Can we work with us? Can

2:34:59 ↗ we sit down and figure this out together? Lastly, let's make the Western Gateway

2:35:05 ↗ the next catalyst project. I know that that's a hot

2:35:10 ↗ thing on the agenda for this Central Issaquah plan. So

2:35:16 ↗ thank you for listening. Thank you. Next is Mike Pierce.

2:35:22 ↗ I'm going to delete this because then I won't know

2:35:27 ↗ what to say. So I took notes on my phone.

2:35:33 ↗ Mike Pierce, 2228 Newport Way, Northwest of Mamish Point. Moved

2:35:39 ↗ in there in 1999. And I live right on the edge

2:35:44 ↗ of Sammamish Point and about maybe five yards away from my patio on the first

2:35:50 ↗ floor is the fence to the field where this project's gonna be developed. I'm going

2:35:55 ↗ to be directly impacted by all the construction and all that. So that's a big

2:35:59 ↗ part of my thoughts. Just want to say I agree with a lot with the

2:36:03 ↗ traffic, comments from the other people that it's already very, very, very dense and very

2:36:07 ↗ hard to get on in the mornings. You have to wait a minute before you

2:36:11 ↗ get a break between cars and then go very quickly to get on. So this

2:36:15 ↗ will just probably double that impact. So I agree there should be an independent study.

2:36:19 ↗ One of the things I personally was told by my real estate agent was that

2:36:24 ↗ the land next to the condo complex, that couldn't be developed. That it was protected

2:36:30 ↗ environmental land. So I want to know was my real estate agent lying to me

2:36:35 ↗ or did the zoning change? And I don't know if you want to stop and

2:36:40 ↗ answer or just go into the record and you answer later. We wouldn't be the

2:36:46 ↗ ones to answer that question for you. Okay. Sorry. So it can go into the

2:36:50 ↗ record, but I would suggest that you could talk to city staff about that. Okay.

2:36:54 ↗ Yeah. All right. Uh, what, what is the, I have, you kind of logistical questions.

2:36:58 ↗ What's the expected length of the construction project that, you know, start to finish of

2:37:02 ↗ the, building? Do we have that information? That would be something that we can bring

2:37:08 ↗ up after public comments. We'll make a note of that and we'll ask that question

2:37:14 ↗ for you. Yeah, I have other kinds of questions like that. So when we say

2:37:20 ↗ affordable housing, is that just cheaper housing or is it government subsidized housing? Again, I'll

2:37:25 ↗ let staff maybe give a quick answer to that. It's not subsidized. It just has

2:37:31 ↗ to meet certain income levels that are established. All right. And a question about

2:37:37 ↗ the access to Poplar Way, I guess, is the private road. It seems like, I

2:37:42 ↗ mean, businesses have access to it. It seems weird that you can't get access to

2:37:47 ↗ the residential unit. but that would really alleviate a lot of the traffic

2:37:53 ↗ problems and that would mitigate a lot of our concerns. So question about

2:37:59 ↗ ordinances for when construction can be done. Can they be done seven days

2:38:04 ↗ a week or what are the, in time of day? Because I'm living right

2:38:10 ↗ next to that. It will directly impact me. So you know what I would suggest,

2:38:15 ↗ Mike, because these are all great questions, if we could just have a conversation afterwards,

2:38:20 ↗ we'd be glad to answer all of these. Sure. It's only five days a week

2:38:25 ↗ unless they get special permission. Understood. Okay. Yeah, so noise impact, I'm concerned about this

2:38:31 ↗ could affect real estate value. I'm a homeowner, and we just recovered from-- we just

2:38:35 ↗ are barely rebounding from the big crash and getting back to where we were. So

2:38:40 ↗ the nature of the housing and the construction while it's going on could affect if

2:38:45 ↗ you're trying to sell during that period. So I'm concerned about that. And of course,

2:38:50 ↗ the traffic as mentioned. So thanks for listening. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Jesse

2:38:55 ↗ Hartman.

2:39:13 ↗ My name is Jesse Hartman. I live at 2274 Newport Way

2:39:19 ↗ Northwest and in the Sammamish Point community. And I'm the president

2:39:24 ↗ of our homeowners association. First, I want to thank the committee

2:39:30 ↗ here and everyone that's worked on this project, developers, consultants, everybody.

2:39:35 ↗ I know it takes a lot for this to happen. Before

2:39:41 ↗ I begin, I do just want to make one comment about

2:39:48 ↗ A concern I have and that is that half the people that were here at

2:39:53 ↗ 7 o'clock are no longer here and I don't know how this could be changed

2:39:59 ↗ in a way that would allow for more of the people that do want to

2:40:04 ↗ participate in this to participate, but I feel that there's a void in their voices.

2:40:10 ↗ Issaquah The population of Issaquah has doubled in the last 12

2:40:15 ↗ years since 2002. Issaquah High School is already overwhelmed and has portables

2:40:21 ↗ that they're using. When I was reading the voters

2:40:27 ↗ pamphlet for the city can't everyone running for city council the main thing on every

2:40:32 ↗ single one of them was transportation infrastructure the population is growing how are we going

2:40:37 ↗ to get around and my concern here like everyone else is one of those is

2:40:42 ↗ transportation. Also, I believe that a speed study was done,

2:40:48 ↗ but to my knowledge, no traffic, full traffic study was done, and that

2:40:54 ↗ may be erroneous, but if that could also be looked into. I know

2:41:00 ↗ that there was a study and someone said earlier that there's 10,000 vehicles

2:41:06 ↗ a day and this would be adding 2,500 vehicles, which would be roughly

2:41:12 ↗ a 12% gain because of different factors. What I can say to that is,

2:41:18 ↗ although that may be true, there's no study that can convince me that when I

2:41:23 ↗ go out every single morning at 7:00 a.m. and try to get home at 5:00

2:41:28 ↗ p.m. and I'm sitting at a stoplight at the same red light three consecutive lights

2:41:33 ↗ before I can get through, that adding cars, more cars to that is going to

2:41:38 ↗ somehow not impact me more than 12%. It's really hard for me to believe.

2:41:44 ↗ Also with 10,000 cars on Newport Way every day and my estimate of 100 cars

2:41:49 ↗ per day on Poplar Way, it seems like since there's infrastructure there and it would

2:41:55 ↗ be easiest for access and a lot of other reasons, that seems like a very

2:42:00 ↗ obvious reason to, and I know that there's other moving parts to that, but to

2:42:06 ↗ use that at least for the construction part of the project. And

2:42:12 ↗ lastly, I just wanted to address earlier, I heard many times discussing the vision of

2:42:18 ↗ this project, the vision of Issaquah, the vision of this area, the vision of this

2:42:24 ↗ project. And what I kept asking myself is whose vision is this? Who came together

2:42:29 ↗ and decided this vision? And I'm sure there was a group and a collaboration and

2:42:35 ↗ everything. I'm thinking the heart who is up here with his, you know, the

2:42:41 ↗ 362 homes that live, all of us that live there, no one has asked me

2:42:47 ↗ about my input on this vision. And I don't think anyone else that lives there

2:42:53 ↗ has been asked either. And as a major stakeholder in this, I would very much

2:42:58 ↗ welcome being part of that. that conversation and that process, as well as

2:43:04 ↗ our entire neighborhood and community. And so what I ask, or actually I'd just

2:43:10 ↗ like to invite anyone and everyone to, as Jim suggested, come over and take

2:43:16 ↗ a look around. Come at seven in the morning or five o'clock at night

2:43:22 ↗ and just drive from one end to the other on Newport Way. If you

2:43:28 ↗ like coffee, I'll buy you a cup of coffee in addition. But more

2:43:33 ↗ than anything, I guess what I want to do is just ask that we slow

2:43:39 ↗ down this process a little bit and ensure that all the voices are heard and

2:43:44 ↗ that we're making wise choices because these are very long-lasting choices. I want to make

2:43:50 ↗ sure that it's not only in our best interest, but in the best interest of

2:43:55 ↗ Issaquah as a whole and our community moving forward. Thank you. Thank you. Jan Munion?

2:44:12 ↗ - Hi, I'm Jan Munyon, I live at 2136 Newport Way Northwest. That's the Sammamish

2:44:17 ↗ Point condominiums and I've lived there for 18 years. I agree with many of the

2:44:23 ↗ comments that have already been made tonight. I just wanted to add one brief comment.

2:44:29 ↗ I would like to request further consideration about making Newport a parkway with median in

2:44:34 ↗ the middle and trees. I do understand the necessity if there's going to be more

2:44:40 ↗ traffic of adding turn lanes But I'm already having difficulty when there are bikers, even

2:44:46 ↗ though there's a bike lane, sometimes they're right on that line and the only way

2:44:51 ↗ to pass them safely is to wait for no traffic coming the opposite direction and

2:44:57 ↗ go into the opposite lane a little bit. And if we have emergency vehicles,

2:45:03 ↗ as somebody already stated, there's no place to

2:45:09 ↗ go to the side to allow them to

2:45:15 ↗ pass. So if there needs to be narrowing

2:45:21 ↗ of the lanes, please don't add trees in

2:45:27 ↗ the median so that there's no option at

2:45:33 ↗ all of going any place. Thank you very

2:45:39 ↗ much. - Thank you. Wei Li Shen, no?

2:45:45 ↗ Mary Lynch. - Where can I put my

2:45:51 ↗ drive in?

2:46:04 ↗ I'm Mary Lynch. I reside at 2690 Northwest Oakcrest Drive, Issaquah, Washington.

2:46:10 ↗ First of all, I do know and want to thank Amy and

2:46:16 ↗ everybody for the work that you've done on this project. I know

2:46:22 ↗ it's complex, but I also, the email that you didn't get was

2:46:28 ↗ one that I had trouble getting. because it was posted online incorrect, as

2:46:33 ↗ is a lot of the documents for this project that we've had to call and

2:46:39 ↗ get redone or wait to get. But it was a notice of a meeting tomorrow

2:46:44 ↗ with Land and Shores where the City Council is still reviewing a major part of

2:46:49 ↗ the central area plan to rewrite it and bring it up to what they think

2:46:55 ↗ is real. clear documents and to redefine or better define some of the standards

2:47:01 ↗ in it. So some of the problems Amy's having is because there are a

2:47:06 ↗ lot of conflicts in the existing central area plan. And they want

2:47:12 ↗ to resolve those. And that's not going to be done until December 7th at best

2:47:16 ↗ is what I hear. But I even had trouble getting the document so I could

2:47:21 ↗ get it to you to see what they are going to be reviewing tomorrow night

2:47:25 ↗ to show how it might affect this project. The other thing is we really seemed

2:47:29 ↗ to be rushing this project. Number one, there was no community hearing for this, so

2:47:34 ↗ our input was not gotten. This is the only way we've been able to give

2:47:39 ↗ our input. And even these meetings have been rushed, held during vacation time and all.

2:47:43 ↗ We did invite the developer to our Newport Way community meeting in July, and he

2:47:48 ↗ opted not or they opted not to come to our community meeting because we were

2:47:52 ↗ interested in working with the developer on this project. That being said, let me show

2:47:57 ↗ you Something that the dot, dot, dot in Amy's presentation as far

2:48:03 ↗ as primary uses, well-designed, moderated density residential and office buildings. That's what we've

2:48:09 ↗ been told a lot over the years is this was going to be

2:48:15 ↗ an office complex, wasn't really going to affect us or have heavy density

2:48:21 ↗ or impact our area. But that is what is in the current central

2:48:27 ↗ area plan. So residential, moderate, and office buildings. Let's look

2:48:33 ↗ at another one. A gateway, an arrival into Issaquah where

2:48:38 ↗ it is a unique history and connection with nature is

2:48:44 ↗ visible. A harmony with nature and a blending with green

2:48:50 ↗ environments. Let forms and the built of environment reinforce the

2:48:56 ↗ arrival into the natural and modest in scale. That's also

2:49:02 ↗ part of the central area plan.

2:49:14 ↗ There's a lot that was said about and been talked about this crosswalk study that

2:49:19 ↗ we have not seen. It's supposed to be out on October 1st for Newport Way.

2:49:25 ↗ But if it's like every other typical study we've seen from the city, what the

2:49:30 ↗ city traffic people study is speeds, the 85% rule. They don't look at the topography.

2:49:35 ↗ They don't look at sight line distances. Since July 6th, I have asked the city

2:49:40 ↗ to give me copies of Traffic studies that they've done to this date. The

2:49:46 ↗ only thing I've gotten is a few 80% speed studies I then also requested accident

2:49:51 ↗ counts and you received earlier. We've had over 400 accidents over the last 20 years

2:49:57 ↗ along this stretch of road I haven't gotten the copies of the police reports because

2:50:02 ↗ all they state is accidents and injuries They don't tell me the nature of that

2:50:08 ↗ So I can't tell you was it speed, what it was, but I have seen

2:50:13 ↗ no city study that's looked at the accidents and what maybe the topography or the

2:50:18 ↗ way our entrances are designed has caused that. So to go ahead with this project,

2:50:23 ↗ knowing that we've had major accidents, we've already had one death along here and we've

2:50:28 ↗ had near deaths last December with the shirts who were out at due to traffic.

2:50:33 ↗ And in that accident, they weren't cited for speeding. but they were almost killed in

2:50:38 ↗ that. If you haven't seen that video, it's in July 6th meeting. You ought to

2:50:43 ↗ go look at that one. But we've had over 400 accidents on this stretch road.

2:50:48 ↗ Nothing's been studied as part of what this impact of putting these additional cars is

2:50:53 ↗ going to do to this. The central area traffic plan looked at flow. It didn't

2:50:58 ↗ look at accidents. It didn't look at local versus through traffic. It looked at flow.

2:51:04 ↗ So when you're looking at a traffic study and when you're gonna bring more cars

2:51:09 ↗ onto a local area, you have to look at topography, you have to look at

2:51:14 ↗ sightline distances, you have to put crosswalks in. The parkway, if you look at the

2:51:19 ↗ conceptual definition, no one's done a design study on how that's gonna lay on the

2:51:24 ↗ topography of our area. It's a conceptual presentation, but the definition in the central area

2:51:30 ↗ plan is for high speed, not pedestrian friendly. So how are we going to get

2:51:35 ↗ to the park? Those of us that live on the other side, not pedestrian friendly.

2:51:39 ↗ We can't walk down to where the new intersection is because there's no sidewalks on

2:51:44 ↗ that side of the street. So how are we going to get to the park?

2:51:49 ↗ It's only not going to be finished unless the city funds it. The other thing

2:51:54 ↗ in the transportation plan for Newport Way, there is nothing in the transportation plan that

2:51:59 ↗ has any money or funding for Newport Way for 20 years. Mary, just quickly, again,

2:52:04 ↗ the three-minute limit, we're well beyond that now, so if you can speed it up

2:52:10 ↗ and finish it. I have asked a lot of questions about construction and the use

2:52:15 ↗ of Poplar. I want to show one more quick slide then. It's part of the

2:52:21 ↗ central area plan on existing streets. Yes. If you look

2:52:26 ↗ at this one, Poplar is and was recognized as an existing street in the central

2:52:32 ↗ area plan. We've done it for Maple. Why can't we work with this other developer

2:52:38 ↗ and get this developer working together? And why are we going to have a multimodal

2:52:43 ↗ trail inside this property that goes to nowhere? Why don't we work with Raleigh on

2:52:49 ↗ both Poplar and the multimodal trail and make sure we have pedestrian access and safe

2:52:55 ↗ ways into the city? Thank you

2:53:01 ↗ very much. Is there anybody else that would like to speak? Come on up

2:53:06 ↗ and again, your name and address. Good evening. My name is John Dubois. I

2:53:12 ↗ live at 1215 Oakwood Place, Northwest Issaquah. That's the Summerhill subdivision. I'm the president

2:53:18 ↗ of the Homeowners Association. I've lived in this neighborhood for 30 years. Issaquah and

2:53:24 ↗ this neighborhood is basically the home that I moved into when I moved into

2:53:29 ↗ Washington State. But the bottom line for me in my comment, and I haven't

2:53:35 ↗ heard anybody say this, As a resident of Issaquah, I would not recommend

2:53:41 ↗ a new home, a new resident moving into the city based on my experience

2:53:47 ↗ living where I am. So if that's shared by anybody else based on traffic,

2:53:52 ↗ commitment of the city to building infrastructure before development takes place, for keeping in

2:53:58 ↗ mind the interest and concerns of residents. I actually have had people at work

2:54:04 ↗ who are looking for neighborhoods and I pointed them in other directions. from

2:54:10 ↗ issaquah so that's that's definitely something that points to the health of the community and

2:54:14 ↗ should be a concern of the development i also would would like to agree with

2:54:19 ↗ some of the comments that were made about the traffic studies averages are not peak

2:54:24 ↗ flows trying to get out of the neighborhood in the morning an average flow of

2:54:28 ↗ 10 is not the same of 500 cars all within a compressed period of time

2:54:33 ↗ as opposed to over a long a much longer period of time And I think

2:54:38 ↗ that the apartment development itself is probably fairly reasonable in its consideration in some of

2:54:43 ↗ the things that have been discussed about it. But I think of it, it's an

2:54:48 ↗ apartment complex. It's not a neighborhood. The neighborhood is part of, it's going to be

2:54:53 ↗ part of a larger scheme. It includes other communities around it. And I'm not sure

2:54:58 ↗ those concerns have actually been adequately addressed. The last comment is that while the pictures

2:55:03 ↗ of the neighborhood were very nice, I didn't see any cars in those pictures. It

2:55:08 ↗ gives you a very nice view of what that might look like without the parking

2:55:12 ↗ spaces and the actual physical condition that that development would actually look like when it's

2:55:17 ↗ finally constructed. I'm an electric car owner. I didn't see anything in the plans to

2:55:23 ↗ have any electric charging facilities there so people could park their cars. I know it's

2:55:29 ↗ very difficult in apartment complex for people that have made investments like that to actually

2:55:35 ↗ install places where those vehicles can be charged. In Issaquah Highlands, for example, there's one

2:55:40 ↗ or two public use facilities that are close to the apartments that are up there.

2:55:46 ↗ And it has been an ongoing discussion with the Seattle Electric Vehicle Association and some

2:55:51 ↗ other groups that are promoting the use of non-polluting transportation in the Seattle area, the

2:55:57 ↗ difficulty of apartment dwellers to be able to actually access facilities that would encourage their

2:56:02 ↗ use. So thank you very much. Thank you. Anybody else who would like to speak?

2:56:22 ↗ My name is Connie Marsh and I have a store at 1175 Northwest Gilman Boulevard,

2:56:28 ↗ Suite B11 and I also live in Issaquah. And I'm going to start small with

2:56:34 ↗ my evergreen trees because evergreen trees actually are one of the stereotypic Pacific Northwest things

2:56:40 ↗ and in most of our recent developments they have been excluded. And in J in

2:56:46 ↗ the landscape code, it says broad leafed large deciduous trees and conifers are the

2:56:52 ↗ first priority to landscape with. So I would ask the city reconsider the concept

2:56:58 ↗ of not including conifers. And I've been through this with some of you over

2:57:04 ↗ there before and I know you don't like them much but I think people

2:57:10 ↗ in this town do like them. Also, These people do own the WSDOT

2:57:16 ↗ parcel. WSDOT only has a conservation easement over the parcel with the fencing. I have

2:57:21 ↗ a copy of the conservation easement for that, and it is owned by this land

2:57:27 ↗ owner. So that's not what Amy said. She said we cannot change the fencing on

2:57:32 ↗ someone else's property. The conservation easement expressly allows the changing of fencing as long as

2:57:38 ↗ WSDOT agrees. So I know that's true. I read it. The stream is basically in

2:57:44 ↗ a ditch and it would be better off being removed out of the ditch because

2:57:49 ↗ it is an agricultural ditch that it was shoved into. So if we had actually

2:57:54 ↗ been able to get grading on the sides of that stream, we could have actually

2:58:00 ↗ created some honest to God good habitat but they refused to do that because they

2:58:06 ↗ didn't want to get into the stream and I consider that a loss. They sort

2:58:12 ↗ of peripherally are working at it but that made me very sad. Then I'm getting

2:58:17 ↗ down to things that are maybe a little more interesting like the people who

2:58:23 ↗ live in the area on Newport Way and the potential of having four

2:58:29 ↗ individual developments come down simultaneously on a heavily trafficked corridor with not a

2:58:35 ↗ very good construction plan. So one thing I saw on our hill is the construction

2:58:41 ↗ people set up Twitter accounts that all the neighborhoods got to sign up for. And

2:58:46 ↗ so every day there was a new Twitter feed indicating what was going to be

2:58:52 ↗ happening a day to alleviate some of the concerns that were happening in the community.

2:58:57 ↗ And I think the city needs to begin to create those sort of construction programs

2:59:02 ↗ because you're gonna just kill off this entire corridor if you don't do such things.

2:59:07 ↗ The other thing is, obviously Newport Way is a huge hot button and no one

2:59:13 ↗ knows what's happening and the city has these things going on. out here in planning,

2:59:18 ↗ yet developments are going through over here, and as a community, we're all saying, that

2:59:23 ↗ just seems so bizarre, the developments are coming before the plan. Now maybe the language

2:59:29 ↗ that has been provided is making it so that this development has to adhere to

2:59:35 ↗ whatever those plans are, but frankly, it's hard to understand that, and you know how

2:59:41 ↗ much I love to read all this lovely literature. So I would like to

2:59:47 ↗ understand the pathway for the public to be able to attend and influence these corridor

2:59:53 ↗ and Newport Way meetings and also how these people who live in this area will

2:59:59 ↗ be able to influence the construction conditions as the construction conditions, for example, in Tallis

3:00:04 ↗ starts at seven, ends at six, is on Saturday and often on Sunday. And people

3:00:09 ↗ are moving out of the neighborhood because they cannot stand to live there anymore. And

3:00:15 ↗ we don't want to do that to our town as we grow. That's called bad.

3:00:20 ↗ One last little bit is the traffic study assumed a 10% reduction in mode

3:00:26 ↗ split in order to pass concurrency to stay at level D. And so in

3:00:32 ↗ theory, you are supposed to be taking 10% of the trips off the road.

3:00:39 ↗ per sort of area in order for the traffic to flow according to the model.

3:00:44 ↗ In this situation, you're basically not providing transit. You aren't providing a trail to anywhere.

3:00:50 ↗ Basically, every trip is a car going in and out. So I think that everyone

3:00:55 ↗ needs to think of traffic as, wow, this is going to be full blown unless

3:01:01 ↗ we mandate some sort of transit component in a condition. And that is it. Thank

3:01:07 ↗ you. Thank you. Anyone else care to

3:01:12 ↗ speak? Come on up. Just keep this map up

3:01:18 ↗ here. I may use it a little bit. Yeah,

3:01:24 ↗ just keep it right there. That's fine. Thank you.

3:01:30 ↗ All right. Appreciate it. My name is John Fisher.

3:01:36 ↗ I live at 2122 Newport Way Northwest, Olnett Condo,

3:01:42 ↗ Smams Point. And read through the documentation that was

3:01:48 ↗ posted online and I thought I'd talk a little bit

3:01:54 ↗ about this little piece right up here. So this is Sammamish Point.

3:02:00 ↗ This is the southern edge of the proposed development. And I believe

3:02:06 ↗ Carol Lopez talked a little bit about this. You can correct

3:02:11 ↗ me on any of this. The central Issaquah plan, it looks like it

3:02:17 ↗ discourages the use of kind of cruft portions of property for parks. And

3:02:23 ↗ what do I mean by that? So all the pictures that I saw

3:02:29 ↗ of the property were flat pictures. But we heard earlier that there's a

3:02:34 ↗ good size slope on this property. If there's a good-sized slope,

3:02:40 ↗ what happens-- and much of this is flat-- what happens right

3:02:46 ↗ here? Well, I saw some text in the documentation about retaining

3:02:51 ↗ walls and putting retaining walls in here. And I'll echo something

3:02:57 ↗ someone else said here. If someone would like to come out

3:03:02 ↗ and just walk around this little area,

3:03:08 ↗ Park might be a creative word for it. It's a very small space. And

3:03:14 ↗ if part of that space is going to be taken up with a retaining

3:03:19 ↗ wall, I'm wondering how much space is actually left for two, three children to

3:03:25 ↗ play in. The only other thing I would bring up on that area is

3:03:32 ↗ If you're putting these retaining walls in, I'm not a hydrology engineer, and we're

3:03:37 ↗ already having problems with settlement of foundations here in Sammamish Point. Is that a

3:03:43 ↗ problem? Maybe not, but there's no way I could guarantee that. Only other thing

3:03:49 ↗ I would say about this, I'm a big-time transit user. I hated to see

3:03:55 ↗ us lose the 210 bus. I rode that bus. So I'd love to see

3:04:01 ↗ transit back in the area, especially with the development this size. Thank you. - Thank

3:04:06 ↗ you. Anyone else care to speak? Questions or comments? Well, hearing none, we'll close the

3:04:12 ↗ public comment portion of the meeting and open it up for questions from the commissioners.

3:04:17 ↗ I'm gonna do a quick start in one so we can get it out of

3:04:23 ↗ the way. A question was raised about how long construction would take, and I thought

3:04:29 ↗ that might be a simple answer. I would

3:04:35 ↗ estimate 18 to 20 months. Thank you. Those people that

3:04:40 ↗ didn't catch it on a microphone that might be watching

3:04:46 ↗ at home, it was 18 to 20 months. Questions from

3:04:52 ↗ the commissioners? You want to group things in traffic and

3:04:58 ↗ everything else or? Traffic and everything else. So Mr. Chair.

3:05:04 ↗ There were lots of comments, obviously, about Newport Way, the impacts, potential

3:05:10 ↗ impacts of this project on Newport Way, timing of improvements, et cetera.

3:05:16 ↗ And I think early in the staff report you heard staff say

3:05:22 ↗ that The commission has limits on where our authority is and where it

3:05:27 ↗ is not. And one of the things that I think is really important to set

3:05:33 ↗ the stage for how this discussion happens is again, kind of talking again real briefly

3:05:39 ↗ about what our role is here and what it's not. We have a significant amount

3:05:44 ↗ of say in the site development and how that works, how the buildings fit within

3:05:50 ↗ the design standards of the Issaquah plan. As far as the design of what's going

3:05:55 ↗ out on Newport Way, how the project interfaces with Newport Way and the design standards

3:06:00 ↗ for frontage improvements, et cetera, certainly we have an opportunity to weigh in on that.

3:06:05 ↗ We don't have the opportunity to say Newport Way is over capacity, it needs to

3:06:10 ↗ be improved down to Highway 900. That's really out of the scope of our authority.

3:06:15 ↗ So I think one of my first, I guess, questions or comments to staff on

3:06:20 ↗ that would be, clearly there's a lot of community interest and energy, and I think

3:06:25 ↗ Carney used the term that this is a hot button. Newport Way is a hot

3:06:30 ↗ button and clearly you have the council's attention on this based on recent accidents out

3:06:35 ↗ there, the study that was just done that lowered the speed limit on Newport Way

3:06:40 ↗ and attention about future development and investment. I guess the question to staff is what's

3:06:45 ↗ the most effective way for the community to continue to stay involved and informed about

3:06:50 ↗ Newport Way and future improvements along Newport Way and where in

3:06:56 ↗ the process do they engage? So I think from my perspective

3:07:01 ↗ it's a little hard to answer that because I'm waiting to

3:07:07 ↗ see what comes out of the crosswalk study which is the

3:07:12 ↗ main mechanism that is looking at that entire corridor and Because I'm

3:07:18 ↗ not leading that, I don't know exactly how that's going to get rolled out. I

3:07:24 ↗ know there's a lot of discussion by the council and the administration about how to

3:07:29 ↗ communicate that to the community so that they have an opportunity to comment. But because

3:07:35 ↗ it's not specifically a permitting thing, I'm not directly leading that. I appreciate that. I

3:07:40 ↗ think maybe -- I know it's not a very satisfying answer. I think the other

3:07:45 ↗ piece that I would add is, you know, we're certainly hearing a whole bundle of

3:07:50 ↗ concerns that are beyond the purview of this permit, and I think our job is

3:07:55 ↗ to try and communicate those to the administration so they're aware of specifically what we're

3:08:00 ↗ hearing tonight. There's an awful lot that went on the record this evening about that,

3:08:05 ↗ obviously. Maybe just a couple of add-ons. to that I think Peggy

3:08:11 ↗ Foster was the one that talked about, when she spoke about attending council meetings and

3:08:16 ↗ trying to understand how the process works, how investments get made, how the council prioritize,

3:08:22 ↗ how vision of the future growth in the city is established. And that's where those

3:08:28 ↗ conversations happen. So I would encourage people to pay attention to what our city council

3:08:33 ↗ does on that front and take opportunities to make your decisions thoughts known with the

3:08:39 ↗ city council at various, through various channels, including email, commenting at council meetings, attending and

3:08:45 ↗ listening, et cetera. So as far as the question, it was one of the technical

3:08:50 ↗ questions about the traffic study and it was, you know, does changing the speed limit

3:08:56 ↗ impact the traffic study? And that again is kind of out of scope, but that's

3:09:01 ↗ probably something that, you know, somehow some way that should be folded into, you know,

3:09:07 ↗ some sort of feedback back to the community on that unless somebody can answer the

3:09:13 ↗ question today. I don't know if Doug or, can answer the question. - I was

3:09:18 ↗ writing some notes. For the record, this is Jeff Schramm. Can you just repeat the

3:09:23 ↗ question so I make sure. - The question just was raised 'cause the council just

3:09:28 ↗ recently changed its, decided to lower the speed limit from 40 to 30 miles an

3:09:34 ↗ hour. The question was raised, does that impact or have a significant impact on traffic

3:09:39 ↗ study that was done for this project or the traffic study along the port way?

3:09:45 ↗ - The short answer to your question is no. You know, traffic volumes, you know,

3:09:50 ↗ are measured Based on vehicles speeds come into consideration when you know designing roadways and

3:09:56 ↗ certain elements of that certainly pedestrian crossings and that's why. This pedestrian crossing study that

3:10:02 ↗ is being alluded to will rely heavily or more heavily on those types of things

3:10:08 ↗ in terms of speeds, but in terms of adopted levels of service. concurrency requirements

3:10:13 ↗ and things like that, the speed limit by itself is not gonna govern

3:10:19 ↗ those standards to a difference of between 30 or 40 miles an hour.

3:10:25 ↗ but but you are um once the the council made that decision to change the

3:10:31 ↗ speed limit um you you're looking at if what that changes in the traffic analysis

3:10:37 ↗ that you've done that's correct and just to go a little bit deeper on that

3:10:43 ↗ since we've talked at a you know with with staff on this we did a

3:10:49 ↗ speed study out there and found that the and some of the public we've heard

3:10:55 ↗ too, very informed, we use a term called 85th percentile speed. Travel out there today,

3:11:00 ↗ on average throughout a day, is about 45 miles an hour. I mean, it's even

3:11:06 ↗ over the 40 mile an hour posted speed. When we look at signal warrant analysis,

3:11:11 ↗ remember we talked about roundabout or signal signal warrant analysis relies heavily on

3:11:17 ↗ speeds. You know, whether a signal is warranted considers not just volumes

3:11:23 ↗ but speeds. When the speed or as the speed limit reduces, we're

3:11:28 ↗ reevaluating whether the signal warrants that we considered before are still warranted

3:11:34 ↗ and that's why we considered whether a roundabout would

3:11:40 ↗ be a more appropriate control point for the

3:11:46 ↗ access. Thank you. More questions about traffic, ingress,

3:11:52 ↗ egress? I thought Connie Marsh brought up a

3:11:57 ↗ good point of the ownership of the road.

3:12:03 ↗ I think she brought that up on Braindead

3:12:09 ↗ tonight. It's getting late for an old guy.

3:12:15 ↗ Wherever, GERC's and all of that, you know,

3:12:21 ↗ the road to the... Poplar ownership. Poplar. Poplar.

3:12:27 ↗ And whether that could be reviewed to see if there was possible access through there.

3:12:33 ↗ You know, if that could be conveyed to the city or somehow made a more

3:12:39 ↗ -- apparently it's a private road? It's a private -- I mean, it's like the

3:12:44 ↗ road inside -- Can I answer? So it is a private road and this

3:12:50 ↗ is Doug Schlepp with the city DSD. It is a private road and I want

3:12:56 ↗ to add to that that it actually terminates in a parking lot. So to say

3:13:02 ↗ let's take the traffic through Poplar it would mean take the traffic through Poplar and

3:13:08 ↗ the parking lot of Arena Sports. So the road does not extend westerly to the

3:13:14 ↗ limits of this project. And so it would be a

3:13:19 ↗ challenge to make that a requirement of this project. OK.

3:13:25 ↗ Thank you. Connie also talked about a conservation easement with

3:13:30 ↗ the WSDOT. I was just wondering, do you know what

3:13:36 ↗ she was referring to? Could you elaborate on that a

3:13:42 ↗ little bit? Sure. The clarification was that the area that

3:13:48 ↗ WSDOT The area that's reserved for WSDOT is not actually owned by

3:13:53 ↗ WSDOT. It's actually an easement to them for a conservation project that was done

3:13:59 ↗ as a mitigation project. Connie's point is that she's read the easement

3:14:05 ↗ and that in her evaluation of that easement that the fence changes

3:14:11 ↗ that she's suggesting would be allowed and because as much as I

3:14:17 ↗ respect Connie's abilities she isn't an attorney and she isn't the attorney

3:14:23 ↗ that would have to talk to to to WSDOT about it, what we've done is

3:14:29 ↗ tried to write a condition. I mean, I think the applicant is willing to consider

3:14:34 ↗ this, but because they aren't 100% in control of it, such as a fence that

3:14:39 ↗ was outside of the easement area, we cannot require them to do something if they

3:14:45 ↗ aren't allowed to do it. So for instance, if WSDOT agrees that, you know, if,

3:14:50 ↗ as Connie says, the easement language says, if WSDOT agrees, Well, if WSDOT doesn't agree,

3:14:56 ↗ they can't change the fence. So we've tried to write a condition that if

3:15:02 ↗ WSDOT agrees, and the fence that exists is not consistent with the standards, then

3:15:07 ↗ they'll change it. But if WSDOT doesn't agree, then we can't put them in

3:15:13 ↗ that bind. Thanks for clarifying that. Sure. I'd like some staff clarification. There was

3:15:19 ↗ some discussions and even a PowerPoint brought up about urban village, mixed use, but

3:15:24 ↗ this area is not necessarily zoned that way or have an

3:15:30 ↗ option? How is it zoned? - So the zoning allows a range

3:15:36 ↗ of uses. And the public that spoke is right that a goal

3:15:41 ↗ of Central Issaquah in general and in the sort of planning document

3:15:47 ↗ is mixed uses. And when we get into the actual standards that

3:15:53 ↗ say what you how we're going to implement that, the mix of

3:15:59 ↗ uses is currently at the discretion of the builder. So they have the

3:16:05 ↗ right to build only residential if they choose to do so. I think

3:16:11 ↗ also as much as we would like to have mixed use out here,

3:16:17 ↗ I think it's just a challenge given the amount of uses and

3:16:22 ↗ people that live out there may not be enough to actually support

3:16:28 ↗ retail even if it was put right up on Newport. But they

3:16:34 ↗ have the option. The applicant absolutely has the option, but they are

3:16:39 ↗ not required to do that. So CIP in that case is an

3:16:45 ↗ aspiration but not a requirement? Yes. Okay. I just wanted to understand

3:16:51 ↗ that. Absolutely. Other questions about traffic, ingress/egress?

3:16:58 ↗ What about the site design itself, the layout of the project,

3:17:04 ↗ anything that Amy discussed tonight with regard to the parks or?

3:17:10 ↗ I guess I share the notion that it's a steep piece

3:17:16 ↗ of ground that is going to be eventually dedicated back to

3:17:22 ↗ the city or that park portion and it really does look

3:17:28 ↗ like it's a marginal piece of land. I don't

3:17:33 ↗ know how that's going to -- I think we're betting on the come that the

3:17:39 ↗ Parks and Recreation will decide that there's some value to it and we'll put something

3:17:44 ↗ there. Is that correct? No. Not quite. So I just want to answer one comment

3:17:49 ↗ that came up a couple of times. There's both a shared use route and a

3:17:55 ↗ park shown on this property and in the standards. And when

3:18:01 ↗ that happens, the standards require the city to pick one or

3:18:07 ↗ the other. So the city chose, the director chose the shared

3:18:12 ↗ use route, the trail that connects. So in a sense, we're getting a bonus of

3:18:18 ↗ also getting the park. They are not required to give us the park. One or

3:18:22 ↗ the, they can have one or the other, but we're, they can choose one or

3:18:25 ↗ the other, but we're getting both. Right. So we're getting the land for the park.

3:18:29 ↗ And because the location did have some grade to it, part of the requirement of

3:18:35 ↗ giving it to the city is that they provide the grading to create sort of

3:18:41 ↗ flat areas for those future park facilities. The Parks Department will have to develop that

3:18:46 ↗ at some point in the future, but we're getting usable land because they're required to

3:18:52 ↗ grade it and put in the retaining walls. to create those building pads

3:18:58 ↗ that then the park can decide how they want to use.

3:19:04 ↗ - The question is about the site design, parking layouts, the

3:19:10 ↗ 10 foot wide sidewalk on just one side of the street

3:19:15 ↗ and not the Schneider Creek side. - I have a question

3:19:21 ↗ about that. I was reading that the developer seems to be

3:19:27 ↗ asking for an eight foot sidewalk on both sides. And staff

3:19:33 ↗ has suggested that there be a 10 foot sidewalk on the other side. I'd like

3:19:39 ↗ to hear a little bit more from the developer if that's okay. - I think

3:19:45 ↗ I might be talking about eight foot stall width. - No. - In that discussion.

3:19:51 ↗ - No, not the stall width. I was talking about the sidewalks. - The sidewalks

3:19:57 ↗ in the standard are only six feet wide. - Okay. - Yeah, I would like

3:20:03 ↗ a clarification on that 10 foot sidewalk. That was, sorry,

3:20:09 ↗ it's late. And I know I have

3:20:14 ↗ it in here. - Just under 24

3:20:20 ↗ on page 21 of 26 or 43

3:20:25 ↗ of 179. - I had it marked

3:20:31 ↗ and then I took it out. -

3:20:36 ↗ Yes, number 24, neighborhood street number one.

3:20:42 ↗ The applicant states, the applicant is proposing

3:20:47 ↗ that the parking would be, Eight feet on

3:20:53 ↗ both sides of the street with 10 foot drive aisles. The applicant is providing a

3:20:59 ↗ 10 foot wide sidewalk on the traveled side of the street extending from the crossing

3:21:05 ↗ to the west of the building B15 to the crossing of the west of the

3:21:10 ↗ building C07. This has been deemed to comply with the goals of CIDDS through multiple

3:21:16 ↗ coordination meetings with the city of Issaquah. I think the

3:21:22 ↗ applicant wants to do eight foot stall widths with a 10 foot sidewalk on one

3:21:28 ↗ side. Okay. Yeah. And then 10 foot drive aisles. Okay. That's okay. I'm sorry. I'm

3:21:34 ↗ getting punchy. No, it's okay. We'll join you right here. I'm all clear now. We're

3:21:39 ↗ getting paid overtime though, so it's all right. Yeah. No, we don't get paid. We

3:21:45 ↗ don't. Double two times zero is zero. That's right. So

3:21:51 ↗ I can still do math. A follow-up question. We had a, and Lucy mentioned a

3:21:56 ↗ modification to one of the conditions, I believe you referred to condition 18, had to

3:22:01 ↗ do with the termination of the soft trail. Yes, I've got, when you're ready, I

3:22:06 ↗ was going to go and type that up. Oh, okay, good. So, and if you're

3:22:11 ↗ ready, I can go type that up. I just, Didn't want to jump in too

3:22:17 ↗ early. Sure. Well, let's keep going through questions now and then. Okay. I have not

3:22:23 ↗ lost it and I have something drafted and I'll put it up there for you

3:22:29 ↗ guys to look at. Just a comment slash question. I thought a lot of really

3:22:35 ↗ great input came from members of the community about instruction mitigation and things that can

3:22:41 ↗ be done to communicate with the community or mitigate the impact of

3:22:46 ↗ construction? Is that something that can be a condition or how

3:22:52 ↗ is that typically handled? So the way construction is handled, I

3:22:58 ↗ don't think is something that, you know, those particular things are

3:23:04 ↗ in parts of the municipal code that are not part of

3:23:10 ↗ the development commissions. Okay. But I thought Connie's suggestions, I mean,

3:23:16 ↗ those are things that we're gonna be talking to the developer about. And I know

3:23:22 ↗ I live in Seattle and there are things that we do there and I think

3:23:28 ↗ that would be a great We have started to try and push information

3:23:34 ↗ out to the community. This seems like even better ways to connect to the community

3:23:39 ↗ and we're absolutely open to those. So I think that would be a separate conversation

3:23:45 ↗ but probably not a condition. I agree. I think there needs to be a broader

3:23:51 ↗ and deeper conversation with the community. i think it was jesse hartman and

3:23:56 ↗ jen limpin limpin caught i apologize if i'm mispronouncing that they invited the

3:24:02 ↗ developers for coffee and i think that a community meeting would be a

3:24:07 ↗ great thing to have happen and maybe post it in the in the

3:24:13 ↗ newspaper and get everybody together and you know have have a deeper broader

3:24:18 ↗ conversation about everything about the wetlands about um about traffic, about easements, and have

3:24:24 ↗ everything out in the open in a more open forum at a more

3:24:30 ↗ reasonable hour for people and have the folks who had to leave come

3:24:36 ↗ in and have their voices heard too and get a deeper understanding about

3:24:41 ↗ what we do too. For instance, we can't change the zoning. That's not

3:24:47 ↗ what we do. and talk about what our role is a little

3:24:53 ↗ bit more and about what the roles of other departments and other commissions

3:24:59 ↗ and council's role and things like that. And I think that would be

3:25:05 ↗ very helpful to folks. And I'd really like to see that happen. And

3:25:11 ↗ I'd like to be there too. Back to site design, any other questions?

3:25:17 ↗ thoughts or comments on anything that was brought up with regard to it? We have

3:25:23 ↗ any issues with circulation or who knows? How about building design? We've seen changes from

3:25:28 ↗ the what I guess would call a community conference. I'm not sure if it's still

3:25:34 ↗ that or not, but community conference to now in terms of eaves being made somewhat

3:25:40 ↗ larger, some timber added to the buildings and so forth and different view of modulation.

3:25:45 ↗ Any questions about Any of those changes that were made or the buildings

3:25:51 ↗ themselves, do they stand now? I guess I'm still kind of interested in the

3:25:57 ↗ notion of affordable housing and the request to get a variance on a height

3:26:02 ↗ restraint and the options that are available to be, if they can't get that

3:26:08 ↗ height restraint, they can change floor-to-floor height. They can offer affordable housing. And

3:26:14 ↗ there was one other thing they could do. Would you just tell me what

3:26:19 ↗ that was? I just can't remember. I think they could lower the pitch of

3:26:25 ↗ the roof. They could change the floor-to-floor height. They could choose to participate in

3:26:31 ↗ the density bonus program, which is the affordable housing. And those are options for

3:26:36 ↗ them. They get to choose that. I guess my bias or my...

3:26:43 ↗ I'm concerned about the notion of affordable housing and the ability to be able to

3:26:48 ↗ provide that opportunity for some people, especially when we're looking at what seems to me

3:26:53 ↗ is high density housing and the opportunity to be able to bring affordable housing to

3:26:58 ↗ Issaquah. I don't see it happening. And it's a fundamental in the central Issaquah plan

3:27:03 ↗ of something that we, it's a principle. not a requirement, but a principle seems to

3:27:09 ↗ be an overarching thing that we ought to be striving for and it doesn't seem

3:27:15 ↗ like we are. Well, it is a principle and we require it under certain circumstances

3:27:21 ↗ and those circumstances aren't triggered by this project unless they go over that height. Now,

3:27:26 ↗ those are the kinds of conversations, I mean, you know, that's the importance of these

3:27:32 ↗ conversations is at some point, and there is an annual monitoring report and I you

3:27:38 ↗ know, the council could decide we're not moving fast enough in getting affordable housing and

3:27:43 ↗ change the parameters under which that would happen. That wouldn't affect this project. - Right,

3:27:48 ↗ understood. - But it could change what happens in the future. - I think it

3:27:53 ↗ seems to me that there's one of the binds in terms of this location is

3:27:57 ↗ that there's, they're being pinched between a minimum FAR of .75. So as it was

3:28:02 ↗ mentioned in the report, if you say, well, take a floor off you drop below

3:28:08 ↗ that minimum. The other way you could meet it then would be to

3:28:14 ↗ build on more ground, which would then create less pervious surface to meet

3:28:19 ↗ the minimum FAR. And I guess I would prefer to have a sloped

3:28:25 ↗ roof as opposed to more buildings being spread out to get to a

3:28:31 ↗ minimum FAR requirement. I did have a question about the language and the

3:28:37 ↗ recommended condition two. And the last sentence, if the city does

3:28:43 ↗ not amend the height measurement techniques in a manner which considers

3:28:48 ↗ existing buildings as meeting the base height maximum, the applicant shall

3:28:54 ↗ either modify the buildings or comply with density bonus provisions. It

3:29:00 ↗ seems like it's somewhat been left open as to how they

3:29:05 ↗ could modify the buildings in terms of flat roofs, lower slope,

3:29:11 ↗ smaller floor heights. So, so I, for us it's implied

3:29:16 ↗ that if they change the character of the buildings we would have to come

3:29:22 ↗ back and talk to you. But what I'm hearing is that potentially you would

3:29:28 ↗ want to see that well or that the applicant shall either modify the buildings

3:29:34 ↗ consistent with the character shown in the application or comply with density

3:29:40 ↗ modes. Is that what you're getting at, Mel? I guess that's what I'm thinking. And

3:29:45 ↗ then the question of how one of the issues we discussed last time was flat

3:29:50 ↗ roofs and not wanting those at this location given the look that was intended for

3:29:55 ↗ the gateway. Would we want to have something saying if they changed it to a

3:30:00 ↗ flat roof, it would have to come back for approval? That or how comfortable are

3:30:06 ↗ you leaving it up to So a flat roof proposal was shown in the

3:30:11 ↗ application? Yeah, I thought they did a good job of showing, for instance, the group

3:30:17 ↗ health hospital. That was a flat roof that they added some architectural detail to that,

3:30:22 ↗ while not necessarily a sloped roof, gave a northwest view, if you will, a northwest

3:30:28 ↗ feel to what the facility would look like. So I guess I'm comfortable leaving it

3:30:33 ↗ to the discretion of the developer, recognizing that our choice would be sloped roof.

3:30:39 ↗ I think. And I guess comfortable with then discretion of staff to

3:30:45 ↗ approve any changes that it would be in character as Lucy suggested

3:30:50 ↗ perhaps changing. Yeah. Any other thoughts? I mean you could make it

3:30:56 ↗ a little stronger you say consistent with the character of the buildings

3:31:01 ↗ shown in the application materials with providing pitched roofs. So you could say it's got

3:31:07 ↗ to be consistent with the character of a pitched roof building and then it's a

3:31:12 ↗ little clearer, I guess the boundaries that we're pushing or again, you could leave it

3:31:18 ↗ at consistent with the character of the building proposal shown in the application materials. That's

3:31:23 ↗ a little more of a discretion on their part. Just a question is how far.

3:31:28 ↗ The other question is how far authority goes to mandate a specific roof

3:31:34 ↗ condition in the code. Again, yeah, because the FAR

3:31:40 ↗ minimum is a requirement. The sloped roofs are not.

3:31:46 ↗ Right. Okay. Any other thoughts on building design, modulation,

3:31:51 ↗ colors? I liked what they did. I just

3:31:57 ↗ would like to thank them for going back and

3:32:03 ↗ redoing it and making it look more like we

3:32:08 ↗ were specifying in the CIP. You meant everybody's tripartite

3:32:14 ↗ requirements? Now that we all know what that means.

3:32:20 ↗ That's right. I'll do a one-hour class. Okay, great.

3:32:25 ↗ Schedule it earlier. - So other questions, comments? -

3:32:31 ↗ So I hear two edits to propose. - While you're going up

3:32:37 ↗ there, Lucy, let me ask a question too in terms of outside

3:32:42 ↗ of the Central Area Issaquah Plan, we go through the green sheets,

3:32:48 ↗ I'll call them. With this, we're going through the CIDDS standards. And

3:32:54 ↗ Amy, you've gone through all of those in the first package and

3:32:59 ↗ made some other changes. Since there are 80 some different items,

3:33:05 ↗ I guess the question is, do we want to try to walk through

3:33:11 ↗ all of those? Have we been through them enough to feel comfortable with

3:33:16 ↗ the conditions having met the CIDDS, the Central Design Standards? Can you say

3:33:22 ↗ that again? Sorry. Do you want us to go through all-- we're going through all

3:33:28 ↗ 81? Yeah. Actually, I'll leave it to Amy to describe the process. I just wanted

3:33:33 ↗ to add one more thing. I'm sorry, Amy. There was a request. from Joe Berner

3:33:39 ↗ for what somebody to for us to go out and walk around. And I just

3:33:45 ↗ would like to say that I did that. I went out to the site. I

3:33:51 ↗ walked around. I went across the crosswalk and A lot of us do that. Many

3:33:57 ↗ of us go on little field trips and look around the sites. So I just

3:34:02 ↗ wanted to make sure that Joe Werner and a lot of the other people who

3:34:08 ↗ are making comments and ask that we do that, I'd like to make sure that

3:34:13 ↗ they know that we do do that. That's all. Thank you. Sorry. Thank you. Amy,

3:34:18 ↗ on the process. So customarily, I guess, what staff usually does before the

3:34:24 ↗ Development Commission makes a decision is that we go through the checklist

3:34:30 ↗ and they would all kind of check in and say, do they

3:34:35 ↗ all agree on the condition that's recommended by staff? Or that it's

3:34:41 ↗ met the requirement in the checklist. Thank you for the clarification. And

3:34:47 ↗ so the question tonight is given that This is an unusually large checklist

3:34:53 ↗ compared to what you're used to seeing, which was a third. You know, the green

3:34:58 ↗ sheets are is basically a third as long as this. And so then having to

3:35:04 ↗ go through every one of these conditions, if you're comfortable, if you've had a chance

3:35:09 ↗ to review these and you're comfortable with them, then is it OK to not go

3:35:14 ↗ through each one of them one by one? - Maybe an alternative would be to,

3:35:20 ↗ I think we probably all read them, if anybody has issue with one, they could

3:35:25 ↗ point that out and instead of reading every one, they could just go to the

3:35:31 ↗ ones that people had comment on. - Right. - Yes. - Maybe that's what you

3:35:36 ↗ said. - Everyone comfortable with that? - Yes. - My preference. - Yeah. - Okay,

3:35:42 ↗ and Lucy, you've got a couple changes to, there should be a condition two. -

3:35:47 ↗ So I was just updating the, number of attachments and then in condition

3:35:53 ↗ to adding the phrase which is a not quite I'm not sure

3:35:59 ↗ I got matched either one of yours so feel free to edit

3:36:05 ↗ away adding the applicant shall either modify the buildings consistent with the

3:36:11 ↗ character of the building shown in the application or comply with density

3:36:17 ↗ bonus provisions and then there was something about with pitched roofs and

3:36:22 ↗ I wasn't quite sure where that since we can't require pit strips I

3:36:28 ↗ was wanting to make sure I understood if we're adding that what we're what our

3:36:34 ↗ intent is. I think for Mr. Chair. Yeah. I think for me I think the

3:36:40 ↗ conversations that we've had in the past two meetings and feedback we've had from the

3:36:46 ↗ public I think staff has got pretty clear idea of what consistent would be in

3:36:51 ↗ our minds. So if you very too far from that path as we've talked about

3:36:57 ↗ it. I'm guessing we would see you again on this project. You would. Right. So

3:37:03 ↗ and a pitched roof was one of the things that we've been emphasizing. Right. You're

3:37:08 ↗ comfortable with the language? Yeah, I think that's good. And the pitch roofs really would

3:37:14 ↗ make a difference driving in. I think we had a really big discussion about that

3:37:19 ↗ in the last meeting. Okay. And then on 18? was adding a

3:37:25 ↗ new sentence with the intent of that before that connection to the

3:37:31 ↗ phase two parcel is built that the soft surface trail would be

3:37:36 ↗ extended so it met the neighborhood street. - Yeah. - Looks good

3:37:42 ↗ to me. - Is that it? - So any other thoughts on

3:37:48 ↗ the conditions that were put in? And I don't know that the

3:37:54 ↗ construction conditions are part of the approval as well? - Yes. -

3:38:00 ↗ Okay. At this point we have

3:38:06 ↗ 42 conditions and nine construction conditions. Any thoughts on any other

3:38:12 ↗ of those that? - No, I don't get it. - I

3:38:17 ↗ guess just as a note, I was pleased to see that

3:38:23 ↗ they had reached agreement with Rowley's to connect to 19th to

3:38:29 ↗ get the boardwalk, the shared use trail to get through there.

3:38:35 ↗ I think that's a huge import to the project and to

3:38:41 ↗ the whole neighborhood for people to be able to get

3:38:47 ↗ instead of walking down Newport or biking to go down

3:38:53 ↗ that shared use path. Any other discussion, questions, comments? You

3:38:59 ↗ want a motion? Sure. I would make a motion that

3:39:05 ↗ the Development Commission approve the site development permit for the

3:39:10 ↗ Issaquah Gateway Apartments project file number SDP150002 as described and

3:39:16 ↗ evaluated in the staff report dated August 5, 2015 with

3:39:22 ↗ attachments 1 through 10. I think it's 1 through 10. And

3:39:28 ↗ the project drawings received August 1, 2015. Briefing response memo dated September 16, 2015

3:39:33 ↗ with amendments 1 through 8. And subject to the conditions that we've identified up

3:39:39 ↗ there. And I move that the development commission direct the development services-- I'm sorry.

3:39:45 ↗ So the first one will be a motion by itself. Second? I've been moved

3:39:51 ↗ and seconded to move the project As conditioned, comments, questions?

3:39:56 ↗ Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Aye.

3:40:02 ↗ When opposed, no. The motion carries. The

3:40:07 ↗ second motion. I move that the Development Commission direct

3:40:13 ↗ the Development Services Department to prepare findings of fact and conclusions for review

3:40:19 ↗ and approval by the Development Commission Chairman, affirming the Development Commission's decision to

3:40:24 ↗ approve the Issaquah Gateway Appointments Project File Number SDP150002, subject to the conditions

3:40:30 ↗ listed in the staff report, dated August 5, 2015, with attachments 1 through

3:40:36 ↗ 10, and project drawings received August 1, 2015, briefing response memo

3:40:41 ↗ dated September 16, 2015, with attachments 1 through 8

3:40:47 ↗ and subject to the conditions approved. Second. Moved and

3:40:52 ↗ seconded to direct the staff to prepare findings of

3:40:58 ↗ fact. All in favor? Aye. Motion carries. Any other

3:41:03 ↗ comments, questions about this project? I just would like to reiterate that I

3:41:09 ↗ think there needs to be a deeper and broader conversation that includes the community and

3:41:14 ↗ involves the community a lot more so that the community feels like their voices are

3:41:19 ↗ being heard and the developers can hear what people are saying about, you know, what

3:41:24 ↗ it's like to live over there and traffic. There needs to be a lot of

3:41:29 ↗ -- I think the community really needs to feel like they're being heard about the

3:41:33 ↗ traffic concerns around that area. And I think that may be partly the developer.

3:41:39 ↗ I think it's more the broader city conversation that hopefully will come out of

3:41:45 ↗ the crosswalk study. Yeah, just a general comment. You know, it's all about Newport

3:41:51 ↗ Way and that crosswalk study. It's got to have a holistic view of it.

3:41:57 ↗ I know that they have a certain responsibility for their part of the development.

3:42:03 ↗ I'm just concerned about it doesn't turn into a jigsaw puzzle. that we

3:42:09 ↗ as a community can come up with a holistic solution for the whole corridor. Just

3:42:14 ↗ a couple quick kind of closing comments. One, to first thank the applicant and the

3:42:20 ↗ design team for listening to the comments from our previous meeting and being responsive to

3:42:26 ↗ those and appreciate the changes that were made to the project. I think they definitely

3:42:31 ↗ were improvements to what we saw. And thanks to staff for very

3:42:37 ↗ comprehensive response memo. I think that was very detailed and very

3:42:42 ↗ helpful in doing that. And also thank especially the public For

3:42:48 ↗ the things that were within scope of the development commission, we listen, we try to

3:42:53 ↗ be responsive to what you're saying and what we can do to modify the project

3:42:59 ↗ to make it better. But the other thing that I want to say is there's

3:43:04 ↗ an opportunity to engage at a higher level, to really participate in how this community

3:43:09 ↗ continues to grow and develop. And it's going to continue to develop. People want to

3:43:13 ↗ live in the Northwest and they're moving here every day. We enjoy the quality of

3:43:19 ↗ life that we have and you're here because you're trying to protect that. And part

3:43:25 ↗ of engaging in the community conversations about how we change and grow as a community

3:43:30 ↗ helps to protect why we're here. So we're not moving away as people commented earlier

3:43:36 ↗ because they're frustrated. So I encourage you and clearly you spent a big chunk of

3:43:41 ↗ your evening here and there are probably many other things you'd rather be doing than

3:43:46 ↗ participating in a local government. But this is hugely important and will make a difference.

3:43:51 ↗ And I think the messages that you communicated here tonight will be heard. They were

3:43:56 ↗ here by staff. I'm guessing there'll be a conversation at City Hall tomorrow about this

3:44:01 ↗ meeting. And I again encourage you to and share your thoughts with your city council

3:44:06 ↗ members too, because they are the ones that are the policy setters. They're the ones

3:44:11 ↗ that adopt the growth plans or the central is a quad plan and any changes.

3:44:15 ↗ And they also decide where the money gets spent, including on capital projects. So, um,

3:44:20 ↗ encourage that. So thank you again for being here tonight. Uh, you do make a

3:44:25 ↗ difference and we are listening. So thanks. I think Mr. Burton

3:44:30 ↗ put it very well. We very much appreciate the public coming out. It's um and

3:44:36 ↗ this is a great example, I think of a time where the commission has certain

3:44:41 ↗ purview of what we can and what we can't do. I think everybody recognizes their

3:44:46 ↗ issues with Newport Way and none of us would try to be saying that that

3:44:51 ↗ everything is fine. But what we can do in terms of our approval process is

3:44:56 ↗ limited. Um and again, stay involved. Uh make it a better

3:45:02 ↗ project or at least as good as you can make it

3:45:08 ↗ in terms of the construction process. And again, I would also

3:45:14 ↗ echo the thanks to the developer for the changes they made.

3:45:20 ↗ Thanks for the staff for the work they've done. And hearing

3:45:25 ↗ that and any other business, hearing none, we stand adjourned. Thank

3:45:31 ↗ you.

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