Development Commission · Wednesday, September 7, 2016 · City Council Digest

1. CALL TO ORDER

Commission Membership

packet pp.3

Previously discussed: Development Commission · Nov 15, 2015

Open packet at p.3 ↗

Staff report:

Development Commission About Staff Liaison Created in 1983, this commission reviews all land Christopher Wright, use actions requiring a Level 3 review. The Project Oversight Manager Commission further serves as an advisory board to Email the City Council on land use actions requiring council approval (Level 5 review). Regular Members 2018 - Vacant The appearance of fairness doctrine prohibits 2018 - Raymond Leong Development Commission members and City 2018 - Richard Sowa Council members from discussing the merit of 2019 - Michael Brennan specific land use development applications outside 2019 - Randolph Harrison of the formal public meeting process. Citizens, 2020 - Melvin Morgan however, may discuss any issue with the City's 2020 - Kevin Price Development Services Department. Written comments are also welcome. Alternate Members 2017 - TJ Ginthner Membership 2017 - Vacant The…

2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES

Minutes of July 6, 2016

packet pp.5–10

Previously discussed: Development Commission · Nov 15, 2015 Development Commission · Jul 6, 2016

Open packet at p.5 ↗

Staff report:

CITY OF ISSAQUAH DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION MINUTES July 6, 2016

Minutes of July 20, 2016

packet pp.11–20

Open packet at p.11 ↗

Staff report:

CITY OF ISSAQUAH DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION MINUTES July 20, 2016

3. AGENDA ITEMS

Riva Townhomes - SDP15-00004 (Q)

Discussion · Amy Tarce, Senior Planner

1629 segments .txt ↗

0:22 ↗ Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I'd like to welcome you to

0:28 ↗ a public hearing on the Revestown Homes SPD 15-00004 And we

0:34 ↗ have some administrative things we have to do first. So we have a couple of

0:39 ↗ minutes, but then we'll open up the meeting and have some discussion. So commissioners, we

0:45 ↗ have two sets of meetings, one for July 6, 2016, and one for July 20.

0:51 ↗ So let's look at the July 6, 2016. Have people had a chance to read

0:57 ↗ those? And they have corrections or changes or-- OK. I would accept a motion on--

1:03 ↗ Mr. Chair, I move the adoption of the meeting minutes for July

1:09 ↗ or approval of the meeting minutes for July 6, 2016. Second. All

1:14 ↗ right. Motion's been made and seconded. Do we have any discussion? All

1:20 ↗ those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. How about

1:26 ↗ the July 20, 2016 minutes? Mr. Chair, I move approval of the

1:32 ↗ July 20, 2016 meeting minutes. Second. Great. The motion's been made

1:38 ↗ and seconded. Do we have any discussion? All those in favor, say

1:43 ↗ aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Great. Mr. Chair, if you don't mind, I'd

1:49 ↗ like to make one more motion. I'd like to make the motion of the Development

1:55 ↗ Commission publicly acknowledge the tremendous work that Susan Lowe does on our meeting minutes. We've

2:01 ↗ had lots of them in the last few months, and she's done an excellent job

2:07 ↗ on all of them. I'd like to acknowledge that. Excellent. Second that motion.

2:13 ↗ Your name's going to be spelled wrong if you don't. I absolutely agree.

2:18 ↗ Outstanding work. Discussion? It's pretty amazing to get through the amount of discussion

2:24 ↗ that there is without-- and then have no corrections to the minutes for

2:30 ↗ something that is that complex. So I completely agree. Lucky to have her.

2:35 ↗ Excellent job. Thank you. Staff would agree as well. All those in favor

2:41 ↗ of approving the motion, say aye. Aye. Opposed? On record. It's

2:47 ↗ on record. Thank you. Thank you, Susan. Excellent job. So now I think

2:53 ↗ we have Keith Nivens has a statement to make. I'm sure it's

2:59 ↗ a statement so much as it is an opportunity to answer

3:04 ↗ questions. So good evening, development commission. Keith Niven, development services director,

3:10 ↗ economic development director. So for those of you who may be

3:15 ↗ less connected to city politics, The city council had a meeting last

3:21 ↗ night and as part of that meeting passed a temporary development moratorium

3:27 ↗ in the city. And there were a number of reasons why they

3:32 ↗ felt it was necessary to enact a moratorium. And I'm here to

3:38 ↗ basically I can either I can do one of two things and

3:43 ↗ you guys let me know what you'd like. I can either kind of give you

3:49 ↗ the high points of the moratorium, why they felt it was necessary, what's in, what's

3:54 ↗ out. I've spent all day talking to applicants, telling them whether they were in or

4:00 ↗ out. And I can tell you some of the exclusions, so there were certain things

4:05 ↗ that were excluded from the moratorium. Or I can just sit and answer questions. I'll

4:10 ↗ let you pick a lane and I'll be more than happy to

4:16 ↗ I think we would like to hear what's in, what's out, what's

4:21 ↗ excluded and maybe as well the duration. Okay. So I'll read --

4:27 ↗ Sorry. And also the reasoning behind it. Okay. We want both lanes

4:32 ↗ apparently. So rather than read the entire ordinance, what I'll do is, so there's a

4:38 ↗ laundry list at the beginning, which is basically the reasons why the council felt it

4:43 ↗ was necessary to enact a moratorium. And does everybody understand kind of what the general

4:48 ↗ basis for a moratorium, what it is? If so, great. And then I can go

4:54 ↗ through and talk about where the line was drawn to decide who's in and who's

4:59 ↗ out. And then I can give you the list of exclusions. So we can kind

5:04 ↗ of talk about those in those three pieces, if that makes sense. So the first

5:09 ↗ piece is why they felt the moratorium was important. I'm going to go ahead

5:15 ↗ and say that it basically came out of the council had asked

5:21 ↗ for basically a three-year assessment of Central Issaquah and looking at what

5:27 ↗ projects had come through the pipeline. and to basically have a conversation about whether

5:32 ↗ we thought we were on track or not. And Lucy and I did a lion's

5:38 ↗ share of the presentation. If you want to find that meeting, the date is July

5:44 ↗ 11th. So it was a council workshop. And there were at least a couple things

5:49 ↗ that I can recollect being on the agenda. One was the presentation of a dashboard.

5:55 ↗ So Development Services provided a dashboard to the council that gave some general numbers for

6:00 ↗ what had come through the pipeline so far. And then after that, we went through

6:06 ↗ an assessment of Central Issaquah, basically on a district by district basis. So there's 10

6:11 ↗ districts or neighborhoods within Central Issaquah. And we talked about what's happened in each neighborhood

6:16 ↗ and whether or not we felt like we were on target with meeting the vision

6:22 ↗ or not. So that happened on the 11th. I'm sure it was a fascinating watch

6:27 ↗ and I'll leave it up to you whether you choose to watch that or not.

6:32 ↗ So basically from that, the council felt like there were certain,

6:38 ↗ I'm just going to go ahead and read this because I

6:43 ↗ don't want to paraphrase. So indicated certain deficiencies where the vision

6:49 ↗ was not being met, comma, including, so here's the laundry list,

6:55 ↗ architectural fit with the community, urban design, vertical mixed use, affordable

7:00 ↗ housing, parking, and district vision. So those were the things that they thought

7:06 ↗ that were concerning for them that then caused them to enact the moratorium last night.

7:12 ↗ So if you want to have a discussion about any of those, what they mean

7:17 ↗ or what I think they mean, I'm more than happy to provide that at some

7:22 ↗ point. So that's the reason. Now, where they drew the line in terms of what

7:28 ↗ was... allowed to move forward and what was

7:33 ↗ basically considered caught by the moratorium was based on

7:39 ↗ a complete permit application for land use for Administrative

7:45 ↗ site development permit, site development permit, plat or short plat. So if you

7:51 ↗ already had that, so for example, Riva, Riva is considered in the pipeline

7:57 ↗ and is not being stopped by the moratorium. Other examples are things like

8:03 ↗ Gateway Senior, obviously Gateway which is under construction. So the moratorium doesn't stop

8:09 ↗ things that are already permitted. I talked to the lawyer for I keep wanting to

8:15 ↗ call it sunshine. It's sunrise. You guys issued a decision on that I think in

8:20 ↗ April. So they're in. They get to move forward with actually building their project. But

8:25 ↗ then there are other things that are on the other side of the line that

8:30 ↗ are going to have to wait until the moratorium is lifted. So the moratorium

8:36 ↗ is basically a six-month stay. So it runs for six months,

8:42 ↗ but it's a rolling six months. So what needs to happen

8:48 ↗ in that six months is the administration needs to put together

8:53 ↗ a work plan that basically puts in place procedures and actions

8:59 ↗ to alleviate the concerns that were listed in the beginning. So those things that we

9:04 ↗ talked about or that I mentioned on page one, you know, the architectural fit and

9:09 ↗ the urban design and affordable housing and vertical mixed use, we need to actually develop

9:14 ↗ a work plan on how to deal with each one of those so that there

9:18 ↗ can be tangible progress to getting to a point where the council can lift the

9:23 ↗ moratorium. Because what's happened in the past and what's ultimately been litigated not just

9:29 ↗ in this state but in other states is jurisdictions that basically run a rolling moratorium

9:34 ↗ almost in perpetuity. You cannot use a moratorium to basically just stop development. It's not

9:40 ↗ legal. You have to have a work plan that has a beginning and a perceivable

9:46 ↗ end and you need to be able to work towards that end. Okay? So,

9:52 ↗ complete application for land use was decided to be that line to figure out who's

9:57 ↗ in and who's out. And then the council also identified projects that would be excluded

10:03 ↗ from the moratorium. And I'll read you that list. And again, I can provide some

10:08 ↗ insights if you wonder why something was included and maybe something might not have been

10:14 ↗ included. So the first thing is those projects or properties that are covered by an

10:18 ↗ approved development agreement because a development agreement is a contract and unless the city put

10:22 ↗ in that contract we have the right to stop you if we impose a moratorium

10:27 ↗ then we don't have the right to stop you with a moratorium. The second thing

10:31 ↗ is transit-oriented development. So if there's a project that is a transit-oriented development project, we

10:36 ↗ wanted the ability to be able to move that forward and not keep it stalled

10:41 ↗ under the moratorium. And I can explain a little bit more about that if you

10:46 ↗ guys want, because there's a back story there. essential public facilities so this is fire

10:51 ↗ stations and hospitals specifically so if we if we needed to build another fire station

10:56 ↗ or if we wanted to if there was another hospital proposal in town and there's

11:01 ↗ not and and Swedish is actually covered by a development agreement but we figured we'd

11:07 ↗ go ahead and list it here within essential public facilities we can move forward with

11:12 ↗ those the next is publicly funded schools and the village theater That one is a

11:17 ↗ little bit weird but I can again explain that if you guys want an explanation.

11:22 ↗ The next one is projects that involve the sale of development of land currently owned

11:28 ↗ by the city or capital improvement projects so that the city can move forward with

11:33 ↗ building roads or doing things if it needed to do that. Like for example building

11:38 ↗ a water reservoir. would be something we would want to be able to move forward

11:44 ↗ with if indeed that's what was needed. Remodels and tenant improvements was listed. Single family

11:50 ↗ homes. So the idea was if you already had a piece of property and you

11:56 ↗ wanted to build your dream retirement house that you could move forward with that. Affordable

12:02 ↗ housing projects that include at least 40% of the total residential units being affordable.

12:07 ↗ And the reason the council picked 40% is that's the number in the comprehensive

12:13 ↗ plan that says is our goal for getting in this community. And then the

12:19 ↗ last item in the exclusions was emergency repairs or construction necessitated by disasters such

12:25 ↗ as fire or earthquake or something of that sort. So that was the list

12:31 ↗ of those things that kind of were outside. And that was initially the things

12:37 ↗ that caused them to want to move forward and do that last night. And

12:43 ↗ right now it's listed for six months. And the way the state statute reads

12:48 ↗ is it basically allows the jurisdiction to enact a moratorium as an emergency provision

12:55 ↗ but then requires them to hold a public hearing within

13:00 ↗ 60 days to hear from potential, from the community or

13:06 ↗ egregious property owners or developers or because they could potentially

13:12 ↗ change kind of where they drew the line in terms of vesting or

13:18 ↗ they could change what's excluded. They could add some more exclusions or even

13:23 ↗ remove some if they wanted to. So so right now that public hearing

13:29 ↗ will be in the council chambers on October 17th. So that is the

13:34 ↗ entirety of what I know. But I'm more than happy to field any

13:40 ↗ questions that you might have. Question. I'll ask it. The moratorium applies within

13:46 ↗ the entire city limits or just within the CIP? This is a great

13:52 ↗ question. So everything that they identified as being concerning was really came out

13:57 ↗ of the CIP conversation except for one thing. So the one thing caused

14:03 ↗ them to go citywide with the moratorium and that's the affordable housing piece.

14:09 ↗ So basically they said, hey, we seem, you know, we're not getting our target. We're

14:14 ↗ not even coming close to our target. And one of the things that we presented

14:18 ↗ to them on the 11th of July, which if you watch that part of the

14:23 ↗ dashboard and you can find it on the city's webpage is, There's this graphic that

14:28 ↗ shows the number of housing units that have been permitted in central Issaquah over the

14:33 ↗ past three years, which is 963, I believe, and the number of housing units of

14:38 ↗ those that are affordable, which is zero. So it was a zero next to a

14:43 ↗ 963, and I think it really kind of etched an image in the council's mind

14:48 ↗ that something needed to change as it related to that. And so since we

14:54 ↗ have plats moving on the periphery, I think the concern was

15:00 ↗ that we need to we need we need to figure out

15:05 ↗ what we want to do with affordable housing before too many

15:11 ↗ of those properties get permitted out. So they cast it citywide.

15:17 ↗ So um for vacation planning purposes how much is in the pipeline so how much

15:22 ↗ do we have that is still within the can proceed but would be coming to

15:28 ↗ the commission just out of curiosity yeah if you can i don't know if you

15:33 ↗ can answer that question i i know there are several permits that are in the

15:38 ↗ pipeline i mean we have one on the 21st um we have

15:44 ↗ Yeah, so I know at least two STPs that will be coming

15:49 ↗ through the commission. So what you're saying is no vacation then? No.

15:55 ↗ I imagine that the fall might be slightly slower and you'll probably

16:01 ↗ see it more in the new year than you would immediately. It's

16:07 ↗ a fairly long list of things that made the cutoff. Now, not

16:13 ↗ all of them would come to you. I mean, some of them

16:19 ↗ may... go to the Urban Village Development Commission. Thank

16:24 ↗ you. Of course, I think there's a proposed rezoned

16:30 ↗ up in the highlands for the 1,800 residential units to be built. Does

16:36 ↗ that-- There's not, actually. So just to be clear, so that property owner

16:42 ↗ has expressed an interest to do something that's not allowed under the current

16:48 ↗ zoning and entitlement. So they have been having community meetings to try and

16:54 ↗ garner some community support for what they would like to do. But

17:00 ↗ as of today, they have not made a request to what would

17:05 ↗ be analogous to a rezone. Because it's within the Highlands, it's got

17:11 ↗ a little bit different mechanics, but they have not asked for anything

17:17 ↗ at this point. Is that the former Bellevue College? No. So Bellevue

17:23 ↗ College is still Bellevue College. So this is so the property that's kind of across

17:29 ↗ the street from Starbucks and Babmo, it's actually shaped ‑‑ it's 20 acres and it's

17:35 ↗ shaped like an L. And there's going to be subdivisions and residential to the west

17:41 ↗ of it that Polygon owns and is going through permitting on. But the 20 acres

17:47 ↗ that Shelter Holdings owns, they've had now, I want to say at least three meetings

17:52 ↗ with the community. And then I know that the community, that the Highlands Council scheduled

17:58 ↗ a meeting like last Monday or something that I know Stacy attended, and I think

18:04 ↗ it was reported in the paper. Just to talk about that property and whether or

18:10 ↗ not there's any interest by the community and more housing. And so

18:16 ↗ far it does not seem like there's much interest in that at all.

18:21 ↗ And would that be if they did want to come to the city

18:27 ↗ for changes, would that be covered by the moratorium? So right now, so

18:33 ↗ it depends on timing. Let's get down to a ground answer. Excuse

18:38 ↗ me. Why don't you go ahead and answer his question. So it

18:44 ↗ depends on the timing. So if the request came in advance of

18:50 ↗ the development agreement expiring, which is planned to expire next year, then

18:56 ↗ it would be covered under an amendment to the development agreement.

19:01 ↗ If they made that request after the development agreement expired, then

19:07 ↗ it would be covered under the moratorium. Mr. Chair, I've got

19:13 ↗ a question. There's quite a bit of items that's, under the

19:18 ↗ six month moratorium. And I picked up a few architectural, vision, parking, and affordable

19:24 ↗ housing. You talk a little bit about affordable housing, you're gonna have to develop

19:30 ↗ something. But in the architectural, the vision side of it, and the parking, is

19:35 ↗ that something that development commission needs to get involved and provide input on that?

19:41 ↗ Or is the city just going to come up with some guidelines

19:48 ↗ Eventually, after that six-month moratorium project comes in, obviously we're

19:53 ↗ going to need to look at that on a different

19:59 ↗ eye side, because you're talking about architectural, and everybody has

20:05 ↗ a different view of that. What we view now, as

20:11 ↗ the council said, we're not there. So six months later,

20:17 ↗ another project comes in, I would suspect we probably want to

20:23 ↗ be in a position to view it differently or not. Could be. So part of

20:28 ↗ that Commission member is so when I said we have to develop a work

20:34 ↗ plan The work plan is going to be different for each of those items. So

20:40 ↗ for example How we deal with the architectural review piece which is a piece that's

20:46 ↗ not there now It could very well be that that that part of that process

20:52 ↗ would be one coming to DC to to talk about that and get some input

20:58 ↗ and help craft maybe the guidelines that ultimately then gets applied to Central Issaquah. You

21:04 ↗ know, what we need to do now in the next couple weeks is to start

21:10 ↗ to work on putting some timing to those work projects and then thinking about

21:15 ↗ what parties we would include in that. And it seems at least to

21:21 ↗ me that there would likely be some touch points for DC in that.

21:27 ↗ And I just don't know exactly what that is right now, but it

21:32 ↗ would vary depending on the topics. - Mr. Chairman. Was there any

21:38 ↗ discussion yet about the creation or the advisability of having an architectural review board to

21:44 ↗ address that issue? So you can do the architectural review piece a

21:49 ↗ couple different ways. One is you could create a separate architectural review

21:55 ↗ board that would review each application and then that review would potentially

22:01 ↗ happen separate from the normal DC review. That's one way you could

22:07 ↗ do it. Another way you could do it is the city could hire a consultant

22:12 ↗ to basically perform the architectural review and then we would incorporate that into our staff

22:17 ↗ reports and then you guys would react to that architectural analysis like you do all

22:22 ↗ the rest of the staff analysis and you could say, you know, I don't agree

22:26 ↗ with that, I don't understand that. And so that's another way you could do it.

22:32 ↗ So I think what we're open to, at least at this point, is talking about

22:37 ↗ the different methods and procedures. And then what we'll do is we'll talk amongst, you

22:43 ↗ know, within the administration and probably propose something to come out. But there's a couple

22:48 ↗ different ways to kind of do that. - Okay, next question is, without having seen

22:53 ↗ the video of the meeting, did the subject of staff workload come up? Because quite

22:59 ↗ honestly, the staff, there has been a lot going on. There's a fixed number of

23:05 ↗ people on the city staff that work on these issues before they even come to

23:11 ↗ the DC or any of the other commissions. I wonder if that was

23:17 ↗ a consideration at all or if you think it should be if it

23:23 ↗ wasn't. So what I would say is some of these things are in

23:29 ↗ play right now. So the city's already hired a consultant to

23:34 ↗ do the vertical mixed use study. So that is kind of

23:40 ↗ in process and right now we plan to provide at least

23:46 ↗ a presentation of the consultant on the 27th of September. So the 27th of September,

23:51 ↗ which is a council committee of the whole meeting, um, there will be a presentation

23:57 ↗ on vertical mixed use, and there'll also be a presentation on the housing strategy. So,

24:03 ↗ so they had asked us to do a housing strategy, um, which includes affordable housing,

24:09 ↗ but it also includes other types of housing that we're not getting right now. And

24:14 ↗ so the first piece of that puzzle and kind of separated that into four stages.

24:20 ↗ And the first is to just do an assessment of existing housing stock and then

24:26 ↗ do a forecast of what that might look like 20 years from now if all

24:31 ↗ the policies and all the market trends stay in play. Because what we know is

24:37 ↗ we're running out of vacant land to build single family subdivisions. And so most of

24:42 ↗ the housing that's going to come forward in the city is going to be multifamily,

24:48 ↗ whether it's ownership or rental, you know, but it's going to look different than what

24:53 ↗ we got the last 20 years. And so having that conversation that the first part

24:58 ↗ of that housing strategy is understanding what the pictures look like. And then the second

25:03 ↗ piece is doing a needs assessment. And we're talking about, you know, getting out into

25:07 ↗ the community and talking about housing and housing needs with different parts of the city,

25:12 ↗ because we feel like different parts of the city are going to have some different

25:17 ↗ voices in terms of expressing what kind of housing is important for the city to

25:21 ↗ get over the next 20 years. So that piece, starting that is the 27th. So

25:26 ↗ we've got a couple pieces of this puzzle already in play. I think we knew

25:32 ↗ that the architectural piece was coming even out before the moratorium came. There was a

25:37 ↗ lot of conversation about certain projects in town and what they look like and maybe

25:43 ↗ what they should have looked like. So that's not a surprise. Lucy and I and

25:48 ↗ some of the other staff in development services, we actually have talked about having a

25:54 ↗ meeting next week to sit down and start talking about how these things might unfold.

26:00 ↗ The district vision piece is a little bit more complicated but

26:05 ↗ my first thought is the city does an annual comprehensive plan

26:11 ↗ docket and that comprehensive plan is more of a long range

26:17 ↗ planning piece. So basically timing that district vision conversation with the

26:22 ↗ comp plan for 2017 probably makes sense for me. Parking, so

26:28 ↗ the parking one is a little bit of an interesting nut. The concern I think

26:34 ↗ from the council is that some of the projects that either have been built or

26:40 ↗ have been queued up in the pre-app cycle is still, and I'm just going to

26:46 ↗ use these are my words, not the council's, they're still looking very suburban. So the

26:52 ↗ projects, if they're not residential, so the commercial retail stuff, it's really more, it's

26:57 ↗ still surface parked. It's fairly low intensity, even though they might be meeting the

27:03 ↗ FAR requirements. It still doesn't look what I think people were envisioning it to

27:09 ↗ look like. So this is a conversation about density and ultimately structured parking. And if

27:14 ↗ we're still, and part of the conversation I think we're gonna get on the 27th

27:20 ↗ is are we still a ways away from the market supporting structured parking in Issaquah

27:25 ↗ as part of development projects or are we still a ways off from that? That

27:30 ↗ will help inform our conversation about parking. - I have one more question. What

27:36 ↗ is the effect of the moratorium on traffic, if any? So my opinion,

27:42 ↗ not the city's opinion, I'm going to give you my opinion. My opinion

27:48 ↗ is probably not much. I mean, I think, you know, the city's struggling

27:54 ↗ right now with, I think there's three pieces of traffic. One is construction

27:59 ↗ traffic that is related to projects that are under construction in the city.

28:05 ↗ The second is construction traffic that is construction traffic moving through the city.

28:11 ↗ Right now there's a landfill in Black Diamond that a lot of the

28:17 ↗ trucks are tending to use specifically like Sunset, but also going down SR

28:22 ↗ 900. And so we're feeling the impact of that. I think the study

28:28 ↗ that the city did about the traffic on Sunset showed that 30% of

28:34 ↗ the trips on sunset are construction trucks. So that's crazy, right? And so the third

28:40 ↗ piece is regional traffic. And so, you know, and I don't want to be, I

28:45 ↗ don't want to call it, it's more, it's got more edges than just regional traffic

28:51 ↗ because I think what you have happening on the north side of I-90 is a

28:56 ↗ little bit different than what you have on the south side of I-90. So north

29:01 ↗ side clearly it's all the Sammamish folks that are coming down through the city and

29:06 ↗ getting on the freeway to go to Bellevue or Seattle or whatnot. On the south

29:11 ↗ side you have the communities, you have Renton and Maple Valley and others that are

29:16 ↗ choosing to come through the city to get to I-90 as opposed to maybe

29:22 ↗ 18 and 90 which might be more congested. And so but that piece that regional

29:28 ↗ traffic piece and if you watch last night's meeting that definitely came up as part

29:34 ↗ of the concerns that the council has right now is we need to start having

29:39 ↗ conversations about that regional traffic piece because it's making our streets feel very full when

29:45 ↗ the reality is the impact of kind of the developments that have been approved so

29:50 ↗ far because most of them aren't occupied. I mean, you're just now getting Atlas filling

29:56 ↗ up with people, but like for example, Gateway, there's nobody living there yet. there will

30:02 ↗ be soon but not yet. And so the traffic right now, it's construction in the

30:06 ↗ city, it's construction going through the city, and it's regional that I think are the

30:10 ↗ biggest pieces. Okay. Thank you. I just have one question. I mean, doesn't this give

30:14 ↗ me a little bit of a disconnect with wanting more affordable housing than limiting the

30:19 ↗ inventory of houses? It's going to just drive up the price even further, isn't it?

30:25 ↗ So, well, so let me, so I think, so the moratorium is temporary, okay? And

30:31 ↗ so the idea is, I think part of it is, do you, you know, do

30:37 ↗ you believe, so the city create, you know, the city gets its growth projections from

30:43 ↗ the state and from PSRC. And right now, I think, I'm believe the number

30:49 ↗ that we're expected to grow over the next 20 years is like 5,500 housing units,

30:54 ↗ give or take. So if there's 5,500, we're going to get those regardless. You can

30:59 ↗ put a cork on the bottle for six months or a year, and you're still

31:04 ↗ going to get 5,500 20 years from now. They're just going to come at a

31:08 ↗ different pace. Is there something the city can do to influence whether

31:14 ↗ those come in at market or at an affordable price point? That's

31:20 ↗ the conversation that we're going to have over specifically the next six

31:26 ↗ to eight months to see if, you know, there's a lot of

31:32 ↗ tools in place. There's regulations, there's incentives, there's ways that the city

31:38 ↗ can influence what the market would otherwise provide. Other comments?

31:44 ↗ Great, thanks. Thank

31:49 ↗ you. All right,

31:54 ↗ thank you. So

31:59 ↗ I'm just gonna

32:04 ↗ do a quick

32:09 ↗ piece on quasi-judicial

32:14 ↗ that you often

32:19 ↗ see done. So tonight

32:24 ↗ you're being asked to hold a public hearing on a

32:30 ↗ site development permit based on the building size and the

32:35 ↗ parcel size. It is a quasi-judicial permit for which you

32:41 ↗ are the decision maker. A quasi-judicial matter means that you act like

32:47 ↗ a court and that the proceedings be both fair and appear fair. And there

32:52 ↗ are two components to that. Procedural due process, which has to do with the

32:58 ↗ process we go through, predominantly around notice and how the decision is made. And

33:04 ↗ substantive due process, which is using adopted regulations as the basis for the decision.

33:10 ↗ So I would ask for you to read

33:16 ↗ through these questions and I'll ask for your

33:21 ↗ responses in a moment. So she wants a

33:26 ↗ response from each one of us, correct? I

33:32 ↗ can do it as a group. How many

33:37 ↗ people answer no? Anyone answer yes? Okay.

33:43 ↗ And then the other piece has to do with ex parte contacts,

33:49 ↗ which means having conversations about this permit outside of being in these

33:54 ↗ chambers and on the microphone so that everyone can hear it. Has

34:00 ↗ anyone had any ex parte communications? No. Okay. Anyone challenge any of

34:06 ↗ the participation of any of the commissioners? Okay. Thank you very much.

34:12 ↗ I'm just going to get TJ up on the camera. Oh, yeah.

34:39 ↗ Good evening. My name is Amy Tarrs and I'm a

34:45 ↗ senior planner for the City of Issaquah. So tonight I

34:51 ↗ will be doing the presentation for what's really a continuation

34:56 ↗ of the public hearing for the Riva Townhomes SDP 15-00004.

35:02 ↗ Just to kind of provide a little bit of a

35:08 ↗ reminder or context for everyone. This project was originally

35:14 ↗ supposed to be discussed for a decision back in April of 2016

35:19 ↗ and by the request of the applicant we because they needed a

35:25 ↗ little bit more time to work with staff on one of the

35:31 ↗ conditions relating to the shared use route we pulled it out of

35:36 ↗ the agenda so we are back and now ready to provide our

35:42 ↗ recommendations and you have received the briefing response memo that

35:48 ↗ updates basically where we're at today with some minor edits

35:54 ↗ to the conditions from the original staff report and Before

35:59 ↗ I start my presentation for the record, I would like to note

36:05 ↗ that staff submitted two sets of public comments. One set was what

36:11 ↗ I had intended to submit for the April 2016 meeting. and that's

36:17 ↗ labeled attachment six to nine. And also for tonight, there's four additional

36:23 ↗ public comments after we have sent out the staff report and the

36:29 ↗ attachments. So that's called out as exhibit one to four.

36:38 ↗ So just for a quick review, this is basically

36:44 ↗ a townhouse development with 36 four-story townhomes and 85

36:49 ↗ parking spaces in 8.39 acres. Only 2.19 acres of

36:55 ↗ the site is developable due to the critical areas

37:00 ↗ on site. And what you see here where you see green

37:06 ↗ is actually the critical area buffer for this project. With the

37:12 ↗ townhomes lined up along the major circulation facility which is New

37:17 ↗ Port Way, there is a driveway that leads to the internal,

37:23 ↗ the remaining townhomes in this project. So for

37:29 ↗ tonight's meeting, I will not take you through the whole

37:34 ↗ project again. What I will do is highlight basically some

37:40 ↗ of the major topics that were the focus of our

37:46 ↗ previous public hearing discussion. Basically, there were two that were that

37:51 ↗ were that we we heard a lot of comments from the public and

37:57 ↗ also questions from the development commission. So one has to do with the

38:03 ↗ trail connection that's required for this project and how it relates to the

38:09 ↗ regional trail system. So tonight I'm going to start off with the map that's

38:15 ↗ found in the central Issaquah plan. This is a map that shows where you

38:20 ↗ see the dark green dashed lines. These are actually the streets and And then

38:26 ↗ I don't know if you can read it. It's a little hazy maybe,

38:32 ↗ but you see this solid green line and these are actually off street

38:38 ↗ shared use routes. So what we want to focus on is this area

38:44 ↗ where the Riva property is. There's two different symbols for required or significant

38:50 ↗ community spaces. that were identified in the Central Issaquah Plan. One is

38:56 ↗ this yellow circle which represents a neighborhood park and the green

39:01 ↗ and what you see here is it branches out on both

39:07 ↗ sides of the Riva property and it's a required shared use

39:12 ↗ route. So From my previous presentation, I kind of explained

39:18 ↗ that wherever you see two symbols in one property, basically

39:23 ↗ the Central Issaquah Plan identifies or provides for the staff

39:29 ↗ or the administration to select one or the other. And

39:34 ↗ basically in this particular case, because the developable area is

39:40 ↗ only two acres, we we have chosen the shared use route

39:45 ↗ as the appropriate share, I'm sorry, appropriate community space for the

39:51 ↗ REVA property. So last time we heard a lot of concerns

39:57 ↗ about requiring the shared use route through the property. And so

40:03 ↗ one of the things the Development Commission requested was somehow

40:08 ↗ we need to evaluate what are the existing, I'm sorry, the

40:14 ↗ existing shared use routes and trails, and how the future shared

40:20 ↗ route will connect to the existing ones. So what you're seeing here,

40:26 ↗ it's a little bit basically a montage of several, well in this

40:31 ↗ case two different drawings. What you see up here is the site

40:37 ↗ plan for the Gateway project which the Development Commission approved. And here

40:43 ↗ is the existing Sammamish Point condos which is basically sandwiched between

40:48 ↗ the Gateway Apartments and the future of Riva Townhomes. So

40:54 ↗ what you're seeing here is a combination of existing trails,

40:59 ↗ which is the yellow. So right now on Newport Way,

41:05 ↗ there's already an existing Mountains to Sound Greenway bike trail.

41:10 ↗ And then In the future, you're also going to

41:16 ↗ see that there's the shared use route through the Gateway Apartments.

41:22 ↗ And again, based on the Central Isoco Plan, there is also

41:27 ↗ a vision to provide another shared use route that will cross

41:33 ↗ over I-90 towards the Samat Mish State Park. So where does

41:39 ↗ that... And then for, I'm sorry, so other potential trails, right? The

41:44 ↗ Bergsma trails, this is basically a voluntary trail system for a future

41:50 ↗ residential development. And where you see the pink dashed lines, these are

41:56 ↗ all identified in the central Issaquah plan as future trails. So, we

42:02 ↗ know that there is already a trail at the Cougar Mountain

42:08 ↗ Regional Wildland State Park. So, in the future, we're also going

42:13 ↗ to see an improved parking facility that will serve future trail

42:19 ↗ users. And this is right across the Riva property. So where does

42:24 ↗ that put the Riva property with all these new developments and trail systems?

42:30 ↗ So what we have asked and recommended as far as the route for

42:36 ↗ the future shared use route under Riva property is to run along its

42:42 ↗ northern edge and then to go up north to connect

42:48 ↗ to the future Gateway Apartments, Shared Use Route and actually

42:53 ↗ at this end it becomes a boardwalk over Tibbets Creek

42:59 ↗ Wetland. We heard some comments about how about a connection

43:05 ↗ to the Rowley properties. So the The Rowley Development Agreement identified

43:11 ↗ three different locations for a connection from the Riva property to their

43:17 ↗ property. And after discussing this further with them, they have chosen a

43:23 ↗ location which is where this purple arrow is showing, which is further

43:28 ↗ north than where we originally thought. the connection will be. There are

43:34 ↗ other things that determines timing of, for all these other related connections

43:40 ↗ to the REVA property. So having said all of that, as you

43:46 ↗ may have read in our most current briefing response memo, The applicant

43:51 ↗ has provided us with two cost estimates for constructing this

43:57 ↗ shared use route. And it's a pretty significant length, you

44:03 ↗ know, about a thousand, over a thousand feet, lineal feet.

44:08 ↗ And due to the costs and weighing that cost versus

44:14 ↗ what they would have to pay in terms of a park impact fees,

44:20 ↗ staff determined that in this particular situation that it would,

44:26 ↗ the cost of requiring this shared use route is far

44:32 ↗ beyond what the property or the project would have had

44:37 ↗ to pay in terms of park impact fees. And so

44:43 ↗ we have basically recommended that condition nine, which was the, the

44:48 ↗ condition that required the construction of the shared use route to basically clarify

44:54 ↗ that the applicant will be paying the applicable park impact fees for 36

45:00 ↗ townhome units and provide a relocatable public access easement with

45:05 ↗ a width of 20 feet in the same alignment as

45:11 ↗ what's shown in attachment to of the briefing memo which

45:16 ↗ is also what's shown here and also that we will

45:22 ↗ have a signage right at the entry of the property and where the

45:28 ↗ future trailhead will be so that the future residents will be notified that there

45:34 ↗ is this expectation for this trail to be provided in the future. And

45:39 ↗ in addition to that, we are recommending deleting conditions 2.C, 10 and

45:45 ↗ 11, which all relate to the requirement for the shared use route

45:51 ↗ to be constructed by the applicant. So the other

45:56 ↗ item that garnered a lot of comments from the

46:02 ↗ public is Newport Way, including traffic and safety with

46:07 ↗ the medians that are being proposed and potential

46:13 ↗ a potential four-way stop sign or in some cases a

46:19 ↗ request for a traffic signal. So I'll start off with

46:24 ↗ this diagram simply demonstrates that we have started an initial

46:30 ↗ response to, you know, looking at the site distance triangle

46:36 ↗ for both driveways. This is Oakcrest. This is an existing

46:41 ↗ driveway and for Riva for the future driveway. And this

46:47 ↗ simply to assure the development commission that during the construction

46:53 ↗ permit review, we will continue to use the city standard

46:59 ↗ for for sight distance clearances to ensure that none of

47:04 ↗ the sight distances will be blocked by any medians. So

47:10 ↗ and then the next one has to do with the

47:16 ↗ question about whether or not Newport Way is wide

47:21 ↗ enough for both for traffic and also for, I'm

47:27 ↗ sorry, for vehicular traffic and also for pedestrian safety.

47:32 ↗ So what you're seeing here is First, the existing right

47:38 ↗ of way width on Oak Crest Drive. So along Newport Way in

47:44 ↗ front of the Riva property, the right of way actually varies from

47:50 ↗ 76 feet to 60 feet as you go further east. So right

47:55 ↗ at that intersection, it's at 76 feet and 6 inches. And so

48:01 ↗ we are requiring the applicant to basically provide what the basically

48:07 ↗ the frontage improvements for the full width of Newport Way within

48:13 ↗ this blue area. And what that includes is right of way

48:18 ↗ dedication of 1.5 feet on their side, the paving for full

48:24 ↗ width of the roadway with curbs and gutters, Commuter bike

48:30 ↗ lanes, this one is existing on the left, but this one will, I'm

48:36 ↗ sorry, since the center line is changing, everything's gonna change too. So yes,

48:41 ↗ I'm sorry. So this actually all three with a multi-use trail, what we're

48:47 ↗ calling a shared use trail that is raised and separated from the travel

48:53 ↗ lanes. Center turn lane or a landscape median, Repositioning of

48:59 ↗ street lights and that just comes with shifting the center line of

49:05 ↗ the street and then a temporary five foot gravel walkway to the

49:10 ↗ Cougar Mountain Trail Trailhead. So as part of

49:16 ↗ all of that, one of just for clarification and again to

49:22 ↗ address community concerns, currently there is a 10 foot shoulder that

49:27 ↗ that the community uses to walk to the the trailhead. So because

49:33 ↗ we are shifting the center line of Newport Way and we are

49:39 ↗ also adding a 10 foot multi-use trail, it shifts everything and that

49:45 ↗ shoulder will go away. And in lieu of that shoulder, we are

49:51 ↗ providing or requesting the applicant to provide a five foot gravel walkway

49:57 ↗ so that pedestrians can continue to access their trail.

50:03 ↗ So this is quite a short presentation because at least from

50:08 ↗ our end, we think that we have addressed all of the

50:14 ↗ concerns. And so based on our presentation and the staff report

50:19 ↗ and the briefing response memos and additional information that were provided

50:25 ↗ by the applicant, we are recommending the Development Commission to approve

50:30 ↗ this project. That concludes

50:36 ↗ my presentation. Thanks Amy. Commissioners? Comments? Concerns? I do have one question.

50:42 ↗ You mentioned the received two cost estimates at least twice as much

50:48 ↗ as the parking back fees. Can you tell us what those cost

50:53 ↗ estimates were? So it was ranging between $500,000 to $800,000. And

50:59 ↗ it doesn't even include the railings and the geotechnical

51:05 ↗ studies. Thank you. Question? Related to that is in

51:11 ↗ the new condition 9, you referred to it as

51:17 ↗ provide a relocatable public access easement. I'm not familiar with

51:23 ↗ the terms of a relocatable easement. So how does that work if you're defining an

51:28 ↗ easement on the property that could be moved to where and how does that happen?

51:34 ↗ So in other words, we have currently a general idea where that line is.

51:40 ↗ However, once we start looking at the site conditions where trees

51:46 ↗ are located, we may shift that line to avoid some of

51:52 ↗ the trees. So it will remain along this. It's not like

51:57 ↗ suddenly it's going to go to a different direction. It would still

52:03 ↗ follow the same direction, but it may not be at the exact

52:09 ↗ location as what's shown here. Because of vegetation or topography or whatever

52:14 ↗ for constructability that they would move it. Commissioner Harris. Amy, just clarify

52:20 ↗ for me. So the requirement to build that trail is essentially...

52:26 ↗ delayed indefinitely or they are going to be required to put it put the trail

52:31 ↗ in in a in a fixed time zone. I'm just not clear on that. Yes.

52:37 ↗ So in this particular case, staff is acknowledging that this trail is still an important

52:42 ↗ element of the green necklace. However, the applicant is not going to be required

52:48 ↗ to construct it. It may be that in the future, either the city

52:54 ↗ does it or some other applicant or some kind of maybe a not-for-profit

53:00 ↗ group would want to do it. So we don't know. We haven't identified

53:06 ↗ who might be building it in the future. Mr. Chair? I simply

53:11 ↗ recall there was an issue about parking with the trail system at one

53:17 ↗ point in time across the street from there. Was that, I don't see

53:23 ↗ that being proposed right now. Whatever came out of that. So the goodness

53:29 ↗ is the King County Parks Department is proceeding with applying for a grant

53:34 ↗ to build a 40, and it may change but right now what we're hearing

53:40 ↗ is a 40 space parking lot on the side so it would just be a

53:46 ↗ matter of timing so we are continuing to work with them on you know just

53:52 ↗ as far as coordinating on how to you know for them moving their project along

53:57 ↗ and how we can facilitate that So that parking lot would be at the

54:03 ↗ location of the trailhead then? Yes, so it will be inside their property where it's

54:08 ↗ safer. Okay, thank you. With the amount of units and the construction that's going on

54:14 ↗ as well up top and the way people drive on Newport as it is, why

54:19 ↗ isn't a traffic light required? I mean it seems like there's gonna be a lot

54:24 ↗ of pedestrian traffic as well as car traffic going through there. And in mornings

54:30 ↗ when people leave for work, it's kind of hazy and dark sometimes. It seemed

54:36 ↗ like a safer bet for us. As far as with, first I'll address

54:41 ↗ that in more of a regional or system-wide scale. So Newport Way

54:47 ↗ has always been intended as an arterial, which means that we want

54:53 ↗ the traffic to constantly move. So based on that, our public works

54:58 ↗ engineering director is not supportive of any sort of traffic signals that

55:04 ↗ will hinder that. However, so the second level of analysis and rational for that

55:10 ↗ has to do with the warrants, you know, and when you have a new project,

55:16 ↗ you identify, you know, how many trips that project will take. will add into

55:22 ↗ the existing trips and then whether that triggers a need for traffic signal. And in

55:27 ↗ this case, because of how low the number of units are, it doesn't really trigger

55:33 ↗ the requirement for a traffic signal. But if you're adding trailhead and making it

55:39 ↗ kind of a destination for people there's gonna be a lot of foot traffic there

55:44 ↗ so that's that's my concern is people crossing the street maybe the uh the people

55:49 ↗ in the apartment across the street go up to the trail the other way right

55:54 ↗ then you have all the foot traffic crossing Newport which is an artery that's moving

55:59 ↗ quickly so if if it's about the pedestrian safety we actually um recently installed a

56:04 ↗ new rectangular I always forget what rectangular flashing be yeah RFFD what is the

56:10 ↗ other F yeah beacon so it's it's it's a more enhanced pedestrian amenity

56:16 ↗ you know instead of just one of those that you you push the

56:21 ↗ button and then it lights up this one has you know something that

56:27 ↗ more visible and we also move the we also have a rate a

56:33 ↗ speed speed radar and and so I talked to

56:38 ↗ the director also about that and how we moved that in order

56:44 ↗ to kind of start reminding drivers that they're get they're approaching a

56:50 ↗ crosswalk and for them to slow down so and and and just

56:56 ↗ for clarification they're also required to improve the the crosswalks at the

57:01 ↗ intersection of Oak Crest and Newport Way - Amy,

57:07 ↗ there was one, I'm sorry. - No, go ahead. - There was

57:13 ↗ one thing that I noticed that referred to the anti-aircraft culvert relocation.

57:19 ↗ And as I read it, I believe it said that there would

57:25 ↗ be a requirement to regrade Newport in order to accommodate the culvert.

57:30 ↗ But that was all that was said, that regrading Newport kind

57:36 ↗ of sounds like a really big deal. Yeah so so

57:42 ↗ yes so due to the requirement for a fish passage

57:48 ↗ design culvert basically we have to we have to regrade

57:53 ↗ Newport Way so since the Since the applicant is already building Newport

57:59 ↗ Way, it's basically not a major change for them. And so as far

58:05 ↗ as with their site, they were able to accommodate the change in grade

58:10 ↗ by increasing the height of the garages that were tucked in garages. So

58:16 ↗ it didn't really affect their site plan either.

58:26 ↗ Mr. Chair, point of clarification, and maybe you can help us understand

58:31 ↗ it. I think there's like a 900 units development that's going on

58:37 ↗ along Newport Way there. And I guess the trails eventually will tie

58:43 ↗ into the walking trail will tie into that. And the issue is,

58:48 ↗ I guess, part traffic. I understand what you're saying about

58:54 ↗ putting some warning, you know, you hit a button and then the light flashes

59:00 ↗ so the driver realizes that you're approaching a sidewalk or a crosswalk. But with

59:06 ↗ the 900 units, that's going to generate a lot of traffic coming out of

59:12 ↗ there. I don't know, maybe it shouldn't be a burden for this project, but

59:18 ↗ I think the city, I think at one point in time talked about that and

59:23 ↗ then I thought I read something about that they were going to put a circular,

59:28 ↗ a roundabout there. Is that part of that or how, where is that at this

59:34 ↗ point in time? So the roundabout was actually identified for further, you

59:39 ↗ know, where the Gateway project is. So in fact, that's what

59:45 ↗ we're doing. We are in the process of installing a roundabout

59:51 ↗ right here. And is that still in progress then? Yes, it

59:56 ↗ will be constructed. We are currently reviewing the construction permit for

1:00:02 ↗ it. So just I'm seeing some skepticism. Uh, so even with

1:00:07 ↗ the gateway project, it did not generate enough traffic that we are allowed

1:00:13 ↗ to install a traffic signal. You, you have to meet a certain, it's

1:00:19 ↗ called tripping the warrants. You know, you have to hit that number or

1:00:24 ↗ you may not install a signal. These two projects are not generating enough.

1:00:30 ↗ And what is that number? I keep hearing, "We're not there." Does

1:00:36 ↗ anybody know what the number is? Is that a secret?

1:00:42 ↗ I would ask that you introduce yourself please. Jeff Schram, Traffic Engineer,

1:00:48 ↗ 10W. I testified last time in the first hearing as well. So

1:00:53 ↗ to try to provide you a more simplified answer, there's a series

1:00:59 ↗ of warrants. The one that is typically triggered the peak hour warrant. If

1:01:05 ↗ usually if that's triggered then you know multiple warrants are triggered. You would need about

1:01:11 ↗ a hundred and fifty trips from the side street to be generated during a peak

1:01:16 ↗ hour. That's equivalent of about 200 units of multifamily housing. So a project of this

1:01:22 ↗ size or even the traffic on Oak Crest on the other side will probably never

1:01:28 ↗ have enough volume to warrant a signal at that location.

1:01:34 ↗ And what is the peak hours? Morning there's a peak hours and the afternoon? We

1:01:39 ↗ look at both the morning and the afternoon peak hour. We look at both of

1:01:44 ↗ them. If either of those hours are met or in some cases like in a

1:01:49 ↗ retail district the peak hour could occur at noon or in the afternoon. If any

1:01:54 ↗ peak hour, if there's a high enough volume on the side street to warrant it,

1:01:59 ↗ you can have, as long as there's also a minimum of traffic on the arterial

1:02:04 ↗ as well. In this case there's enough volume on the arterial, just the side street

1:02:09 ↗ doesn't have enough, would not generate enough traffic to warrant a signal. Okay and what

1:02:13 ↗ are the hours, the peak hours? So the peak hour, typically the peak hour is

1:02:19 ↗ between 4 and 6 p.m. It varies throughout the city. I think in this area

1:02:25 ↗ it's between 4.30 and 5.30. It's the highest 60-minute period where traffic volumes are highest.

1:02:30 ↗ And in the morning? In the morning it's probably 7.30 to 8.30. 7.15 to 7.45

1:02:36 ↗ is about the peak time, I think, along Newport. So are you saying that the

1:02:42 ↗ traffic on Newport is not, what would trigger the warrant, but what traffic is coming

1:02:48 ↗ out of the Riviera apartments? Yeah, you need a certain level of volume on both

1:02:53 ↗ the arterial and the side street. So both of them have to meet a minimum

1:02:58 ↗ standard. What I'm saying is if there's enough volume on Newport where if if

1:03:04 ↗ a development of about 200 townhomes let's say were were generated that that would

1:03:10 ↗ be right near where the warrant level would be to warrant a signal at

1:03:15 ↗ an intersection. So when the city says that they're not allowed

1:03:21 ↗ to put a stoplight unless the warrants are triggered, by whom are they

1:03:27 ↗ not allowed? Well, there's a -- we use an MUTCD, which is a

1:03:32 ↗ manual on uniform traffic control devices, which is a nationally accepted standard. There's

1:03:38 ↗ a series of 11 warrants. that range from, several of them are traffic

1:03:44 ↗ volume driven, pedestrian demand driven, safety driven, railroad crossing, coordinated signal

1:03:50 ↗ system. There's a variety of different standards that are required. The

1:03:55 ↗ most typical is traffic volume related. If an intersection or a

1:04:01 ↗ location is not meeting those standards, then it is a recommended

1:04:07 ↗ practice not to install signals Professionally speaking, there are locations where signals have been implemented

1:04:12 ↗ when a warrant is not met under special circumstances. But, go ahead. - So is

1:04:18 ↗ this more of a funding issue than anything else about whether or not you get

1:04:23 ↗ state money, county money, federal money for the project? - It's a liability issue. -

1:04:29 ↗ Liability issue. - It increases our liability if we install it contrary to warrants, is

1:04:34 ↗ my understanding. - So the city could be sued by who? But the parents--

1:04:40 ↗ If there was a court case-- Yeah. So I'm looking at

1:04:46 ↗ my expert over here, but my understanding is it's somewhat counterintuitive,

1:04:51 ↗ but installing signals, either signals or stop signs where it is

1:04:57 ↗ not warranted and if something happens there, then we have installed

1:05:03 ↗ it contrary to the professional criteria, and therefore we have created

1:05:08 ↗ additional liability for the city. Okay. Thank you.

1:05:16 ↗ I have one more question. Are there similar criteria for

1:05:22 ↗ a roundabout? It's a great question. roundabouts do not

1:05:27 ↗ have the same criteria for signal warrants but in our

1:05:33 ↗ profession typically if a signal is warranted one alternative to

1:05:38 ↗ signalization is roundabout there is not a nationally accepted criteria

1:05:44 ↗ for minimum traffic volume standards for a roundabout would you

1:05:49 ↗ incur the same liability at that point maybe that's a

1:05:55 ↗ question for not well I want to answer

1:06:00 ↗ that. There are applications, there are more common

1:06:05 ↗ applications for roundabouts than there are signals where

1:06:11 ↗ they would be placed for conditions that would

1:06:16 ↗ account for situations where maybe traffic signal warrants

1:06:22 ↗ aren't met. It's a viable alternative for things

1:06:27 ↗ like or reducing speeds, accounting for pedestrian activity, things like that. - And

1:06:33 ↗ monitoring the flow out of that development. And won't most of the cars be

1:06:39 ↗ coming out of that development reasonably going left as opposed to right? And does

1:06:45 ↗ that factor into the flow rate, the direction they're coming out? - Sure, yeah,

1:06:51 ↗ that factors. One other element that is, in a traffic analysis is

1:06:57 ↗ level service analysis. And we have, you know, we've identified how much traffic

1:07:02 ↗ volume is generated by this development. And we look at level service standards.

1:07:08 ↗ Again, a national standard, the volume of traffic coming out here would result

1:07:14 ↗ in a level service C, which is an acceptable condition. Depending on, you

1:07:19 ↗ know, we're looking at traffic modeling, there'd be a fairly, equivalent flow

1:07:25 ↗ depending if you're in the morning or afternoon peak hour in terms of where cars

1:07:31 ↗ are coming to or from. - Okay, thank you. - Amy, I have just one

1:07:36 ↗ question. There's probably no data on this at all, but is there any indication yet

1:07:42 ↗ of the and some of the other units that are coming online. Is there any

1:07:48 ↗ indication of how many of the renters are actually working, going to work in Issaquah?

1:07:53 ↗ Any percentage ballpark in terms of will they be trying, you know, Where are these

1:07:59 ↗ people going to work? I just wonder if there's a marketing study on that that

1:08:04 ↗ was presented. There may be. They haven't. Lennar hasn't shared it with us, if there

1:08:09 ↗ is. I think that would be interesting. I don't know whether that's something for the

1:08:14 ↗ Issaquah Press to do or the city to do, but to find out as these

1:08:18 ↗ things come online, how many of the folks that are moving into Issaquah are moving

1:08:23 ↗ into these central Issaquah plan projects. are actually commuting outside of the city. Yeah, and

1:08:29 ↗ I don't know if that, it may be the census before that kind of

1:08:35 ↗ data is collected. I would imagine there's probably some numbers out there. Because the

1:08:41 ↗ report came out says there's no impact on traffic. on the development. Same

1:08:47 ↗ thing as that gentleman when you made a statement, it says it's not going to

1:08:53 ↗ generate 150 trips. So you must base it on something. So my question is what

1:08:58 ↗ is that number right now? And I'm sure somebody did some study for you to

1:09:04 ↗ make that statement. So with the 900 units that's going further going up, you know,

1:09:09 ↗ further north, somebody did some study and I seem to recall one of the

1:09:15 ↗ meetings that we had, they said that it's not going to affect the traffic.

1:09:21 ↗ And there's a lot of concern, not only from the DC, but the public,

1:09:27 ↗ and especially when you have that accident with the kid getting killed. So there's

1:09:33 ↗ a lot of concern that's coming out of that. So I guess the point

1:09:39 ↗ to answer Commissioner Randi was that I believe there's a study done. I don't know

1:09:44 ↗ what it is. So I think you're confusing the studies. I mean, you're right. There's

1:09:50 ↗ a traffic impact analysis that's performed. based on a model because the people

1:09:56 ↗ who are going to live there, there's not data on

1:10:01 ↗ who those people are and exactly where they're working. It's

1:10:07 ↗ a model based on the history and operation within the

1:10:12 ↗ city. And so the specific data on who actually has moved in and where they're

1:10:17 ↗ actually working and their modes of travel, that's a different kind of study that hasn't

1:10:22 ↗ been performed. - And just to be clear, I didn't expect the city to be

1:10:27 ↗ collecting that data. I just wondered if somebody else in their marketing studies had done

1:10:32 ↗ that and then shared it with you. That was unfortunate. - Fortunately, no. Where is

1:10:38 ↗ the nearest bus stop and which direction is the elementary from this

1:10:43 ↗ location? Are we talking about the school bus? So the school and

1:10:49 ↗ probably the residents know better than me where it is now because

1:10:55 ↗ the last time we talked about it, it was supposed to be

1:11:01 ↗ close to the crosswalk at Oak Crest. But it's important to remember

1:11:06 ↗ that School bus stops could change every single year. And so where it

1:11:12 ↗ is now versus where it is once construction has taken place is hard to

1:11:18 ↗ predict. What schools are they zoned for? That's going to make a difference on

1:11:24 ↗ traffic in the peak hours, right? Because they're zoned for one that's that way.

1:11:30 ↗ And again, the school boundaries often change after the construction of a project. So

1:11:36 ↗ we don't know it right now. And it also has come out a

1:11:42 ↗ number of times when we've been talking about these that the school district's policy is

1:11:47 ↗ that the buses do not go into these projects. So they have to, according to

1:11:52 ↗ school district policy, the stops to pick up and discharge children are on the arterial

1:11:58 ↗ rather than inside the project. and depending on where the school is would determine which

1:12:02 ↗ way the traffic goes during those peak times so we can't necessarily know that we

1:12:06 ↗ won't have 150 going one way or another depending on time of day if we

1:12:09 ↗ don't know which school they're going to go to that's gonna make a huge difference

1:12:12 ↗ on which way the traffic goes and the flow and you know how many people

1:12:16 ↗ are heading one way or another Right. Although the traffic engineer was speaking

1:12:21 ↗ to actually crossing trips coming off the side streets. So if

1:12:27 ↗ the school bus is staying on Newport, then it would be

1:12:33 ↗ absolutely right, a contributor to the through traffic, but not the

1:12:39 ↗ cross traffic. Other comments, commissioners? So I would like to take

1:12:44 ↗ a little bit of time and open up open the time for

1:12:50 ↗ some public comment. If there are members of the public that would like to make

1:12:55 ↗ a statement or a comment before you do that, I would like you to sign

1:13:00 ↗ in and make sure that we have your name. I don't know how many people

1:13:05 ↗ might want to talk, so I would just ask you to be mindful of the

1:13:09 ↗ hour and limit your discussion if possible. Mr. Chairman, would you just double check that

1:13:14 ↗ the applicant doesn't care to make a presentation? I probably misspoke and I would like

1:13:19 ↗ to ask the applicant if he would be interested if they would be interested in

1:13:23 ↗ making a making a comment before we ask the public to do that so I'm

1:13:28 ↗ not going to open the public comment at this point so I apologize for and

1:13:32 ↗ I appreciate the reminder thank you apologies accepted I'm Aaron Golden with Connor Homes I'll

1:13:36 ↗ speak very briefly because I'm on a tail end of a cold but I want

1:13:40 ↗ to thank the commission members for their time and particularly staff for their diligent efforts

1:13:45 ↗ it's been some time and for a small project it's had its complications but

1:13:50 ↗ we're very excited. We feel like it's an attractive project. It's a great spot

1:13:56 ↗ for an infill development and it meets a distinct market niche. So thank you.

1:14:02 ↗ We have staff here for any additional questions. Thank you. Now unless I've made

1:14:07 ↗ another error we'll open the opportunity for the public to make comment if they

1:14:13 ↗ so choose. We'd ask

1:14:19 ↗ you to introduce yourself before you speak. Good evening,

1:14:24 ↗ Commission members. My name is Hart Sugarman. I live

1:14:30 ↗ at 2550 Northwest Oakcrest Drive. I'm a resident here

1:14:35 ↗ for over 20 years at this location, so I'm

1:14:41 ↗ very familiar with this site. I submitted my comments

1:14:46 ↗ in writing, and Amy was kind enough to provide

1:14:52 ↗ a reply, but I do want to bring up

1:14:57 ↗ some concerns. The intersection, well first of all, the decision to

1:15:03 ↗ build this complex adjacent to the roadway with no easement or buffer zone

1:15:09 ↗ will be setting a precedence for the city. There's no dwelling, whether it's

1:15:14 ↗ a residence or building, you know, commercial building on Newport Way from the

1:15:20 ↗ west boundary on Lakemont Boulevard or to the east or southeast boundary at

1:15:25 ↗ Front Street. This is the first building that will be right smack against the

1:15:31 ↗ roadway. So this is going to create a whole new dynamics and concern. So with

1:15:37 ↗ traffic, we have the roadway. Oak Crest Drive is not a driveway. Oak Crest Drive

1:15:42 ↗ is a roadway that is serving the community of Summerhill subdivision with 55 homes. Coming

1:15:47 ↗ out of our street, we have here Newport Way, which is like Newport Way S

1:15:53 ↗ curves. It might be a shallow S, but it does create some sight lines

1:15:58 ↗ and very limited reaction time when cars are driving. So coming out of

1:16:04 ↗ Oak Crest Drive right or left is a challenge for us. Putting in

1:16:10 ↗ this driveway directly opposite is also going to be unique for Newport Way

1:16:16 ↗ because every other four-way intersection on Newport Way has traffic controls. stop

1:16:22 ↗ lights. And if you go further west into Bellevue, the first street is 164th, it's

1:16:27 ↗ a four-way stop sign. So to put in a four-way intersection without some sort of

1:16:33 ↗ controls is a risk. Now coming out of the driveway from Riva, a driver will

1:16:39 ↗ be looking to their left, but there's a curve. And now today with the roadway

1:16:44 ↗ and the grass and the brush, you can see oncoming cars. But now with the

1:16:49 ↗ buildings built at that roadway and the curve, and you have to really see it

1:16:54 ↗ yourselves because the drawing here doesn't really illustrate this, but if you come out of

1:16:58 ↗ that driveway, the time and distance for you to react to make a left turn

1:17:03 ↗ when buildings are now blocking your view because you don't have that clear view, sight

1:17:08 ↗ line of the cars that are coming westbound. That is a concern. So I think

1:17:14 ↗ you really have to look at some sort of control. Now the roundabout further down

1:17:20 ↗ at Gateway, I'm not quite sure how the bike lane cues into the roundabout or

1:17:26 ↗ pedestrians safely cross the street when there's a constant flow of cars going around and

1:17:31 ↗ around. How does that pedestrian safely cross the road if there isn't a traffic control

1:17:36 ↗ or a crosswalk enabling a pedestrian to cross the street? So likewise here, if we're

1:17:41 ↗ gonna have a trailhead with a lot of foot traffic and now we're gonna widen

1:17:45 ↗ the street, widening the street with an additional lane, how can you safely walk across

1:17:50 ↗ with just the push of a button with a rectangular flashing light? That is not

1:17:54 ↗ going to work when the street becomes wider and the person has to cross quicker

1:17:59 ↗ to safely cross. We've experienced one death at our intersection. We don't want another. So

1:18:04 ↗ I just want you to really think about the two decisions that are setting a

1:18:08 ↗ precedence. road building right at the roadway and a four-way intersection that is not having

1:18:14 ↗ some sort of actuated control that we can you know activate a signal when it's

1:18:19 ↗ necessary not that it's always going to turn red for the oncoming cars but at

1:18:24 ↗ least when cars are trying to come out that there's a trigger that will activate

1:18:29 ↗ the light so people can exit safely and another final point talus is a large

1:18:34 ↗ community adjacent to our location here, many drivers choose to drive on Newport Way

1:18:40 ↗ to get to exit 13 because it's quicker than going down State Road 900 to

1:18:45 ↗ join I-90 at exit 15. So we have a lot of traffic coming in.

1:18:51 ↗ to Newport Way, it's increasing with the Gateway project and now with Riva and

1:18:57 ↗ it's just going to compound the volume of traffic. So I think traffic studies

1:19:03 ↗ in the past won't apply to this. You have to rethink and re-engineer this

1:19:09 ↗ whole thing. And the final point is do you build the roads first and

1:19:15 ↗ then the dwellings or do you build the dwellings and then tear up the

1:19:21 ↗ road and inconvenience all the people that just moved in one before the other?

1:19:27 ↗ Thank you very much for your time. Good evening everyone. My name is

1:19:33 ↗ Tina Conforti and I live on 1220 Oakcrest Drive. I am right next

1:19:39 ↗ door with the incident of the little boy. He got killed right on

1:19:44 ↗ my corner on Newport Way and Oakcrest Drive. So I'd like to thank

1:19:50 ↗ you to listen to us and Amy to do such a great job

1:19:56 ↗ to respond to all of the email. My concern, I

1:20:02 ↗ have a big concern about this project, Riva project. The

1:20:08 ↗ unit is too close to the road. Newport Way, it

1:20:13 ↗ has nothing to offer to the residents that they buy

1:20:19 ↗ the townhouse. It has to offer traffic. A King

1:20:25 ↗ County trail right across with a parking lot and a lot of cars parking

1:20:31 ↗ right on the front of their project. Very danger if it is an incident

1:20:37 ↗ over there. They can be right, falling right in there from the door. I

1:20:43 ↗ don't feel this project that's safe. It's too close to the road.

1:20:49 ↗ The traffic a new part of way. If you don't live in the area,

1:20:55 ↗ if people don't live in the area, they don't know what it means. We

1:21:01 ↗ went through a summer time with dust all over, so much pollution with the

1:21:07 ↗ dwell trucking going back and front. I couldn't count anymore. A mini truck each

1:21:13 ↗ day, they went up and down a new part of way. And

1:21:19 ↗ we came close to an incident. It was very unusual.

1:21:24 ↗ A truck from the street cleaning from Gateway Project comes

1:21:30 ↗ to Ococres Drive and does a U-turn on our street.

1:21:36 ↗ Our street is not legal to do a U-turn. He

1:21:42 ↗ almost came this close, and I was walking. And

1:21:48 ↗ I took a picture, Mrs. Lynch has the photo that I took. It

1:21:54 ↗ came this close to hit another car right on the local crosswalk. And

1:22:00 ↗ me, I was right on the crosswalk. This is not allowed in our

1:22:05 ↗ neighborhood. Everybody can do everything they want. They have to respect the regulations.

1:22:11 ↗ Now the schools are open. See children on our corner. WE

1:22:17 ↗ ARE GOING TO PUT UP WITH THE MOTOR ACCIDENT. YES, WE DO NEED

1:22:23 ↗ A STOPLIGHT. YES. BECAUSE THE NUMEROUS VALUES IT WILL BE HEADED ON TO

1:22:28 ↗ WHEN ALL OF THE PROJECTS ARE DONE ON NEW PORTWAY, YOU ARE GOING

1:22:34 ↗ TO MAKE MORE FOUR TIMES DOUBLE THAN THE TRAFFIC IT IS TODAY OVER

1:22:40 ↗ THERE. I CONSIDER NEW PORTWAY, RIVA PROJECT, IT'S VERY DANGEROUS CLOSE TO THEIR

1:22:46 ↗ ROADS, AND I APPRECIATE If you could take in consideration what

1:22:51 ↗ we go through with all of these projects done over there, we struggle

1:22:57 ↗ every day to pull up with the noise. It's Newport we can't take

1:23:03 ↗ all of this traffic. I propose the first alternative road to be prepared

1:23:09 ↗ for all of these projects. And I'm still going to work on trying

1:23:15 ↗ to figure out how can we help the neighbors? How can we

1:23:21 ↗ help to eliminate more traffic? I think before we do all of this project, we

1:23:27 ↗ have to think first, what is the necessity in the area? I feel very, the

1:23:33 ↗ project close to the road, it's very unsafe. There's no view to look. There's traffic

1:23:39 ↗ to look, King of County trailer, and a lot of parking lot. Thank you for

1:23:45 ↗ listening.

1:24:00 ↗ Good evening. My name is Joe Verner. V like victory ER

1:24:06 ↗ and ER address is 1230 Oakwood Place Northwest in the Summerhill

1:24:11 ↗ subdivision. I just want to take a couple of minutes to

1:24:17 ↗ thank you for listening to our comments and to debunk a

1:24:23 ↗ couple of myths about traffic control on Newport at the intersection

1:24:28 ↗ to our subdivision Oak Crest.

1:24:35 ↗ That intersection is

1:24:41 ↗ right here. There's

1:24:46 ↗ a crosswalk here.

1:24:51 ↗ Would you speak

1:24:56 ↗ in the microphone?

1:25:02 ↗ You can use

1:25:07 ↗ the mouse on

1:25:12 ↗ the computer. You

1:25:17 ↗ don't have to

1:25:23 ↗ touch. Okay, there's the intersection of

1:25:29 ↗ Oak Crest and Newport. Right here is a crosswalk. Right here is

1:25:35 ↗ the school bus stop. Now, Lucy, I understand your answers. The city

1:25:40 ↗ has been going to do something about Newport for 30 some odd

1:25:46 ↗ years and nothing has happened. We're going to have another four, five,

1:25:52 ↗ six years of development on Newport alone with just the projects that

1:25:58 ↗ are approved. The roadway is not going to be torn up while

1:26:04 ↗ those projects are working. The school districts are not going

1:26:10 ↗ to Burgoyne, they're going to change the lines. So that bus stop

1:26:16 ↗ is going to stay there. The street's going to stay the same

1:26:22 ↗ as it is now. The only thing that's changing is there's increased

1:26:28 ↗ traffic because there doesn't seem to be a control of development on

1:26:33 ↗ the valley floor. So I just want to debunk some myths about

1:26:39 ↗ the crosswalk that's there now. Our Summerhill subdivision For seven years,

1:26:45 ↗ 2008 or 2007 to 2014, petitioned the city to reduce the

1:26:51 ↗ speed limit on Newport Way from 40. We wanted 25, but

1:26:56 ↗ it's down to 30 now. We wanted some traffic control at

1:27:02 ↗ that intersection. But our esteemed public works director said, "No." Took

1:27:07 ↗ the death of a four-year-old to get the mayor off his

1:27:13 ↗ chair, and get everybody going to reduce the speed limit and

1:27:18 ↗ to get the city to put in a new crosswalk sign that

1:27:24 ↗ had bigger flashing lights and that worked more frequently than the prior

1:27:30 ↗ one did. I don't know where you folks live, but I invite

1:27:35 ↗ you to come out and go across that crosswalk. You better increase

1:27:41 ↗ your life insurance policy before you do. It's not that it doesn't

1:27:46 ↗ work, it's that it's ineffective Because the drivers don't stop for it.

1:27:52 ↗ Now we're going to have more traffic coming up from Reba, more traffic

1:27:58 ↗ from the Gateway, more traffic from Atlas and Talus, all going up Newport

1:28:04 ↗ to go west to go to work. We're going to have another accident

1:28:10 ↗ to get you folks to change your minds and say, gosh, those guys

1:28:16 ↗ at Summerhill must have been really correct. And now what's the city's liability,

1:28:22 ↗ Lucy? and Mr. Traffic Control expert.

1:28:27 ↗ What are you gonna do when you got

1:28:33 ↗ some other death or more? Thanks for listening.

1:28:39 ↗ - My name is Mary Lynch and I

1:28:45 ↗ reside at 2690 Northwest Oakcrest Drive, Issaquah, Washington.

1:28:51 ↗ I have got some pictures I would like to also show. But before I do,

1:28:57 ↗ I do want to thank Amy. I think she has attempted to put together a

1:29:03 ↗ package that does follow the CIP and the goals brought out in it. But I

1:29:09 ↗ would like to remind the development commission that when the CIP was passed, the city

1:29:14 ↗ already had identified that it had flaws. Unfortunately, it has taken them a

1:29:20 ↗ while to get any sort of process to look at those flaws and to redo

1:29:25 ↗ any of it. And I would ask you that if you have a chance tomorrow

1:29:31 ↗ at Land and Shores, there's a pretty long list of to-do items where they're going

1:29:36 ↗ to try and rush through some more changes to the CIP. And that's about the

1:29:41 ↗ only chance with the few showing up in the planning and policy meeting that the

1:29:46 ↗ public even has to make those changes. But it's all being rushed through once again

1:29:51 ↗ without a lot of public comment. to what the changes have made and there are

1:29:57 ↗ things that should be in there. So if you have a chance I would recommend

1:30:02 ↗ it's 5:30 tomorrow here in the council room. The agenda is on there. I can't

1:30:06 ↗ attend because I've got some other work and this is my second meeting. I was

1:30:11 ↗ at the meeting last night. But I do want to recognize what Amy has tried

1:30:16 ↗ to do. That being said I would I'd like to first say, one of the

1:30:21 ↗ conditions of the multimodal trail that we're no longer going to ask the developer to

1:30:26 ↗ put in, I agree with that because I don't think the trail should be there

1:30:30 ↗ to begin with. And just because the CIP says we have to have it, why

1:30:35 ↗ are we building another trail like we did in Gateway across to wetlands? And now

1:30:41 ↗ it's going to be given to the city in perpetuity to have to maintain a

1:30:45 ↗ wetlands and then build a trail, like you heard, at what expense? Where is it

1:30:50 ↗ in the budget and the park budget, which we already don't have enough funds for

1:30:54 ↗ existing parks? How are we going to fund that and when is that going to

1:30:59 ↗ happen? And who's going to maintain that wetlands? That being said, in order for this

1:31:04 ↗ project to go forward, what really still has never been presented clearly is you have

1:31:10 ↗ to have the relocation of the anti-aircraft creek. And as Amy said, they're going to

1:31:15 ↗ move the road into an existing area where the anti-aircraft creek is going to be

1:31:21 ↗ filled in. Right now, when we walk from our neighborhood down to the

1:31:26 ↗ trailhead or when other people do, we have roughly 20 feet that we can walk

1:31:32 ↗ safely away from traffic. You're reducing and moving the cars over there and you're giving

1:31:38 ↗ us five feet of gravel. I have pictures I can send you that I've taken

1:31:44 ↗ over the years. When cars come around this curve here, most of them end up

1:31:50 ↗ three to four feet into our intersection And by the time they get here, they're

1:31:56 ↗ at least two to three feet still into the bike lane. Many of them in

1:32:00 ↗ the larger trucks come into the gravel. This summer with all the trucks that we've

1:32:05 ↗ had going down our route from Gateway, most of those trucks have been driving on

1:32:09 ↗ the gravel when they come around that curve. Because what happens? Yes, they're now saying

1:32:14 ↗ they're going to have a traffic circle, not a stoplight at Gateway. It's a small

1:32:20 ↗ traffic circle. But what's happened this summer is cars are stopped there, held up by

1:32:25 ↗ the street sweeper, or cars turning in. As soon as they're let go, they come

1:32:30 ↗ zooming around that corner. They are increasing their speeds to well over 40 miles an

1:32:35 ↗ hour as they come around our corner. The other thing they want to do with

1:32:40 ↗ Riva is, you know, reduce the, widen the, and the comments with Hart said, is

1:32:45 ↗ widen that side of the road here where our crosswalk is. So that we have

1:32:50 ↗ even a moving target. So that means cars coming around here at 40 miles an

1:32:55 ↗ hour can come even further into this area. So now those of us that are

1:33:00 ↗ down here that have to, the stop signs here, in order to see we have

1:33:05 ↗ to commit ourselves into the intersection. And so we have been hit or almost hit

1:33:10 ↗ by cars coming through here. So that's the design of that on this one. We

1:33:15 ↗ also will now have cars and we have bicyclists that come to this trailhead, which

1:33:19 ↗ are not going to have access here. They're going to have to come down, make

1:33:24 ↗ a turn around this corner, and in a minute I'll show you what Tina said.

1:33:29 ↗ But we're going to have them making U-turns here, coming back, driving in the gravel

1:33:33 ↗ where we're supposed to walk back to get to the trailhead. We have mothers on

1:33:38 ↗ bikes that I've seen this summer that they ride to this trailhead, they get off

1:33:42 ↗ their bikes and they walk the trails. We have people with dogs that walk along

1:33:47 ↗ here. Why not, if we're gonna have this anti-aircraft creek in the city, either the

1:33:52 ↗ developer or the city at the time of this project be required to put the

1:33:57 ↗ rest of the road in before anything is done. I know why, cuz you know

1:34:02 ↗ what is gonna be this used? This is gonna be staging area for the contractors.

1:34:08 ↗ Because where are they going to go in here? Where are they going

1:34:13 ↗ to stage any of their trucks? Right now, Gateway at least has a

1:34:19 ↗ flat area where the parking all supposed to go that they're using to

1:34:24 ↗ stage their trucks. Where are these trucks for this contractor and developer gonna

1:34:30 ↗ stage? It's either gonna be up our street or it's gonna be here

1:34:36 ↗ in the gravel area or in the, that being said, let me show

1:34:41 ↗ you some pictures then. That more clearly show my . Can I pull

1:34:47 ↗ this out? Yeah.

1:34:53 ↗ Hopefully it was recorded tonight. I don't know if you knew that

1:34:59 ↗ most of the public comments yesterday weren't recorded for the meeting unfortunately.

1:35:05 ↗ Open folder to view. Oh, the other thing, just to prove my

1:35:10 ↗ point on speed, the only way we've even maintained close to 30

1:35:16 ↗ is by constantly calling the city, sending them pictures. And once in

1:35:22 ↗ a while the police have come out. And for those short period

1:35:28 ↗ that they're there, we get people going the speed limit.

1:35:34 ↗ This I took in late June. This shows

1:35:39 ↗ you here is an average representation of what's

1:35:44 ↗ occurring. That was the truck that was going

1:35:50 ↗ 38 miles an hour. I also caught city

1:35:55 ↗ trucks doing that. I caught a Federal Express

1:36:00 ↗ truck and a lot of other commuters. And

1:36:06 ↗ this was about I think 8:30 in the

1:36:11 ↗ morning. And unfortunately we don't have this speed sign going

1:36:17 ↗ from the other way, but after a year and a half of standing down

1:36:23 ↗ there, I can pretty well tell you what a car is going within a

1:36:28 ↗ couple miles an hour. Yeah, this is what Tina was trying to tell you.

1:36:36 ↗ That's what we had to put up with in order to at least get

1:36:42 ↗ a little bit of dirt off our roadway all summer versus going on to

1:36:48 ↗ the S900, making a safe turn and coming back. About every five minutes, this

1:36:53 ↗ was going by here, and then they went up to Pine Cone and did

1:36:59 ↗ the exact same thing without any flaggers or anybody controlling them. But we got

1:37:05 ↗ a little dirt off the road. The other thing I'd like to say is

1:37:11 ↗ it depends on which traffic engineer you talk to. After the accident last

1:37:17 ↗ year and much protest, we finally got the city to agree to hire a

1:37:23 ↗ consultant that came in and did a traffic study. If you will look at

1:37:28 ↗ that document, which is document 3699 on page 37 and 38 of there, they

1:37:34 ↗ clearly state Future volumes and proposed three lane sections and a 30

1:37:40 ↗ mile an hour speed limit are the threshold where improvements beyond a marked crossing

1:37:46 ↗ are necessary to avoid increased risk to pedestrians with a marked crosswalk alone. They

1:37:51 ↗ made the relocation of the speed, the other thing, reduce curb radius to reduce

1:37:57 ↗ the crossing length so the pedestrians are in the street for a shorter period

1:38:03 ↗ of time. Not widen it, reduce it. install a rectangular flashing beacons

1:38:08 ↗ and with new technology consider advance warning beacons on either side, considering consider

1:38:14 ↗ a median refuge like the new one that they installed without public comment

1:38:20 ↗ down on Front Street at Bush to so people can't make left hand

1:38:25 ↗ turn lanes anymore to do that. Let me show you. This is in

1:38:31 ↗ the traffic study and this is what they recommended. I since the beginning meeting

1:38:37 ↗ have been asking the city staff to look at the traffic report and listen

1:38:43 ↗ to this traffic engineer who has come out and spent a long time, a

1:38:49 ↗ day or two at this intersection and this is what they recommended for the

1:38:55 ↗ future with increased control and traffic calming. We've got none of this in this proposed

1:39:01 ↗ and as Hart said, we don't even have any, even if the bond were to

1:39:05 ↗ pass, there's no promise from the city that those monies are going to be spent

1:39:10 ↗ on our roadway. And so we have to put up with the existing road unless

1:39:15 ↗ you guys tonight make some decisions, the conditions that would help make our streets safer.

1:39:20 ↗ Thank you.

1:39:37 ↗ Hello, my name is John Fisher, 2122 Newport Way NW, Issaquah. I'm also on the

1:39:43 ↗ backside of a cold, so please excuse me. First, I'd like to thank the Development

1:39:49 ↗ Commission for their attention to this proposal, and I'd also like to thank the applicant,

1:39:54 ↗ who in my view has been attentive and communicative with the members of the community

1:40:00 ↗ and existing residents on this project. So I suppose the overarching theme of my

1:40:06 ↗ comments will be contradictions. And I'll try to work my way from macro to micro

1:40:11 ↗ as best I can. First off, let me see if I can work my way

1:40:17 ↗ back to the maps that were up here. Since I said I would be

1:40:23 ↗ macro to micro, let's see what I can put up here. Okay. So first

1:40:29 ↗ off, and my comments will pile on top of the eloquent comments of everyone

1:40:35 ↗ else here. But first off, on the Central Esquire plan, it is understandable that

1:40:40 ↗ you would want to concentrate development in the Valley. Development will come,

1:40:46 ↗ but here's where I see a contradiction. You have Tibbets Creek

1:40:52 ↗ that runs up north-south here, and the central Issaquah district extends

1:40:57 ↗ to the west of Tibbets Creek. Now the intention is for

1:41:03 ↗ the central Issaquah district to be a walkable urbanist community, but

1:41:08 ↗ I see an inherent conflict here. you have no commercial development west of

1:41:14 ↗ Tibbets. All of the amenities that anyone living west of Tibbets would want to access

1:41:20 ↗ are east of the creek. At the same time, you do want to protect the

1:41:25 ↗ creek. Tibbets Creek is an important resource to Issaquah. Its wetlands are an important resource

1:41:30 ↗ to Issaquah. How do you reconcile those two things? You want everyone who lives here

1:41:36 ↗ to be able to walk or ride a bus to the amenities that they

1:41:42 ↗ want. But I think even with all of the development that is proposed here,

1:41:48 ↗ you have no transit access west of Tibbets. And I do not see a

1:41:53 ↗ prospect of transit coming west of Tibbets. I would love to hear a correction

1:41:59 ↗ to that. I come to you as someone who Rides transit to commute

1:42:05 ↗ and also as someone who is very fond of the trail amenities

1:42:11 ↗ that Issaquah has to offer. But I see a contradiction here. Moving

1:42:16 ↗ in a little bit closer in, let's see here.

1:42:22 ↗ This I have submitted written comments that were rather extensive

1:42:28 ↗ back in March that questioned costs and other aspects of

1:42:33 ↗ the trail proposal here. And I'll reiterate those comments now.

1:42:39 ↗ So there is this trail proposal that runs in a

1:42:45 ↗ generally north-south direction. That is opposite

1:42:51 ↗ of the east-west direction that would provide any connectivity

1:42:56 ↗ benefit for residents of the left bank of Tibbetts.

1:43:02 ↗ The cost differences between the fees that the developer

1:43:07 ↗ would pay and what it would cost to build

1:43:13 ↗ a raised, lighted, 20-foot wide right-of-way bridge across the

1:43:18 ↗ critical area have been noted. The other thing I would note

1:43:24 ↗ is that if we proceed with an easement, I did argue

1:43:30 ↗ for the fact that this trail, this north-south trail, which gives

1:43:36 ↗ no benefit of connectivity to Sammamish Point residents, I would

1:43:42 ↗ argue that to tear out the trees that sit right against Sammamish Point is

1:43:48 ↗ an adversely negative impact on Sammamish Point and that the mitigation of tree removal

1:43:53 ↗ be to the west. If that easement proceeds, do we still have that assurance

1:43:59 ↗ that mitigation is toward the west rather than toward the east? So

1:44:05 ↗ finally some comments regarding just to pile on on

1:44:10 ↗ traffic and on pedestrian movements. It's a little difficult for me

1:44:16 ↗ to be objective because I have, you know, when the 210 used to run along

1:44:22 ↗ this road, it does not anymore. We lost that bus route. I got off this

1:44:28 ↗ bus once and a school child got off and tried to cross Newport Way and

1:44:34 ↗ almost got hit. That was not easy to watch. But... I

1:44:39 ↗ hear traffic studies that take Riva into consideration in isolation. You

1:44:45 ↗ also have the expanded parking in this area, the park and

1:44:51 ↗ ride. You do have proposals. You have Bergsma that would provide walkways on

1:44:57 ↗ the south side of Newport, but how long will it take for those

1:45:02 ↗ to come to fruition? That's a tough question. How long will people be

1:45:08 ↗ jaywalking across this road? How many years with the pass-through traffic that you're

1:45:13 ↗ seeing so much of which is not Issaquah residents. It's passed through

1:45:19 ↗ from south of Issaquah in particular. Finally, I would say that Issaquah is

1:45:25 ↗ a very fortunate community. It has a lot of resources, but that does

1:45:31 ↗ not absolve us from being very careful in how public funds are used.

1:45:37 ↗ As all these things are considered, I would

1:45:43 ↗ urge those involved to consider the context that

1:45:49 ↗ existing residents of this area have and the

1:45:55 ↗ concerns that we have that the city expenditures

1:46:00 ↗ and the use of the park fees be

1:46:06 ↗ responsible. Thank you. Any other comments from the

1:46:12 ↗ public? OK, I'll close the public

1:46:18 ↗ comment portion of the meeting. And any comments from staff

1:46:23 ↗ or commissioners? MR. Mr. Chairman, I want to just first

1:46:29 ↗ remind folks that there is a very clear set of

1:46:35 ↗ purview that defines the purview of the Development Commission. And

1:46:40 ↗ the concerns that individuals have expressed tonight, commissioners, members of

1:46:46 ↗ the public, and so on, are absolutely legitimate. But there

1:46:52 ↗ really needs to be an understanding of what is in the purview

1:46:58 ↗ of the Development Commission to address. And some of the key issues,

1:47:03 ↗ I would remind folks here that have been brought up tonight, are

1:47:09 ↗ not within the purview of the Development Commission to address. City Council,

1:47:15 ↗ the staff, the mayor are the ones who make the rules. That

1:47:21 ↗ said, on this specific application, I will

1:47:27 ↗ express my continuing concern about the intersection issue. I understand the data,

1:47:32 ↗ I understand the standards that have been used by the city staff

1:47:38 ↗ and by the applicant to address the traffic issue and the pedestrian

1:47:44 ↗ issue and the school bus issue, but there comes a time when

1:47:50 ↗ as an individual member of this commission with the attendant responsibilities, when

1:47:56 ↗ I look at that map, and I drive Newport a

1:48:01 ↗ lot as well. When I look at that map and the

1:48:07 ↗ alignment of a crosswalk with two opposing streams of traffic crossing

1:48:13 ↗ a major arterial, maybe out of line to say this, but

1:48:19 ↗ emotionally and rationally, that just doesn't work for me. The issue

1:48:25 ↗ of liability was brought up earlier about this reliability of the

1:48:31 ↗ city. And I understand that, I agree with it, but I believe

1:48:37 ↗ that the present alignment of that traffic flow and those intersections will result

1:48:43 ↗ in an additional liability because I cannot believe that over an extended period

1:48:49 ↗ of time as traffic increases on that arterial with the enlarged trailhead, all

1:48:54 ↗ of the things that have been mentioned repeatedly by a number of members

1:49:00 ↗ of this meeting tonight, that there will not be another fatal

1:49:06 ↗ accident and God forbid there are, but I have as serious

1:49:11 ↗ an issue with that alignment as I've had with anything since

1:49:17 ↗ I've been on the DC. - Other comments? - I agree

1:49:23 ↗ with that. - I have one question, I should have asked

1:49:28 ↗ this earlier, I guess. In the conditions 22, 23, 24 talk about,

1:49:34 ↗ you don't have to pull them up, but they talk about incorporating natural materials and

1:49:40 ↗ providing architectural details. So those were put in place back in March. There's certainly been

1:49:46 ↗ time enough for changes to be made to the plans so that they could have

1:49:51 ↗ been brought back to the commission at this point for us to review those changes

1:49:57 ↗ to have input on them as opposed to just leaving the condition, waiting for this

1:50:03 ↗ to finish and presumably they would go to staff for approval of

1:50:08 ↗ those changes. I guess I'm wondering why we didn't get those changes made

1:50:14 ↗ during this, you know, four or five month period. So customarily what we,

1:50:20 ↗ how we address or how we handle conditions is, you know, we expect

1:50:26 ↗ that those, once we have a condition and we have an approved

1:50:31 ↗ site development permit that we work out the details with the applicant after. In

1:50:37 ↗ some cases, the applicants would, you know, voluntarily come and offer like for the

1:50:43 ↗ Gateway project where a lot of their, they would rather reduce the amount of

1:50:49 ↗ conditions on their land use permit. So they provided us immediately with the revised

1:50:55 ↗ plans and elevations. So, but in this case, the applicant opted to just put

1:51:01 ↗ it aside for, you know, for a follow-up work after the SDP approval. I

1:51:07 ↗ guess just a comment then. My preference would be, given the time, that it

1:51:13 ↗ would have been better to have them make those changes and give the Commission

1:51:19 ↗ a chance to apply on the changes they did make and hopefully meeting those

1:51:25 ↗ that desire for more natural materials and those kind of changes like we used

1:51:31 ↗ to do between a community conference and a SDP you can make those changes we

1:51:36 ↗ could look and say yes we agree with those and would have been nice in

1:51:42 ↗ this case to have that opportunity and I will keep that in mind in the

1:51:48 ↗ future so we can advise applicants in the future of your preference thank you would

1:51:54 ↗ I was just conferring with the applicant. Would you would

1:52:00 ↗ like the applicant's traffic engineer to speak to Commissioner Harrison's

1:52:06 ↗ and obviously other commissioners concerns? Again for the record, excuse

1:52:12 ↗ me, Jeff Schramm. So I have been in front of

1:52:17 ↗ this Commission on several projects. I was responsible for the

1:52:23 ↗ traffic study for Gateway Apartments, Senior Housing and Riva. I

1:52:29 ↗ have been at probably all of these meetings and I have heard

1:52:35 ↗ loud and clear the concerns of traffic, safety, growing volumes, and I

1:52:40 ↗ get it. I understand. I think it's important to note that maybe

1:52:46 ↗ you can help me pull up that exhibit that showed, it had

1:52:52 ↗ a lot going on but it kind of showed some sight lines.

1:52:58 ↗ I think the question that you've asked Commissioner Harrison is or

1:53:03 ↗ at least you've questioned is, is the intersection safe? As a

1:53:09 ↗ professional, it's my responsibility that road design meets the standards, city

1:53:15 ↗ standards, established criteria. In my professional opinion, the improvements that are

1:53:20 ↗ going to occur at the intersection are that, they are improvements

1:53:26 ↗ to an existing condition. I don't disagree with the residents that

1:53:32 ↗ are coming to that stop sign out of Oak Crest have some limitations

1:53:38 ↗ and when they look left and right for cars, cars that travel above speeds,

1:53:43 ↗ trucks that travel as well. What this project does is it builds out the

1:53:49 ↗ required frontage. It builds out the city's plan for Newport Way as a parkway.

1:53:55 ↗ It will add turn lanes which provide safe refuge for left turners that don't

1:54:01 ↗ exist there today. left turners for oak grass left turners for

1:54:06 ↗ the riva town homes the lanes the through lanes will narrow which

1:54:12 ↗ will um which will have an effect of also slowing speeds which

1:54:18 ↗ would be complementary to the reduction in speed that the city um

1:54:24 ↗ you know changed there recently The recently improved rapid flashing location

1:54:30 ↗ and improvement over what existed before will continue to be maintained. What

1:54:36 ↗ this exhibit shows, and I apologize it's a little bit grainy, but

1:54:41 ↗ what it shows is that with the new aligned intersection and the

1:54:47 ↗ widening that will be resulting, from the improvements, we'll improve the sight lines to

1:54:53 ↗ meet the city standards. What this shows is a vehicle will be able to see

1:54:59 ↗ and meet the city's minimum standards for that classification of road. The other thing that

1:55:04 ↗ the project will do is it'll improve the curb ramps at each of the corners

1:55:09 ↗ for ADA accessibility for pedestrian access. and improve as well the crosswalk delineation it will

1:55:15 ↗ provide the type of striping that is reflect reflectorized to a level that will be

1:55:20 ↗ an improvement over what exists there today what essentially this project is doing is it's

1:55:26 ↗ implementing what the city is required requiring of newport way and i believe in my

1:55:32 ↗ professional opinion there the added traffic there will be mitigated by the improvements that are

1:55:38 ↗ being required and that will be implemented What is being planned there is in

1:55:44 ↗ no way would be inconsistent with what the city could do as over time

1:55:49 ↗ and what the city's pedestrian crossing study does and further evaluate the improvements that

1:55:55 ↗ may be necessary you know along that corridor as development continues to grow and

1:56:01 ↗ continues to occur but the bottom line is it will be an improvement over

1:56:07 ↗ an existing condition. Can you speak a little bit, Jeff,

1:56:12 ↗ about why we talked about a traffic signal. Can you talk

1:56:18 ↗ about a four-way stop sign? Yeah. It warrants for what we

1:56:24 ↗ call an all-way stop or four-way stop. Similarly, there's a standard.

1:56:30 ↗ On an arterial road, all-way stop control is –

1:56:36 ↗ not good practice and it also is not safe. An arterial

1:56:42 ↗ is intended to do, it's to carry traffic through this corridor

1:56:47 ↗ and to implement an all-way stop at those location would neither meet warrants

1:56:53 ↗ or be a safe condition. And so the appropriate control here is stop control,

1:56:59 ↗ which would be consistent with the remainder of the intersection that exists along the

1:57:05 ↗ corridor. I think Mr. Sugarman had indicated that this would be the only four-way

1:57:10 ↗ stop or location that has control. That's not true. Pine Cone, 54th,

1:57:16 ↗ All those intersections that exist along the

1:57:21 ↗ arterial have stop control as they approach

1:57:27 ↗ the intersection. So an always stop really

1:57:32 ↗ is not the appropriate control point at

1:57:38 ↗ this intersection. Excuse me. Excuse me. The

1:57:43 ↗ public comment period is over. So--

1:57:49 ↗ There is not a four-way intersection on the fourth way. Three-way

1:57:54 ↗ intersection. You were designing out-- All right. All right. I'll just

1:58:00 ↗ ask you to stop. Thank you. Other-- A question related-- do

1:58:06 ↗ we have a temporary trail? There were some comments about the

1:58:11 ↗ temporary trail that runs from Oakhurst down to the trailhead for

1:58:17 ↗ Cougar Mountain. What's the expected duration that will be a temporary

1:58:23 ↗ trail condition there? And is there the possibility of creating at least curb separation

1:58:29 ↗ between the edge of the roadway and the trail to provide at least some amount

1:58:34 ↗ of physical separation? So that idea is actually something that came

1:58:40 ↗ to my mind too after listening to the public and it's not a big deal

1:58:46 ↗ to look into that. We will definitely, I mean we definitely want people to feel

1:58:51 ↗ safe and so you know we you know we propose the condition recognizing that we

1:58:57 ↗ would like to have a safe clear walkway for pedestrians and if that will help

1:59:03 ↗ we'll definitely provide that. Again the question is for

1:59:09 ↗ the duration that that trail will exist. We're doing that as a result of we're

1:59:15 ↗ doing frontage improvements for the Riva project but that side of the road will remain

1:59:21 ↗ in the unfinished frontage condition until development happens on that side of the road. Is

1:59:27 ↗ that my understanding? So the tricky thing is that's actually a city property. There's a

1:59:33 ↗ existing stormwater pond there. So we don't have any plans for doing

1:59:39 ↗ anything there in the near future. Well, there's no development on

1:59:44 ↗ that property that would trigger frontage improvements, but as part of

1:59:50 ↗ the bond measure, completing the missing segments of Newport is one

1:59:56 ↗ of the items on the bond for this fall.

2:00:04 ↗ So Mr. Chairman, just so I could understand, so from Oak

2:00:10 ↗ Creek to the trailhead, which they're in the process of developing

2:00:16 ↗ that parking lot, so that area there, is it going to

2:00:22 ↗ be a sidewalk or? It's gravel. It will be a five-foot

2:00:28 ↗ gravel path because it's temporary. And basically where you see this blue

2:00:34 ↗ line, this is where the trailhead is from the intersection. And so the bond, is

2:00:39 ↗ that going to be able to pay for that sidewalk, concrete sidewalk? Or is there

2:00:45 ↗ any plan to put a sidewalk in there? So my understanding is that the bond

2:00:51 ↗ would complete that side of the street that was not part of the Riva frontage

2:00:57 ↗ improvements. Yeah, it's on the opposite side of the street. So the city will pay

2:01:03 ↗ for that then? It's not designed at this time,

2:01:08 ↗ but that's the point of the bond is to complete

2:01:14 ↗ those segments that are left as all these other developments

2:01:20 ↗ are happening. Okay. Thank you. One more detailed question. Absolutely.

2:01:26 ↗ It's related to condition number four that was edited related.

2:01:32 ↗ It was the 10-foot wide sidewalk condition. And you

2:01:37 ↗ refer to it as a through block passage walkway, which looking at

2:01:43 ↗ the project plan, it's actually just the sidewalk access to buildings 34

2:01:49 ↗ and 36. I don't know if you have a detail of it

2:01:55 ↗ in tonight's presentation. So the amended condition, the original

2:02:01 ↗ condition required a 10 foot wide sidewalk providing, shall be

2:02:06 ↗ provided to serve buildings 34 to 36 in the communal

2:02:12 ↗ open space play area. Amy, can you go to the

2:02:17 ↗ first slide that you had instead of that one? Thank

2:02:23 ↗ you. Right, so. So it's, it's actually this walkway here

2:02:28 ↗ and I, so, um, kind of looking i think this

2:02:34 ↗ one is actually the correct version so the only reason um so

2:02:40 ↗ we we had one version of the site plan um this was

2:02:46 ↗ what they originally provided and The Central Sequoia Standards has this very specific

2:02:52 ↗ requirement for every front door of a unit to face a primary through block

2:02:57 ↗ passage. And that is also very specific that it has to be a 10

2:03:03 ↗ foot wide walkway. In this particular, so we originally started with that condition because

2:03:09 ↗ what they showed us was something more like a five foot walkway, five foot

2:03:14 ↗ wide walkway. And so we had a condition because we said you must meet

2:03:20 ↗ the standards and the standards said 10 feet. So they then submitted a site

2:03:26 ↗ plan that showed a 10 foot wide walkway for these three units and There

2:03:31 ↗ are some shifting that happened between the first site plan to this last site plan.

2:03:36 ↗ So one of the things that they had to do and I don't know if

2:03:42 ↗ you guys remembered this, staff had noted our concern that the fire trucks needed a

2:03:47 ↗ little bit more space in order to turn in. So in the process of them

2:03:52 ↗ providing a little bit more space for the fire trucks, all these units moved a

2:03:57 ↗ little bit to the east. And so that further reduced the area for

2:04:02 ↗ an open space. And then it became this awkward open space with a

2:04:08 ↗ gigantic walkway in a teeny tiny open space. And so we evaluated that and

2:04:14 ↗ we determined that we're not going to get a lot of people walking to access

2:04:19 ↗ three units. So in this particular situation, we recognize that it's really better to have

2:04:25 ↗ a smaller walkway and a more usable open space. And that kind of gives us

2:04:31 ↗ the best benefit and the balance of both benefits. So we just made it very

2:04:37 ↗ clear that it will be a six foot wide walkway because we don't really have

2:04:42 ↗ a standard of a five foot walkway in Central Issaquah. And so but moving but

2:04:48 ↗ using the words through block passage walkway which were added to the new condition that

2:04:53 ↗ didn't exist in the previous condition. That's a term of art in the code through

2:04:59 ↗ block passage. It is a standard. Okay. And then just as far as the way

2:05:04 ↗ the condition is written, it says that the passage walkway serving units 34 through 36

2:05:10 ↗ shall be six feet wide. So what we really mean is it needs to be

2:05:15 ↗ at a minimum six feet wide or is it just that's what it's that's a

2:05:20 ↗ definitive dimension. Yes it's very specific yes. You want it to be exactly six feet

2:05:25 ↗ wide? Yes. Okay. You're trying to make sure that the dimensions stay consistent

2:05:31 ↗ with what the outcome you're trying to get, the balance. Is that okay?

2:05:37 ↗ Yes. So the contractor has a challenge. Thank you. That helps. Mr. Chairman,

2:05:42 ↗ I would like to just, if I may, I want to be really

2:05:48 ↗ clear that I did not intend to even come close to impugning anybody's

2:05:54 ↗ professional or personal integrity on the issue of safety at that intersection. I absolutely accept

2:06:00 ↗ the analysis that's been done and the intention of the city to make that intersection

2:06:06 ↗ as safe as possible. It just seems to me that it's when I look at

2:06:12 ↗ it, and I'm not a traffic engineer, we've long since established that, that it seems

2:06:17 ↗ counterintuitive. I'm not questioning anybody's integrity about the fundamental object that we all have here,

2:06:22 ↗ which is safety above everything else. And Amy, I have a question to follow up

2:06:28 ↗ on Commissioner Morgan's point. At what point will the members of the commission and the

2:06:34 ↗ public be able to see what that's going to look like in terms of the

2:06:39 ↗ materials and the colors and so on? So because we had, we're hoping that the

2:06:45 ↗ way we wrote the condition is clear enough so that the development commission would

2:06:51 ↗ approve this project with that condition and with the comfort

2:06:57 ↗ level that staff can work out those details. Now if

2:07:03 ↗ that's not the case, we're welcoming any kind of revision

2:07:09 ↗ to that condition. if it means that you guys prefer

2:07:14 ↗ to see it again and I guess Lucy this is where

2:07:20 ↗ I would need your help if that's what what's your what

2:07:26 ↗ you think needs to happen I guess it's up to you

2:07:31 ↗ the development commission so Amy could you please pull up the

2:07:37 ↗ elevations I have this view So this just gives

2:07:43 ↗ you more of a general character of it. The

2:07:48 ↗ materials will be primarily the hardy plank and

2:07:54 ↗ And that condition came about because we recognize similar to the Gateway

2:08:00 ↗ project. This is in the Western Gateway District of Central Issaquah. And

2:08:06 ↗ there's this very and again with with as a reminder, and I

2:08:12 ↗ guess we do have some new members in the commission. But when

2:08:18 ↗ we reviewed the two Gateway projects, there were very strong

2:08:24 ↗ like comments from from the commission about what that character would look like

2:08:30 ↗ for the Western Gateway. Um and we also have a very specific language

2:08:36 ↗ in the central Sequoia plan for the Western Gateway district that calls out

2:08:42 ↗ natural materials. So because this the proposed architecture doesn't

2:08:48 ↗ really have any natural materials then just to

2:08:53 ↗ be consistent with the way we treated the

2:08:58 ↗ two Gateway projects we included that condition. So

2:09:04 ↗ I believe if I'm understanding at least for

2:09:09 ↗ condition which is the incorporation of natural materials.

2:09:15 ↗ The intention of the implementation was that the appearance of

2:09:20 ↗ the buildings did not alter, but that potentially the material

2:09:26 ↗ being used to achieve the appearance so that the color

2:09:32 ↗ was consistent with what was presented, the appearance was consistent,

2:09:37 ↗ but the material achieving that might be, for instance, wood

2:09:43 ↗ or stone, where it might be hardy plank, for instance, shown.

2:09:49 ↗ So, at least for that condition, that was why a new

2:09:54 ↗ representation was not presented, because the thought was that at the

2:10:00 ↗ level at which this could be represented in the drawings, it

2:10:06 ↗ would not appear different. Now, that may not meet the commission's

2:10:12 ↗ goals, but I think that was-- That's why those boards are so nice when they

2:10:17 ↗ bring those in with materials. And I guess in answer to Commissioner Harris, the design

2:10:23 ↗ of the units, the modulation, all that, I think are pretty good. I think if

2:10:28 ↗ I had a big concern about-- these changes and wanted to really see them, I

2:10:34 ↗ would have pushed that more. But I think in the future, given the time frame

2:10:39 ↗ we had on this one, that large gap in time, it could have been put

2:10:44 ↗ in. - Understood. - Mr. Chair, just, I mean, my concern with the traffic has

2:10:48 ↗ been noted. The other issue I have with the closeness to the street, I think

2:10:53 ↗ that is, possible issue of having someone park in someone's kitchen right that that street

2:10:59 ↗ is sometimes in the night where you know people move very quickly on there and

2:11:04 ↗ just a little mistake can end up with someone sitting in somebody's kitchen with their

2:11:10 ↗ you know headlights flashing at the living room so uh not sure i i'm not

2:11:15 ↗ that comfortable with a project on the street on artery being that close to the

2:11:21 ↗ street so um Hopefully this is good enough for a little

2:11:26 ↗ illustration. So this is Newport Way. So none of the units are

2:11:32 ↗ directly perpendicular to the street. So you're it's highly unlikely that you're

2:11:37 ↗ going to have people's car lights flashing into the the actual living

2:11:43 ↗ spaces. Not so much the car lights, but the car itself being

2:11:49 ↗ in the living space. So I think that probably The standard

2:11:54 ↗ that is driving that is Central Issaquah requires not just, you know,

2:12:00 ↗ often you have a setback from a property line. Central Issaquah actually

2:12:06 ↗ has a build two line. So there is a maximum amount that

2:12:11 ↗ you're allowed to set back from the property. And anywhere from zero

2:12:17 ↗ to 10 or 15 feet. - In this case, 15. - 15 feet

2:12:23 ↗ is the requirement in this district. And so they are in that zone

2:12:29 ↗ between zero and 15 where they are required to be. And so I

2:12:35 ↗ think that's the challenge is that they've placed their buildings where the code

2:12:41 ↗ requires them to be. - I'm sorry, Amy, you said that, Units

2:12:46 ↗ are not perpendicular to Newport Way. Looking at the, at least the

2:12:52 ↗ floor plans that we had, I think our original floor plans, and

2:12:58 ↗ I thought they were, I thought the units were perpendicular. Did they,

2:13:04 ↗ has the layout changed? So in other words, the car lights are,

2:13:09 ↗ they're perpendicular. So the face of the units-- - They're not perpendicular to

2:13:15 ↗ the car light. - Right, exactly. So in other words, yes, they are perpendicular

2:13:21 ↗ to Newport Way as far as the orientation, but the cars are going this

2:13:26 ↗ way, so you don't have car light shining into the units. - Okay, thank

2:13:32 ↗ you. - Sorry, thank you for the clarification. - Other comments? - I guess

2:13:38 ↗ I have one, I have a big one. I still have a concern about

2:13:44 ↗ even the requirement to have the relocatable public access easement

2:13:51 ↗ CHRIS RODGERS: I don't think I've heard anybody from the public, the neighbors,

2:13:57 ↗ Issaquah, trails club, David Kepler, proponent, anybody want to put that boardwalk in

2:14:02 ↗ there. I personally don't see a big benefit of that, that there would

2:14:08 ↗ be many people at all that would ever be there. And to hear

2:14:14 ↗ it's half a million to $800,000 to be there, I guess I would

2:14:19 ↗ prefer to take that requirement out completely. I know maybe it's against

2:14:25 ↗ the Central Issaquah plan, but-- I think that's the problem is that it puts

2:14:31 ↗ staff in a very difficult position that the Central Issaquah requires that connection. We're

2:14:36 ↗ not building it at this time. I don't know. Does it truly require it?

2:14:42 ↗ Yes. I mean, it literally says you must build this. To this property owner.

2:14:48 ↗ Yes. Can I ask a follow-up question? Can I chase this one a little bit?

2:14:53 ↗ Because I've been thinking about the same thing. So the current central Issaquah plan has

2:14:57 ↗ not amended but that's now being kind of taken a look at now with the

2:15:01 ↗ moratorium that we've heard about early in the meeting this evening. So there may be

2:15:05 ↗ some changes. Whether it changes this requirement or not, don't know. But it could eventually.

2:15:09 ↗ And the Rivers and Stream Board is actually looking more directly at some of the

2:15:13 ↗ trail connections I think. So the easement that's being proposed, we're not requiring this developer

2:15:18 ↗ to construct the trail. We're requiring the property owner to provide an easement that would

2:15:23 ↗ allow for future construction of the trail, but just the easement. Correct. So it retains

2:15:28 ↗ the right to do it should it remain in the plan or should it get

2:15:33 ↗ funded someday if it still looks like it's the right thing to do, but it

2:15:38 ↗ doesn't require anything other than an encumbrance on the property. I think I'm maybe contrary,

2:15:43 ↗ a little contrary to your point, but I guess that's what we do, is I

2:15:48 ↗ think preserving, there hasn't been support of it. Nobody seems to be interested in, at

2:15:53 ↗ least at this point in time, based on all the variables that are being considered,

2:15:57 ↗ seeing that built. But I think preserving the ability to build it in the future,

2:16:02 ↗ if it remains in the plan, is something that probably want to leave there for

2:16:06 ↗ now, in my opinion. I don't know. Because there's no-- other than the encumbrance on

2:16:12 ↗ the property, but reality is you can't build there anyway because it's protected property.

2:16:18 ↗ It's a critical area. So I don't know that-- I would be struggling if

2:16:24 ↗ we were forcing it as a condition to be constructed as part of the

2:16:30 ↗ project. But I don't know that I object to the easement. And the list

2:16:36 ↗ of the work plan that Director Niven mentioned, includes, and we have

2:16:41 ↗ already begun meeting, we have a new parks director. I'm not sure if

2:16:47 ↗ you're aware of that. Jeff Watling from Kent, I believe, began August 1st.

2:16:54 ↗ and we have already begun meeting with him on a series of questions around Central

2:17:00 ↗ Issaquah, implementing Central Issaquah, where are certain kinds of parks and facilities shown, where are

2:17:05 ↗ shared use routes shown. They're going to begin what's called PROS II, and I know

2:17:11 ↗ you're gonna ask me what that is, and I'm gonna guess it's Parks, Recreation, and

2:17:17 ↗ Open Space, something that begins with a T. That

2:17:23 ↗ is coming and so we have delayed all of this laundry list of

2:17:29 ↗ questions to be integrated into that plan so that we're looking at the

2:17:35 ↗ city, we're looking at it citywide at the same time that we're deciding

2:17:41 ↗ how to implement central Issaquah around these topics. And so I think Commissioner

2:17:47 ↗ Brennan is identifying that we are preserving the ability that

2:17:52 ↗ although the public and the commission have expressed concerns that

2:17:58 ↗ through that public process, we may decide that is the right

2:18:04 ↗ connection or we may decide it is no longer an appropriate connection

2:18:10 ↗ and that we are allowing ourselves to then move forward or not

2:18:15 ↗ move forward based on that more comprehensive examination of what the city

2:18:21 ↗ needs both within Central Issaquah and the entire city. - Maybe a

2:18:27 ↗ solution would be adding a sentence to the effect of if the trail

2:18:33 ↗ is no longer required at the Central Issaquah Plan, this requirement would be eliminated. -

2:18:39 ↗ This easement. - This easement. 'Cause I partly think for anybody that's got a house

2:18:44 ↗ that backs up to that, if they go to sell their house, there's gonna be

2:18:50 ↗ somebody saying, you know, there's a potential easement back here. You could have a trail

2:18:56 ↗ right in your backyard hanging over them. in perpetuity. Who is

2:19:01 ↗ going to decide to give that up though? Well,

2:19:07 ↗ if the city decides in their continual updates of

2:19:12 ↗ the Central Issaquah Plan, if they decide that that's

2:19:18 ↗ not a required trail anymore and eliminate that, then

2:19:23 ↗ the easement would go away. And you know, that

2:19:29 ↗ certainly is possible because we typically wouldn't get that easement till

2:19:35 ↗ the end of construction. As we're coming up towards either temporary or final

2:19:41 ↗ certificate of occupancy would be the time that we would likely get those

2:19:46 ↗ easements because it's easier to do them once you have roads constructed and

2:19:52 ↗ you're surveying in those pieces relative to the actual constructed improvements. I would

2:19:58 ↗ think by that time, a year, well, at least a year, if

2:20:04 ↗ not two, from now, we would have clarity on what was happening with those

2:20:10 ↗ improvements. Can I ask a question? So let's imagine a world where the easement

2:20:16 ↗ goes away. Then what is the use of that space? And is it truly

2:20:22 ↗ all wetland? I'm not as familiar. I didn't review the project Amy, can

2:20:28 ↗ you pull up the slide, please? What are we open to at that point,

2:20:34 ↗ if anything? And what are the potential uses for that? Would they be open

2:20:40 ↗ space? If it's a wetland, who's required to maintain that wetland? Does it fall

2:20:46 ↗ within the development property entirely? could you just speak to that a

2:20:52 ↗ little bit is that clear my question so yes so it remains a private

2:20:57 ↗ property so it will remain the responsibility of the property owner to maintain um

2:21:03 ↗ it is not developable in in other words you can't build an another set

2:21:09 ↗ of townhouses back there but could it be landscaped could it be play area

2:21:14 ↗ could it be No. So it's actually all part of

2:21:20 ↗ the requirement in exchange for their developing the 36 units is

2:21:26 ↗ for them to enhance or rehabilitate the current conditions of the

2:21:32 ↗ wetland. So if the easement doesn't exist, it's just a green

2:21:38 ↗ closet. But Amy, isn't the green portion of that not in

2:21:43 ↗ the wetland? The southern portion closest to Newport? Oh, this part

2:21:49 ↗ here. Yes. This green area closest. I think. Kevin. I'm sorry. I

2:21:55 ↗ just wanted you to understand that the part that's green is not

2:22:01 ↗ in the wetland. Got it. There is topography dropping off of Newport.

2:22:06 ↗ And then you also have the future, I'm sorry, yeah, it moved

2:22:12 ↗ over here. Yeah, so Lucy's right, this is also, there's a drop

2:22:18 ↗ here. So there's limited land and it isn't the most usable. In

2:22:23 ↗ the future, if there was, if that trail, if that easement was

2:22:29 ↗ released and not built, and there was, for instance, a need for

2:22:35 ↗ parking or a play area, it would absolutely be re-landscaped.

2:22:40 ↗ Okay. Everything that's impacted by construction outside of the critical

2:22:46 ↗ areas, which is a separate enhancement plan, would be re-landscaped. So in the

2:22:51 ↗ future, if the residents determine that there was some use for that and

2:22:57 ↗ the easement had been released, there would certainly be the opportunity to consider

2:23:03 ↗ that for another use. Great. And even potentially before the project's finished. Excellent.

2:23:08 ↗ But limited to just the green area or just this area here. Right.

2:23:14 ↗ Right, with no improvements. OK. Thank you. Further comment?

2:23:20 ↗ So should we start crafting some of these changes

2:23:26 ↗ to conditions that we've heard commissioners, or is there

2:23:32 ↗ more discussion? Or should we work on that while

2:23:37 ↗ you're discussing? We can craft it too. We'll come

2:23:43 ↗ up with something. Sure. I was just going to

2:23:49 ↗ type it so everyone could see it. That's all.

2:23:54 ↗ Yeah. So do you have a suggestion? Should we--

2:24:01 ↗ We have a motion on the first and then amended or do you

2:24:07 ↗ want to? Yeah, I think we should have a motion. Then we can

2:24:12 ↗ amend the conditions. Then just take each one as an amendment. Right, yeah.

2:24:18 ↗ Mr. Chair, I move that the Development Commission approve the site development permit

2:24:24 ↗ for the project known as Riva Town Homes, file number SDP 15-00004 with

2:24:30 ↗ plans and technical reports received on October 16th. 2015 through February

2:24:35 ↗ 26, 2016. Staff report dated March 3, 2016 with attachments 1

2:24:41 ↗ through 17. Briefing response memo dated March 30, 2016 and attachments

2:24:47 ↗ 1 through 9. And briefing response memo dated August 31, 2016

2:24:52 ↗ with attachments 1 through 3 and exhibits 1 through 4. subject

2:24:58 ↗ to the conditions of the staff report dated March 3, 2016, as revised

2:25:04 ↗ in the briefing response memo dated July 31, 2016, and as amended tonight.

2:25:10 ↗ And there is a quiz on that for everybody later. I second. Great.

2:25:15 ↗ So we have a motion that's been seconded. Is there a discussion? Mr.

2:25:21 ↗ Chair, I move that we amend condition nine. I don't know that you

2:25:26 ↗ like this. I just put something up there. Perfect.

2:25:33 ↗ To add a sentence to it. So in

2:25:38 ↗ the latest briefing response memo, condition number nine

2:25:44 ↗ was revised. So I'm taking that revised condition

2:25:49 ↗ as the condition and looking at sentence number,

2:25:55 ↗ the second sentence and proposing that if it's

2:26:00 ↗ determined to be necessary. or other language that the

2:26:06 ↗ Commission proposes. Yeah, so the, I guess I was going to say, but

2:26:12 ↗ you said it's already determined to be necessary or? So, that's where the

2:26:17 ↗ words become. So right now it is determined to be necessary or maybe

2:26:23 ↗ it's if determined to be necessary by certificate of occupancy for the project.

2:26:30 ↗ The idea being that if through the process that the city is going through with

2:26:35 ↗ PROS II, this is not a connection that the city ends up supporting and the

2:26:39 ↗ community supports, then that easement would not be necessary. Mr. Chair, maybe a different way

2:26:44 ↗ to do it is you could leave the condition as written, but just add to

2:26:49 ↗ the end of it. So essentially, the plan calls for it now, but add to

2:26:54 ↗ the end that something in fact should change as to this, essentially as a call

2:26:58 ↗ to plan. CHRIS JERRAM: Yeah, so we would leave everything

2:27:04 ↗ there that's there. And I would leave it more

2:27:10 ↗ open than that. And just say that if at

2:27:15 ↗ any point it's determined that the trail is no

2:27:21 ↗ longer required by Central Issaquah plan or standards, and

2:27:26 ↗ the relocatable public access easement will be eliminated. Or

2:27:32 ↗ shall not be required. CHRIS JERRAM: Shall not be

2:27:37 ↗ required. If it's already in place, you want to

2:27:42 ↗ allow them to be able to have it removed.

2:27:49 ↗ Yeah, no longer required. Thank you. So

2:27:54 ↗ point of clarification, Mr. Morgan, would it

2:28:00 ↗ go back, revert back to the developer

2:28:05 ↗ then? For the homeowners association? The developer

2:28:11 ↗ still loans the land. It just wouldn't

2:28:16 ↗ have an easement that impacts it hanging

2:28:22 ↗ out there. That looks good to me.

2:28:27 ↗ I hope we have a second, though.

2:28:33 ↗ Second. So we have a motion that

2:28:39 ↗ amends Condition nine to include that final

2:28:44 ↗ sentence. Been moved and seconded. All those

2:28:49 ↗ in favor of that modification say aye.

2:28:55 ↗ Aye. Opposed? OK, that motion carries. So

2:29:00 ↗ now we go back to the motion

2:29:05 ↗ that Commissioner Morgan read. Is there further

2:29:11 ↗ discussion on-- I don't want anything.

2:29:16 ↗ I'm just trying to follow through

2:29:21 ↗ on -- Right. Offer a possible

2:29:26 ↗ new condition. Seemed to be an

2:29:31 ↗ important -- Okay. That's what I

2:29:36 ↗ was wondering. Okay. Let me double

2:29:42 ↗ check here. So that was --

2:29:47 ↗ okay. Good. So a curb is

2:29:52 ↗ already being provided. on

2:29:57 ↗ the opposite side of the street? - That

2:30:03 ↗ was part of Amy's presentation. - Well, so

2:30:09 ↗ they would already have to be putting the

2:30:15 ↗ curb in for storm drainage control, so that

2:30:21 ↗ we don't need to add a condition to

2:30:27 ↗ that effect. - Catchy, Amy, thanks. - Other

2:30:33 ↗ changes, requests? We have a motion as presented

2:30:38 ↗ with the modification, the change identified.

2:30:45 ↗ All those in favor, say aye. Aye.

2:30:50 ↗ Opposed? Nay. So one nay vote. You

2:30:56 ↗ did such a great job. Mr. Chair,

2:31:01 ↗ I move that the development Commission direct the

2:31:07 ↗ Development Services Department to prepare the findings of fact and conclusions

2:31:13 ↗ which affirm the Development Commission's decision to approve the site development

2:31:19 ↗ permit for Riva Townhomes, file number SDP15-0004, with plans and technical

2:31:24 ↗ reports received on October 16, 2015 through February 26, 2016 staff

2:31:30 ↗ report dated March 3rd, 2016 with attachments one through 17. Briefing

2:31:36 ↗ response memo dated March 30th, 2016 and attachments one through nine

2:31:42 ↗ and briefing response memo dated August 31st, 2016 with attachments one through

2:31:47 ↗ three and exhibits one through four, subject to the conditions of the staff

2:31:53 ↗ report dated March 3, 2016, as revised in the briefing memo dated July

2:31:59 ↗ 31, 2016, and as further amended tonight. CHRIS JERRAM: Second. TODD BANDUCCI: We

2:32:05 ↗ have a motion that's been seconded. Is there discussion? All those in favor

2:32:11 ↗ would indicate by saying aye. CHRIS JERRAM: Aye. TODD BANDUCCI: Opposed? CHRIS JERRAM:

2:32:17 ↗ Nay. TODD BANDUCCI: One nay. So motion carries.

2:32:24 ↗ I think, I don't know of any other business that needs to be conducted. I

2:32:29 ↗ think we can officially call our meeting adjourned, but before we do that, I really

2:32:34 ↗ would like to, you know, I think Commissioner Harrison made an excellent point that talked

2:32:39 ↗ about some of the comments that were made that are out of the purview of

2:32:44 ↗ the Development Commission. The reality is that sometimes they are, but the staff is sitting

2:32:49 ↗ here and they hear those comments and I think it's really vital in the context

2:32:54 ↗ of public participation that those comments get to be made. So I appreciate the effort

2:32:59 ↗ and the time that people were willing to spend and the comments don't go unnoticed

2:33:04 ↗ to be sure. So I'd like to call the meeting adjourned. Thank you. - Our

2:33:08 ↗ next meeting is September 21st, just so you know. So no vacation. No

2:33:14 ↗ vacation.

Approved minutes

Extracted from the next meeting's packet, where this meeting's minutes were approved as a consent-calendar attachment.

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Recommendations & actions (8)

Sentences extracted from the narrative containing words like recommended, requested, directed, moved, or approved. Best-effort — verify against the full minutes for context.

MOVED BY BRENNAN, SECONDED BY BAKH that minutes of the Development Commission meeting on July 20, 2016 be approved as presented.
MOVED BY MORGAN, SECONDED BY BRENNAN to publicly acknowledge the excellent meeting minutes the Development Commission is receiving from the Recording Secretary.
The continuation was originally scheduled for April 6, but the applicant requested more time to work with staff on one of the conditions related to the Shared Use Route.
She said she would like to remind the Commission that when the CIP was approved, the City had already identified that it has flaws.
Tarce explained that staff typically works out the details of the conditions with the applicant once the conditions are approved, and in this case the applicant chose to put that work aside until after the Commission…
The shifts occurred because fire trucks required more space for turning, so units 34-36 moved to the east.
Commission Decision MOVED BY MORGAN, SECONDED BY BRENNAN that the Development Commission approve the Site Development Permit for the project known as Riva Townhomes, File No.
MOVED BY BRENNAN, SECONDED BY HARRISON that the Development Commission direct the Development Services Department to prepare the Findings of Fact and Conclusions which affirm the Development Commission’s decision to…