Planning Policy Commission · Thursday, March 24, 2016 · City Council Digest

1. CALL TO ORDER

Commission Membership

packet pp.3

Previously discussed: Planning Policy Commission · Oct 1, 2015 Planning Policy Commission · Feb 25, 2016

Open packet at p.3 ↗

Staff report:

Planning Policy Commission About Contacts Created in 1983, this commission serves as a policy advisory body to the Mayor and provides guidance and direction for Issaquah’s Staff Liaison future growth through continued review and improvement to the Trish Heinonen, Planning City’s Comprehensive Land Use Plan and related land use Manager documents. Email

2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES

Meeting Minutes from January 28, 2016

packet pp.5–6

Previously discussed: Planning Policy Commission · Oct 1, 2015 Planning Policy Commission · Feb 25, 2016

▶ Watch from 2:18 Open packet at p.5 ↗

Staff report:

CITY OF ISSAQUAH PLANNING POLICY COMMISSION MINUTES

Meeting Minutes from March 10, 2016

packet pp.7–9

▶ Watch from 7:18 Open packet at p.7 ↗

Staff report:

Dana Zlateff made staff’s presentation. She said staff is here tonight to share information on what the NPDES permit process is and what will be required of the City. She gave more details about the public meetings to be held on the update, leading to final action by the Council by the state’s due date of December 31, 2016.

3. AGENDA ITEMS

PUBLIC HEARING: PROPOSED

packet pp.11–38

Open packet at p.11 ↗

Staff report:

A6 Proposed Marijuana Code Amendments Exhibit B Draft Findings of Fact and

1317 segments .txt ↗

2:01 ↗ And welcome to the March 24, 2016 meeting of the Planning Policy Commission.

2:07 ↗ Thank you all for being here. And thank you all of you who

2:12 ↗ are in the audience this evening. I really appreciate it. First thing on

2:18 ↗ our agenda is approval of the minutes from January 28. I think that

2:24 ↗ says 28. Do I have a motion? I'll make the motion to approve

2:29 ↗ the January 28, 2016 minutes. I'll second. All those in favor? First

2:35 ↗ of all, is there any discussion? All those in favor, say

2:41 ↗ aye. Aye. Opposed? And the next one is minutes for the

2:47 ↗ March 10th meeting. I assume that you've all read the minutes.

2:53 ↗ Do I have a motion to approve? I'll move to approve.

2:59 ↗ I'll second. Any further discussion? Motion approved. Tonight we're going to

3:05 ↗ have a public hearing on some proposed changes to the

3:10 ↗ use code for the Central Issaquah Development Design

3:16 ↗ Standards. And Kristen? Yes. take it away and give us an update

3:22 ↗ on exactly what's going to happen tonight. We have, what's the word, melange? A big

3:27 ↗ variety of things that we're talking about tonight. Some are land use code amendments, some

3:32 ↗ are central is a quad amendments, and some have to do with transportation, some have

3:37 ↗ to do with marijuana, some with maps. It's all over the place, but it's going

3:42 ↗ to be good. All right. So as I mentioned, we will talk first about regional

3:47 ↗ light rail transit facilities. then bicycle parking stations, non-motorized map consistencies with

3:52 ↗ the comprehensive plan, references to non-motorized maps, and then marijuana and

3:58 ↗ consistency with the state regulations. So light rail transit facilities. For

4:03 ↗ many years now, a good 10, probably more than that, We have

4:09 ↗ been talking with Sound Transit and inviting Sound Transit to bring a high capacity transit

4:14 ↗ facility to Issaquah through I-90 so we know it would come from the west and

4:19 ↗ come east. We don't know if this would be a light rail or if it

4:24 ↗ would be buses. Don't know what that would be or what any alignment would be.

4:29 ↗ But in order to prepare for this and encourage them even more to come this

4:34 ↗ direction, We adopted, part of it was adopting the Central Issaquah Plan and

4:39 ↗ planning that our growth will go into Central Issaquah. In that, we included policies on

4:45 ↗ working with Sound Transit and we included four potential light rail stations in that area.

4:51 ↗ Then we became a regional growth center that also helped to encourage. And most recently,

4:57 ↗ we adopted policies in our 2015 Comp Plan Update talking about bringing light rail to

5:03 ↗ Issaquah. So we have also been very active in the ST3 process in helping them

5:09 ↗ to figure out which projects would be included in the list for ST3 and for

5:14 ↗ the next vote that comes up. And as Sound Transit and their consultants were going

5:20 ↗ through all the potential projects, they got to Light Rail in Issaquah, or High Capacity

5:25 ↗ Transit in Issaquah, and recognize that one of the obstacles or issues potentially here

5:31 ↗ was that light rail is not included as a permitted use in Issaquah. Therefore,

5:37 ↗ to make the process easier and to continue encouraging and hopefully get light rail

5:43 ↗ on ST3, we are proposing to amend our land use code. So the first

5:48 ↗ thing we're doing, brief amendments, is to include a regional, a definition of regional

5:54 ↗ light rail transit system. and it includes bus lines, rapid transit

6:00 ↗ lines, park and ride stations, anything that's included, not just the rail, but

6:06 ↗ anything associated with a rail or bus rapid transit system.

6:13 ↗ The other thing that we are proposing, and this is both in the land use

6:18 ↗ code and in the central ISQA development standards that was not in your packet was

6:23 ↗ mentioned, but they weren't shown, but they're exactly the same. The definitions are exactly the

6:28 ↗ same. And for both of these, we are proposing as Sound Transit asked us to

6:33 ↗ do, include regional light rail transit system and associated facilities in all zones as a

6:37 ↗ level three process. which means that it would go through public hearing. Now, when Sand

6:43 ↗ Transit's involved, they have several public hearings and several public meetings, but that's what we're

6:49 ↗ proposing for light rail transit facilities. The next one is bicycle parking stations, and some

6:55 ↗ of you may know that the state just gave four east side cities, Issaquah, Redmond,

7:01 ↗ Kirkland, and Bellevue, $5.5 million to put in a bike share program on the east

7:05 ↗ side. And we're still working through the details, but another one of those things is

7:10 ↗ we wanna make sure that we can actually have bike stations in Issaquah. So we

7:15 ↗ already allow them in central Issaquah, and we're proposing to allow them in all the

7:20 ↗ other zones throughout Issaquah. It's a level zero process. These are temporary structures, though, so

7:25 ↗ they can be picked up and moved to other locations, which is why we thought

7:30 ↗ level zero would be sufficient. Next one. non-motorized map consistency. So

7:36 ↗ we adopted Central Issaquah and in there there

7:41 ↗ was a non-motorized map We already had a comp plan non-motorized map. And

7:47 ↗ then we went through the whole walk and roll process, which kind of adopted other

7:52 ↗ things for the non-motorized system. So part of our 2015 comp plan amendment was to

7:56 ↗ pull all of those things together into one document, the comprehensive plan, and make sure

8:01 ↗ that everything was in one place. But we now are going back to update the

8:06 ↗ central Issaquah map. and to make sure that those two things are consistent. Interesting,

8:12 ↗ there really wasn't a non-motorized map in central Issaquah. There currently isn't one. We have

8:17 ↗ a green necklace map and something else. Oh, a significant community facilities map, but we

8:23 ↗ didn't actually have a non-motorized map, so we're just taking the comp plan map and

8:28 ↗ plopping it in here. A comment was raised on this map earlier from the public

8:34 ↗ that noted these yellow lines here are, we were asked by council to

8:40 ↗ put those on there they are just showing where the regional connections are

8:46 ↗ where we recognize that people are writing so we put those on there

8:52 ↗ it came up that perhaps oops that doesn't work does it um this

8:58 ↗ one should continue either down here and down front street or over

9:04 ↗ here, and downtown street all the way down to Hobart Road. And then

9:09 ↗ another one would connect-- oh, you can't see it right now, but we

9:15 ↗ would do it-- down this way and over to Sunset. So those are

9:21 ↗ some other things that came up that we would consider doing. Lastly on

9:26 ↗ my list are the non-motorized maps and references. So in chapter 6, Circulation

9:32 ↗ Facilities, the map refers-- the note says, refer to figure 7A, non-motorized map.

9:39 ↗ It's in Chapter 7, not Chapter 6, and it's not a non-motorized map, as I

9:44 ↗ mentioned before. So we said we have to fix that. So we're inserting the correct

9:49 ↗ non-motorized map, changing all those references, which I didn't include in here. And in doing

9:54 ↗ that, we combined the two maps that were there. One is the conceptual green necklace

9:59 ↗ map and the significant community spaces map, which had much of the same information, and

10:05 ↗ combined those two. So what this shows is we were asked by council to include

10:10 ↗ all of the streets, which would be tree-lined streets through central Issaquah, which are the

10:14 ↗ pale green, and then the bike routes, which are purple, and the shared use routes,

10:18 ↗ which are dark green. So those are the changes that we're proposing there. Do you

10:23 ↗ have any questions before I sit and let Dave come up? I do, regarding the

10:27 ↗ bike share program. Yes. What is the estimate of the number of stations that we

10:33 ↗ will get out of this project? The reason I ask is-- Recently there's an article

10:39 ↗ in the Seattle Times about the underuse of bike share and that's been attributed to

10:45 ↗ a lack of density of bike share stations, whereas compared to New York City where

10:50 ↗ the stations are closer together, they've been much higher utilization rates. - Right, eight. Eight

10:56 ↗ is what we're proposing to start with. And we don't know yet where those would

11:02 ↗ go. And that's just for Issaquah. That's not the east side. There are several more.

11:06 ↗ We're anticipating that it would be a regional system that would, you know, the cities

11:10 ↗ would connect and we could work together, you know, and park bikes in different cities.

11:14 ↗ That's our hope, but we'll see. And we've been watching Seattle very closely, and we

11:18 ↗ wait until they have a meeting, and then we have a meeting. And they have

11:21 ↗ a meeting, and then we have a meeting. So we've been trying to learn from

11:25 ↗ their process and what they've done, things that have gone right and things that have

11:29 ↗ not gone right. We're flat in the valley and then we're surrounded

11:35 ↗ by hills. Unless you're an expert rider, you're not going to be going up and

11:40 ↗ down those hills. How do you come up with a number what you need? What

11:46 ↗ do you propose that's going to be used in the way of bike sharing? Well,

11:51 ↗ one of the things that we're talking about are electric bikes. because those are becoming

11:57 ↗ easier to get. So that's a possibility. But we haven't gotten to the stage that

12:03 ↗ closely of even looking exactly where these spots will be, where the stations will be

12:09 ↗ located. We have to finish getting our interlocal agreement between the four cities figured out

12:14 ↗ before we can move on to that next step. But before we even do that,

12:20 ↗ we want to make sure that they're allowed here. And you hire a consultant to

12:26 ↗ help us do that. Okay? It's all yours.

12:35 ↗ Thank you and good evening. I'm Dave Faber also with the Development Services Department and

12:41 ↗ I'll go to the next slide and talk about the package of marijuana code amendments

12:46 ↗ before you tonight. So give a brief summary of the amendments and then talk briefly,

12:51 ↗ I summarize the last five years or so of marijuana code work in our town

12:57 ↗ and then go more in detail on the amendments. What is the reason

13:03 ↗ for the amendments? So in 2015, the state did adopt additional

13:08 ↗ state law and rules that regulate the medical and retail marijuana

13:14 ↗ markets and we are responding to those state law changes with

13:20 ↗ what's before you tonight. Some of those state law changes have to do

13:26 ↗ with eliminating the medical marijuana collective garden model that is in place in our code

13:32 ↗ today. It provides the option for medical cooperatives that I'll talk about in a minute.

13:38 ↗ We currently have one allotted retail marijuana store in the city and the state has

13:44 ↗ allotted a second one. So that's just that's not really code change but that's a

13:50 ↗ state rule change. And then the name of the Liquor Control Board is changing. So

13:56 ↗ those amendments we're proposing tonight are to repeal the collective garden, the medical marijuana,

14:02 ↗ model to add some definitions that address marijuana cooperatives and then to

14:08 ↗ we propose to prohibit the the medical marijuana cooperatives. There's some other

14:14 ↗ topics below. Yeah. Just so everybody knows, would you explain what the

14:20 ↗ difference between those are? Sure. The medical marijuana collective garden

14:26 ↗ is a model where 10 members can come together

14:31 ↗ in one place and would have a limit of

14:37 ↗ 45 plants in that one place and 72 ounces

14:42 ↗ of marijuana. Some people would call it more like a dispensary model,

14:48 ↗ kind of like a store, but the state law term is collective garden. So

14:54 ↗ you have 10 patients or 10 members. The issue there, though, is that there's

15:00 ↗ no limit in how frequently these 10 patients can kind of exchange their membership.

15:05 ↗ So... Anyway, so that's the current model. And then we have three,

15:11 ↗ we had three collective gardens in town, one closed, so there are two existing

15:17 ↗ in operation in town today. The marijuana cooperative is a kind of a replacement

15:23 ↗ option for that where four people can come together and must operate out of

15:29 ↗ the home of one of the four people to have a cooperative operation. with

15:35 ↗ a limit of 60 plants, so 15 plants per person times four, 60 plants. And

15:40 ↗ the fourth element is that it has to be located a mile away from the

15:46 ↗ nearest retail marijuana store. So it's quite a different model than the current collective garden

15:51 ↗ model. So again, to summarize, it has to be in the house of one of

15:56 ↗ the four members and a mile away from a retail store. You mentioned earlier with

16:02 ↗ the current collective gardens model, or I guess the previous now that the rules have

16:06 ↗ been changed, that there was no limit on the exchange of memberships. Was there a

16:11 ↗ fix on that at all in this last go-round? Was there what? A fix on

16:16 ↗ that in this change? I guess the fix is, yeah, the state is repealing, eliminating

16:21 ↗ that option. And the package before you tonight is to delete and eliminate that whole

16:26 ↗ collective garden model from our city. And in fact, the state has said these have

16:31 ↗ to close by July 1 of this year. CHRIS JERRAM: And I guess my question

16:36 ↗ would be more towards the four-person cooperatives. Is there a limitation on how many times

16:41 ↗ or how often members of that cooperative can be swapped out? CHRIS JERRAM: Yes, there's

16:46 ↗ stricter limitations than that. And I recall, I think it was every either 15 days--

16:51 ↗ I think it's 60 days, a 60-day limit. 60-day limit on that. as well as

16:57 ↗ a registration with the Liquor and Cannabis Board. So it's more

17:03 ↗ heavily regulated than the collective garden model. You mentioned in the

17:09 ↗ House of one of the members, if I remember the previous

17:14 ↗ discussions, there was quite a few conditions put upon the collective

17:20 ↗ gardens in terms of safety and access and whatnot. Is this

17:26 ↗ changing? Is that any house could then become one of those? Yes, and I was

17:31 ↗ going to get into this later, but we're talking about it now. I might as

17:36 ↗ well talk about it right now. There are many reasons why we feel that we're

17:42 ↗ not in support of this cooperative marijuana cooperative model. The state law as we've read

17:47 ↗ it says that the state may adopt rules and regulations and may adopt a license

17:53 ↗ process to regulate these co-ops, but they've not done that yet. So we're not sure

17:59 ↗ where that stands. And secondly, they would operate in the house of one of the

18:05 ↗ four persons. So all of the work we've done in the city so far has

18:10 ↗ focused it towards the commercial zoned areas and we've stayed away We've shied away

18:16 ↗ from having marijuana facilities in neighborhoods, in residential areas. And I think our

18:22 ↗ feel is that this is heading towards that model, and we're not supportive

18:28 ↗ of that. So that's some reasons. I guess additionally, I'll introduce Commander Bob

18:33 ↗ Porter here from our police department. He and I have partners on this, so

18:39 ↗ he's here for questions later. But we've been talking about what if we get a

18:45 ↗ complaint of a co-op in a house? How enforceable is it for a planner or

18:51 ↗ perhaps the police department to show up and enforce this? And it sounds tough to

18:56 ↗ knock on a person's door and have access into the house legally to really enforce

19:02 ↗ that. So for all these reasons, we're really not in support of this this model

19:07 ↗ at this time talk louder talk louder talking to the mic okay so there's the

19:13 ↗ new amendments i guess my presentation is over here but i'll keep going i got

19:18 ↗ several slides to go so let's whip through this i was going to talk about

19:23 ↗ the background from 1998 till now i think we've covered a lot of it but

19:29 ↗ this commission back in i'll just say in 2011 did a lot of hard work,

19:34 ↗ had hearings like this to adopt the collective garden model and all those safety elements

19:40 ↗ and the zoning and permit process, you know, we had choices. Do we want to

19:45 ↗ prohibit? Do we want to do nothing and just let them happen wherever, such as

19:51 ↗ in residential areas or we, the city chose to take a middle of the road

19:57 ↗ and regulate. So that's collective garden in 2014. you know after 2012 adoption

20:02 ↗ of legalizing marijuana through initiative 502 the city adopted retail marijuana regulations that remain in

20:08 ↗ place and as an outshot of all that we have approved three collective gardens in

20:14 ↗ town and one retail marijuana store in town and i can show you on a

20:19 ↗ map in a bit if you're interested in where those are located So that's

20:25 ↗ a quick background. And then in 2015, the state says, oh, we've adopted,

20:31 ↗ we've merged medical and retail together. And cities, if you're regulating, you need

20:37 ↗ to eliminate the medical collective gardens by July 1st and then let the

20:42 ↗ state regulate medical and retail together through the state liquor cannabis board process.

20:48 ↗ There's some background. So... Moving on, so and here's a

20:54 ↗ map showing where under the retail marijuana regulations that are

21:00 ↗ in our code today, the colored areas on the map

21:05 ↗ are commercial zone areas that it's possible to locate a

21:10 ↗ retail marijuana store in today. And the one existing store,

21:16 ↗ if this mouse will work, is located right here on

21:21 ↗ Juniper Street. next to the RV park and at the base of the

21:27 ↗ gravel pit back behind the 76 gas station. That's there. There's a requirement there be

21:33 ↗ a thousand foot buffer separation between that and the nearest store. So that's what that

21:38 ↗ circuit represents. And then, as I mentioned, the state has allotted one additional store to

21:44 ↗ our city. And based on the rules we've adopted with the zoning and the 1,000

21:50 ↗ foot separation from the list up here in the corner, schools, rec centers, parks, playgrounds,

21:55 ↗ et cetera, this is our estimate of where that second store might locate in the

22:01 ↗ city. So I'm telling you all this, but we're actually not proposing to make any

22:06 ↗ changes to the rules that are shown here on this map. So

22:12 ↗ let's go into the actual code amendment package tonight. I've talked about

22:18 ↗ collective gardens. So to be consistent with the state, we're recommending to

22:24 ↗ delete the collective garden regulations, the permit process definitions, everything related to

22:30 ↗ collective gardens. And then to address the The marijuana cooperative that

22:36 ↗ I'm going to talk about, where we propose prohibiting that, we have to first, we

22:41 ↗ feel, define what that is in our code. And then we take the third step,

22:47 ↗ which is to show in our permitted land use tables that we propose to prohibit

22:53 ↗ co-ops by listing them in the permitted use tables in our code and then showing

22:58 ↗ them as not permitted in any zones in the city. So that's a quick summary.

23:05 ↗ of the code amendments. And then I'll talk briefly about these topics that have come

23:10 ↗ up in our discussion. And we've heard some feedback. The first one has to do

23:16 ↗ with the thousand foot buffers around retail stores. So in October, the Liquor Cannabis Board

23:22 ↗ gave cities the option to reduce some of those buffers to as little as 100

23:28 ↗ feet from a thousand feet. So we have a choice. We feel that We're

23:34 ↗ allotted now two stores, not one, that the buffers that you saw on the map

23:40 ↗ earlier are sufficient to give the market a chance to find that second store. And

23:46 ↗ so we're proposing no change to those buffers. I do have a couple of questions

23:52 ↗ related to that. And these relate to the current operating collectives. Do we know

23:58 ↗ what the barriers are, what the specific barriers are as to the two currently

24:03 ↗ existing collectives or even if they've applied? OK, I'm not aware if they've applied

24:09 ↗ to the state. They've not applied to the city for any city retail marijuana license.

24:14 ↗ I know that. OK. And I'm saying this because my anticipation would be that those

24:20 ↗ would probably be the two most likely candidates to file for retail. Do we know

24:25 ↗ what the barriers are in terms of those areas? I mean, I know 160 Gilman

24:31 ↗ that may be-- or 1730 Newport might be extremely close to the transit. it is

24:36 ↗ are there any other issues that would relate to those i think there's a

24:42 ↗ couple issues one is barriers or buffers is that i'll just talk about buffers

24:47 ↗ so on this retail map on the screen yeah yeah i'm asking specifically which

24:53 ↗ uh barriers would be at issue for those two addresses do we know um

24:58 ↗ i believe for the one on 160 gilman boulevard the Parks and possible

25:04 ↗ childcare centers in that area would be barriers to that one. And then out

25:10 ↗ on the west end of town at Newport Way, yes, the transit center, I

25:16 ↗ believe. I haven't actually studied what is the barrier, but I would guess that's

25:22 ↗ one. Has there been any issues in the community with either of those two

25:28 ↗ establishments? And that may be better directed to law enforcement. I have

25:34 ↗ not-- no. That answer your questions for right now? For

25:39 ↗ now, yes. OK. So back to other considerations. The third

25:45 ↗ item is should we consider some regulation of what people

25:50 ↗ do in their own homes with regard to marijuana? We've

25:56 ↗ chosen not to touch people's own residences, and we propose

26:01 ↗ to stay that way. The issue of home delivery or delivery to a place.

26:07 ↗ - Can you clarify that? Actually, I didn't know that there was no law covering

26:12 ↗ home growth. - Oh, for medical only. Okay, so you need to have a-- -

26:17 ↗ So yeah, our understanding is state law allows, you can have, for your own personal

26:22 ↗ use, if you have a qualifying patient card, you can have up to 15 plants

26:27 ↗ in your own home for yourself. - I knew that part, but it's still not

26:32 ↗ allowed for anybody else. - Right, right. And then should we regulate, prohibit, permit

26:38 ↗ deliveries, which seems like a growing trend in the state? It's not permitted by

26:43 ↗ state law, so we'd just like to rely on state law and not do

26:49 ↗ our own regulations. And likewise for smoking clubs, that sounds like another emerging trend.

26:55 ↗ They're not permitted by state law, and we would just like to rely on

27:01 ↗ state law for that. So that's the... summary of the marijuana code

27:06 ↗ amendments that we have for tonight. We have next steps. Should I run

27:12 ↗ through? You want to talk about next steps? Questions?

27:19 ↗ I've got a few questions. I was curious that eliminating this ability for patients in

27:24 ↗ our community to access a very vital need for them in their life. Can you

27:30 ↗ speak to that? What impacts has the city-- I mean, we talk about environmental impacts.

27:35 ↗ I'm sure you guys have done a health and services impact for our community regarding

27:41 ↗ this. With regard to eliminate the collective gardens? Yes. Right. Feeling is that so there's

27:46 ↗ a retail marijuana store in the city so if a person wants to acquire marijuana

27:52 ↗ there are still options available to do that and it's to go to the local

27:57 ↗ So is it the city's position that the products available are the same? There's a

28:03 ↗ reason that there is this legal definition and that doctors and legislators have actually created

28:09 ↗ this in our state's code. And if you look at the products available, for instance,

28:14 ↗ having different cannabinoids, low THC, more available for different ways of getting it other than

28:20 ↗ being smokable, things that are much more limited because of how recreation is created by

28:25 ↗ the Liquor Control Board. These are now no longer gonna be addressed in our community

28:30 ↗ for really vulnerable patients and I'm assuming that the city has done some sort of

28:36 ↗ study of that impact. Can you speak to what that impact will be by eliminating

28:41 ↗ this? - Well, I guess a couple comments would be that my understanding is that

28:46 ↗ the state license procedure for retail stores will allow with the merger as of July

28:51 ↗ 1st for the retail stores to, obtain a medical qualification endorsement to provide

28:57 ↗ medicinal marijuana. - Yeah, medically endorsed. I didn't see any language in

29:03 ↗ there about medically endorsed stores. - And that's where we are deferring

29:09 ↗ to the state license. And again, we're just working on the local

29:14 ↗ level. The state Liquor Cannabis Board is doing their work to merge

29:20 ↗ the medical and recreational markets together. And that's where we would see that

29:26 ↗ need being addressed. And yes, we understand it is a great need. And in the

29:31 ↗ public hearing process we heard for collective gardens, we heard testimony about that. And secondly,

29:37 ↗ I guess the personal home grows we talked about. A person can grow in their

29:42 ↗ own home for medicinal purposes. - Not all people who, though they have that qualification,

29:48 ↗ are able to necessarily grow their own. Sometimes they don't have that availability specifically because

29:53 ↗ of the medical impact that they're having in their life. So I don't really see

29:58 ↗ that as being a solution to the problem when you wanna specifically address that. So

30:04 ↗ it sounds like the city has come out with a stance, but you guys haven't

30:09 ↗ actually looked at who, how many residents in our community will be impacted? Well,

30:15 ↗ if I may make a comment, I mean, there was a comment about cannabinoids. My

30:20 ↗ understanding is the FDA recently came out and is now regulating cannabinoid use. Regarding the

30:25 ↗ medical collectives, it's my understanding that the reason we're not taking action as far as

30:31 ↗ the four-person cooperatives is that the state hasn't regulated them yet. And at this point,

30:36 ↗ it's too speculative to even determine what our regulations might be. And it would put

30:40 ↗ businesses in a-- or put those cooperatives in kind of a fugue state, not knowing

30:44 ↗ what to do. CHRIS JERRAM: I think our position-- we'd like to take a wait

30:49 ↗ and see attitude and see how do these rules play out at the state level.

30:53 ↗ And instead of us creating our own rules and kind of guessing what is the

30:59 ↗ outcome of that. And if that were to happen, it could expose the city to

31:04 ↗ litigation in terms of those regulations if they were in contrast with the state rules.

31:09 ↗ Those rules haven't been created yet. So we'd like to see, again, what the state

31:14 ↗ does first before we step out there and make our own rules.

31:20 ↗ I guess I'm concerned because right now it looks like you're just eliminating what is

31:24 ↗ a vital resource for people in our community. With this wait and see approach right

31:29 ↗ now, you're outright banning it. And I'm not sure why. I was under the impression

31:33 ↗ before I read these documents that we were going to be merging our codes. And

31:37 ↗ right now it looks like we're actually segregating them and we're creating an environment where

31:41 ↗ we can only have recreational in our community. Well, again, the

31:47 ↗ collective garden model has to go away by state law. Right, but by state law,

31:53 ↗ stores that have been around since before 2013 who apply for the 502 license, who

31:58 ↗ meet these requirements that are being set by the Liquor Control Board, are then able

32:04 ↗ to continue to operate on this collective model of four people, 60 plants, but we

32:10 ↗ aren't allowing that in our community. And I'm not seeing how we're going to be

32:15 ↗ not only servicing really vulnerable people in our community, but also in communities around us.

32:20 ↗ We are a gateway to Seattle. For some people, have to drive sometimes a few

32:25 ↗ hours to be able to even reach their medical access point to Issaquah. And now

32:30 ↗ we're creating a situation that kind of has these repercussions outside of our community as

32:34 ↗ well. Can you clarify, I'm sorry, do you want to respond

32:40 ↗ first? Let's go ahead. Could you clarify actually what, so the existing collective gardens

32:46 ↗ right now, could those be, do they have the right structure to be just

32:53 ↗ changed into the new format? Do those have to go away and new ones would

32:57 ↗ have to be put somewhere else with a difference? Yes. But it's not like the

33:02 ↗ same people, the same place can... That's my understanding, and now we're in the state

33:06 ↗ law area versus the local, but the collective gardens today are in commercial spaces. They're

33:11 ↗ not in the home of one of the four members, so just based on that...

33:16 ↗ They would have to go away. They would have to go away. Then you'd have

33:20 ↗ to move them up to... up or to someone's home. Yeah. And going back

33:26 ↗ to at least the collective that obviously we don't want marijuana establishments anywhere

33:32 ↗ near our children. Um, but in terms of the marijuana collective that is

33:37 ↗ towards the transit center, um, One of the things-- one of

33:43 ↗ my concerns is that if this place were to apply for a retail license, that

33:48 ↗ we're essentially taking a place that has had no problems and putting them in a

33:53 ↗ new location in a strip where there may only be one potential barrier to them

33:58 ↗ operating as a retail establishment if they meet all the other state and code requirements.

34:03 ↗ I guess I'd point out that location is out CHRIS RODGERS: Right approximately

34:09 ↗ here on Newport Way. And so under our current retail buffers, it could not operate.

34:14 ↗ CHRIS RODGERS: And that's what I'm saying is because we have the option to reduce

34:19 ↗ certain buffers, if there was a small buffer adjustment that could be made to the

34:24 ↗ transit center buffer that would allow that collective to easily transfer over to a retail

34:28 ↗ establishment and keep them on what it comes down to, separate sides of the city

34:33 ↗ so it's more spread out. That's my one concern with the recommendation

34:39 ↗ on no buffer adjustments. OK. That's why we're having a hearing. So we're here to

34:45 ↗ get input and go from there. So would they go away immediately and have to

34:51 ↗ go back and get-- the patients that come to these places that now have to

34:57 ↗ go away, is it like they close down tomorrow and they have no place to

35:03 ↗ go? Or is this going to be a process where they can continue on and

35:09 ↗ be serviced? Well, as of July 1, the state law

35:14 ↗ would say they have to shut down and go away. So

35:20 ↗ I don't have an easy answer of where they go. They'd

35:26 ↗ have to search other places for the medicinal product. It's true.

35:31 ↗ CHRISTIE WOOD: OK. Officer Porter, do you have any info for

35:37 ↗ us? I do. uh myself i'm so i'm bob porter i'm

35:43 ↗ a the support services commander for our police department nice to meet you

35:48 ↗ all um been working with dsd on this issue and as far as

35:54 ↗ the police perspective is that we we really need something that we can

36:00 ↗ if we show up somewhere and try to do enforcement or regulation i

36:06 ↗ need to have some guidelines on how to affect that regulation or

36:11 ↗ else I can't do my job very well. And so as Dave

36:17 ↗ mentioned, with the state Liquor and Cannabis Board not having any clear,

36:23 ↗ they don't have regulations on, they haven't begun the permit process yet.

36:29 ↗ They haven't begun issuing the enforcement or the regulation guidelines. And so

36:35 ↗ we don't feel that we are comfortable enacting guidelines that would be

36:41 ↗ consistent with anyone else because we generally follow the state's guidelines.

36:46 ↗ That's why they created the, they added the cannabis to the liquor

36:52 ↗ board so that they would have consistent guidelines for all of us,

36:58 ↗ the local municipalities to operate and be effective. So I'm not sure

37:03 ↗ as a police officer how I could regulate or go into someone's

37:09 ↗ home and make sure that they're counting, I'm counting the plants or

37:16 ↗ issuing a violation for too many plants when I don't have any direction from

37:22 ↗ the state yet. So that's why Dave and I both agree, the city agrees

37:27 ↗ that we should take a wait and see attitude and listen to what the

37:33 ↗ state says once they enact more regulation. I cannot go into someone's home without

37:39 ↗ consent or a search warrant or an exigency in circumstances such as a life

37:44 ↗ safety issue. So, if I was to monitor or regulate a marijuana, let me give

37:50 ↗ you an example, a co-op, whether they had 60 plants or not, if they had

37:56 ↗ 65 plants, I would have to get the consent of the homeowner to come inside.

38:01 ↗ And, you know, if they didn't give me consent, I would have to go and

38:06 ↗ write a search warrant for a medical marijuana issue, which I'm not getting

38:12 ↗ a lot of feeling from the King County Prosecutor's Office that they want to enforce

38:18 ↗ a lot of medical marijuana issues. We all realize it's a very, it's a necessary,

38:24 ↗ but it's a sensitive topic. And I'm not, I'm not, I don't have a firm

38:30 ↗ footing in law enforcement on where we stand on this. That's what I'm telling you

38:36 ↗ guys. So do you guys have any questions? I do. Officer Porter, do you

38:42 ↗ have or does the department have any opinions on buffer reductions as I explained as

38:48 ↗ they relate to maybe any of the existing establishments, the existing collectives should they seek

38:53 ↗ retail status? Whether the collectives should seek retail status, I don't have, we don't have

38:59 ↗ an opinion on that. That's, to me, that's a business decision that they have to

39:05 ↗ make. Um, our department and the city historically is as supported the

39:11 ↗ 1000 foot buffer and that's what I support. Do you have any,

39:16 ↗ um, anything to, to add in relation to, so if those were

39:22 ↗ adopted as the state proposed it, this would move some of those,

39:28 ↗ uh, operations in residential areas. Any concerns, anything you can

39:33 ↗ say about what, if any type of crime, anything has

39:39 ↗ been associated with those facilities? I don't have specific anecdotal

39:45 ↗ evidence for you guys on that. The city has historically

39:50 ↗ stayed away from any type of group or commercial operation

39:56 ↗ in a residential neighborhood. Right now, as Dave

40:01 ↗ mentioned, you are allowed to grow up to 15 plants

40:07 ↗ if you have a medical card in a residence. And

40:13 ↗ the city doesn't differ from the state on that. That's

40:18 ↗ state law. But historically, the city's position has been that

40:24 ↗ they wouldn't support any of these commercial type or larger

40:30 ↗ than one home or person being involved in this in

40:35 ↗ a neighborhood. Questions? Thank you. Thank you. Dave, do you have

40:41 ↗ anything else to-- Not at this time. I'm here for questions, though. Well, with that,

40:47 ↗ I'm going to open up the public hearing at-- Who wants to speak? Has anyone

40:53 ↗ signed up? 7:12. OK. Then maybe just come up to the podium and state your

40:59 ↗ name. You don't have to sign up. You don't have to sign. Just go right

41:05 ↗ up to-- just state your name and where you live. Hi, my

41:10 ↗ name is Clifford Garrett, Shoreline, Washington. I'm the general manager at

41:16 ↗ Issaquah Cannabis Company. It's located at 230 Northeast Juniper Street. And

41:21 ↗ I'm here today to advocate for a lower buffer between restricted

41:27 ↗ entities and new stores. You need to get closer to the

41:32 ↗ microphone. Speak up, please. Sorry about that. I'm here to advocate

41:38 ↗ lower buffers between restricted entities and potential new stores. And the reason

41:44 ↗ for that is that it would allow for a new store to

41:49 ↗ open up on the opposite side of Issaquah from where we're located,

41:55 ↗ which would allow for greater access for consumers and patients alike. As

42:01 ↗ a side note, we've applied for a medical endorsement

42:06 ↗ so effective July 1st 2016 the Liquor Control Board

42:12 ↗ will allow us to sell marijuana products to to

42:18 ↗ medical consumers that have they have cards obviously we

42:24 ↗ cannot we're recreational only at the present time the

42:30 ↗ I also, the final point I'll make is that I'm also advocating a

42:36 ↗ reduction in buffers between stores as well. You know, right now, theoretically, someone

42:41 ↗ could get a license and then move, or would not be able to

42:47 ↗ move next door to us. We do not see a problem with that

42:53 ↗ happening. So that's it. I do have some questions you were advocating for buffer reductions.

42:58 ↗ Did you have specific site locations in mind or specific buffers that you were looking

43:03 ↗ at? Um, I know this may require some talking about business plan, but you were

43:07 ↗ saying on the opposite end of the city. So I'd like to hear some specifics

43:12 ↗ with regard to that. Sure. Absolutely. So I have not done an analysis to see

43:17 ↗ how much area would open up if one were to reduce buffers between restricted entities

43:23 ↗ from 1,000 feet down to 500 or less. What I can say is that right

43:29 ↗ now, even though there's some red that's on the left-hand side of the map, effectively,

43:35 ↗ I guess the area that's just south of I-90 is one strip mall

43:40 ↗ and it's all owned by one property owner. So if that one property

43:46 ↗ owner decides that they don't want a marijuana business in their establishment, which

43:52 ↗ is probably the case, anyone with bank financing will not want any marijuana

43:57 ↗ establishment on their property, then essentially that's zoned out. There are

44:03 ↗ also other areas that are occupied by large strip malls and

44:09 ↗ it's virtually impossible for a marijuana business to locate there because

44:14 ↗ generally they're getting financing from federally regulated banks.

44:20 ↗ So to speak to your your comment

44:26 ↗ earlier about about Restricted entities being close

44:31 ↗ to existing existing medical. I know that there's one,

44:37 ↗ one of the establishments is something somewhere in the vicinity

44:43 ↗ of 500 feet from a daycare. And so I know

44:49 ↗ that 500 feet would open more area. I don't know

44:54 ↗ exactly how much. Do you recall which establishment that was?

45:00 ↗ I don't recall the name. It's roughly. So you're, excuse

45:06 ↗ me. You're a retail establishment. Yes. That is seeking

45:12 ↗ more competition. Is that right? Yes. Why? Well, so there

45:18 ↗ are two issues at play. Back in back in October when

45:23 ↗ the Liquor Control Board decided that they were going to issue additional licenses.

45:29 ↗ Originally, they did not put a cap on new retail license issuances, and

45:34 ↗ there are a host of problems associated with that. Number one, our break-even

45:40 ↗ under current federal tax code is a very high sales number, and we

45:46 ↗ can speak offline as to what that is. And so essentially we wanted,

45:51 ↗ we want to limit the number of total establishments in the city, but

45:57 ↗ I don't think that it's a healthy market should there just be, you

46:03 ↗ know, just one establishment. Right now there are two that are allocated to

46:08 ↗ Issaquah. Based on our sales right now in Issaquah, I think Issaquah can

46:14 ↗ handle two and can, can both generate enough sales to be viable

46:20 ↗ businesses. Above two, then it becomes questionable. - So how many do

46:26 ↗ you believe Issaquah in that area should have or might have or

46:31 ↗ could have? - In the current zone area? - If you reduce

46:37 ↗ your buffers. Well, the Liquor and Cannabis Board has only allocated

46:43 ↗ two retail licenses to Issaquah right now. So given their rules, there can

46:48 ↗ only be a maximum of two. And under current zoning, it's questionable whether

46:54 ↗ two can ever be established in Issaquah. So would... Is there two

47:00 ↗ now? There's only one right now. Okay, okay. And then there are

47:05 ↗ two medical establishments that are currently operating, I believe, right, Dave? And

47:11 ↗ then in effect, come July 1st, 2016, those will disappear. I'm curious,

47:17 ↗ how does reducing the buffers increase the viability of another competitor? I

47:22 ↗ mean, I know what you're, you know, if you've got the, what

47:28 ↗ is it, 1,000 feet, and you take it to 200 or

47:33 ↗ whatever. Sure. You know, obviously that means somebody can come in closer,

47:39 ↗ but that's a pretty good-sized map. I mean, why would you want

47:45 ↗ to have one 200 feet from you versus a half mile? So

47:51 ↗ from a selfish standpoint, the best-case scenario for us is to either

47:57 ↗ have an establishment Right next door because people would be going to the

48:03 ↗ exacts going to the same place the same street and and there would be double

48:09 ↗ the number of advertising to the same the same area and conversely having establishments on

48:15 ↗ the opposite sides of the city would be best for us because Essentially, it's opening

48:20 ↗ up new market. It's taking it's taking market that would otherwise maybe go

48:26 ↗ to Bellevue or more likely probably just take advantage of an illegal delivery

48:32 ↗ service or just purchase product on the black market. Whereas if people have

48:38 ↗ access points that are close to them, then they're more likely to go

48:44 ↗ into a regulated system. That's reason for a thousand foot buffer, isn't it?

48:50 ↗ 1,000 foot buffer between stores or from restricted entities? I'm just thinking

48:56 ↗ in terms you said you had your store and then there was

49:02 ↗ another store on the other side of Issaquah that would be best

49:08 ↗ for you. Sure. So why push for a reduction in buffer when

49:14 ↗ you really would prefer to have larger distance between your stores?

49:20 ↗ because it would open up much more of the map to possible locations including some

49:26 ↗ viable areas where they could actually locate themselves there is no place over there that

49:31 ↗ allows it now with a thousand so if you go down to 500 that be

49:36 ↗ able to find hopefully a place to all right and that's the question i have

49:42 ↗ two quick questions is there a limit to what you could the amount that you

49:47 ↗ can sell absolutely so there are There are limits. So essentially there are

49:52 ↗ four different types of products that we sell. There's what's called usable marijuana. It's

49:58 ↗ just flour or bud. And we can sell up to one ounce of product

50:04 ↗ to a customer. And an ounce is, well, if you can think of flour

50:10 ↗ that's about this big, that would be one ounce of product. And for medical

50:16 ↗ consumers, that's Depending on their consumption rates, that's a small

50:22 ↗ amount. Whereas for your average recreational consumer, it's probably a lot. And

50:28 ↗ then we also have concentrates, kind of... vape cartridges and then

50:34 ↗ we all have edible products as well. I don't mean how much can you

50:39 ↗ sell to each individual, but as a store, are you regulated by the amount

50:45 ↗ in total that you can sell of your product? Nope, only regulated by transactions

50:51 ↗ and how much we're able to sell to an individual. And second question, what's

50:57 ↗ the, knowing how much I know about marijuana, What is

51:03 ↗ the difference between recreational and medical?

51:08 ↗ How are they different? Sure. It's

51:13 ↗ a difficult question. So generally speaking,

51:18 ↗ medical patients will gravitate towards what are called high

51:24 ↗ CBD strains and the and CBDs are the non psychoactive cannabinoids and

51:30 ↗ cannabis and so generally speaking it CBDs can help with with pain

51:35 ↗ anti-inflammation so on and so forth and However, if I were in our

51:41 ↗ store now, I could not make those claims because it's illegal for

51:47 ↗ us to do so. That being said, we still sell high CBD

51:53 ↗ products. The psychoactive ingredient in cannabis is called THC, and that's the

51:58 ↗ ingredient that gives people kind of a euphoric effect, and it's why

52:04 ↗ most people purchase cannabis. I guess one could think of a high CBD strain

52:10 ↗ as non-alcoholic beer, for example. And so I guess to put it in perspective, we

52:16 ↗ have roughly 100 different strains in the store, and I would say I think we

52:21 ↗ have roughly five or six that are high CBD strains. And

52:27 ↗ you would increase the amount that you have of those in order to support

52:33 ↗ the medical side of it? Right now, I think we probably have more high

52:39 ↗ CBD strains than any store that I can think of in King County. And

52:45 ↗ so we have all of the most popular ones, and I think that even

52:51 ↗ were we to come july 1st and we have a medical endorsement we likely

52:57 ↗ will not have a larger variety of high cbd strains but we would probably sell

53:02 ↗ higher volume no we should have enough i'm assuming that once you combine the medical

53:08 ↗ and the recreation facilities, you're going to have more patients coming in. So

53:14 ↗ you're going to have enough to support them. Just going back to Joy's

53:20 ↗ question of access, basically, for medical marijuana. Sure, absolutely. Yep. And right now,

53:26 ↗ any consumer with a valid ID who's 21 or older can come in

53:32 ↗ and purchase any strain that they like. Sorry, I don't

53:37 ↗ know if that answers your question. That answers my question. Thank you. Is there

53:43 ↗ a difference in price between medical and -- or will there be a difference

53:49 ↗ in price between medical and recreational? Is that what the card would allow to

53:55 ↗ buy at a different price? Yes. It's my understanding that medical patients will have

54:00 ↗ an exemption from sales tax.

54:06 ↗ Thank you. Thank you. Would anybody else like to speak,

54:12 ↗ state your name and where you live? Absolutely. My name

54:17 ↗ is Mitch Setlow. And where do I live, you want

54:23 ↗ to know? I live in Sammamish, but I've been a

54:28 ↗ business owner for 20 odd years in Issaquah. And recently

54:34 ↗ I also own some commercial real estate. I come to this meeting

54:40 ↗ completely without an agenda, but I've been listening to all the different... It's a very

54:45 ↗ confusing subject that you could just see by the panel themselves and a lot of

54:50 ↗ different agendas. Although I have long hair, I know more about furniture than I know

54:55 ↗ about the pot. But I've been reading about it recently, and I've been getting calls

55:00 ↗ from anonymous calls if I would lease one of my locations. And then I started

55:05 ↗ going through the LCB regs. It's very confusing. But I guess as

55:11 ↗ a citizen and somebody who survived the 60s, a father

55:16 ↗ to an ex-vet who can find relief through, I think

55:22 ↗ Joy addressed a very important subject, which might not be,

55:28 ↗ it's kind of what leads this discussion is, you know,

55:35 ↗ Where do is it the city stands? I mean Justin Justin made a comment.

55:40 ↗ Well, of course, we don't want to be within a thousand feet of a

55:46 ↗ school Well, if that's the city's consensus, it's almost like this is typhoid So

55:52 ↗ we have this inherent contradiction with the 502 regulations there's an a generation my

55:58 ↗ generation and probably young generation that the train has left the station and

56:04 ↗ whether it's Alaska, Oregon, soon to be New York, California, and I'm not here lobbying

56:08 ↗ for the legalization, but the train has left. There's certain issues that you don't, you

56:13 ↗ just have to be there. I had a conversation which is completely convoluted from this,

56:17 ↗ but about LBJ. LBJ was a racist, but he knew it was time to pass

56:22 ↗ the Civil Rights Act. So I think whether it's on a municipal level or on

56:27 ↗ the state level, ultimately, We are behind the rest of the world. I have friends

56:32 ↗ in Israel. I used to work. Israel's on the cutting edge of coming up with

56:37 ↗ the cannabinoids and solutions to seizures, epilepsy. We are in the dark age of the

56:42 ↗ United States and dealing with the good part of marijuana. But I, as a business

56:47 ↗ owner, am so conflicted, I mean, Up on the, I mean there's McDonald's and Kentucky

56:53 ↗ Fried Chicken serving white sugar and poison and death in front of the schools. My

56:58 ↗ fellow business owner at Costco is the largest purveyor of alcohol and I can't speak

57:03 ↗ for the police department, but I think there's probably more issues of domestic violence vis-a-vis

57:08 ↗ alcohol than people getting high for marijuana. So at some point it'll be a general

57:13 ↗ consensus that this will smoking pot, smoking cigarettes, smoking, it's just something at some

57:19 ↗ point hopefully you do it in moderation and you do an adult decision and we

57:25 ↗ don't spend money putting people in jails or police who are conflicted with this as

57:30 ↗ well from the officer's statement. But is it the city, and I'm asking this as

57:36 ↗ a question because I've really just kind of weighed in on this, but aside from

57:42 ↗ the 502, the LCB's regulations, Has the city already passed judgment that this

57:48 ↗ isn't a bad thing and we need to isolate it? You know, I used

57:54 ↗ to own a piece of property. I used to own that little house across

58:00 ↗ from your establishment. And as a retailer, as an entrepreneur, as a free market

58:06 ↗ guy, it's not the greatest location, okay? So it's sort of like politically, socially,

58:11 ↗ religiously, we have a lot of conflict on this issue. But so far, the

58:17 ↗ city of Issaquah, I've met with the economic development gals very good, and they want

58:23 ↗ to bring in sports medicine and bring more traffic. One of the best draws of

58:28 ↗ traffic for the city of Issaquah is your place. I went to get my boat

58:33 ↗ fixed, the cars were lined up. I should have kept my house years ago there.

58:38 ↗ Instead, I have to schlock furniture all day. But I myself am tired of hearing

58:44 ↗ this archaic attitude that pot is bad. And I don't know if Justin speaks for

58:50 ↗ the rest of the people who are the city of Issaquah as a posture. I

58:55 ↗ think it's time we grew up, looked at anecdotal, medical, and the actual statistics that

59:01 ↗ how many people, and I don't know if I can ask, can I ask a

59:06 ↗ question here? Am I allowed to do that to the officer? I mean, how many,

59:12 ↗ my house was broken into on the plateau by crackheads. So, I live in

59:18 ↗ paranoia on seven acres on the plateau that I have people addicted to drugs coming

59:23 ↗ into my house, causing violence and possible violence on my child. But I don't have

59:29 ↗ that fear with marijuana. I'm just saying as a citizen, a business owner, we should

59:35 ↗ probably at some point reach that level of maturity that this is not cancer. This

59:41 ↗ is not crack. We can have hours conversation of what creates

59:47 ↗ an addictive personality. I'm not happy that I see our children with pre-childhood

59:52 ↗ diabetes as they come out of Skyline High School and go to the

59:58 ↗ Kentucky Fried Chicken. And I'm sure that's less than a thousand feet. So

1:00:04 ↗ I'm personally think the whole concept that if this is a legal commodity,

1:00:10 ↗ and as a society we're saying this is not something that's

1:00:16 ↗ necessarily going to hurt us that we have to look at it. Is there any

1:00:21 ↗ regulation about how close a liquor store can be to a high school? I mean

1:00:27 ↗ QFC? I mean, there's no, I don't think there's any regulation on a supermarket which

1:00:33 ↗ sells booze. I'm just saying, and I'm not trying to be emotional about this, I

1:00:39 ↗ think we have to take a overview of risk-benefit analysis and I realize now

1:00:45 ↗ we're sort of, it's an embryonic stage. I remember almost 40 years ago, my roommate

1:00:51 ↗ at the time and my friend who was Speaker of the House, they passed the

1:00:56 ↗ legalization of marijuana, a possession in Alaska. You're allowed to hold some pot. I think

1:01:01 ↗ the police have better things to do than worry about if somebody's growing some pot

1:01:07 ↗ in their house. I think we as a society and we as a city, a

1:01:12 ↗ growing city, should take a hard look at maybe allowing our retail establishments, and no

1:01:18 ↗ comment than yours, to be in places that have a little bit of, that aren't

1:01:23 ↗ like Typhoid Mary, down in the back alleys or in places that normally retailers. And

1:01:28 ↗ of course that's the free market. As a property owner of a large building, I

1:01:33 ↗ have my own issues whether I would lease to a pot store, but I have

1:01:39 ↗ to tell you, I've read your numbers. There's big profits and I'm not 100%

1:01:44 ↗ sure why you want other stores. You might have your own agenda. But I know

1:01:50 ↗ I don't want 50 furniture stores around me, but whatever the market bears. So I

1:01:56 ↗ think as a collective here, not as a collective garden, that we should down the

1:02:02 ↗ road be more open-minded about the issue. that this is a complete contradiction. If the

1:02:08 ↗ administration should change, things could change, but it looks like it will be downgraded at

1:02:13 ↗ some point from substance one. And at some point, it won't take so much of

1:02:18 ↗ our effort. And the free market system will allow how many stores will exist. If

1:02:23 ↗ the city's taken a posture that this is a bad thing, and we have to

1:02:28 ↗ keep it as far away from our children, as far as I know, you have

1:02:33 ↗ to be 21 to go into your store. You can't smoke pot outside your store.

1:02:38 ↗ So I'm not quite sure how that relates to our children. Our children, I mean,

1:02:43 ↗ we all grew up, you asked your friend to go buy booze for you, you

1:02:48 ↗ know, put it in a bag. I think we're just over, this is over dramatized.

1:02:53 ↗ And I think at some point we should take a more progressive view as a

1:02:59 ↗ city and as a businessman. I mean, I'd rather see some very hip pot stores

1:03:04 ↗ eventually, I mean, the medical marijuana is a big industry now. It's gonna start

1:03:09 ↗ up in Alaska, it's downtown Seattle. Are more people smoking pot because there's a medical

1:03:15 ↗ marijuana store? Absolutely not. I know legislators, lawyers, policemen, I don't have to name any

1:03:21 ↗ names, that smoke pot and probably 75% of the people over, and kids from 18

1:03:26 ↗ and up. So we just have to get a grip. And I guess at the

1:03:31 ↗ end of the day, I just think we should take a different approach and keep

1:03:35 ↗ in mind there is a population that Joy brought up of people that really need

1:03:40 ↗ this. And instead of getting, I had a guy come into my showroom and he

1:03:44 ↗ had a bag. He was blown up in Mosul. We sent this kid into harm's

1:03:50 ↗ way for nothing. The VA administration's got him loaded on oxycodone. The kid's an addict.

1:03:55 ↗ His mother looked at me and said, "My son survived an IED." He came back

1:04:00 ↗ and he survived. He's come back to America and the VA's made an addict out

1:04:05 ↗ of him. His only relief is the medical marijuana dispensary. Who am I? If I

1:04:10 ↗ send the kids off to harm's way, I'll be damned if I'm going to say,

1:04:16 ↗ I want to take away his access. So when the LCB, what is it like

1:04:22 ↗ 37% the tax? So that's a step in the right direction, the LCB. As a

1:04:28 ↗ city, I think we should think about, look, the cup is half full. Marijuana is

1:04:34 ↗ here to stay. It should be regulated like alcohol. or cigarettes, but this notion that

1:04:40 ↗ it's a pariah has to be a thousand feet away. My daughter, if she was

1:04:45 ↗ going to smoke pot, was not going to make a decision by how close a

1:04:51 ↗ retail store would be. And I guess that's all I have to say. Thank you.

1:04:56 ↗ Thank you. I appreciate your comments. I also like your commercials. Thank you, Jim. I

1:05:02 ↗ had to get on the same. Is there anybody else would like to speak this

1:05:07 ↗ evening?

1:05:16 ↗ So I'm Connie Marsh. I have a store at 1175 Northwest Gilman Boulevard,

1:05:21 ↗ which is actually in the pink here. And I live on Squawk Mountain,

1:05:27 ↗ too. I regularly have people come in and ask who my landlord is

1:05:32 ↗ so they can see if they can have a pot store in my

1:05:38 ↗ shopping center. I will note that Rowley and two other independent owners own

1:05:44 ↗ those stores on Mall Street, so it's not just one large

1:05:50 ↗ landowner controlling those leases. But I don't care about pot, so

1:05:55 ↗ I just wanted accuracy. I want to talk about two things,

1:06:01 ↗ and one of those is the Sound Transit Zones. I looked

1:06:06 ↗ at where the Sound Transit Zones would likely impact, and single

1:06:12 ↗ family housing, which would be the Old Town neighborhood

1:06:18 ↗ that Third Avenue Bridge, FAME, Birch, Alder, one of our historic neighborhoods, right? That would

1:06:23 ↗ be one of those places that this change of zoning would de facto say that

1:06:29 ↗ yes, you could put sound transit facilities in that neighborhood. think we have to have

1:06:35 ↗ discussions about what we need to protect in our town to preserve our identity as

1:06:40 ↗ compared to what we want to lose in the name of transportation improvements because no

1:06:45 ↗ matter how good our transit is if we lose our soul we've lost a lot

1:06:51 ↗ in our town so i don't want any of the single family housing included in

1:06:56 ↗ the accepted zoning for Sound Transit. You will note that all of

1:07:02 ↗ the community facilities zones are in that zoning change and that includes Conservancy

1:07:08 ↗ and all of these things, our parks. I say community facilities facilities which

1:07:13 ↗ is zoned for large things like city halls and banquet facilities should be

1:07:19 ↗ the only allowed zone for the Sound Transit. Now say on transit, they're big. They

1:07:25 ↗ don't want hassles. They want it to be easy. They want to be able to

1:07:30 ↗ walk in and they say, well, it's already zoned for that. And when it's already

1:07:35 ↗ zoned for something, it's way hard to say, yeah, but we don't really want it

1:07:40 ↗ there. Better that we should restrict some of the zoning and then be able to

1:07:44 ↗ be convinced that it is imperative that it be in that zone and maybe have

1:07:49 ↗ a little give and take at that point in time. Bellevue got a lot

1:07:55 ↗ of say. Sound Transit, not terribly happy with how hard it was to get their

1:08:00 ↗ transit light rail located in Bellevue, so you can see why they would want it

1:08:06 ↗ that way, but it's our town, and we should have say. We give a lot

1:08:11 ↗ to WSDOT, 900 and I-90, adding another large gorilla in the room and giving it

1:08:17 ↗ all to them in advance is unwise. So, moving on to bikes. Now these

1:08:23 ↗ little temporary bike structures, I don't know what that means. I don't

1:08:28 ↗ know if people will park. I don't know what temporary is. And

1:08:34 ↗ so I am unwilling to say that they should be in all

1:08:40 ↗ zones until I actually understand the implications. Somebody could have one of

1:08:45 ↗ these in their front yard. and then you would have bikes in your

1:08:51 ↗ neighborhood. Is that what that means when it's in a single family housing zone? So

1:08:57 ↗ maybe you can ask enough questions that you would understand what that entails. It's also

1:09:02 ↗ a level zero review, which I went through the code. Level zero review doesn't seem

1:09:08 ↗ to indicate that there's any notification of neighbors. So if indeed it's allowed in all

1:09:13 ↗ zones, which means it could be in your neighbor's yard, because I don't understand,

1:09:19 ↗ then you would never know until it showed up one day. Really? I don't know.

1:09:24 ↗ So, and the last thing, it seems like the most likely place for these would

1:09:30 ↗ be in public right of way because there's quite a bit of public right of

1:09:35 ↗ way in the city, but our public right of way isn't zoned in this way.

1:09:40 ↗ It's a different thing. So I would like to understand whether these would be allowed

1:09:45 ↗ in the public right of way or encouraged as

1:09:51 ↗ a priority in the public

1:09:56 ↗ right of way before it

1:10:02 ↗ went someplace else. I support

1:10:08 ↗ what Connie just said and

1:10:14 ↗ I'd like to bring up

1:10:20 ↗ my program. And just to

1:10:25 ↗ point out, with the Gateway Project was zoned that area.

1:10:31 ↗ Can you introduce yourself? Okay, I'm sorry. I'm Mary Lynch. I reside at 2690

1:10:37 ↗ Northwest Oakcrest Drive, Issaquah, Washington. And I also served on the Central Area Citizens

1:10:43 ↗ Task Force planning. and kind of got worn out, so stepped away, didn't follow all

1:10:48 ↗ the process through when some of the zoning and standards were put in. But what

1:10:53 ↗ happened was there was a blanket statement that all the central area plan would have

1:10:58 ↗ zero lot lines and all the same standards because it was easier to do. Well,

1:11:04 ↗ what you've created now is around Sammamish Point, which is 132 homes, residential homes.

1:11:10 ↗ They now are threatened by a new Newport Way that's gonna encroach and take

1:11:16 ↗ part of their property. They now have a multimodal trail from the Gateway

1:11:21 ↗ Apartments, zero lot line, and a City Park, zero lot line, that's yet to be

1:11:27 ↗ funded, but they've got the land. Now with the river project, zero lot line, another

1:11:33 ↗ proposed multimodal trail, and another road that's going over an abandoned creek bed that's happened,

1:11:39 ↗ again without real notification that we knew that that creek was being abandoned. So by

1:11:45 ↗ making these sweeping things it's easier you need to consider what it might do

1:11:51 ↗ to existing citizens. And a lot of those property owners in those 132 are still

1:11:56 ↗ trying to recover from the economy and their under on their loans because of the

1:12:01 ↗ economy. They're unemployed and now they have to think about because they're being squeezed in

1:12:07 ↗ by this development, the central area plan, because they're going to have to go also

1:12:12 ↗ through four to five years of construction around them, what do they do? Because their

1:12:17 ↗ property values during those four to five years are probably going to go down versus

1:12:22 ↗ up. Long term they may go up, but it's going to be hard for them

1:12:26 ↗ to sell. So when you do blanket types of things, think about what it's going

1:12:31 ↗ to do. I support light rail, but I think we need to decide where it's

1:12:35 ↗ going to be and have some control on the decisions. And just because it's easier

1:12:40 ↗ doesn't always mean it's best. So what I'd like to do is share you something

1:12:44 ↗ that I gave to the development presented, and just to show you some missed opportunities.

1:12:56 ↗ That being said, when I was looking through then the

1:13:02 ↗ next portion I ran across some of the significant spaces

1:13:08 ↗ that we're looking at amending to put in the map.

1:13:14 ↗ And one of the things I presented to the Development Commission last week were missed

1:13:19 ↗ opportunities. And I think we really need to look at the language that we're redoing

1:13:25 ↗ the central area plan and changing our ideas. Much like marijuana, if you're gonna densify

1:13:30 ↗ an area, we're not gonna have the land. So when you're looking at opportunities, look

1:13:36 ↗ at the rooftops for open spaces, for parks, for community spaces. This wasn't done with

1:13:41 ↗ Gateway. And to prove that,

1:13:47 ↗ Just as a comment on those roofs, when we were discussing the

1:13:53 ↗ central area plan, that was one of the things that we assumed

1:13:58 ↗ and encouraged to be on those roofs. Assumed and encouraged, but it's

1:14:04 ↗ not in the language. There's nothing in the open space that says,

1:14:10 ↗ It's all assuming it's on ground level. Nothing is written in that says it could

1:14:15 ↗ be accessible or community space. And over here with State Farm and Tom Sessions, we

1:14:19 ↗ have a nice community space that he's built up there. And I don't have many

1:14:24 ↗ of you visited, but we already have an example of that. But this is what

1:14:29 ↗ the city staff is giving as far as direction. So they haven't heard any of

1:14:34 ↗ what's been assumed out of that task force. And so we get what we get.

1:14:41 ↗ Just other examples. The other thing, if the city council met with the schools, they're

1:14:47 ↗ talking, they don't have land for all these new schools. We ought to be encouraging

1:14:53 ↗ and looking where we're going to put in the central area plant, maybe an urban

1:14:59 ↗ school that might have the playground and the soccer fields on top of it. Here's

1:15:05 ↗ an existing building. It was built in 2009, School of Art. So it's going to

1:15:11 ↗ have different looks. So, that being said, getting on to this

1:15:17 ↗ part, as far as the non-motorized multimodal trails, during the Development Commission, it's been

1:15:23 ↗ asked several times, and we've been asking as citizens, and so you've got kind

1:15:28 ↗ of a conceptual, is the map, but it doesn't really show where they are

1:15:34 ↗ now. where they're going and there's also lacking where the connections and there's still some

1:15:40 ↗ big voids and how do we get over 900 and I don't see any on

1:15:45 ↗ the map that was shown today that would there are any multimodal dash lines across

1:15:51 ↗ S 900. So we need to know what's happening and I would like to see

1:15:56 ↗ a map that shows the what's there now, what's been permitted, what's proposed, what's

1:16:02 ↗ funded, and where we're going with this. And right now we have with

1:16:07 ↗ Gateway, we do, and rather we have multimodal trails that are through wetlands.

1:16:13 ↗ So I'd also like to see in the policy and some of the

1:16:19 ↗ standards is Do all of our multi-modal trails have to be in wetlands so

1:16:25 ↗ that the developer gets to build everything out and then get credit for putting a

1:16:30 ↗ multi-modal trail in because they're putting it through a wetlands? And we're not going to

1:16:35 ↗ have any green space left in the central area plan or in the downtown floor

1:16:41 ↗ if we continue doing what we're doing. let alone where the wildlife is going to

1:16:47 ↗ go. And one of our developers has already said that we can relocate the wildlife

1:16:52 ↗ someplace else. They don't belong here anymore. I also don't see any design standards for

1:16:58 ↗ these new trails. How is the city going to maintain these trails? Where are the

1:17:04 ↗ maintenance funds going to come from? And who's going to fund and complete the missing

1:17:10 ↗ links? So that's the main thing that I

1:17:15 ↗ have and I would just like to say when you're going forward and looking and

1:17:20 ↗ with these proposals is look at the whole inclusive. Just don't say you want them

1:17:25 ↗ but make sure you put the steps in there and the policies that the follow

1:17:30 ↗ through is given and that we have complete moto-moto trails. Thank you. I'd like to

1:17:34 ↗ take back what I just said about we assumed that they would be in there.

1:17:40 ↗ The way the central area was presented to us was this is the general

1:17:45 ↗ idea and then approve it and then we're going to come back and put

1:17:51 ↗ all these wonderful little requirements in which we're getting piecemeal at the present time

1:17:57 ↗ i mean i agree with both you and connie i mean these are things that

1:18:02 ↗ the trains left the station i understand i understand that and um you know i'm

1:18:07 ↗ not sure why that isn't being done but there you should have had a continuation

1:18:12 ↗ of the of the um group the central area group to to continue on and

1:18:17 ↗ plan what was actually going to go in there We as

1:18:23 ↗ a group had asked for models of what to get a real idea of

1:18:28 ↗ what it was going to look like. Was there enough room? How are we

1:18:34 ↗ going to do this? That wasn't done either. So I think the money spent

1:18:40 ↗ for something like that would have been well worthwhile to see if it works.

1:18:45 ↗ But I do want to comment. There was a letter that came in from

1:18:51 ↗ Mr. Kapler about don't take away the parks. With

1:18:57 ↗ that one designation of having to put light

1:19:02 ↗ rail in everything, what you're doing is doing

1:19:07 ↗ exactly what he said. Basically, I would like

1:19:13 ↗ to see a real-- idea, one area that everybody sort

1:19:19 ↗ of agrees it could change in 20 years, but right now what that that link

1:19:24 ↗ where it's going to go and then eliminate the parks from the designation so that

1:19:30 ↗ they stay parks. I mean, that's what I would like to see, but I don't

1:19:36 ↗ know how that's going to work. I don't want to see 14-story building

1:19:41 ↗ put on the right of way that is the best way

1:19:47 ↗ to do light rail. So I think we need to look

1:19:53 ↗ into the future more than we are right now. Does anybody

1:19:59 ↗ else would like to speak? No? If there's nobody else that

1:20:04 ↗ would like to speak, I'm going to close the meeting-- not

1:20:10 ↗ the meeting, the public hearing at 7:50 and open it up

1:20:16 ↗ for any discussion for the panel. I said enough. Would

1:20:21 ↗ somebody else like to say something? CHRIS JERRAM: Yeah, I do

1:20:27 ↗ have one specific amendment recommendation. That would be to IMC 1807512,

1:20:33 ↗ the current buffers. As it stands, I would recommend that we

1:20:39 ↗ amend 1807512 to reduce the transit buffer to 500 feet.

1:20:45 ↗ I feel this would open up some retail space on the opposite

1:20:51 ↗ side of town, not concentrate the marijuana establishments essentially to the I-90

1:20:57 ↗ corridor or to North Issaquah. I also feel this would provide greater

1:21:03 ↗ access to patients if we do have a retail establishment with a

1:21:09 ↗ medical endorsement on the south side of town. It currently seems that

1:21:15 ↗ the only-- and there may be other barriers because we don't

1:21:21 ↗ have information on that, would be the transit center currently and reducing that

1:21:26 ↗ to 500 feet would allow some space in that area and potentially allow

1:21:32 ↗ one of the current collectives to seek a retail license and or someone

1:21:38 ↗ with a retail license to work with them to become a retail establishment

1:21:44 ↗ with medical endorsement. I would support the reduction of the

1:21:49 ↗ buffer as well. It's something I kind of argued for last time we

1:21:55 ↗ discussed this. I personally do not see any reason for that big of

1:22:01 ↗ a buffer, not just for transit but for anything else, for the reasons

1:22:07 ↗ that were eloquently discussed earlier. child care. I don't imagine toddlers

1:22:12 ↗ walking out of their child care center to go to the marijuana store

1:22:18 ↗ and purchase something or whatever it is. I tend to agree that if

1:22:24 ↗ we are allowing liquor stores close to and selling cigarettes close to

1:22:30 ↗ schools that we shouldn't have this being that difference. I would be

1:22:36 ↗ fine with going halfway and 500 feet as kind of a half

1:22:42 ↗ step, but I do not personally see the reason for such a

1:22:48 ↗ large buffer. So since that's a council decision. Right, well you can

1:22:54 ↗ make a recommendation to change what's proposed. Is 500

1:23:00 ↗ feet enough? I mean, it would be nice to see a map, kind of what

1:23:05 ↗ opens up, if it would-- 100, 200, 500, 1,000. We did see maps last time,

1:23:09 ↗ and it was opening a lot. Right, and we happen to have a 500 map

1:23:13 ↗ because that's the one that exists now for collectives. And so we just happen to

1:23:18 ↗ bring that in our back pocket. I thought this might come up tonight.

1:23:26 ↗ and while dave's finding that just so you know we do have standards for multi-use

1:23:31 ↗ trails for how wide and the surface and that kind of thing we also talk

1:23:36 ↗ about parks on top of buildings and how they would look they're encouraged because we

1:23:41 ↗ can't force them to use their open space that way and so as the markets

1:23:46 ↗ evolve and we've had some projects come in we're learning how better to maybe incentivize

1:23:50 ↗ or to make them seem to be more um more of a way that an

1:23:56 ↗ applicant can give us their open space through rooftops or through other mechanisms. And that's

1:24:00 ↗ why we're starting to bring you amendments because we're learning as the applicants are learning,

1:24:05 ↗ we're learning the new code together to make it better. So those are some of

1:24:09 ↗ the ones that are coming forward this year. Did you find it? I'm going to

1:24:14 ↗ add one more thing. And I was going to add one more thing to that

1:24:19 ↗ regarding the non-motorized maps. The non-motorized map does show the existing routes and it shows

1:24:23 ↗ the proposed routes. It is a static, relatively static map because it is only allowed

1:24:28 ↗ to be amended once a year. So once changes are made and once something is

1:24:32 ↗ actually constructed, then we can put it on the map as an existing route and

1:24:37 ↗ change from proposed to existing. But for that reason, we cannot put on what might

1:24:41 ↗ be permitted. But they are going, staff is planning on going to D.C. with a

1:24:45 ↗ presentation regarding that. Right. And once they get on the TIP, meaning they're funded, then

1:24:49 ↗ they would go on the map as well. But again, as Kristen said, we're only

1:24:53 ↗ allowed to change that one once a year with the comp plan. I think we're

1:24:57 ↗ all on the same page and it's actually being worked on. Maybe we don't know

1:25:01 ↗ everything that's happening. How about that? We're just trying to educate everybody. Okay. I have

1:25:07 ↗ one question. It came up that the bike racks, exactly how big are they?

1:25:13 ↗ I mean, the ones I've seen are not that obnoxious. Connie brought up a

1:25:19 ↗ really good point, too. I should have mentioned it in the first place. But

1:25:24 ↗ most of these do go in the right-of-way. because that's the easiest place to put

1:25:30 ↗ them. You take up on street parking. You take up one space or maybe two

1:25:34 ↗ spaces of on street parking. And the stations themselves are not very tall. It's large

1:25:38 ↗ enough to put like a credit card or some kind of gift card kind of

1:25:42 ↗ thing in. And then there might be a helmet box next to that. So they

1:25:46 ↗ are not large stations. The reason for including them in the zones is maybe you

1:25:50 ↗ want to go put it at close to a trailhead or maybe you want to

1:25:55 ↗ put it on a site that seems to need it but it's not there at,

1:25:59 ↗ you know, BMC or Staples or something that's close to the right-of-way but not enough

1:26:04 ↗ room in the right-of-way or at the transit center. That's not public right-of-way. So you'd

1:26:08 ↗ need to allow a permitted use there in order for people to do it. If

1:26:13 ↗ you did go on to a more private property such as a BMC or something

1:26:16 ↗ like that, you would do a memorandum of understanding or some sort of shared agreement

1:26:20 ↗ between the two on how long that would be there and any conditions that would

1:26:24 ↗ be associated with it. Does that help? - I suggest that we discuss one amendment

1:26:28 ↗ at a time. I have comments on all three of them. I don't know when

1:26:32 ↗ to. - I was just using time while Dave was finding the map. I just

1:26:36 ↗ thought I would quick throw stuff in, but yes, we'll focus back on this one.

1:26:40 ↗ in order whichever so yeah you're back on all

1:26:45 ↗ right okay your mission is over all right so

1:26:51 ↗ yeah this is here's the collective garden buffer map

1:26:56 ↗ this is this is in this 2013 so take it

1:27:02 ↗ with a little grain of salt but this was our estimate of what we knew

1:27:07 ↗ if the land uses back then just pick up please I'm sorry yeah this was

1:27:13 ↗ our estimate in 2013 of the various land uses with buffers up in the top

1:27:18 ↗ left corner and how that played out on the zoning map so that's my little

1:27:23 ↗ disclaimer that some new uses may have showed up lately but here's a snapshot of

1:27:28 ↗ what pretty much the collective buffer map looks like and the possibilities

1:27:34 ↗ which are the the properties in color there so and that's 500 feet

1:27:40 ↗ and that's 500 feet from another um marijuana place or there's not a

1:27:46 ↗ separation in that either yes it's a thousand feet from other collective gardens

1:27:52 ↗ it's not a thousand there's no separation from retail stores So

1:27:58 ↗ we used to have, until it closed, at the ground floor of the Iskall Cannabis

1:28:04 ↗ Company was a medical marijuana facility, collective garden, and upstairs is the cannabis company that

1:28:10 ↗ Cliff is talking about. The one downstairs, I understand, just closed for other reasons, not

1:28:16 ↗ because of the city. I can't read the zoning. Can you quickly go through at

1:28:22 ↗ least the purple, light and dark purple there? Sure. It's basically the commercial zones of

1:28:28 ↗ the city, so... help to point them out purple is village residential

1:28:33 ↗ this is village residential out of newport way that would not apply or under

1:28:39 ↗ yes that's within the 500 if you had a 500 foot buffer right you

1:28:45 ↗ could go there you would not be able to put a commercial

1:28:51 ↗ So under today's retail marijuana rules, no, you cannot put a store in that

1:28:57 ↗ area. But again, this is, I guess, information for you all. If you wanted

1:29:03 ↗ to reduce buffers, here's a potential example of some buffers if you reduce these

1:29:09 ↗ to 500 feet. That's what that could look like. You couldn't put a second

1:29:15 ↗ store there because it's residential? No, that is a commercial zone. Oh, I'm sorry.

1:29:20 ↗ I misunderstood what you said. Yeah. The term is village

1:29:26 ↗ residential, but it does. Mixed use. It allows commercial

1:29:32 ↗ uses as well. Yeah. So that's this area out

1:29:37 ↗ here. And then throughout central Issaquah is the urban

1:29:43 ↗ core zone. Mixed use is out along East Lake

1:29:48 ↗ Sammamish Parkway, Fred Meyer Home Depot area. Professional office

1:29:54 ↗ is a little blip up towards Sammamish and 229th.

1:30:00 ↗ It's like the remaining only zoned parcel of PO in the city,

1:30:06 ↗ just about. And then CBD, the Cultural Business District, is the zone

1:30:12 ↗ in Front Street, downtown Old Town. And this shows just spotty parcels

1:30:18 ↗ because there are many buffer uses that take away that availability. And

1:30:24 ↗ then finally, Intensive Commercial is over by the RV park where the

1:30:30 ↗ retail store is today, right here. So up here, the

1:30:35 ↗ current collective garden buffers talk about 1,000 feet from schools and community

1:30:41 ↗ centers, 500 feet from parks and daycares, and 1,000 feet from other

1:30:47 ↗ collectives, zero feet from retail stores. And I guess to address your

1:30:53 ↗ comment, I see transit center was not addressed back when we adopted

1:30:59 ↗ this in 2011. And that's why you see the 1730 doorway store

1:31:05 ↗ is possible there. So there's-- And that 1730,

1:31:11 ↗ that's-- since it's 1,000 foot from other gardens, that 1730 address,

1:31:17 ↗ if we reduced it to 500, would be half that circle,

1:31:22 ↗ half that radius? Yes, if you reduced-- yes, if you chose

1:31:28 ↗ to do that. What's the-- rationale for the transit center. So

1:31:34 ↗ you can drive to your store, but you cannot take the bus to

1:31:40 ↗ your store. Right. I don't understand it. I mean, it's-- Let me flip

1:31:46 ↗ back to the other one. There it is. CHRIS

1:31:52 ↗ RODGERS: You know, I guess I'd say the state adopted those. CHRIS RODGERS: Oh, is

1:31:56 ↗ it the state? Yeah, I blame the state. CHRIS RODGERS: OK. Yeah, so essentially, currently,

1:32:00 ↗ we'd be marrying the state, but we have the option to reduce those. CHRIS RODGERS:

1:32:04 ↗ We don't have to. OK. Down to 100, I believe, right? CHRIS RODGERS: I don't

1:32:08 ↗ even see the rationale for it. I would reduce it to 100 if that's the

1:32:12 ↗ minimum we can go. That is the minimum. CHRIS RODGERS: As far as transit only,

1:32:16 ↗ or? Yeah, just transit. I mean,

1:32:22 ↗ that would be-- I know you suggested 500, but I just don't even see the

1:32:27 ↗ rationale for it. Maybe I'm missing something. CHRIS RODGERS: Let me be clear about your

1:32:33 ↗ options, I guess. I think it was schools and playgrounds are the two that the

1:32:39 ↗ state said need to stay at 1,000 feet. All these others that you see listed

1:32:44 ↗ up here have the option of 100 to 1,000 feet. I know that at the

1:32:49 ↗ beginning of the presentation, staff said we're going to be looking at very different things.

1:32:55 ↗ But I'm finding it odd that we're looking at allowing, for instance, transit uses blanketly

1:33:00 ↗ across the board, and yet we're completely eliminating the use of medicinal in our community.

1:33:05 ↗ I'm not sure why we have this disparity going on, It's an odd thing that

1:33:10 ↗ they're being paired together. I don't know if I'm the only one seeing this merge,

1:33:14 ↗ but I really would like to have some language rather than just striking this all

1:33:19 ↗ out of our code. I realize that we're in this gray area right now in

1:33:23 ↗ our state. We're pioneering legislation, but we are actually changing things and just completely taking

1:33:28 ↗ it out of our code makes it so that it's much more harder for us

1:33:32 ↗ to come back and align with what the state is allowing and working very hard

1:33:37 ↗ to create these conditions for and these conditions are going to be existing. We know

1:33:41 ↗ that the state is going to be getting a limited number of licenses So these

1:33:45 ↗ new collective farms of four people and 60 plants have to be regulated closely. It's

1:33:50 ↗ my understanding that law enforcement isn't being asked to regulate it, that it's the state

1:33:55 ↗ will be regulating if people are having the correct number of plants. It's my understanding

1:34:00 ↗ that we're going to need to be having to permit these things, which means that

1:34:04 ↗ they're going to be a limited amount in our community. And by completely striking it

1:34:09 ↗ from our code, we're creating a... What I see is a really problematic situation for

1:34:14 ↗ people who are very vulnerable in our community and are not able to access things

1:34:19 ↗ that are necessary in their life. I'm really unhappy with the fact that we don't

1:34:24 ↗ have any kind of language to even state, hey, in the future, right now, as

1:34:29 ↗ of July 1st, this current concept of collective gardens will be going away, but we

1:34:34 ↗ make room in our community for it. Yet we have language saying blankly, if wind

1:34:39 ↗ sound transit wants to come, we want them to come. I'm seeing this odd thing

1:34:45 ↗ where I don't see what would be so hard about the staff writing language to

1:34:51 ↗ allow for these changing conditions that are happening in Olympia to better reflect our community.

1:34:56 ↗ Is it possible to have a... So I know we need to strike all

1:35:02 ↗ the language regarding the collective garden since that's no longer allowed, but we do

1:35:08 ↗ not have to forbid the use as one of the-- I forget what section

1:35:13 ↗ we had. CO-OPs. The CO-OPs. Right. You have that option, yes. We could choose

1:35:19 ↗ to-- the city could choose to be silent. And if we are silent, what does--

1:35:25 ↗ Just let the state adopt rules and see what happens? And then make a decision

1:35:29 ↗ about-- Right. And I don't think we're trying to get rid of medical. I mean,

1:35:33 ↗ we're following along with the state mandate that we can't have collective gardens. But we

1:35:38 ↗ know that the retail establishments are taking that on, as we heard from our very

1:35:42 ↗ successful store, is that they're willing and able and they're ready to step in on

1:35:46 ↗ the first day that the other ones have to close, that there'll be a spot

1:35:50 ↗ for those in the community that need medical. So I would disagree that we're not,

1:35:54 ↗ in fact, when you think of the city of Sammamish to the north, they've prohibited

1:35:59 ↗ all marijuana since it first came out of the state. They have said, "We don't

1:36:03 ↗ really care if we have people in our community that need it. They can just

1:36:08 ↗ go to Issaquah because Issaquah is open-minded and they are allowing folks to go there

1:36:12 ↗ from North Bend or from wherever. We've always been really open to the medical and

1:36:16 ↗ the retail marijuana regulations." So I just want to point out that a lot of

1:36:20 ↗ communities are just prohibiting all of it out of hand, and we've always tried to

1:36:25 ↗ be as open-minded and as out there as we possibly can be. We don't want

1:36:29 ↗ to violate the state. because as Officer Porter would say, it's not a good place

1:36:33 ↗ to be as a city, as small as we are. But we've always tried to

1:36:38 ↗ embrace the folks that need it, the folks that can't find it readily, to always

1:36:42 ↗ be able to have it. And we were happy when we went from one license

1:36:46 ↗ to that we're allowed two now. And so I just want to be sure that

1:36:50 ↗ you're aware that a lot of communities around us are just prohibiting it outright They're

1:36:55 ↗ just saying No, we're not even talking about it. And so we're trying to be

1:36:59 ↗ open in our regulations But we don't want to go out on a limb to

1:37:03 ↗ have our neighborhoods all of a sudden have Collectives that we can't regulate yet because

1:37:07 ↗ the state isn't regulating them yet and as office reporter said I If next door

1:37:11 ↗ you're finding that there's just a whole lot of smell and stuff going on and

1:37:15 ↗ you call us and say, "I think there's like 500 plants next door and there's

1:37:20 ↗ people coming and going and I would like you to check it out," we would

1:37:24 ↗ have no way to go in there other than we'd have to get a search

1:37:28 ↗ warrant. And so we just didn't want to do that with our neighborhoods yet until

1:37:32 ↗ we have a little more direction from the state. Have they thought this through in

1:37:37 ↗ a neighborhood level? So we're just not ready to go there yet as a community

1:37:41 ↗ that has a lot of neighborhoods. So I just wanted to kind of add that

1:37:45 ↗ we're certainly not against it. We're certainly not trying to close down medical. We're just

1:37:49 ↗ trying to make it the best we can make it for our neighborhoods and for

1:37:54 ↗ the folks that need it. So I just wanted to... CHRIS JERRAM: And I would

1:37:58 ↗ add, I mean, the state law is the state law, and we have to comply

1:38:03 ↗ with state law. And that means we have to-- 86 collective gardens as they currently

1:38:08 ↗ stand. A lot of the issues you bring up have been issues that were raised

1:38:13 ↗ by, I think, CARE, CORE, and the other marijuana lobbying groups at the state level

1:38:18 ↗ that it does create a gap. I mean, but again, that's a gap at the

1:38:23 ↗ state level that has initiated this. Again, I agree we want to set something up

1:38:29 ↗ that's long-term fruitful. And if we go and start creating local regulations now that are

1:38:35 ↗ eventually not going to match the state regulations, I think we put ourselves in a

1:38:41 ↗ very weird spot where we're opening ourselves to litigation not only

1:38:46 ↗ at the local level from people challenging our regulations, but also once our regulations

1:38:52 ↗ don't match the state regulations, we have additional issues there as well. I'm always

1:38:58 ↗ of the opinion, do it once, do it right. And I don't think that

1:39:04 ↗ doing this where we have no direction from the state would be prudent. But

1:39:09 ↗ if we do not add the language marijuana cooperatives are prohibited in all zoning

1:39:15 ↗ district, they still wouldn't be able to exist unless they are licensed.

1:39:21 ↗ what would happen? Correct. From what we can tell from what little is in the

1:39:26 ↗ state regs now is there'd be some sort of license procedure that they're thinking of.

1:39:31 ↗ Right now they're focused on retail, the merging of the retail and the medical. So

1:39:36 ↗ they have an idea of what they want for the co-op, but they haven't quite...

1:39:42 ↗ nailed it and so they're saying it's out there and that you can do them

1:39:45 ↗ if you want like Spokane is trying to figure out how they could do it

1:39:49 ↗ and you know they're just sort of flailing thinking well we could do this and

1:39:53 ↗ we could say this and we could license it and we could um but they're

1:39:57 ↗ they're not there yet and we've looked at what they're doing and it's like We're

1:40:01 ↗ not as big as Spokane and we're just not that comfortable going out on our

1:40:06 ↗ own to try to allow it in neighborhoods yet. But if they come back in

1:40:11 ↗ two years and they've got this set idea of it's licensed, you can regulate it,

1:40:16 ↗ it's gonna have security cameras, just like now, the collectives, then maybe it will feel

1:40:20 ↗ a lot safer for the neighborhoods that it's not gonna be a risk of break-ins,

1:40:25 ↗ it's not gonna have its own travel issues with comings and goings. So we're just

1:40:31 ↗ trying to be a little careful for the neighborhoods with that, with co-ops. I

1:40:37 ↗ think actually the medical marijuana situation is going to resolve itself. Looking into the

1:40:43 ↗ future, what I can see is that medical marijuana will be treated for what

1:40:49 ↗ it is. It's a medicine. And I think in the not too distant future,

1:40:54 ↗ I can see the federal government, federal law, maybe initially state law, saying

1:41:00 ↗ that, hey, we will treat medical marijuana for what it is. It is a medicine.

1:41:05 ↗ It will be provided by prescription, and it will be obtained in a pharmacy like

1:41:11 ↗ any other medicine would be. I think that's where we're going, whether it's how soon

1:41:16 ↗ it's going to go. I can't visualize, but I think we have to consider that

1:41:21 ↗ when you talk, what do you want to do about regulating marijuana? not regulating, but

1:41:27 ↗ how you're going to go about selling medical marijuana. I don't think

1:41:33 ↗ it belongs in a recreational marijuana facility. I think it belongs in

1:41:39 ↗ a pharmacy. - Just follow up on the previous discussions on both

1:41:45 ↗ sides. I would support, I think, a blanket amendment to the

1:41:51 ↗ IMC reducing available buffers to 500 except for transit, which I would support reducing to

1:41:56 ↗ 100, especially given the fact that we had no issue with it as far as

1:42:02 ↗ the collective garden buffers. And did you want to have any separation between the two,

1:42:08 ↗ between two marijuana shops? I think a 500 foot buffer was still-- 500 separation as

1:42:14 ↗ well? OK, I just wanted to make sure that you were covering all the-- The

1:42:20 ↗ reason for that? My reasoning behind that is I think having

1:42:25 ↗ everything close together like that might make it a target for

1:42:31 ↗ rates of that sort. If you have that much product so

1:42:36 ↗ close together, that would be my only concern. Remember, we're only

1:42:42 ↗ allowed two. So it would just be the two of them

1:42:48 ↗ that would be close. Yeah. OK. So that's your motion? Yeah.

1:42:54 ↗ My motion is to reduce the available. And my understanding is that we

1:42:59 ↗ can't reduce schools. Playgrounds? Playgrounds was it? Yeah, beneath 1,000. But for

1:43:05 ↗ all others, it's reduced to 500, except for transit, which would reduce

1:43:11 ↗ to 100. And separation of each other would be 500? Yes. OK.

1:43:17 ↗ That's a motion. We need a second. Second. I'll second. All those

1:43:22 ↗ in favor? Third to fourth. Please say aye. Aye. Opposed? I don't

1:43:28 ↗ see the reason we need it. One opposed.

1:43:34 ↗ CHRISTIE WOOD: That doesn't-- I mean, that just goes to the council as our recommendation.

1:43:39 ↗ It doesn't-- Do you

1:43:44 ↗ have anything that you wanted to propose in terms of the -- Well, I could

1:43:49 ↗ make an amendment. I don't know that I have support. It's a different thing. This

1:43:55 ↗ is a very different thing. I don't know that I have support from my fellow

1:44:00 ↗ commissioners, but I feel that our elected representatives have merged these two systems with thought,

1:44:05 ↗ though we are in a complicated time, and that medical endorsements within recreational stores is

1:44:10 ↗ not the same as the new form of four members to a collective garden. Uh,

1:44:14 ↗ the availability of product to people who are vulnerable in our community is not being

1:44:19 ↗ addressed currently. And I would like to see language that even though if we want

1:44:24 ↗ to stave that off, we still allow for it in our community right now. This

1:44:29 ↗ blanket ban is something that will be difficult for once our state begins to create

1:44:33 ↗ regulations that are a little more clear cut as it will be licensed and highly

1:44:39 ↗ regulated more so than it ever has been in our long history of having medical

1:44:45 ↗ in our state. I'd like to see language that reflected that availability right now. Having

1:44:50 ↗ a blanket ban on it I think is problematic to really vulnerable members of our

1:44:56 ↗ community, as I've stated. So just so I get the amendment, you would want co-op,

1:45:01 ↗ marijuana co-ops allowed in all the single family and multi-family zones? Because they have to

1:45:07 ↗ be in a house. They have to be in one of the-- Yes, but right

1:45:12 ↗ now it's my understanding that there would be less than 1,000 allowed and licensed across

1:45:16 ↗ the state. So I understand that there's kind of this witch hunt idea of the

1:45:21 ↗ fact that they're going to be in every neighborhood, but it's they need to be

1:45:26 ↗ legally operating. And so that will create, the state regulations will create an environment where

1:45:32 ↗ they won't be rampant across all of our children's backyards. And I just want to

1:45:37 ↗ get your amendment down that you were proposing that it would be in all single-family

1:45:42 ↗ and multi-family zones? I would propose that we follow the state statutes that will be

1:45:46 ↗ set. So whatever the state is actually going to be licensing. And that would be

1:45:51 ↗ in all zones, correct? Because the state legislators has already said that it has to

1:45:55 ↗ be operating out of a home. So we already have that condition that we have

1:45:59 ↗ to adhere to from-- from state law and point of order are you saying um

1:46:04 ↗ when it when the state law is effective or when the regulations uh go into

1:46:09 ↗ effect we would follow those regulations that it would be prohibited until that point, because

1:46:14 ↗ statute and regulations are-- Yes, I would be more than fine to say until those

1:46:18 ↗ regulations are set up by the state. That right now, IZACWHA wants to say we're

1:46:23 ↗ in a gray area and we're not quite sure, but right now the language as

1:46:27 ↗ written is outright banning it, and that's what my issue is with. So it would

1:46:32 ↗ be-- we can write something to say when regulations are specifically enacted by the Liquor

1:46:36 ↗ and Cannabis Board. I don't think you can put that in-- You can't put that

1:46:41 ↗ in. No, you just come back around like we did when the state-- disallowed-- when

1:46:46 ↗ they took away the collective garden, then we had to come back and be consistent

1:46:50 ↗ with the state. When the state comes forward and has new regulations for collective-- or

1:46:55 ↗ for co-ops, then we would come back like we're coming back from this state, this

1:47:00 ↗ round of state regulations. We would come back and amend ours. and say, the state

1:47:04 ↗ did this now, do you want to be consistent with it or do you want

1:47:07 ↗ to continue the ban? For example, Sammamish came back and said, the state's now allowing

1:47:11 ↗ this and this, what do we want to do? And they said, We still don't

1:47:14 ↗ want to do anything. So we would give that same option when the state comes

1:47:19 ↗ back with new regulations. That's when we come to you all like we are tonight

1:47:23 ↗ and saying, what do you want to do with the new regulations? So that would

1:47:27 ↗ be the time that you could still say that you would like them as nebulous

1:47:31 ↗ as they are, that you would like them permitted in our single-family and multifamily zones.

1:47:35 ↗ You could still have that as a, you know, we could be like Spokane and

1:47:39 ↗ try and figure it out. I don't know that we have, it doesn't sound like

1:47:43 ↗ we have support for that in our community. So I'm not proposing that, uh, what

1:47:47 ↗ I'm not proposing that we necessarily need to, uh, need to do that at this

1:47:52 ↗ time. I guess I'm concerned about the language as it is right now striking it

1:47:56 ↗ out. But if someone else wants to speak up and say that they're in favor

1:48:01 ↗ of that, but from right now I'm not getting a sense that that's representative of

1:48:06 ↗ our community. And I do think currently, because we would be prohibiting them to tell

1:48:11 ↗ the regulations, the municipal code would have to read that it was banned

1:48:17 ↗ because you can't have contingent laws within the code. You know,

1:48:22 ↗ currently it does read that. But I agree, when the regulations

1:48:28 ↗ come back, I would like to see this again and see

1:48:34 ↗ if we could propose an amendment to the IMC as well

1:48:40 ↗ as regulations in comport with the state or either additional or

1:48:45 ↗ lessening if we have that authority, but however best fits our

1:48:51 ↗ community. Other? So-- Oh, point of order, Joan. So the amendment

1:48:57 ↗ proposed and passed, is that going to alter the findings of fact and conclusions

1:49:02 ↗ in comport with that as our recommendation? I'll have to add that, yeah. I'll

1:49:08 ↗ have to add that. So tonight we're supposed to, do we agree to present

1:49:14 ↗ it as is with that one amendment or do you want to And

1:49:19 ↗ this encompasses all the issues that we spoke to tonight. Is there something

1:49:25 ↗ in there that you disagree with besides putting in the amendment to forward

1:49:31 ↗ that onto council? Any discussion on that? Is there anything else that causes

1:49:36 ↗ consternation in here that you would like to see changed? I'm good with

1:49:42 ↗ it. I would make-- I have concerns about the mass transit in every

1:49:48 ↗ zone. The same argument that's been made. Think it might be a chicken-and-the-egg problem though

1:49:54 ↗ Apparently we can't get mass transit unless we tell them we're ready to take it

1:49:58 ↗ and we don't want to take it unless we know where it's gonna go and

1:50:03 ↗ Part of that is in the central plan you might -- That's what

1:50:09 ↗ I'm asking. No, I mean we've all agreed to the amendment to forward

1:50:15 ↗ that on and now it's a discussion is there any other issue in

1:50:21 ↗ here that you would like to make a recommendation to council for? And speaking

1:50:27 ↗ to what Carl was mentioning in the central plan, you might remember that really great

1:50:31 ↗ map. In fact, I think it was our favorite map that we made that looks

1:50:35 ↗ like a slug that actually has, are you finding the slug map? No. That actually

1:50:39 ↗ has, and we were signifying that for when Sound Transit comes through, that this is

1:50:43 ↗ the route that we would like as a community, where we would want it to

1:50:47 ↗ go and where the stations might go. so that they knew that we as a

1:50:50 ↗ community were thinking of it and so now they wanted us to come back and

1:50:54 ↗ say you have that in your policy plan but what zones could it go in

1:50:57 ↗ and so that's where this next step is is sort of that next part of

1:51:01 ↗ the commitment that we did it as a policy and now this is how it

1:51:05 ↗ would be as a zone in the zoning pieces of it to add to that

1:51:08 ↗ i heard jona excuse me i heard you say that you wanted to see a

1:51:12 ↗ design of where it would go before You'd agree to that? But part of the,

1:51:17 ↗ as Carl said, the chicken and the egg is we would like light rail or

1:51:23 ↗ high capacity transit to be on ST3 so that that will pay for the design.

1:51:29 ↗ But we have a better likelihood of getting it on ST3 if we allow it

1:51:34 ↗ in our zones. So we won't see a design from Sound Transit until it gets

1:51:40 ↗ funded through ST3. But it may not be on that list unless we allow it.

1:51:49 ↗ So are we then able to create a situation where we say where it is

1:51:53 ↗ and isn't allowed? We're still endorsing it as a community. We're just limiting where it

1:51:58 ↗ can and can't go. That's part of the design. Right, that's part of the whole

1:52:02 ↗ process. They spend years doing public process with people with different alternatives on design and

1:52:06 ↗ where it might go, where stations might go, where a station might go. So there's

1:52:11 ↗ a very large public process once it gets put onto ST3. I think that makes

1:52:15 ↗ sense. They're allowed in all the zones. That's just my opinion. And just for fun,

1:52:20 ↗ can you pull up the slug map? Sorry, got busy talking, yes. Because if you

1:52:25 ↗ think of how expensive that would be, you know, it certainly wouldn't go in Sycamore.

1:52:29 ↗ It certainly wouldn't go, because it's expensive. And so when we created

1:52:35 ↗ the map, we kind of did a swath along I-90, since I-90

1:52:41 ↗ is the logical, most efficient route that we can think of. We

1:52:47 ↗ don't know where the little stubs would go. But we tried to

1:52:53 ↗ sort of think it through, but we didn't ever put any zoning

1:52:59 ↗ with it, just because it's so far out there. I'm sorry, hang

1:53:05 ↗ on. Here comes the slug.

1:53:10 ↗ Doesn't that look like a slug? We just thought that was just... Even got the

1:53:16 ↗ slime trail. I just always loved that one. And as you can tell from the

1:53:21 ↗ swath, there's some single family in there. There's some retail. I mean, there's a lot

1:53:26 ↗ of zones that are in there. And not that the whole swath is going to

1:53:31 ↗ be a concrete whatever it is, but generally north and south of the freeway, generally...

1:53:38 ↗ We tried to quantify it. And so this is the next step

1:53:44 ↗ that they're asking us is what zones would that include? I love

1:53:50 ↗ that map. Are there questions now that you are reminded of the--

1:53:57 ↗ I don't have a question. I'm still conflicted about it. I'm kind of giving carte

1:54:02 ↗ blanche to -- it seems like we're giving more than just that area. If it

1:54:08 ↗ was just that area, and I do know that it will go through huge

1:54:14 ↗ public process and i've kind of followed what happened in bellevue for example but

1:54:20 ↗ i don't know that uh the that we're giving up some leverage by by

1:54:25 ↗ uh allowing all zones to be open as opposed to being able to stand

1:54:31 ↗ firm because it is not zone for it right but i who like

1:54:37 ↗ the light rail and i would like to come sooner rather than

1:54:43 ↗ later so right some i am conflicted i would just like to

1:54:49 ↗ have the city recognize that they're you know those are the areas

1:54:55 ↗ that are the most probable and when they're allowing the future development

1:55:01 ↗ or changes in those areas that they take into consideration the areas

1:55:07 ↗ that might be affected with the coming in right now That's my

1:55:13 ↗ only problem about it is just to make sure that you're thinking about that. I

1:55:18 ↗ was talking to Sound Transit today about this. I'm just going to read a sentence

1:55:24 ↗ or a little paragraph that he sent me. "We understand the concerns and sensitivities of

1:55:29 ↗ your constituents. and hope to work closely with them on the best alignment choice. However,

1:55:34 ↗ it would make little practical sense to require an essential public facility apply for a

1:55:39 ↗ rezone on an alignment set by input from the same parties. Allowing use in all

1:55:44 ↗ zones allows for the greatest flexibility and sensitivity in balancing and addressing all these concerns,

1:55:48 ↗ which were environmental and single family and the letters that you all received, while helping

1:55:53 ↗ us build the best alignment possible. So they recognize that they're environmental sensitivities and there

1:55:59 ↗ are single family homes and they've been through this in several other cities before. So

1:56:04 ↗ they do recognize that. I just don't want them to tear down two houses and

1:56:09 ↗ put in a 30 story building right in the middle of where it's going to

1:56:14 ↗ go. That's right. Okay. How would that prevent that from happening? It wouldn't. It wouldn't.

1:56:19 ↗ It wouldn't. Right. There's nothing that we can do to prevent that from happening. That's

1:56:24 ↗ what I said, when they're thinking about it, just take into consideration that they're not

1:56:29 ↗ building a taco stand that's going to be there for 30 years that's not going

1:56:34 ↗ to be able to be torn down. Taking into consideration is exactly the argument you

1:56:39 ↗ were making a moment ago about the green roofs and all the debts. I understand

1:56:45 ↗ that, but what can you put in the code? Once you put it

1:56:50 ↗ in the code, it's law, and you have to have some kind of

1:56:56 ↗ a bottom line when a developer comes in that you can do this,

1:57:02 ↗ this, and this. You can't prevent them from doing that. You know, it

1:57:08 ↗ has to be in the code. There has to be some rules. And how many

1:57:13 ↗ rules can you put in there? Can you put in a rule that you can

1:57:18 ↗ only have a yellow roof? I mean, you can't do that. They have to have

1:57:22 ↗ some creativity, but you have to keep the main ideas that are most important, you

1:57:27 ↗ have to have in the code. So with that, is there anything else? Do you

1:57:32 ↗ want to add something to my conflict? I mean, is there an amendment

1:57:38 ↗ that you-- or a suggestion or anything? No, I'm kind of

1:57:44 ↗ stumped over that. Anybody else? So we have-- our duty tonight

1:57:50 ↗ is to forward these recommendations on to city council. So if

1:57:56 ↗ there's no other questions or concerns, I need a motion

1:58:02 ↗ to forward it on with the amendment that was presented. I'll make

1:58:07 ↗ a motion to approve the findings of fact proposed amendments, review rationale

1:58:13 ↗ and recommendation as amended by our vote tonight regarding the IMC and

1:58:19 ↗ the retail marijuana regulations. Do I have a second? Second. Is there

1:58:24 ↗ any further discussion? Just to make sure. With no further discussion, all

1:58:30 ↗ those in favor of forwarding this on to the city council

1:58:36 ↗ for review. Please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Nay. I'm going to vote opposed

1:58:42 ↗ as well, just to have it on the record that-- OK. So-- --some

1:58:47 ↗ concerns about-- Two opposed, and the rest of you are in favor. So

1:58:53 ↗ it still goes-- it's still passive. Mm-hmm. Good work. This was tough stuff

1:58:59 ↗ tonight. Can it show the record though that it's related to this particular

1:59:05 ↗ issue? Okay. That it's related to the regional light rail. My position is based on

1:59:11 ↗ the zoning for the San Francisco Transit. Duly noted by our rock

1:59:17 ↗ star. Our next PPC is the 21st of April, which is not on

1:59:22 ↗ the second or fourth Thursday, and that was due to the person that's

1:59:28 ↗ presenting is not available the other two Thursdays. Do you know yet if

1:59:34 ↗ anyone is not able to be here on the 21st of April? I can't. I'm

1:59:40 ↗ off anyway, but I'm gone. I can't. You're gone the 21st as well? OK. Carl?

1:59:45 ↗ As far as I know, I'll be here. You're going to be here? OK. I

1:59:51 ↗ will be here. OK, Justin's checking. OK, Paul? Not sure. Okay. I have a possible

1:59:56 ↗ conflict as well on the 21st. Okay. So you have the presenter, but you don't

2:00:01 ↗ have the commission. I don't have a commission. It's a story of my life. Okay.

2:00:05 ↗ You think maybe my, okay. Ray, do you know? Am I still on in April?

2:00:09 ↗ Yes, that would be the last, that would be the last meeting for all of

2:00:13 ↗ you that are jumping ship. As far as I know. I'll make sure I'm there.

2:00:18 ↗ You've got to make that one. Right. Maybe we'll have cake for all of

2:00:24 ↗ you that are leaving, or we'll think of something to make it exciting, more

2:00:30 ↗ exciting than usual. No brownies, though, just cake. With that, I'm going to call

2:00:36 ↗ the meeting-- Yeah, you can close it. --close at 8:31. Thank you very much.

2:00:42 ↗ Well done, group.

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