Planning Policy Commission · Thursday, March 23, 2017 · City Council Digest

1. CALL TO ORDER

Commission Membership

2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES

Minutes of March 9, 2017

packet pp.3–8

Previously discussed: Planning Policy Commission · Feb 9, 2017

▶ Watch from 1:23 Open packet at p.3 ↗

Staff report:

CITY OF ISSAQUAH PLANNING POLICY COMMISSION MINUTES

3. AGENDA ITEMS

Olde Town Subarea Plan Update Introduction

Dave Favour, Project Manager Christen Leeson, Senior Planner · packet pp.9–26

Topics: Land Use

Open packet at p.9 ↗

Staff report:

A. Olde Town Subarea Plan - Update: Background

1408 segments .txt ↗

0:32 ↗ Is the pay the same for? Good evening and welcome to the

0:38 ↗ March 23rd meeting of the Planning Policy Commission. Tonight is just an

0:44 ↗ opportunity for the city to share with what has happened in the

0:50 ↗ old, the downtown area and what the future plans are. So since

0:56 ↗ we don't have a quorum this evening, please join us. We're

1:01 ↗ going to, one, two, three, four. Four people is a quorum. It is. We have

1:07 ↗ three. We have three, though. That's true, three. Three. Are you joining us full time

1:12 ↗ now? I'm counting Mel as an official member, and I guess I shouldn't do that.

1:18 ↗ Since we don't have a quorum this evening, we will not discuss the minutes. We

1:23 ↗ will not have a motion to approve the minutes. We'll say that until next week.

1:29 ↗ next two weeks from now and right now we're going to open up to Kristen

1:34 ↗ to give us an update on the Old Town where it was, where it is

1:39 ↗ and hopefully the magnificent place it will be. It will be. To quote Trish, this

1:45 ↗ is going to be really exciting. Okay, so we are we're here just to talk

1:50 ↗ to do some background on Old Town. what's happened, how we've come to this point,

1:55 ↗ and why we're doing our update now. So, like I said, we'll talk about the

2:00 ↗ background, what's gone on over the past few years, some of the feedback that we've

2:05 ↗ gotten from our initial open houses, and then get comments and Q&A from the commission

2:10 ↗ and from the public, who tonight outnumbers the commission. Thank you for coming. So here's

2:15 ↗ Old Town. It starts, the north end is at Hawley. It's the eastern edges kind

2:20 ↗ of go along the east fork of the creek in Issaquah Creek over to

2:26 ↗ the city limits and then down south front front street south just past the

2:32 ↗ high school. So quick background we adopted our comprehensive plan in 1995. In 1998

2:38 ↗ we did our first old town parking study. 1999 we adopted the old town

2:44 ↗ sub area plan. Why did we do this? We did it because Interesting. They

2:50 ↗ were about to adopt their first growth targets and there's all this discussion about growth

2:54 ↗ and what was going to come to Issaquah and where was the growth going to

2:59 ↗ go. So they decided we want to protect Old Town and enhance what's there, protect

3:04 ↗ the traditional Old Town and its residential areas. Hence, in 1999, the Old Town plan

3:08 ↗ was adopted. In 2001, shortly thereafter, we adopted the Old Town design standards, which are

3:13 ↗ still in place. 2009 we had one small amendment to the Old Town Plan which

3:19 ↗ was to remove any references to the southeast bypass because the city decided not to

3:24 ↗ do that any longer. 2012 we did a second parking study which was remarkably very

3:29 ↗ similar to the first parking study. 2012, 2013 we actually spent six years working on

3:34 ↗ Central Issaquah. Again, growth discussions. We said where do we want growth to go? We

3:39 ↗ want it all to go into Central Issaquah. So for six years we worked on

3:44 ↗ the Central Issaquah plan and the design standards which were adopted in 2012 and 2013.

3:48 ↗ And by 2014 council said okay, we've got that figured out. It's time to give

3:52 ↗ Old Town some love again. So in 2014 we received several council goals which we

3:57 ↗ used to do. regarding Old Town saying let's look at the residential areas, let's look

4:02 ↗ at vitality of Front Street, let's look at the circulation. There were several different goals

4:08 ↗ that came out. So we decided at the time let's combine them all. The mayor

4:14 ↗ appointed a task force in 2015 and they came out with recommendations and then in

4:19 ↗ 2016 our process started. So our process started in May of 2016. We had our

4:25 ↗ first open house. November of 2016 was the second open house. We'll get into it

4:31 ↗ later more. This coming Tuesday, Tuesday, March 28th, there's going to be a lunch at

4:36 ↗ the Senior Center, which is actually open to the public if anyone wants to go.

4:41 ↗ There is a presentation and then discussion about Old Town. On March 29th, there will

4:47 ↗ be an open house at the Brewhouse. That'll be a fun one from 6 to

4:52 ↗ 7:30. And then we're also about to get out, hopefully in the next few days,

4:57 ↗ a survey about Old Town. And Dave will get more into those later.

5:03 ↗ So the task force, they were appointed by the mayor, they had

5:08 ↗ representatives from the downtown Issaquah Association, business owners, residents, the clothing and

5:14 ↗ food bank, the library, the village theater. They met at least once

5:20 ↗ a month throughout 2015. They came out with the recommendation in 2016. They focused mostly

5:26 ↗ however on the cultural business district and part of Sunset, not so much on the

5:31 ↗ residential areas. And council said we want to see that too. So hence the broader

5:36 ↗ look. They came up with a vision that said we want a vital downtown that

5:41 ↗ attracts people and builds a sense of community and they wanted spontaneity in the area.

5:46 ↗ They came up with three key recommendations. I have to take a breath. They came

5:52 ↗ up with three key recommendations. One was to update the old town plan and design

5:58 ↗ standards to attract more development, private development, develop and implement a streetscape plan, and the

6:03 ↗ Downtown Esquire Association, or DIA, was asked to partner with other community organizations to establish

6:09 ↗ programs to showcase what would be the enhanced downtown. Little history about the

6:15 ↗ task, a little bit more about the task force. Two of the things that we

6:19 ↗ were going to work on are obviously the plan and the other one is the

6:23 ↗ front streets streetscape and some of the things that they come up with the plan

6:27 ↗ for the plan and standards are, excuse me, to increase the base height and these

6:32 ↗ are recommendations from the task force. They're not things that we've said yes or no

6:36 ↗ to but things that we're looking at. So increase base height on Front Street, adopt

6:40 ↗ the central Issaquah parking standards, Develop more parking downtown so one would reduce the standards

6:45 ↗ for individual developments but the other one would look for more parking elsewhere to make

6:50 ↗ up for it. Increase impervious surface requirements in the cultural business district which is mostly

6:54 ↗ on Front Street and then just behind it on First Avenue. Keep views and pedestrian

6:59 ↗ scale. However, consider waving right now there's a step back requirement which means that if

7:03 ↗ you go above the second floor you have to move the building back and they're

7:08 ↗ saying maybe don't make that happen as long as you protect the views. Adopt a

7:13 ↗ sidewalk use district. Adopt central Issaquah design standards but retain the character. Increase,

7:18 ↗ wrong page, allow variances to the color palette and update it every five

7:24 ↗ years. Extend Alder across the railroad tracks. It currently stops in order to

7:30 ↗ improve access to the senior center memorial park. Allow wayfinding for both the public

7:35 ↗ and private interests. Allow for more standalone commercial uses on Sunset. Right now with Sunset,

7:41 ↗ you can do commercial uses, but they have to be 4,000 square feet or less

7:46 ↗ if contained in another building. Or if they're standalone, they have to be under 4,000

7:52 ↗ square feet. So they're saying allow more than that. And then remove the E in

7:57 ↗ Old Town. That seems to bug people. So... Now I'm

8:03 ↗ going to talk a little bit about the Front Street-- it's so hard to say--

8:09 ↗ Front Street Streetscape Plan. I know. Excuse me. This just went to Council. There have

8:15 ↗ been several open houses and a few surveys that have gone out. And this just

8:21 ↗ went to Council on March 13 to the work session. It goes back to Council

8:27 ↗ on-- or Council Infrastructure Committee on April 11 and then back to Council again on

8:33 ↗ April 17. And what will happen with this-- is they'll be seeking council approval.

8:39 ↗ But what we will do is incorporate it by referral into the plan and say,

8:44 ↗ you know, perhaps make sure, you know, ensure that there is funding for the phases

8:49 ↗ recommended and, you know, make sure that Front Street is designed in accordance with the

8:54 ↗ plan. This, however, the plan itself would be incorporated into the Old Town Design Standards.

8:59 ↗ So this piece that you see right here is from Sunset Way up to about

9:04 ↗ Alder. and it would be sort of the poster child for what the rest of

9:08 ↗ Front Street would look like, but it increases landscape strips. It does put the trees

9:12 ↗ back. Those are not permanently gone. Those are proposed to go back during phase one.

9:16 ↗ What it does not do is it addresses people once they get out of their

9:19 ↗ cars. This plan is for people for the sidewalks and the buildings outside of the

9:23 ↗ cars. It doesn't do anything to address the traffic, the regional traffic, or how the

9:27 ↗ traffic is going to move through there. But it puts back the trees, it looks

9:32 ↗ for pedestrian areas, adds benches and receptacles. It actually reduces the parking size. They're currently

9:38 ↗ about 11 feet. Takes them down to 9 feet, which enables us to widen the

9:43 ↗ landscape strips and the sidewalks a little bit. So here's, I'm just

9:49 ↗ going to point out a few things. Existing crosswalk at the library is just the

9:53 ↗ right, whoops, excuse me. We're proposing an enhanced all directions crosswalk, which they have in

9:58 ↗ several other cities. I know there's also one in West Seattle, there's some down in

10:02 ↗ California, but what happens is all the traffic stops and everybody gets to cross at

10:07 ↗ one time, which would help improve traffic flow through there. Another one

10:12 ↗ would be to enhance the crosswalks, put in concrete platforms,

10:18 ↗ perhaps a little bit raised, maybe not, but make them

10:24 ↗ more visible, particularly for those that are mid-block crossings. Disguise,

10:29 ↗ decorate, enhance areas like this that are between buildings that

10:35 ↗ cars can go through with screens and benches.

10:41 ↗ focus on the pedestrian plaza that's right out there and the area, the parking lot

10:46 ↗ behind it and make it more pedestrian friendly and make people think that they're not

10:51 ↗ just walking through a parking lot in the back. Potentially in the left hand, it

10:56 ↗ doesn't look that much different, but there's a proposed parklet maybe out in front of

11:01 ↗ some of the buildings. Parklets take up one parking space. They're usually temporary facilities that

11:07 ↗ are paid for and maintained by the businesses. But we offer the public space for

11:12 ↗ temporary use and it just helps expand the business a little bit. This would be

11:16 ↗ at the fish hatchery so off of Front Street but this is the back of

11:21 ↗ the fish hatchery. It's not their official opening but you can see right now it's

11:26 ↗ rather nondescript. So dress it up and make it look like it's a part of

11:31 ↗ Sunset and Front Street. Now blend it in with everything else. Alder, they're proposing as

11:36 ↗ a proposed festival street. So Alder is a very short street. It would potentially be

11:41 ↗ closed just during special events, festivals, Sammidays, that kind of thing. They would add trees

11:46 ↗ to the sides, which would be permanent, different lighting that goes, I always call it

11:52 ↗ canary lighting, but it's canary, I believe, lighting that goes across the top. Dress it

11:58 ↗ up a little bit, make it a much more, almost like a plaza that can

12:03 ↗ be closed off. So that's the Front Street Streetscape Plan. Dave, it's your turn. Flew

12:09 ↗ through that. So hi, Dave Faber, also with the city.

12:14 ↗ I'm going to talk some about, so we've been having public outreach, open

12:20 ↗ houses. We've looked at the old plan and the next couple slides of

12:26 ↗ discussion talk about the guiding principles that we've heard from the public and

12:32 ↗ from the existing plan, as well as some of the public comments that

12:38 ↗ we've heard. So I'm going to fly through this. There's a

12:44 ↗ Anyway, there's like six or so key guiding principles that we glean from

12:49 ↗ the input. They're not in any particular order, but they're listed there. Housing,

12:55 ↗ of course, is a key element in the Old Town. The neighborhoods of

13:01 ↗ Old Town are a key amenity. So we've heard about a desire to

13:07 ↗ preserve the scale character of housing. the single family duplex and the multi-family

13:13 ↗ housing throughout the neighborhoods. And affordability is an issue throughout all of Issaquah.

13:18 ↗ And the housing stock is older for a large part of Old Town,

13:24 ↗ so perhaps some of it might be slightly more affordable based on that.

13:30 ↗ And looking forward to new housing, there would be a desire

13:35 ↗ for housing for diverse populations, family sizes, age groups. Let's plan

13:41 ↗ for housing for all populations. Mobility is a key guiding principle.

13:47 ↗ Bike and ped and transit connections, improving those and recognizing the

13:53 ↗ value that they provide to the downtown. Traffic is a big

13:58 ↗ issue. But I'll say, so let's just say, so regional traffic is a

14:04 ↗ huge issue. We all know it. This plan, we'll recognize it. It cannot solve, we're

14:10 ↗ not going to solve regional traffic through this plan. But what we are focusing on

14:15 ↗ is some of the traffic calming and the cut through traffic through neighborhoods, especially south

14:20 ↗ of Sunset Way as it cuts through Andrews Bush and heads down Second Avenue. So

14:26 ↗ that's an element we've heard feedback on and it feels like that's within the scope

14:32 ↗ of this plan that we can try and tackle. And then parking, I think Kristen

14:37 ↗ talked about parking a bit already. It's the perception or the actual reality of lack

14:43 ↗ of parking in peak times like village theater times or lunch, dinner times and other

14:49 ↗ times they're kind of empty. So how can we efficiently use parking as well as

14:54 ↗ create more parking where it's needed. And then there's the environment. That covers so

15:00 ↗ many things, but Old Town is blessed with several parks. So Memorial Field across

15:06 ↗ the street and then Confluence Park at the north corner are two different character

15:11 ↗ of parks. We have Issaquah Creek and the East Fork framing the west and

15:17 ↗ the north edges. I think we've heard some that they're there but you don't

15:23 ↗ see them so much. A person can access them at street crossings and let's try

15:29 ↗ and perhaps build the access and visibility of the creeks. And then around the, kind

15:34 ↗ of in that green, Semi-circle at the bottom there is a kind of an

15:40 ↗ existing wooded hillside so that we've heard about the character of the wooded hillside that

15:46 ↗ frames the south end of the neighborhood of Old Town is of some value to

15:51 ↗ here. And then stormwater, flooding are always issues that we need to continue working on.

15:56 ↗ The sense of place in the community I think is one of the key things

16:01 ↗ that makes Old Town a unique and vibrant and kind of welcoming, cool place

16:07 ↗ to be. Many other cities are trying to create this place and we already

16:13 ↗ have 100 years worth of community and history right here. So let's really recognize

16:18 ↗ that and keep it as a arts and cultural hub of the Issaquah area.

16:24 ↗ Some of the key words, historic, it's pedestrian oriented. And then public service recognizes

16:30 ↗ the government buildings here, the police presence, the fish hatchery, the village theater.

16:36 ↗ all these various public organizations and service amenities that are here. And

16:42 ↗ finally, economic vitality. So Front Street is a business hub. But how

16:48 ↗ can we recognize the unique blend of businesses there, but also help

16:54 ↗ it thrive? So there's a quick summary of guiding principles that we

17:00 ↗ gleaned from that. Two open houses were held in May 25 of

17:06 ↗ last year, and then November 16th, this last fall and if you can

17:12 ↗ try and summarize about 10 pages of comments in your packet into one slide here's

17:17 ↗ an attempt at that but so so one big question we this was what we

17:22 ↗ asked in May but it repeats through November what challenges do you see in Old

17:28 ↗ Town and maybe they're probably not surprising traffic congestion and the cut through traffic pedestrian

17:33 ↗ safety and how can we make it better a concern about building scale and

17:39 ↗ character that we'll talk about in a minute in kind of three areas that we've

17:44 ↗ broken it down to front street sunset way and then the single family and duplex

17:49 ↗ neighborhoods that are seeing new development and sometimes a little larger development than what was

17:54 ↗ built in the last 50 or 100 years what do you like most about old

18:00 ↗ town well that's similar to the guiding principles i think i just talked about and

18:05 ↗ then what's your vision in 10 years or so for old town maybe not

18:11 ↗ surprising also less traffic, better or more efficient parking, the bus, bike,

18:17 ↗ pedestrian orientation and access, again preserving the small town character, more shops

18:23 ↗ and again building the environment, the open space and the play fields,

18:29 ↗ the parks elements and the trail connections all through. So that was

18:34 ↗ open house summary number two. So now we're going to go through

18:41 ↗ several chapters that we're working on in the plan. You want

18:47 ↗ to do the first couple? Sure. Kristen's been working on this

18:53 ↗ more than I have. Okay. So the first day

18:58 ↗ has already gone over the first one. Um, the scale and the character of the

19:02 ↗ buildings that are here, you know, we've had some concerns, you know, some people have

19:06 ↗ said, why do you want to do to old town what you want to do?

19:09 ↗ What we did to central is to bring density in there and that is not

19:13 ↗ at all what we're trying to do. What we want to do is preserve old

19:17 ↗ town. So one of the biggest concerns is preserving what's there, keeping it like it

19:21 ↗ is and you know, letting letting change happen. But change that's consistent with the traditional

19:25 ↗ styles they're already there. So that's part of it. Another one that keeps coming up

19:31 ↗ is historic preservation and we did just finish our third historic inventory, historic resources inventory

19:36 ↗ for the city which actually will present on April 25th. But again there are some

19:42 ↗ more buildings that are worth possibly designating or just educating people about the benefits of

19:48 ↗ preservation is in there. Prioritizing pedestrian friendly small scale and safe sense of place. So

19:54 ↗ again, reinforcing the pedestrian connections. It's kind of funny, you look at our non-motorized plan

19:58 ↗ now for the entire city, there's not that much in Old Town. So retaking a

20:03 ↗ look at that and seeing what we can do to improve the connections there. Adding

20:07 ↗ wayfinding. Wayfinding has been a huge topic of discussion for the past several years. Is

20:12 ↗ it public? Is it private? Does it say how far or just say what

20:18 ↗ direction? So it's a big discussion to have. Incorporate natural amenities. There has been a

20:23 ↗ lot of talk about accessibility and visibility to the creeks, both the East Fork and

20:28 ↗ Issaquah Creek. And so working in not only having access to those, but even having

20:34 ↗ developments wherever there are natural amenities, incorporating those amenities into the natural environment. allow sidewalk

20:39 ↗ uses. Right now they're required to get special permits if they want to put, special

20:42 ↗ use permits if they want to put chairs or tables out on the sidewalks, but

20:46 ↗ there are other areas of the cities where we say I can't remember what it's

20:50 ↗ called, but where they're allowed to do it. It just makes it a little easier

20:53 ↗ so that they don't have to go out and get a special permit all the

20:57 ↗ time. And then it makes it more pedestrian friendly. And then maintaining the concentration of

21:01 ↗ public services. One of the things that came out in 1999 that was so great

21:04 ↗ is we have the police station here, city hall, council chambers, the community center, fire

21:08 ↗ station, library. There's so many services here and it's so nice to have them in

21:12 ↗ this one spot and walkable. So, you know, find a way to keep that and

21:15 ↗ make them accessible. Preserve use from public spaces, I mentioned before. Increase potential for commercial

21:20 ↗ uses on Front Street, I mean on East Sunset Way, excuse me, and then increase

21:25 ↗ the base height on Front Street North. Those are the primary things that have come

21:30 ↗ up and that we're trying to keep from the old plan and look at, re-look

21:35 ↗ at, and add this time around. So it's much shorter, but the policies are not,

21:40 ↗ there are many policies that we are drafting right now But the primary things were

21:45 ↗ perhaps, you know, incense, affordable housing, which, you know, we try and do that throughout

21:50 ↗ the city anyway, but maybe find a way to focus some things here. Preserve height

21:55 ↗ and scale of buildings and sites, which Dave has already talked about. But again, this

22:00 ↗ is in the residential areas, not just in the commercial areas. And then incorporate amenities

22:05 ↗ into multifamily sites and buildings. Make sure that people have easy access from their multifamily

22:10 ↗ buildings to transit or that kind of thing. think those are the two

22:15 ↗ that I was going to talk about. Okay. And then talking about mobility and connectivity.

22:21 ↗ So similar to what we're talking about. So improve the active circulation system which looks

22:27 ↗ at bike pads and transit safety and connections. Enhance the existing street system. In bold

22:33 ↗ there's the traffic calming we like to talk in a little bit. about techniques

22:39 ↗ that we've heard that might work and we'd like to get feedback tonight

22:45 ↗ and moving forward. Kristen's talking about the front street streetscape. I can say

22:51 ↗ that. There you go. Parking, the various elements of parking that we've already

22:56 ↗ talked about. And then the environment, I think I talked about that already

23:02 ↗ as well too, but enhancing the various green elements of the environment.

23:08 ↗ We have a stormwater, a new stormwater code that I think we're going to talk

23:13 ↗ in more detail at upcoming meetings, but it does require low impact stormwater development or

23:19 ↗ in my mind it's infiltration of the stormwater to be maintained on the property if

23:24 ↗ at all feasible. And so if we see a certain vision of development, say in

23:29 ↗ Front Street or Sunset Way or elsewhere, that the requirement to infiltrate

23:35 ↗ the water in the ground may compete with whatever vision that we're asking to see.

23:41 ↗ So if a big rain garden gobbles up land and you can't build the buildings

23:47 ↗ that the vision talks about, the plan talks about, that's an issue to work through.

23:53 ↗ The city's been working on flood hazard mitigation for years, decades.

23:59 ↗ Let's keep doing that, identify properties that flood and if you

24:05 ↗ know there's certain ones that may rise to be purchased and

24:11 ↗ restore those properties to more natural creek environment. Green building and

24:17 ↗ sustainability is a city-wide policy and goal. It's in the Com

24:22 ↗ Plan, it's in the Central Issaquah Plan, and so this is recognizing two key elements

24:28 ↗ of it here and see how much of that can wrap into this plan. That

24:33 ↗ was not addressed almost 20 years ago in the first plan, but green building sustainability

24:39 ↗ has really risen since then. And finally, I believe it's economic vitality. So again, if

24:44 ↗ you want to summarize economic into three bullets, there it is, but there's probably more.

24:50 ↗ It's the arts and cultural center of Issaquah. Let's maintain that. infrastructure needs, so

24:56 ↗ it's build the sewer, storm, water, traffic, bike, ped, you know, all

25:02 ↗ these various infrastructure. Wi-Fi is an issue we keep hearing about throughout

25:08 ↗ Old Town. And then if we do these things, whatever measures can

25:14 ↗ we do to attract the private investment to come downtown? So, okay.

25:19 ↗ So, based on all that feedback where our feeling is that the plan from

25:25 ↗ almost 18 years ago plus the feedback we've been hearing um leads to the issues

25:31 ↗ we've heard preserve the old town you know all the things we just talked about

25:36 ↗ but there seem to be kind of these series of outstanding issues that still could

25:42 ↗ use some discussion we'd like to hear if there's other issues but This seems

25:47 ↗ like ones that we'd like to have some discussion tonight. So I have slides for

25:53 ↗ each one of these to move through and we can talk about each and have

25:58 ↗ a discussion is the thought. Before I go there I'll just put a plug like

26:03 ↗ Kristen did for the online survey. It's coming soon. It might be released later this

26:08 ↗ week or next week. It kind of gets at a visual preference survey a

26:14 ↗ little of like it gets at these these issues of scale and character and

26:20 ↗ building design what does the community like to see as old town development say

26:25 ↗ for the next 20 years okay so let's launch into this so if we

26:31 ↗ start first on East Sunset Way here are some photos of So

26:37 ↗ first of all East Sunset Way has a zoning and a character that you know

26:43 ↗ about but it's it's a multi-family zoned land. It allows single family and multi-family buildings

26:49 ↗ up to 40 feet tall which could go to 65 feet under certain provisions and

26:55 ↗ also like Kristen said up to 4,000 square feet of office can happen here. The

27:01 ↗ Old Town Vitality Task Force suggested that perhaps more standalone and larger

27:06 ↗ commercial uses should happen along Sunset Way. And so to get feedback,

27:12 ↗ we thought, well, here's some examples of various types of land uses

27:17 ↗ and building types and designs. Start thinking about if you're looking in

27:23 ↗ the future. So over if this mouse works, up in the top

27:29 ↗ left, that's a single family house converted to a business.

27:34 ↗ As we know, many have been converted along Sunset Way already. We've

27:40 ↗ heard a desire for that type of use to continue, that small

27:46 ↗ character, small businesses. Multifamily is shown on the bottom. There's different designs.

27:52 ↗ So when we hear traditional, historic character, you know, which of those,

27:58 ↗ you know, obviously the one on the right, I guess, is more,

28:03 ↗ I'd say, more traditional. The one on the left, traditional. A

28:09 ↗ little more contemporary with a flat roof. So we have existing development standards,

28:15 ↗ design standards for Sunset Way. They don't get to this level of detail

28:20 ↗ of saying exactly what can happen here. But we'd like to start, I

28:26 ↗ think, work on the vision for East Sunset Way. And I guess finally

28:32 ↗ up in the top right, if the city wishes to go a little

28:37 ↗ larger, again, go into larger commercial uses, along Sunset Way. There's

28:43 ↗ an example of a four-story, probably about 40-foot building, mixed so

28:49 ↗ commercial on the ground floor and two or three floors of

28:54 ↗ residential upstairs. Is that the sort of vision or kind of

29:00 ↗ quality of development you could foresee along Sunset Way or something

29:06 ↗ else? So these are some topics that we're grappling with right

29:12 ↗ now. And if you'd like to feedback talk now, I

29:17 ↗ can fly through all this. Keep going. CHRISTIE WOOD: It's a lot to think

29:23 ↗ about and to put it all together. And so I like this. I don't

29:29 ↗ like that. So you have some more pictures. TODD BANDUCCI: OK. So these are

29:35 ↗ some-- CHRISTIE WOOD: Oh, sorry. TODD BANDUCCI: OK, yeah. TODD BANDUCCI: All well and

29:41 ↗ good. What's the plan for the street? right now that went

29:46 ↗ by the wayside with the bond issues so where do we stand on what are

29:51 ↗ they gonna do with the street yeah because one of the big issues for sunset

29:57 ↗ was gonna remove all the parking so we can put in bike lanes and curbs

30:02 ↗ and trees the businesses will die without parking because we know that was one of

30:07 ↗ the big issues against it for the bond issue because the businesses that are there

30:12 ↗ need those parking spaces so are we doing one thing on this hand

30:18 ↗ and oh peter and paul over here aren't doing anything or well and i think

30:23 ↗ that part of what the sunset design is it's more from property line to property

30:28 ↗ line and what happens in between. So you've got the right of way and how

30:32 ↗ the traffic's gonna move and where the parking's gonna be. But I think what Dave

30:36 ↗ is talking more about here is beyond those property lines. How far do the buildings

30:40 ↗ come up to the property line? How far are they set back? How big are

30:43 ↗ the buildings? Are they gonna be four stories high or are they gonna be two

30:47 ↗ stories high? So they're two different topics, but you're right, I mean. - Well, I

30:51 ↗ understand that. I mean that, yeah. - Right. - But you can't have the top

30:54 ↗ right picture. can't have three-story building with with uh retail on the bottom if

31:00 ↗ there's no parking spaces for the people to go there that's a good point they'd

31:05 ↗ have to build it and i'm just asking which what are we doing first are

31:11 ↗ we going to do this first are we going to try to fix the street

31:16 ↗ first I'm putting you on the spot. You are because I'm not

31:22 ↗ the transportation engineer. But, and Connie probably knows better than I do where that stands.

31:27 ↗ But I do know they went through the design process. And I cannot think of

31:32 ↗ where it stands right now. There is no funding for construction, obviously, because that was

31:37 ↗ part of the bond. Or was it? I saw a cross-section of the street. Right,

31:43 ↗ right. So I think they know that -- Connie, when it's public comment, will you

31:48 ↗ come up and address Carl's question, please? Okay. Okay. We'll have her answer that later.

31:53 ↗ But you do have a point, what's coming first, the chicken or the egg, and,

31:58 ↗ you know, there's you know, it's funding. You know, and on one hand you've got,

32:02 ↗ you need to determine what the street's going to look like so that when developers

32:07 ↗ come in you can say this is where you need to build your building and

32:11 ↗ this is what the requirements are. And oh, by the way, you're not going to

32:15 ↗ have any parking, so figure that out. So as long as we know what the

32:19 ↗ street is going to look like, we can then tell developers what their standards are.

32:23 ↗ The same question raised on traffic calming. Try to do traffic calming, that's just going

32:27 ↗ to bog down existing gridlock is there already yeah but this comes up all over

32:32 ↗ the place and we're going through it on with gilman right now same kind of

32:37 ↗ situation so yeah it's it's not an easy one to figure out and i i

32:41 ↗ i don't understand when i did i did the survey and i said i just

32:46 ↗ don't understand we're going to remove parking spots from Front Street. And we're

32:51 ↗ going to find them somewhere else, apparently. Well, yeah, we have been tasked with

32:57 ↗ coming up with a plan to find additional parking in Old Town. I believe

33:03 ↗ by the end of 2018 is when that is supposed to happen. Yeah. So

33:09 ↗ the plan is to fix parking so the developers can come in, private developers

33:15 ↗ can come in and build. but find parking somewhere else, whether

33:20 ↗ it be a parking garage, a surface parking lot, find a

33:26 ↗ solution somewhere else so that developers can come in and build.

33:32 ↗ OK. You want to go? Sure. So what else to talk

33:38 ↗ about East Sunset Way? So I guess today, I would think

33:44 ↗ the three buildings you see-- here's a mouse-- one, two, and

33:49 ↗ three, these could happen today. And we heard your parking issue

33:55 ↗ loud and clear. Okay, well, let's just

34:01 ↗ move on. Any other comments? Unless I'm not hearing it,

34:07 ↗ there was no parking to any of those places, whether

34:13 ↗ they're businesses or individual homes. So I don't see any

34:18 ↗ parking. If you allow the bottom section, the bottom townhomes,

34:24 ↗ is there parking in the back or is there parking

34:30 ↗ on the street? Uh-huh.

34:36 ↗ I think these two in the bottom would have parking in the rear. I know

34:40 ↗ this one up here has under building parking in a garage. You're going to have

34:44 ↗ to-- any building like that's going to have to have parking inside. I mean, that's

34:48 ↗ the only way you can do that. So if you do the survey, which will

34:52 ↗ be out soon, there are six other selections to choose from, not just these four.

34:56 ↗ And there's also a slot for other and for comments. So I'm serious. Bring it

35:00 ↗ up. Bring it up because that's something to think about. But there are other options

35:03 ↗ to choose from. We were just picking a random selection. Do you mind if I

35:07 ↗ ask how you picked these four? Because I think it's a little obvious that these

35:10 ↗ don't align with the public's conception of what we want Old Town to be and

35:14 ↗ how we currently view it. And so I'm a little confused why we have options

35:17 ↗ for things that everyone's like, "Nope, that's not what we want." I mean, where are

35:21 ↗ the clear winners? Like, now it feels like we're stacking the decks a little. I

35:24 ↗ think a lot of people will look at this and see that it doesn't embrace

35:28 ↗ all the comments that we've gotten about Old Town. I don't know that there's a

35:31 ↗ clear winner. I mean, if you look at the bottom two, um, the scale is

35:36 ↗ about the same. And a lot of the comments had to do with scale. I

35:41 ↗ talked to quite a few people who said, "I'm fine with the modern stuff as

35:46 ↗ long as it's not a whole story taller than mine." And some people said, I

35:50 ↗ really like the modern stuff, I just don't want to live next door to it.

35:53 ↗ We also had a lot of people say, we don't like the modern stuff. Right,

35:56 ↗ and that's the balance, that's the purpose of the survey. That's why this is one

36:00 ↗ of those controversial issues. They're not controversial, but one of those undecided issues that Dave

36:03 ↗ brought up and why we're putting out another survey to try and figure these things

36:06 ↗ out. But we're looking for your feedback tonight too. I see very little difference between

36:11 ↗ the bottom two. I consider them both to be very modern. When you go to

36:16 ↗ your next slide and you're seeing things that are more traditional craftsmen, they're going to

36:21 ↗ integrate elements like rock, porches, and classic elements. I don't see much of a difference

36:26 ↗ other than your peaked roofs. That doesn't actually give me the feel of Old Town

36:30 ↗ and consistently what I'm seeing from feedback is that people are looking to continue the

36:35 ↗ building structures that we already have. We want to continue the character that we have

36:40 ↗ and I don't see that in any of these buildings. And so I'm a little

36:44 ↗ confused why we're offering selections that don't really align with what we even currently have.

36:49 ↗ Well, I would say I picked the one up there to provoke some discussion. I

36:53 ↗ guess we got it here. It reminds me of West Seattle, but it doesn't remind

36:57 ↗ me of Old Town. OK. In the corner, at least. But when you go to

37:01 ↗ your next slide, then that starts to feel to me that it's more aligned with--

37:06 ↗ So we can mix them in. I categorize by these are things East Sunset Way,

37:10 ↗ and you saw the other slide. So we can move on. Let's see. This way.

37:16 ↗ Is that front? Looking more like Redmond. So this is Front Street. These

37:22 ↗ are buildings that could, again, kind of feedback on-- they really got squished,

37:28 ↗ didn't they? But can you envision-- The only one up there is the

37:34 ↗ upper left. --these type on Front Street? And I'll just kind of go

37:40 ↗ through them. So one of the top left is-- it's kind of the

37:46 ↗ traditional Main Street. I suspect most people would say yes to that. Now

37:51 ↗ we can start talking about what the current code allows up to 45 foot, for

37:56 ↗ about 50 or 60 years, up to 45 foot building heights. And again, if you

38:01 ↗ wedding cake it and do various things, you can go up to 65 feet tall,

38:06 ↗ which I've always said is like the fly tower in the back of the village

38:11 ↗ theater. If you go in the back of it, it goes really tall. That's about

38:16 ↗ 60 or 65 feet. So you can visualize that. So these, so

38:22 ↗ if you know about 10 feet per story, a 40, a 45

38:28 ↗ foot building would be about a four story building. So that's the

38:33 ↗ building on the top right with you know commercial on the ground

38:39 ↗ floor and likely residential office upstairs. With zero, right pushed up to

38:45 ↗ the sidewalk so you have the pedestrian friendly element. And then on

38:51 ↗ the bottom left, we, the current design standards talk about step back stepping back

38:57 ↗ above the second floor six feet again the step back and here's the design that

39:03 ↗ shows that is that but again we haven't really seen much of that built on

39:09 ↗ front street is that if someone walked in the door and said i want to

39:14 ↗ build that would we flip out or is that acceptable and then and i like

39:20 ↗ it's interesting it's got the sidewalk activity kristen's talking about it's got the cafe seating

39:26 ↗ and all that activity that I think people would like to see up and

39:32 ↗ down Front Street. And then again, maybe to provoke you all, the bottom right,

39:38 ↗ that's, I count five stories there, which could happen today. You know, one big

39:43 ↗ drawback on Front Street, those lots are 30, 40, they're tiny lots. A lot

39:49 ↗ of them are tiny lots. So to build something like that, a person would

39:55 ↗ have to consolidate many lots, which apparently hasn't happened lately. But so...

40:02 ↗ Again, okay, and then the height up there is mentioned. So the Old Town Task

40:07 ↗ Force talked about specifically building height and recognized the fact that at 45 feet, it's

40:13 ↗ very difficult to actually fit four stories into 45 feet. If the ground floor is

40:18 ↗ a retail space with a tall ceiling, like 15 feet, and the subsequent ones are

40:24 ↗ 10, 10, and 10, it's really pushing it. So in the Central Issaquah plan, right,

40:30 ↗ we said 54 feet, I recall. If you do... ground floor retail. It kind

40:35 ↗ of gave that allowance and talked about pushing just slightly higher and I believe

40:41 ↗ that's what the Old Town Task Force recommends. So that's when we're talking height

40:47 ↗ that. I guess another concept is so if the zoning that's been there for

40:53 ↗ decades allows something like the three large buildings there, is that really the vision

40:58 ↗ that we'd like to see Front Street build to over time? Or do we

41:04 ↗ want to keep it more of the old-fashioned two-story-ish Main Street look. So

41:10 ↗ those are things to think about. I guess I would encourage for your survey

41:16 ↗ to include more photographs of things that you're considering to be old-timey front street.

41:22 ↗ A lot of these pictures seem to be a little slanted towards a more

41:28 ↗ modern, cubular take. And so having more variety that fits in line with what

41:34 ↗ people have already given feedback that they want Old Town to be like. might

41:40 ↗ give you a better sampling of what people actually think if you have more of

41:45 ↗ those options. Right now they're going to pick one that's more like it because they

41:50 ↗ have ones that are so far out of the extreme. Does that make sense? I

41:55 ↗ would encourage photographs that show more small scale and ones even for businesses, not just

42:01 ↗ for housing, to be able to clearly see how people are responding.

42:08 ↗ I think it's called Old Town for a reason and people encapsulate

42:14 ↗ old, O-L-D-E, and expect that little area to not look like that

42:20 ↗ as modern, big, upscale, at least not on the front. This one?

42:26 ↗ Well, any of the three. That L3. I mean, that's what makes

42:31 ↗ Issaquah different than any other city around here, the quaint little...

42:37 ↗ that it is, and it's going to be hard for people to accept

42:43 ↗ the modern look on Front Street. So can we break it down, though?

42:49 ↗ So there's the modern look, and then there's the size, right? These are

42:55 ↗ three-, four-, five-story buildings. What if they were old-fashioned looking? Well, you have

43:01 ↗ the OLDE associated with it. You're going to stay with a smaller scale,

43:07 ↗ more, you know, 1800 kind of whatever look that that has well and we've seen

43:12 ↗ predominantly people making comments saying i like squat buildings i want it to be low

43:17 ↗ i want sight lines i mean we've had a variety of comments that we've seen

43:21 ↗ tonight that um from these meetings that were done last year of people saying hey

43:26 ↗ we like these elements none of that lines up to even a three-story building. I

43:30 ↗ mean everyone has said a lot of predominant things. I didn't see any feedback where

43:34 ↗ people were saying I really want to block the views. If anything everyone was saying

43:38 ↗ hey I want pedestrians to be able to constantly see views. That's one of the

43:42 ↗ nice things about making this a walkable city is that we enjoy walking around it.

43:46 ↗ So I I think we should try to focus back on, in the feedback we

43:50 ↗ want to get from the survey, of trying to focus on giving people the images

43:54 ↗ that they've wanted. I think we're going to be able to parcel out what people

43:57 ↗ want if we're giving them a little more of what we already know. We're already

44:02 ↗ ahead. We have a lot of public comment and feedback. So giving them images

44:08 ↗ to pick between of what we know they are less likely to want is

44:14 ↗ kind of stacking the deck a little bit. You're kind of not giving people,

44:20 ↗ I think, quite the options that we want to get a good subset within

44:26 ↗ the upcoming survey. Any other thoughts? There are more pictures. I'll say I

44:32 ↗ know there's some three and four story old ones, like hundred

44:37 ↗ year old buildings. There's one of a converted house to a

44:43 ↗ restaurant, a two story old house. So if we can get

44:48 ↗ others, we will. Awesome. I guess I want to also emphasize

44:54 ↗ the step back element that's currently required in the design standards

44:59 ↗ today. I believe the Old Town Task Force recognized that. keeping that?

45:05 ↗ Right? Like what we see in the bottom left here? Yeah. Well, they just, the

45:10 ↗ Old Town Task Force said, you know, we want to maintain the views, but the

45:14 ↗ step backs make it really hard to develop on those skinny lots because those, you

45:18 ↗ know, once you get above the second story, they start to become sort of unusable.

45:23 ↗ So they said, I don't know, maybe, you know, just look and see what it

45:27 ↗ does to the views was their response. Maybe waive it if you can. Okay. Or

45:31 ↗ do variance. So that's Front Street and the last

45:37 ↗ one with photos here is the residential single family and duplex neighborhood. So let's

45:43 ↗ talk about that for a little bit. And there are more photos in the

45:49 ↗ survey but here was kind of two duplexes and two single families, modern and

45:54 ↗ old-fashioned, and kind of provoked some discussion here. The other thing I've realized is

46:00 ↗ that I would say that And you can, I guess, feedback on land use

46:06 ↗ too, but a single family house and a duplex can be physically the same building,

46:11 ↗ whether it has one door or two doors. So you can almost look at all

46:17 ↗ of those and put in your mind whether they're two units or one unit. But

46:22 ↗ anyway, there's-- so to run through it, so here's top left is-- 100-year-old Craftsman

46:28 ↗ E bungalow. We certainly heard that feedback at the open house. Some

46:34 ↗ people said, that is all we want. Design some standards and require

46:40 ↗ that house right there. I mean, is that so? That's what I

46:46 ↗ heard from the feedback. From reading this, I predominantly got that feeling.

46:54 ↗ And that would be for single, so duplex for sure. We heard that. And

46:59 ↗ single family. From our feedback, that all housing they wanted to have reflect those

47:05 ↗ characters. Again, this is just based on the feedback you provided us from the

47:11 ↗ meetings you guys held. It seemed unequivocal. And then, you know, up at the

47:16 ↗ top right, obviously a modern contemporary home. It's got the tuck under parking, which

47:22 ↗ is nice. So we've got but it does have so another element

47:28 ↗ we hear in in residential design is to have the parking pulled back

47:33 ↗ from the street and so the front door the porch the pedestrian friendly

47:39 ↗ elements pushed out to the street subordinate the parking to the rear that's

47:45 ↗ something to consider in the future and then down here in the bottom

47:51 ↗ left again two units side by side we've seen something kind of looking

47:57 ↗ like that built in parts of old town now

48:03 ↗ i've heard some comments about that so but the current zoning allows that

48:08 ↗ that there and then let me say there are design standards today for

48:14 ↗ front street and sunset way there are not design standards for the single-family

48:20 ↗ residential neighborhoods and then again probably i bet there'd be support for this

48:26 ↗ duplex here there's there are two doors one and a half story traditional

48:32 ↗ home so this is probably a little off the but with

48:38 ↗ the central area plan, you guys came up with a number that

48:43 ↗ you were hoping to have that many people in the central area

48:49 ↗ plan. Have you done that kind of work for Old Town? I

48:55 ↗ mean, do you know? If you only put a first picture, that

49:01 ↗ kind of architecture throughout Old Town, you're going to limit the number

49:06 ↗ of people. Does that go into your mix of

49:12 ↗ do we have enough people in the city to support mass transit?

49:18 ↗ So in Old Town we did essentially a separate buildable lands or

49:24 ↗ capacity study to see how much could go there. So the big

49:29 ↗ number, the 7,185 or the 7,750 that we came up with is

49:35 ↗ how much central is the Quah can hold. And there is Old

49:41 ↗ Town. We also are required for the state and for the county to do a

49:46 ↗ buildable lands report. We do know pretty much how much capacity is in Old Town,

49:51 ↗ how much it can hold. It's in a separate document. I don't know exactly what

49:56 ↗ it is. But we do have something like that. But are you talking about trying

50:01 ↗ to draw people in? No, I just think it's something that if you have set

50:06 ↗ that you need to have it. want to have that many people in there, you're

50:12 ↗ going to have to look at more than just that one type of development. Right.

50:18 ↗ We don't want four story buildings, but how does that fit in with the rest

50:24 ↗ of the plan for the city? Right. Yeah, you're right. And that's where the four

50:30 ↗ story buildings on Sunset and Front would come in. If we want more density there,

50:36 ↗ that's probably where those would go because we'd like to retain what's here too. So

50:42 ↗ scale and character issues are topics we've heard about. the neighborhoods around here

50:48 ↗ so i guess we're going to be working on in the plan giving

50:53 ↗ some policy direction on what we would what would we like to see

50:59 ↗ moving forward here how are you going to make a determination what what's

51:05 ↗ the standard going to be 60 40 and therefore we're going to go

51:11 ↗ with the modern style or 25 75 and we stay with the old

51:17 ↗ uh craftsman style yeah I think the same thing. Most of the

51:22 ↗ people say they want to keep it the old-looking houses. But who's going to

51:28 ↗ make the decision and what are going to be the criteria to decide that?

51:34 ↗ I don't have the answer. I don't know. I just can't see upper right

51:39 ↗ and lower left being built anywhere in Old Town and not having, and it's

51:45 ↗ hard enough, I'll tell you, we're having a hard enough time getting apartment complexes,

51:51 ↗ the apartment buildings built on East Sunset. There was enough objection to those because

51:57 ↗ the modern style are too big. They don't fit in with the neighborhood. And now

52:02 ↗ you're talking about putting in square block houses, mini atlases. And I don't think it

52:08 ↗ would go over well with the people in the community. And I don't know who's

52:13 ↗ going to make that decision. And part of it might be what Joan said is

52:19 ↗ that we have rules. We have to have so much housing and we're going to

52:25 ↗ just have to say, well, we're sorry, but we got to build three-story apartment complexes.

52:31 ↗ Because we got to have that number of people. I don't know the answer to

52:35 ↗ the question. But it sounds like you were saying that Old Town, the number, the

52:39 ↗ housing numbers that we need to meet don't expand more than single family homes. There

52:43 ↗ aren't housing numbers that we need to meet in the rest of it. I mean,

52:48 ↗ there are growth targets for the entire city. It's a floor. It's not a ceiling.

52:52 ↗ We want you to kind of grow towards this number. But that's the point of

52:56 ↗ Central Issaquah. That's where we want all the growth to go. So out here, The

53:01 ↗ point is to try and maintain what's there. And we're not saying we're going to

53:05 ↗ try and draw in modern buildings. That's not what the point of this is. Hey,

53:09 ↗ let's bring in modern buildings. It's what do you all want to see? Because right

53:13 ↗ now, the way the design, there are no design standards for the single family houses

53:17 ↗ and duplexes. So these could go in there. and the bottom left could go in

53:21 ↗ there. But if everybody comes out and says absolutely not, that is absolutely not something

53:24 ↗ that we want to see here, then maybe an option is to come up with

53:28 ↗ design standards for single family, which is something the city has never done before, but

53:32 ↗ other cities have done it. So it's something for us to consider in the feedback

53:35 ↗ that we get from the open houses and the surveys, because that could go there

53:39 ↗ right now. We're not trying to pull it in. It can go there. But if

53:43 ↗ people freak out and say no, then maybe we need to try and find a

53:46 ↗ way to say no, let's scale that back a bit. We want more of this

53:50 ↗ look right here. So that's something we're trying to figure out and how that gets

53:53 ↗ done. I don't know yet. That's part of what we need to figure out too.

53:56 ↗ Maybe it is single family standards. I don't know, but we at least want to

53:59 ↗ know what people want. Yeah. So I guess then kind of piggybacking off Carl's question,

54:03 ↗ what are you guys trying to figure out from the survey? Because we've held meetings,

54:08 ↗ we've gotten feedback, and you've already heard people say, no, we don't want this. So

54:12 ↗ now the metric says, what are we going to be gaining from this next round

54:16 ↗ of surveying that gains us what we don't already know? And right now you're still

54:21 ↗ asking people the basic question. I feel like we've moved past it. Maybe try to

54:25 ↗ introduce a new element of modern homes that are more Cabin style is something that's

54:29 ↗ been very popular on the east side where you're still using stone and wood elements,

54:33 ↗ but they aren't a craftsman. So right now you're giving these people these harsh answers,

54:37 ↗ which I don't see how we're gonna gain something from this survey as far as

54:41 ↗ this particular point, 'cause we're focusing on these pictures right now. - So the open

54:45 ↗ houses that we've had have been more broad, and there are some areas that Dave

54:49 ↗ mentioned earlier that there's a lot of consensus and there's no need to go out

54:53 ↗ and reach out to more people. But in the open houses, we had about 80

54:57 ↗ people. So you go out and you do a survey, we're hoping to reach more

55:02 ↗ people and get more input on the topics that we still feel have not been

55:06 ↗ resolved in any way in either direction. Can I add? Yeah. The open house where

55:10 ↗ we had in November we had we had photos some photos like these there about

55:15 ↗ 30 people showed up to that one so we didn't have if we're trying to

55:19 ↗ get a consensus you know it's only 30. Okay so you're saying your cross-section is

55:23 ↗ too small right now and you're hoping the online survey is going to help reaffirm

55:28 ↗ or give us new information? New information and I would hope it go a little

55:32 ↗ deeper say hey we just If it's really truly picked that 100-year-old craftsman house

55:38 ↗ up there, if we heard clear consensus on that, that would be very helpful. If

55:44 ↗ it's 60/40 or just kind of all over the map, that's direction two.

55:50 ↗ And you know our primary mode of communicating with the public has been, is now

55:55 ↗ defunct with the Issaquah Press closing. How are we getting out to the community about

56:00 ↗ this survey? What's our outreach plan for trying to create this big cross-section of opinions?

56:06 ↗ Well, we've been developing an email list from the Old Town outreach we've been doing.

56:11 ↗ We have, well we don't have, we have Issaquah Reporter, we have not, the Issaquah

56:16 ↗ Press. What's the neighborhood? Next door. Next door. So the city launched next joint or

56:22 ↗ launched next door a couple of weeks ago. So we have kind of a new

56:27 ↗ electronic-- Are we working with businesses to promote it, to say hey, and try and

56:33 ↗ rally people in the community? Is there a hard marketing push? I don't know if

56:39 ↗ it's a hard marketing push, but we'll be putting-- Any marketing push. I'll be handing

56:44 ↗ out cards, publicizing the survey. I'll be out in the community. We

56:50 ↗ have these two open houses next week at the senior center and the brew

56:56 ↗ house. So we're trying to get the word out. You guys can help get

57:01 ↗ the word out. You said that you only got eight people to-- Eight. You

57:07 ↗ could put out a flyer that says, we are building this particular house on

57:13 ↗ sunset. And you will have 300 people there. If you don't come? That's

57:19 ↗ one way to provoke the folks, right? Yeah. You said eight or 80? Eight. We

57:24 ↗ had two public open houses, a total of about 80, larger in May, less in

57:30 ↗ November, about 30 in November when we showed photos of buildings and said, please put

57:36 ↗ dots next to the ones you like and don't like. So pretty small. I want

57:42 ↗ to be able to understand the scope here. Apologize for coming in late here.

57:50 ↗ We are not planning on expanding Old Town. These are because

57:56 ↗ there's no, we can't restrict what is built there in terms

58:01 ↗ of architectural style. They're zoning to in terms of the size

58:07 ↗ of the unit and if it's duplex versus single family home.

58:13 ↗ But we want to create a theme plan that will regulate

58:18 ↗ the architectural style And are we going to try and sell a

58:24 ↗ theme to the community to say, this is the type of theme that we're

58:30 ↗ going for? Because if you don't create a theme, you're going to get all

58:35 ↗ sorts of different housing styles, and they may not match. So people are going

58:41 ↗ to be looking to the city for guidance on this to say, this is

58:47 ↗ a theme that we want. Maybe coming up with a couple different themes

58:52 ↗ that we could move forward with and let the public decide what theme they

58:58 ↗ like the best and then focus your architectural elements and enforcing those to support

59:04 ↗ that theme instead of a hodgepodge of, you know, we get one of the

59:10 ↗ craftsman style, we get maybe the duplex down below. Both people could, I mean,

59:16 ↗ you could say one's modern, one's semi-modern, but they don't really work together, right?

59:22 ↗ So what about creating a theme and then asking the public what theme do you

59:27 ↗ like the best and then how would you enforce that? I guess those are good

59:33 ↗ questions. I'd step back and say that we're at the plan level now. I'd say

59:38 ↗ there's the plan level which sets goals and policies and then to implement the plan

59:43 ↗ is then step two would be maybe where you're getting at is design and development

59:49 ↗ regulations or standards. So we're at the plan level where we're saying, here's

59:54 ↗ the vision and the direction we'd like to go. We're asking you now, should

1:00:00 ↗ we even consider themes or not? Today in the residential neighborhood, there is no

1:00:06 ↗ theme. So we're saying, we've heard some feedback about a desire for theme. Should

1:00:12 ↗ we go forward and set a policy that, yes, the city does want to

1:00:17 ↗ establish a certain theme here? and i would see if we go there

1:00:23 ↗ that would end up as a policy in the plan it's adopted by the

1:00:29 ↗ council and then step two would be okay go go forth and design hire

1:00:35 ↗ professionals or staff and design architectural standards to require people who build buildings to

1:00:41 ↗ design to whatever theme the community lands on so it's like a two-step decision

1:00:47 ↗ process okay and what What's wrong with some

1:00:53 ↗ of the styles that we have now? The reason why I'm bringing it

1:00:58 ↗ up is because I'm seeing a lot of redevelopment in Old Town and

1:01:04 ↗ across the street over here near 2nd Street is all getting redeveloped. And

1:01:10 ↗ when those houses get redeveloped, they're going very modern, not really supporting that

1:01:16 ↗ old style theme that people want or people say they want. So is

1:01:22 ↗ there plans to also... allow people or to incentivize people to redevelop styles

1:01:28 ↗ within what the house was already like mid-century modern stay with mid-century modern or put

1:01:34 ↗ in some sort of protections to say you cannot create a different style house from

1:01:40 ↗ what you have right now if you have a craftsman you are stuck with a

1:01:46 ↗ craftsman style and that's it I think that's kind of that's what we're having these

1:01:52 ↗ meetings about is to discuss this and and together ask these questions and say

1:01:57 ↗ do we want to go to that place. We don't currently have that. So when

1:02:03 ↗ we were discussing the Holly Street Bridge, it was Holly Street, no the Third Avenue

1:02:08 ↗ Bridge, I was talking to some people who were very adamant about not having that

1:02:14 ↗ on their street. And so I was talking to people about protecting their property so

1:02:19 ↗ that other people can't go in and redevelop the property into something that looks very

1:02:24 ↗ different from the neighborhood. And the overall feeling I got was that, no, I don't

1:02:29 ↗ want to be told what I can and can't do with my property. That's the

1:02:34 ↗ other side of the coin. So, you know, we're trying to talk about keeping an

1:02:39 ↗ old town theme, but some of the people, when it comes to push the shelf,

1:02:44 ↗ if they can actually sell their lot and put in What I see down here,

1:02:50 ↗ the duplex, the two-story duplex, that's what they're going to build because that's going to

1:02:54 ↗ give them the most profit when they go to sell their house. When they sell

1:02:59 ↗ their house, they don't care what happens to the neighborhood. So... I think

1:03:05 ↗ you're asking these questions very well. That's kind of what we're asking you. I think

1:03:10 ↗ you're going to have some opposition when push comes to shove and you're telling people

1:03:15 ↗ that, hey, you can't do that. But right now they can do that. And so

1:03:20 ↗ someone who comes in and buys a lot with the intention of doing that, now

1:03:25 ↗ you're telling them that they can't. Or you can, but you have to do something

1:03:30 ↗ like, to the right there, an old town or a bungalow, a craftsman style,

1:03:36 ↗ You're going to have to be really careful about how you-- and I think the

1:03:42 ↗ policy needs to be kind of worked out at the same time we're talking about

1:03:47 ↗ these themes to see if legally we can even require people to do-- because that

1:03:53 ↗ would be different from what the left there is. You can't get the square footage

1:03:58 ↗ in a bungalow craftsman style house like that that you can from a three-story duplex.

1:04:04 ↗ It's very true. Which I believe three-story is currently the code. It's 30 feet.

1:04:09 ↗ So if you can get three-story, yes. It's kind of tough, but yes,

1:04:15 ↗ three stories. You're going to have a three-story bungalow. Yep. And there have

1:04:20 ↗ been some three-story housing units. I won't even, you know, built in this

1:04:26 ↗ neighborhood recently. There's been some comments against, negative comments about them. But you

1:04:32 ↗ raised a good point. So is that raising to the level of concern

1:04:37 ↗ that the city is willing to go to the place of regulation or

1:04:43 ↗ As far as doing an outreach, have we thought about actually sending a letter to

1:04:49 ↗ the owners of the property? The reason why I say letters to the owners of

1:04:54 ↗ the property as opposed to maybe doing or even a door knocking to ask, because

1:05:00 ↗ I think a lot of those units are rentals. So doing a door knocking probably

1:05:05 ↗ isn't going to do much good. And the people who live there, if they're renters,

1:05:11 ↗ are probably not going to show up debate like this. I also

1:05:16 ↗ like this idea. We have this requirement of when we have a land use proposition

1:05:21 ↗ that we have to notify people within a certain number of feet that we're having

1:05:26 ↗ a meeting. So right now we're trying to collect information about Old Town And I

1:05:30 ↗ don't know that it's fair to say that all residents who live in Old Town

1:05:36 ↗ necessarily are regularly online or may easily be able to navigate an online survey. So

1:05:41 ↗ being able to paper mail people so that while it may require them to put

1:05:46 ↗ a stamp back to the city and allowing people to actually submit their comments to

1:05:51 ↗ the city in a non-tech way may be very applicable for this district or neighborhood.

1:05:57 ↗ Okay. And if they don't show up, we make the decision for them. But you

1:06:03 ↗ communicate that to them, that this is their opportunity to provide feedback. And if they

1:06:09 ↗ don't provide the feedback, then we're moving forward with whatever theme we choose, and it

1:06:14 ↗ may not be to their liking, so we definitely need their feedback. You have to

1:06:20 ↗ let people know the urgency of them. If you just say, well,

1:06:26 ↗ we would like to do this. They don't get the urgency, but if you let

1:06:31 ↗ people know that we are changing themes for Old Town, then I think you might

1:06:37 ↗ get a lot more, put people under pressure and people will turn out. Like, you

1:06:43 ↗ know, what Joan said. Tell them that we're putting this in because this, and technically,

1:06:50 ↗ there's nothing wrong with that because it's not lying that could go in yeah let

1:06:53 ↗ people do worst case scenario and say this is what could be coming into your

1:06:57 ↗ neighborhood and then you'll get the people because they'll say oh my gosh wait a

1:07:00 ↗ minute i didn't realize it would be that ugly Well, the point is that we

1:07:05 ↗ want to get the best feedback that we can. So let's be successful in using

1:07:09 ↗ this opportunity to reach out into the neighborhood rather than saying, hey, we tried to

1:07:13 ↗ survey, we've held these meetings, we've already done that. So if there's a way, I

1:07:17 ↗ know you guys want to roll this survey out now, which is no reason not

1:07:21 ↗ to roll it out. But maybe there can be more implementation of getting the word

1:07:25 ↗ out to people and having a better variety of catching a cross section rather than

1:07:29 ↗ just We've emailed the people who have already attended a

1:07:34 ↗ meeting. It would be great to get really the optimal

1:07:40 ↗ amount of feedback to really be able to move forward

1:07:46 ↗ on this issue, because we obviously want to make a

1:07:51 ↗ plan. So the more information we can really gain from

1:07:57 ↗ a cross-section, the better we're going to be in a

1:08:02 ↗ position to make that. Can we do door to door?

1:08:08 ↗ We don't have-- we don't have-- Sorry. No, we don't

1:08:14 ↗ have the time and resources right now. I think you

1:08:19 ↗ have to start-- the city-- has to have

1:08:25 ↗ some basis to start. Not necessarily the style, but what you're

1:08:31 ↗ doing for the street and how far back it has to

1:08:36 ↗ be. And when you have the basic plan, then you can

1:08:42 ↗ go back and say, if you put a house on it,

1:08:48 ↗ it has to meet these requirements, not height or style, but

1:08:55 ↗ size-wise because the street is there and the sidewalks are there and I mean

1:09:01 ↗ that's something that's going to be there forever. What you're looking for is the

1:09:06 ↗ styles that you want to see in there and that's great but I think

1:09:12 ↗ people would it would be nice to have the requirements down before you go

1:09:18 ↗ and say Let's do this. And in the single family neighborhoods, there's been no discussion

1:09:24 ↗ about changing the front setbacks. So that's never come up. Yeah, so those would stay.

1:09:29 ↗ But if you had it, you know, not just... pick out what style you want.

1:09:34 ↗ This is why it has to be this way because our city is like this

1:09:40 ↗ and most people don't understand how big the sidewalks are, what the requirements are, how

1:09:45 ↗ big the street's going to be, what you're going to do for parking. And so

1:09:50 ↗ if you put that in an example to explain to people, I think it would

1:09:55 ↗ be a lot easier for them to understand how big, how much. Conceptualize. Conceptualize it.

1:10:05 ↗ Another thought that also occurred to me in terms of dressing up

1:10:10 ↗ Old Town is what about an incentive program to allow people to

1:10:16 ↗ remodel their homes to fit towards a certain style and get a

1:10:22 ↗ discount on permit fees? Not redevelop, but remodel. Incentivize them or motivate

1:10:28 ↗ them and say, hey, you know what? We want you to dress

1:10:34 ↗ your house up. So here's our solution. So you're walking into standards

1:10:40 ↗ right now. Yeah, you're getting down into the nitty-gritty and way down into standards. Yeah,

1:10:45 ↗ but you know, there are programs out there that let people, you know, that help

1:10:50 ↗ people with maintenance on their homes and stuff like that, but you know, I don't

1:10:55 ↗ know how far you can go with that. So you can have this money if,

1:10:59 ↗ you know, that kind of thing. I would turn a lot of people up though.

1:11:04 ↗ Did you have more of your presentation? I think I jumped on you with these

1:11:09 ↗ survey points. of giving this example. - Wanna move on? - Did you have, yeah,

1:11:13 ↗ did you have? - We got a couple more issues to talk about. - Okay.

1:11:17 ↗ I have a question that I guess goes back to something we've already done, so

1:11:21 ↗ that's why I wasn't sure if I should move backwards. And that was in regards

1:11:25 ↗ to the city's skate plan. We'd gone over that, what was recommended by the Old

1:11:29 ↗ Town Vitality Commission. Are we, Are you looking for feedback on that? Are you, what

1:11:34 ↗ is the next steps with that? Is that set in stone? Is that, what's the?

1:11:39 ↗ No, so the task force recommendations are done and we are taking a look at

1:11:44 ↗ those now and what might work, what wouldn't work, things that we like or don't

1:11:50 ↗ like. So, no, the recommendations are done, but we are taking those definitely into consideration

1:11:55 ↗ while we're doing the planning standards. They made recommendations related directly to those things, so

1:12:00 ↗ we're definitely looking at those. And then the streetscape plan, we can still do some

1:12:05 ↗ feedback. It goes to City Council Infrastructure Committee on April 11th. So that isn't included

1:12:10 ↗ at all in this upcoming survey? No, it's not, because that's gone through its own

1:12:15 ↗ process. So like the issue of allowing extra building height is something that's out of

1:12:20 ↗ the public hands right now? That's just being decided by city staff? No, that's not,

1:12:25 ↗ that wasn't part of the streetscape discussion. The streetscape discussion went from property line through

1:12:30 ↗ sidewalks, the pavement, and then to the property line. The height discussion has to do

1:12:35 ↗ with those, with everything beyond the property line, within the property lines. And the streetscape,

1:12:40 ↗ front street streetscape is just the street itself. Sidewalks and landscaping and parking lanes. So

1:12:45 ↗ for instance, taking parking offline to be able to enable bump outs for businesses, that's

1:12:50 ↗ something that you're not asking for feedback on from the community? Not as part of

1:12:55 ↗ the front street streetscape, no. I think we're talking two different projects. Yeah,

1:13:01 ↗ so the task force stuff, that'll come up. That will come up

1:13:07 ↗ again. That will come up as part of a discussion when we

1:13:13 ↗ do both the policies and the old town standards. That will come

1:13:19 ↗ up again. Yeah. Yes, they're open for discussion. It's the streetscape plan

1:13:24 ↗ itself that's moving on. Okay. Speaking of moving on, yeah? Yes, please

1:13:30 ↗ do. Okay. Traffic calming. So... So we've heard about cut through

1:13:36 ↗ traffic through Sunset and I maybe it's north but south of East

1:13:42 ↗ Sunset through 6th, 5th, 3rd, whatever down Bush and Andrews and heading

1:13:48 ↗ south down 2nd Avenue that that's a concern so we have turn

1:13:54 ↗ restrictions today left no left turn from certain hours and we'd like

1:14:00 ↗ to hear feedback of what other measures should there be other measures

1:14:05 ↗ first And if so, here are some examples of what other places

1:14:11 ↗ have done to calm traffic, to slow it down, to make it less

1:14:17 ↗ desirable to cut through a residential neighborhood. So I can try and describe

1:14:22 ↗ these pictures if you like, if you can't. So in the bottom left,

1:14:28 ↗ there's the traffic circle. This one here is intending

1:14:33 ↗ to show that was a street that went through, a through street, and that's up

1:14:39 ↗ in Seattle. There's a landscape. It's just a barrier. You cannot drive through that street

1:14:44 ↗ anymore. You have to turn. You cannot go through on that street, so it's a

1:14:50 ↗ barrier. It's a nice planted barrier, but it's still a barrier. This is a one-lane

1:14:55 ↗ road that winds a chicane or it winds through, so you have to wait for

1:15:01 ↗ the oncoming car to come and go. And then to calm traffic,

1:15:07 ↗ we've learned that as streets get narrower, such as a one-lane street, that

1:15:13 ↗ cars will usually slow down. And it's less efficient to zip through that

1:15:18 ↗ neighborhood to avoid, say, Sunset Way. So that's another way to do things.

1:15:24 ↗ Have the homeowners really complained that cars go too fast through the neighborhood?

1:15:30 ↗ They have. And I think part of what we're trying to figure out,

1:15:36 ↗ too, is And we've heard both, but is the bigger

1:15:42 ↗ issue the number of cars or is the bigger issue the speed of

1:15:47 ↗ the cars? You know, we've heard both. But yes. Like Seattle. It's so

1:15:53 ↗ much like Seattle, it is Seattle. A quick question. Have we thought about

1:15:58 ↗ putting a mobile traffic camera out? We haven't, but that's a good something

1:16:04 ↗ to think about. That would be a lot less expensive than any one

1:16:09 ↗ of those options, and you can move it around. And what would that

1:16:15 ↗ camera do, though? Take pictures of people going on speeders and send them a

1:16:21 ↗ ticket. I see. Good suggestion. And it wouldn't be so intrusive to the neighborhood.

1:16:27 ↗ I guess I would ask the traffic folks, how effective is that? I was

1:16:32 ↗ going to say, Kurt Seaman will be here at the next meeting. He's our

1:16:38 ↗ transportation manager, and you should bring that up. He will know better than we

1:16:44 ↗ would. I would expect that most of that traffic has to do with the

1:16:49 ↗ high school. Well, there's different parts of the day, I guess. I

1:16:55 ↗ hear, you know, when they release around what, 2:30 to 3:30 or so,

1:17:01 ↗ that's the school traffic, 3:30 to 5:00 school traffic, and then the commuter

1:17:07 ↗ traffic coming off the East Sunset Way interchange. And it goes north on

1:17:13 ↗ all 30 feet. I wondered about that. I've... Very much. They'll sit there,

1:17:18 ↗ ding, ding, ding, when they're coming. So another quick question. Have we asked

1:17:24 ↗ the neighborhood what they think would work? That is the purpose right here.

1:17:31 ↗ So this is a question with these photos on the upcoming survey. Where's your standard

1:17:36 ↗ speed bumps? Thank you. That is one that I didn't put up because it's out

1:17:42 ↗ of room and we all know what a speed bump looks like. So yes, speed

1:17:47 ↗ bumps is another option. And I've heard it's not a speed bump, it's a speed

1:17:53 ↗ table, a long one. Yeah, like on First Avenue over here. That's another option. Speed

1:17:59 ↗ bumps are real speed bumps where you really have to put in curves. So they've

1:18:03 ↗ got to go over and virtually stop to get over them. So I've heard the

1:18:08 ↗ fire department and others don't. Fire trucks can make it without any problem. Well, if

1:18:12 ↗ they have to, they will. Yeah, but if I lived on a street that had

1:18:17 ↗ a bunch of speed bumps, I had to go over it every single day, I

1:18:21 ↗ would be annoyed. Not everyone. You have your choice.

1:18:27 ↗ Yeah. If you're sitting there and you watch people going 80 miles an hour down

1:18:32 ↗ your street and you have little kids, I think you would prefer the speed bumps

1:18:38 ↗ than seeing them go 80 miles an hour. So it's all relative. I don't want

1:18:43 ↗ to go over the speed bumps. I don't either. But sometimes they're important. So to

1:18:48 ↗ provoke you all, I'll just be devil's advocate and say, so You know, in planning

1:18:54 ↗ and engineering land, we all talk about grid streets, a street of grids, so you

1:18:59 ↗ have many optional choices to get from here to there. So this is one of

1:19:04 ↗ the parts of, one of the few parts of town that actually has a grid

1:19:10 ↗ of streets. So it gives people more choices to get from here to there. So

1:19:15 ↗ in the bigger picture, is it... You raised the issue of the fire department and

1:19:20 ↗ speed bumps. What does the fire department say about snaky roads and... Little roundabouts

1:19:26 ↗ that they got to navigate. I would suspect the fire trucks don't think highly of

1:19:31 ↗ those either. But there are standards. There are certain dimensions in RAEI that they need

1:19:37 ↗ to meet. Okay. So you're going to talk about planting the seed on the bigger

1:19:42 ↗ picture of how much traffic calming should there be? These are public streets for all

1:19:48 ↗ people to use, or are they just for the neighbors to use? Okay. The

1:19:54 ↗ other option is if you do a roundabout and it has to meet code for

1:20:00 ↗ the fire trucks, if you got a little WRX or a little Honda Civic, you

1:20:05 ↗ can zip right around that thing like it's not even there. And that little windy

1:20:11 ↗ road, that looks kind of fun. Okay. Well, thanks for your feedback. So maybe not

1:20:17 ↗ then, huh? Kind of like the speed bump. Okay. so that's traffic calming i

1:20:23 ↗ anything else i think we're running towards the end of in a city that

1:20:29 ↗ always complains about traffic to actually talk about traffic calming doesn't seem reasonable and

1:20:34 ↗ that's all we wanted to move through the city we don't want it to

1:20:40 ↗ slow down and and you know it's just traffic calming on the side streets

1:20:46 ↗ is just going to make the traffic through traffic even worse probably yeah which

1:20:51 ↗ would be a detriment to the businesses trying to establish stuff on

1:20:57 ↗ front street so we're ready to move on to i think the final final

1:21:03 ↗ issue we've brought up is is to start thinking about possibly some boundary changes

1:21:09 ↗ to this old town and there's two that two that i've heard discussion about

1:21:15 ↗ and we're we're not landing anywhere yet at the north and the south end

1:21:21 ↗ so at the north end The Staples building up on

1:21:27 ↗ Front Street is at the north, up here in the red

1:21:32 ↗ right there. And that little bit is, I think, the edge

1:21:38 ↗ of Gilman Boulevard. And so we've heard that the character up

1:21:44 ↗ here is more Gilman Boulevard-like, more new development, less historic. And

1:21:50 ↗ so there's some consideration to maybe drop it. Okay, and then

1:21:55 ↗ there's Confluence Park over here. It's kind of its own thing.

1:22:02 ↗ So would it make some sense to, for example, pull the boundary down towards

1:22:08 ↗ basically down to the east fork of the creek up along Crescent and maybe

1:22:14 ↗ kind of across like that, right? Something like that. So think about that. And

1:22:20 ↗ then at the south end of town, so we're focusing tonight about the historic

1:22:25 ↗ core of Old Town. And then if you head down Front Street,

1:22:31 ↗ If you visualize that, so the middle school, which is now

1:22:37 ↗ turning into the other schools, is here and there's the pool.

1:22:43 ↗ You head down Front Street and you've got old houses, older

1:22:49 ↗ houses, some converting to offices along here, which can happen. And

1:22:55 ↗ then it turns into the 80s and 90s apartment complexes. So

1:23:00 ↗ how appropriate is kind of this area compared to all of

1:23:06 ↗ that? There you go. Are we done? Anybody

1:23:12 ↗ else want to comment? Or interloper? Yeah, if you don't mind,

1:23:17 ↗ I did have a couple questions, I guess. When Kristen, on

1:23:23 ↗ one of your very first slides, if you can pull it

1:23:29 ↗ up, Dave, but there was a mention of, it said increase

1:23:34 ↗ the required impervious, or would that mean increase maximum impervious? Increase

1:23:40 ↗ maximum, that would be a typo. Okay. Yeah. Was that on

1:23:46 ↗ East Sunset Way, I think? Oh, are you talking about the -- CBD. There's increased

1:23:51 ↗ impervious surface requirements. Here, I'll go there. I see what you're saying. Yeah, that's worded

1:23:56 ↗ funny, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Revisit and see if you could increase them. Yeah,

1:24:01 ↗ but the idea is you would increase the maximum impervious you could do on a

1:24:06 ↗ site. Correct. I think it's 85% right now on Front Street. and less than that

1:24:12 ↗ on Sunset. So look at those. It's 50% on Sunset and that's a

1:24:18 ↗ real development constraint today. That's probably the, that and parking on East Sunset

1:24:23 ↗ Way. Yeah. Then talking about the under building parking, is the, can you

1:24:29 ↗ do any below grade parking or is the water table too high? I

1:24:34 ↗ think the water table is too high, even here. I think it's fairly high

1:24:40 ↗ but the library parking garage does make it that low. They do have a sign

1:24:45 ↗ up saying that it does flood so you have to be careful and I think

1:24:50 ↗ there was one other one that went a little bit underground perhaps on Sunset. No?

1:24:55 ↗ A little bit? No? Okay I'm wrong but if you go you can't go very

1:25:00 ↗ deep. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And with these small lots, with the small lots it's hard

1:25:04 ↗ to get down. Right. Right. Elevator. And then the projects, the apartments or

1:25:10 ↗ condos on East Sunset that Carl brought up, are those, because those are three over

1:25:16 ↗ one, if I remember, right? Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. They're 40 feet. Yeah. Are

1:25:22 ↗ they three floors over one parking? Yeah. Yeah. And so those fit the current, would

1:25:28 ↗ that be within the 45? Yeah. We think or a I don't remember maybe

1:25:34 ↗ the truth that exists today. You mean those height? Yeah, you had to do

1:25:40 ↗ something with the with the roof slope. Yeah. Yeah. Certain amounts. Okay. Right. That

1:25:46 ↗ was. Yeah. Again, thinking of an idea of an example of something that's been

1:25:51 ↗ built and you know, within the code itself. And then also, wasn't there a

1:25:57 ↗ few years ago, didn't somebody propose to do a, I think it was a three

1:26:03 ↗ or four story apartment or condo on Sunset? Something came up within the past couple

1:26:09 ↗ of years. Sunset 7 or something it was? Yeah. And maybe for whatever. It'd be

1:26:15 ↗ interesting to bring that plan up as to say, here's somebody that working within the

1:26:21 ↗ code was coming up with a proposal for something that it's actually

1:26:27 ↗ planned on sunset i assume that plan is no longer moving forward i haven't

1:26:32 ↗ seen anything on that it's been a few years i think so yeah i

1:26:38 ↗ don't know it just went quiet um the other question it looked like on

1:26:44 ↗ your the all walk scenario and the sunset and front street cityscape oh the

1:26:50 ↗ okay The Alder Street, the Festival Street? No, not the Festival, but the crosswalk

1:26:55 ↗ where everybody goes at one time. Oh, yeah. All directions. Yes. Kind of like downtown

1:27:01 ↗ at First Avenue and Pike. Was the idea that I would have a different material

1:27:06 ↗ for what it looked like on the plans, a different material for the, yeah. Yes,

1:27:12 ↗ and here it shows brick or a stamped pavement. I don't know exactly what it

1:27:17 ↗ would be, but it would definitely be differentiated. Okay. Some way. Yes. Yeah, so that

1:27:23 ↗ lower right there, that idea. And then I guess the question, would there be any

1:27:28 ↗ thought of using that same kind of material for all the other crosswalks in Old

1:27:33 ↗ Town as a way to create some wayfinding that you would always kind of know

1:27:38 ↗ that every time you cross the crosswalk that had that material, you're still in Old

1:27:43 ↗ Town. I like that. I'll bring that up. Okay. Yeah. Your mind is headed

1:27:49 ↗ towards the development part of it. Yeah, exactly. Back to the policy level. Well, and

1:27:55 ↗ then the other thing I think is the question, I didn't hear much about the

1:28:00 ↗ bikes were mentioned, but I think one of the critical things is the East Lakes-Mamish

1:28:06 ↗ bike trail that will soon be paved all the way and the ability to draw

1:28:12 ↗ bikes from Gilman where it really stops down into Old Town. And that sort of

1:28:17 ↗ connection and how to make that connection a more visible, obvious one to get the

1:28:23 ↗ people on bikes down there. So what a great place to come and stop and

1:28:28 ↗ sit out on the sidewalk on a hot day. I know. Sure. An adult beverage.

1:28:34 ↗ You need a breakfast place, Saturday breakfast place downtown. Okay. Put that in the plan.

1:28:39 ↗ Yeah. So I think that's pretty. Yeah, I just I wanted to

1:28:45 ↗ mention to you know, everything that we've done on Old Town so far, the streetscape,

1:28:50 ↗ the Old Town Task Force, the discussions that we've had here. If you go to

1:28:56 ↗ our main website, your government major projects, you'll see Old Town and it has their

1:29:01 ↗ places where you can click on each of these and read about it and learn

1:29:06 ↗ about it. One sorry, one last thing here. Are we done? Well, the next slide

1:29:11 ↗ says public comment. So I got one more thing I'd like to interject.

1:29:17 ↗ Going through city plans that are no longer moving forward like maybe that

1:29:22 ↗ one project on sunset of the four-story building putting something like that out

1:29:28 ↗ in a visual document to tell people this is what has been proposed

1:29:34 ↗ in the past may not be going forward today but that's okay this

1:29:39 ↗ is what's being proposed might be a wake up call for

1:29:45 ↗ people to say, I don't want that. And then they'll get on the bandwagon

1:29:51 ↗ to actually support an outreach or your outreach to understand what they want. Otherwise,

1:29:57 ↗ you don't give them an incentive. They won't think they'll buy. Considering that the

1:30:02 ↗ city worked on the central area plan for six years and there were still

1:30:08 ↗ people that came to one of the planning policy mission meetings and said, I

1:30:14 ↗ had no idea that you were doing this. I want to applaud

1:30:20 ↗ the city for actually starting the planning. To me, Old Town, we've

1:30:26 ↗ talked about Old Town on this commission for a long time that

1:30:32 ↗ we needed to do something. We needed to make it vibrant so

1:30:38 ↗ the Highlands doesn't take over and there is no heart and soul

1:30:44 ↗ of our city. I'm glad that you're doing it. I think it's, you

1:30:50 ↗ know, it's commendable that you have started to do this, but it also brings up

1:30:55 ↗ the fact that you have a lot to do. And unfortunately, it has to be

1:31:01 ↗ done rather quickly because there are no standards. People can do whatever they want. And

1:31:07 ↗ once a building is built, it's not going to go away. The storage facility next

1:31:13 ↗ to the school is not going to go away. And so, I

1:31:19 ↗ hope you have enough time and energy to get something

1:31:25 ↗ done and hopefully it will be done correctly. So, thank

1:31:30 ↗ you. Anything else for the good of the -- yeah,

1:31:36 ↗ I know. This really isn't billed as a public open, but

1:31:41 ↗ there are people here, which is really nice to see people on

1:31:47 ↗ the other side of the fence here. Would anybody like to make

1:31:53 ↗ a public comment? Just give us your name and where you live.

1:31:59 ↗ My name is Ella Moore and I live at 290 Northeast Alder,

1:32:05 ↗ which is right in the heart of Old Town over here.

1:32:10 ↗ I have a couple of points. The first one is that about

1:32:16 ↗ Front Street and the height of the buildings. My fear is that

1:32:21 ↗ if you allow three or four story buildings, what you're going to

1:32:27 ↗ create is a canyon. And I agree and I'm glad to hear

1:32:32 ↗ the Commission saying the good things they've said because

1:32:38 ↗ I think it just takes away totally from the feeling

1:32:43 ↗ of an old town. And I've heard historic and I've

1:32:49 ↗ heard preservation and I've heard development and I wonder how

1:32:54 ↗ all three of those things can fit together and which

1:33:00 ↗ is the most important. To me, it is historic and

1:33:06 ↗ preservation. Because like you said, if we start changing the character here

1:33:12 ↗ of downtown, it's gone. We're going to have a Redmond. We're going

1:33:18 ↗ to have a Bellevue. And what kind of a strolling town is

1:33:23 ↗ this? You're trying to create a town that has a lot of

1:33:29 ↗ culture, restaurants, theaters. And when you start building up People don't like

1:33:35 ↗ to walk between real high buildings and like Joy said it it it destroys

1:33:41 ↗ your view the whole feeling we wouldn't be able to see the mountains you

1:33:47 ↗ know that's my two cents on that. I have a couple of questions does

1:33:53 ↗ the whole central area plan cover all of this? Okay it stops. Right so

1:33:59 ↗ the southern boundary of the central area plan is Holly Street. Okay. And

1:34:05 ↗ then it goes north from there, pretty far north, but it does not touch, it

1:34:11 ↗ doesn't touch Old Town at all. Okay. So the standards that are there do not

1:34:17 ↗ apply here. Okay. And we address the traffic and I was glad to see that

1:34:22 ↗ because we don't have any no right turn signs for north of Sunset on Alder

1:34:28 ↗ and every morning Zoom, zoom, zoom. Those are high school kids. In

1:34:34 ↗ the afternoon, it's commuters coming down off the highlands, and there's a stop sign

1:34:40 ↗ right at the corner where my house is. There's another stop sign at the

1:34:45 ↗ end of the block, one block. Do you think they can slow down? They

1:34:51 ↗ can't. going off that stop sign and they screech down there

1:34:57 ↗ to come to another stop. And there's a two block section ahead of me

1:35:03 ↗ where they can really pick up speed. And there's a lot of little kids

1:35:09 ↗ in our neighborhood. You know, it's not all us old folks. And I worry.

1:35:14 ↗ You know, they I've had people pass me an alder when I've been going

1:35:20 ↗ the speed limit. You know, so I I heard historic

1:35:26 ↗ survey and inventory taken. Was that just of downtown? No, it was, it covered the

1:35:32 ↗ entire city. It covered the un-annexed areas that hadn't been inventoried yet. And it completed,

1:35:38 ↗ there were some, so initially 150 properties were identified in Old Town, but only like

1:35:44 ↗ 65 were actually inventoried. So it covered the remainder of those and then the annexed

1:35:49 ↗ areas and it only went to 1964. So we still need to do the

1:35:55 ↗ entire city from 1964 to 1977. Okay. Because I've been involved in an inventory in

1:36:00 ↗ Sammamish from 1941 below. And I didn't see anybody walking around our neighborhood. Did they

1:36:06 ↗ go to the houses? Well, I mean, a lot of it had already been done

1:36:11 ↗ because we have our first inventory. But they did. They walked around. They took pictures

1:36:16 ↗ of everyone. Okay. Yeah. And we even had a flyer in case people asked, but

1:36:22 ↗ nobody asked. So... Yeah, okay, that brings me to another thing. And I thought

1:36:27 ↗ it was a good idea that you suggested putting questionnaires on people's homes. You

1:36:33 ↗ said you didn't have staff. Maybe you need to ask for volunteers to do

1:36:39 ↗ that. If you do the printing, print up the paperwork, ask for volunteers.

1:36:45 ↗ ask for volunteers from those particular neighborhoods right then you

1:36:51 ↗ will get more reactions oh yeah yeah old town reacts

1:36:57 ↗ when anything happens that affects us um have our first

1:37:03 ↗ volunteer it's not we can find volunteers in our neighborhood

1:37:09 ↗ yeah um and uh i think that Was it it'll

1:37:15 ↗ come to me later that I missed something but I think there will be

1:37:21 ↗ more opportunities for you to Express your opinions. Yeah, and I thank you for

1:37:26 ↗ the way your thoughts are going. I really appreciated that. Thank you Thank you.

1:37:32 ↗ Please you're next you're closer and Connie you always do such a great mop

1:37:38 ↗ great job mopping up after me make sure I've covered everything so thank you

1:37:44 ↗ so several thoughts You are? I'm sorry, thank you. The part I always forget, Steve

1:37:50 ↗ Pereira, 170 Northeast Dogwood Street here in Old Town for about nine and a half

1:37:55 ↗ years. So the first topic while it's up here and I remember the adjustment of

1:38:00 ↗ the Old Town neighborhood, I think this is the Staples lot that got identified. I

1:38:06 ↗ have some concern with that in that, so this is Crescent Drive, comes down here

1:38:11 ↗ to Northeast Dogwood and Dead Ends. A whole bunch of cars come

1:38:17 ↗ down here, turn around and go back out. If we increase this to not be

1:38:23 ↗ old town standards, that traffic cross through is only going to increase because it's going

1:38:28 ↗ to drive more development to the area. So I have concerns with that. I also

1:38:34 ↗ have concerns that Front Street is already pretty bogged down and tight now and we're

1:38:40 ↗ driving more traffic into this area by having increasing density standards. We haven't talked about

1:38:46 ↗ how roads or traffic is going to work with that happening and that needs to

1:38:50 ↗ be out of this larger discussion that I'm not hearing is happening. So I'm going

1:38:55 ↗ to jump around back forth as the thoughts occur to me. So thanks for that

1:39:00 ↗ patience in advance. Okay I'm one of those old town should be spelled with an

1:39:05 ↗ E. It's not just a geographical area. It's something about the culture and the classical

1:39:09 ↗ part of the neighborhood. So I've looked in this presentation and we have half of

1:39:15 ↗ it is spelled with an E and half is spelled without an E. And there

1:39:20 ↗ needs to be some consistency. If there's a standard that says it's Old Town, that

1:39:24 ↗ needs to be standard throughout the presentation. So if you're saying you put the E

1:39:29 ↗ in there, thank you. I'll give you a heads up. Can I explain? Yes, please.

1:39:33 ↗ So the Old Town Vitality Task Force recommended remove the E and therefore their report

1:39:38 ↗ does not have the E. and we recognize that in the slideshow tonight. Then the

1:39:42 ↗ rest of it has the E still in there because it still has an E.

1:39:47 ↗ But that is a question if we all, we could have added in the slide

1:39:51 ↗ today, should the E stay or go? So you say keep it. - I look

1:39:55 ↗ at it as, and this is just feedback on that point, it looks to me

1:39:59 ↗ as a marketing standard to just mark it as old and downgraded and not as

1:40:03 ↗ important and valid and part of the marketing scheme on this and that concerns me

1:40:07 ↗ from a city perspective to be, denigrating i think this historic neighborhood so another point

1:40:12 ↗ is we talk about wanting to incentivize people to do things i think we need

1:40:16 ↗ to put in things like zoning that says old town is this type of structure

1:40:20 ↗ we're not going to incentivize you to keep it until you put in a development

1:40:25 ↗ plan to change it you don't have those historic rights that go with it to

1:40:29 ↗ put in a good two or three story structure you're stuck with what you get

1:40:34 ↗ we don't have that in place today people can go to and then tear down

1:40:38 ↗ their their current house and put in this two or

1:40:44 ↗ three story unit that is both out of character and that the infrastructure isn't

1:40:50 ↗ in place to maintain as far as traffic and as far as parking.

1:40:56 ↗ So I think we need I'm getting back to the part when you have code

1:41:01 ↗ and when you have structure I mean have zoning that enforces these things I would

1:41:06 ↗ also have concern that people are going to start taking individual Lots and they're going

1:41:10 ↗ to combine them into building even bigger houses then there are allowed and that needs

1:41:15 ↗ to be part of the zoning structure that gets looked at in this not just

1:41:20 ↗ from an old town preservation or historic area, but code that says because code says

1:41:25 ↗ we allow whatever the code says, there's not ability to say no, we don't want

1:41:29 ↗ this, we have to allow it or permit it because the code says it must

1:41:34 ↗ be in place. So I think that needs to be defined. So does a limit

1:41:39 ↗ for allowing large destructions when we don't have, and driving density into an area where

1:41:43 ↗ we don't have the density for the roads or the schools to allow that to

1:41:48 ↗ happen. So that needs to be a consideration to say no, we don't want this

1:41:53 ↗ to happen.

1:42:00 ↗ I'm on on surveys. I've I've no I've been to any number of City inputs

1:42:04 ↗ and I give an input and I've heard lots of people give it input that

1:42:08 ↗ says we like this classic structure that is old town and Yet we keep coming

1:42:12 ↗ back with more surveys like we don't like the answer we get so we're gonna

1:42:16 ↗ keep coming back and surveying people again and again until we get what we want

1:42:20 ↗ and which is to increase density. I'm one of those that had the perspective that

1:42:25 ↗ if we allowed increased density in the central Issaquah plan, one of the takeaways was

1:42:29 ↗ that we get Old Town. You can have the central Issaquah plan, we get to

1:42:33 ↗ keep Old Town as historic and preserved and now we're coming back and saying can

1:42:39 ↗ we change it just a little bit to accommodate or compromise. We already maybe compromised

1:42:44 ↗ by saying you can't have the Central Isle of Gall plan, what we get is

1:42:50 ↗ Old Town, leave us alone, quit surveying us, we've provided our input, you obviously don't

1:42:56 ↗ like it so you keep coming back again and again and again. So please stop

1:43:01 ↗ coming back again and again and again until you get what you want. I'm just

1:43:07 ↗ trying to remember, oh, the traffic calming measures so I'm yes I'm glad to see

1:43:13 ↗ the residents are are involved in this I guess I'm looking more from the city

1:43:18 ↗ to come back and stay if we put speed bumps this has this kind of

1:43:23 ↗ x effect x number of effect if we put in winding curvy roads it has

1:43:28 ↗ this cost or this effect I'm not hearing those feedback from the city we're just

1:43:33 ↗ trying to get input and if we don't really know what we get from those

1:43:38 ↗ different options or what the costs are those and then i'm also looking for something

1:43:42 ↗ that comes back and says after we've done these traffic measure calming features what's the

1:43:47 ↗ result of that are we getting the effect that we want i know as was

1:43:52 ↗ pointed out this is one of the few areas of the town that has a

1:43:56 ↗ grid system and I get the sense that the city wants to increase that

1:44:02 ↗ grid system so it can allow more, I think, east-west traffic through areas. One of

1:44:07 ↗ those that came up was aligning northeast Dogwood and northwest Dogwood as a kind of

1:44:13 ↗ a bypass area or zoning. That same concern I have if that happens is the

1:44:18 ↗ same thing I'm gonna see that's happening in the current neighborhoods and I'm pointing at

1:44:23 ↗ the map here the the kind of the the tannish and the brown areas the

1:44:27 ↗ the southeast Clark the bush the Andrews the older People gonna start doing cross through

1:44:32 ↗ traffic of that So we're just expanding one problem area to other problem areas by

1:44:37 ↗ allowing this grid system where the structure doesn't allow for that and I too don't

1:44:42 ↗ know that I have a solution, but I think that needs to be part of

1:44:48 ↗ the consideration. So when we discuss transportation, you certainly can come back and give us

1:44:53 ↗ an additional feedback from being in the Old Town area, well, both of you. So

1:44:59 ↗ come back at that time. I will, and yes, I'll be completing the survey as

1:45:05 ↗ well. So thank you. That's a good rein in point for me, so thank you.

1:45:10 ↗ Is there anybody else that wants to make a comment? Short comment.

1:45:16 ↗ Hi, I'm Connie Marsh and I live on Squawk.

1:45:21 ↗ So I have a few things. I think that

1:45:27 ↗ because we have the central Issaquah plan and we

1:45:33 ↗ did not have that at the time that this

1:45:38 ↗ original plan was done, this is the opportunity to

1:45:44 ↗ preserve Old Town. And I think that that is

1:45:49 ↗ what the city is providing the opportunity to do. And

1:45:55 ↗ they, I think they want to preserve Old Town as

1:46:01 ↗ a sacred thing. They just were not able to do

1:46:06 ↗ that before because that was needed to accommodate growth. So

1:46:12 ↗ the support of this process and ensuring that the voices

1:46:18 ↗ are put into place to allow that to happen because you can't

1:46:23 ↗ basically down zone without some political backsplash and they want to

1:46:29 ↗ be able to point at someone besides themselves to allow it to

1:46:35 ↗ happen right and that is us if we want it to happen

1:46:40 ↗ then we have to clearly say that we don't want this tall

1:46:46 ↗ of building we we want to preserve the non pass-through traffic concept

1:46:51 ↗ of the neighborhoods and and all so I would probably be

1:46:57 ↗ positive toward the city for doing this at this point in time.

1:47:03 ↗ Now policy. Policy is super hard because it is way up here

1:47:09 ↗ and the tendency is to get way down here. So Dave can

1:47:15 ↗ you put up the slides talking about the controversial areas that you're

1:47:21 ↗ pointing out? Controversial? The areas that need more refinement. Undecided. Yeah. Sure.

1:47:27 ↗ Thank you. Outstanding issues. I'm so sorry. Outstanding

1:47:33 ↗ issues. So Sunset Way, and I'm going to contradict

1:47:38 ↗ everyone a little bit. Retail is a component that

1:47:44 ↗ is missing on Sunset Way. You can do commercial,

1:47:49 ↗ retail, It's pretty well missing. And so I would add retail as

1:47:55 ↗ an outstanding issue on this because what good is Sunset Wave if you can't have

1:48:01 ↗ retail? I mean, you can have offices, woohoo. So picture you drive into Issaquah and

1:48:07 ↗ this is your gateway. And you're thinking, what a charming little dental office. No. I

1:48:12 ↗ want to stop. Maybe I'll go visit. Get a filling. No. Right? You want to

1:48:18 ↗ say, look at this. I want to play here. I want to get out.

1:48:24 ↗ I want to eat here. I want to do things in your town because it

1:48:29 ↗ is so cute and charming and this is obviously old. Right now, sunset can be

1:48:35 ↗ 65 feet. It is just being limited because you have a 50% impervious surface, right?

1:48:40 ↗ So if in your brain for policy, because remember we're at policy, you're saying, We

1:48:46 ↗ want to not only preserve the Old Town character, we want to

1:48:52 ↗ enhance it by allowing all of the opportunities to augment the look

1:48:58 ↗ and feel of Front Street. and not to just talk about

1:49:03 ↗ being pedestrian friendly, but to actually prioritize pedestrians so that we can

1:49:09 ↗ reclaim our town from the incessant pass through traffic. Because right now

1:49:15 ↗ on a spectrum of, wow, cars have priority to pedestrians have priority,

1:49:21 ↗ cars have priority. in Old Town and we keep saying you saw it

1:49:27 ↗ over and over and over pedestrians, pedestrians, pedestrians and then bicycles yet we

1:49:33 ↗ prioritize cars. So we need some policy language to ensure that we are

1:49:38 ↗ actually prioritizing the pedestrians and the regional traffic you know they can stop

1:49:44 ↗ and eat too but it's for us. and the character for ourselves

1:49:50 ↗ and every time we walk through town we can be proud of

1:49:55 ↗ what we see. Now what I hear for the residential architectural character

1:50:01 ↗ is more about livability within those neighborhoods. People don't like to live

1:50:07 ↗ looking at blank walls. Maybe the architectural style isn't quite as important to them,

1:50:13 ↗ but there are certain things that are just darned annoying, and that is looming, right?

1:50:18 ↗ Nobody wants looming things. You want to be in your backyard with your neighbor looking

1:50:24 ↗ at you sunbathing? No. So, and it is that same looming sensibility that we keep

1:50:29 ↗ hearing about Old Town. So is there a policy about the scale? of the

1:50:35 ↗ houses and the decorations of the architecture to ensure that the views that

1:50:41 ↗ you have architecturally and naturally are pleasant and fitting, right? Because remember it's

1:50:46 ↗ that darn policy language. One thing that would help is to actually provide

1:50:52 ↗ some of the policy language that we have that is applicable to Old

1:50:58 ↗ Town So we could see if maybe we just want to

1:51:03 ↗ juggle a little bit of the language in order to make it

1:51:09 ↗ better, right? And traffic calming, well that's a whole different thing. Boundary

1:51:15 ↗ changes. That north end of Front Street is a gateway from the

1:51:20 ↗ freeway. And Skippers basically is a pavement and there's not much there.

1:51:26 ↗ So I don't know what to do about Crescent. That's interesting. So I agree with

1:51:32 ↗ that. The southern boundary, I think, is super awkward. I don't think you have the

1:51:37 ↗ same standards necessary to the south as you do to the north. I think it

1:51:42 ↗ is more applicable to fit into, but I don't know the area that it would

1:51:48 ↗ fit with. So that's only half of the information is what would it do to

1:51:53 ↗ that area, right? And that, oh no, parks in town. I

1:51:59 ↗ realize there is yet another process for parks, but I want

1:52:05 ↗ to say that now is the time to start thinking about,

1:52:10 ↗ okay, what would make Memorial Field like hot spit, right? Not

1:52:16 ↗ just a field. but a place to go and do things and

1:52:22 ↗ enjoy and be proud of, right? Same with the new parks that we have across

1:52:28 ↗ from Front Street Market. Okay, what do you want them to be? Can we create

1:52:34 ↗ policy language for what the texture of the parks system should be in Old Town

1:52:40 ↗ as compared to other areas of town? Okay, there you go. Thank you. And that's

1:52:45 ↗ it? so may i make a statement on connie applaud on connie's last one

1:52:51 ↗ is there is the other process going on right now for parks and definitely get

1:52:56 ↗ involved because i think that's that's part of what it could be is what do

1:53:00 ↗ you want old town versus this area versus this area and and part of what

1:53:05 ↗ we'll focus on here i don't know how much say we have over what the

1:53:09 ↗ actual parks can be certainly worth a discussion but but you know we'll also focus

1:53:14 ↗ on the connections to those parks from destination point to destination point which would be

1:53:19 ↗ those parks so but yeah get involved in the parks as well. I forgot to

1:53:23 ↗ answer that question which oh yeah thank you and yeah I think it was in

1:53:28 ↗ the notes from the last meeting because Carl asked us. Second Avenue light is going

1:53:33 ↗ in yeah but basically the sunset is just on hold yeah because there's nothing we

1:53:37 ↗ have sort of a concept going on but that's yeah So we're not going to

1:53:42 ↗ have real input on what goes into the park, but we can have input on

1:53:48 ↗ what goes around the park to give it access to that. Right, and there can

1:53:53 ↗ still be input through the parks process as well. I mean, sure. Yeah, but here,

1:53:59 ↗ correct. Yeah. Yeah. But I would assume that... When you're adding codes and permitting

1:54:05 ↗ processes and stuff that you want to be able to highlight and integrate those parks

1:54:10 ↗ into the community. I haven't seen too much of that and I think that we

1:54:16 ↗ need to start looking at, oh gee, there's a park, but what's around it? How

1:54:22 ↗ do we access it? What do we do in that park? I have a question.

1:54:28 ↗ Is there the Old Town Vitality Task Force, is that just business? It was.

1:54:34 ↗ It was the DIA, the Downtown Esquire Association. They had various representatives, but most

1:54:40 ↗ of them were businesses. Business owners, they did have the clothing and food bank,

1:54:46 ↗ but the village theater. Two of the business owners were residents.

1:54:51 ↗ Correct. And that's what it was. That's what I said in the

1:54:57 ↗ beginning. When I was talking about it at the beginning, their primary

1:55:03 ↗ focus was on Front Street and parts of Sunset. They want you

1:55:09 ↗ to go to the microphone because they can't hear the powers that

1:55:15 ↗ be. Yeah, I've raised that question before about how

1:55:21 ↗ much of what happens downtown does affect those of us

1:55:26 ↗ that live here. And it seems to be more of

1:55:32 ↗ an exclusive group just for businesses. So that's my input.

1:55:37 ↗ And they're now, they've disbanded. Oh, they have? They have. They disbanded. They made

1:55:43 ↗ their recommendations. Okay. And then the group, that was at the end of 2015, and

1:55:47 ↗ the group no longer meets. But we're taking some of what they recommended and looking

1:55:53 ↗ at some of those things and considering that for our updates. And there is a

1:55:59 ↗ downtown association. There is still the downtown Esquire Association. That has meetings that I'm sure

1:56:05 ↗ people would be welcome to go to those meetings. Yeah. Okay. So, yes, I should

1:56:10 ↗ clarify the task force has disbanded. DIA is still in place. Yes. Thank you, Eleanor.

1:56:23 ↗ - One other thing came to mind, I guess I'm gonna get to, and I'll

1:56:28 ↗ still make it short. One was the tables that get set out on Front Street

1:56:32 ↗ and whether or not there should be separate requirements for that to happen. It seems

1:56:37 ↗ like since they expanded the sidewalks in Front Street, the table spaces have increased to

1:56:41 ↗ include more and more of the sidewalks, so there's even less pedestrian space than there

1:56:46 ↗ was. So I'm a little bit more concerned with opening that up even more when

1:56:50 ↗ sidewalks are supposed to be for pedestrians. - That's one thought. The

1:56:56 ↗ second thought was one of the things listed was signage. And I kind of

1:57:01 ↗ like the signage that's kept in stock or in tone with what Old Town

1:57:07 ↗ is, not having wide signage that's out of scope for the character. So I

1:57:13 ↗ want that to be kept in mind as well. Thank you. - That's one

1:57:18 ↗ of the things that the Arts Commission would like to get involved in, creating

1:57:24 ↗ different signs and way waypoints and everything else in the city so um hopefully that

1:57:30 ↗ all comes together too um with that do you mind if i if i say

1:57:35 ↗ something awesome i'm gonna i'm gonna go ahead we have one more slide that talks

1:57:41 ↗ about the next steps in this in this process and crystal do it quickly right

1:57:47 ↗ yes i'm good go ahead ask your question right there um So we've already talked

1:57:53 ↗ about the things coming up on the 28th and the 29th. The seniors that are

1:57:57 ↗ in the brew house will be back here on the 13th with our transportation engineer.

1:58:02 ↗ And on the 27th when we have the public hearing, we'll have to discuss policies.

1:58:07 ↗ We'll discuss policies at both of those. Not the standards, the higher level policies for

1:58:12 ↗ the plan. Then in May, there's a council work session. May 15th, June 1st, we'll

1:58:17 ↗ go to Landon Shore, and then June 9th, and this is alternative, we'll see how

1:58:23 ↗ it goes, but would be council action. Thank you. You're welcome. Just ask the Blue

1:58:28 ↗ House is, I don't know if it's in this direction. It's right there, across the

1:58:34 ↗ street. Okay. Oh, I wanted to make a comment about the Front Street

1:58:39 ↗ streetscape plan. You mentioned that the Old Town Vitality Commission is disbanded and you're looking

1:58:44 ↗ at their recommendations. And while this may be a comment that's more of a private

1:58:49 ↗ citizen, less as a commissioner, I'd really like you guys to try to see the

1:58:54 ↗ forest for the trees. The idea of timing all the stoplights is one that's worth

1:58:59 ↗ a discussion, but the idea of the resources that it would take to make all

1:59:04 ↗ that a homogenized... crosswalk area seems really ridiculous to me. The idea of tearing up

1:59:08 ↗ a sunset in Front Street and the traffic and what that's going to cause into

1:59:12 ↗ the community to be able to make it look I think it's a whole divorced

1:59:17 ↗ issue. We talk about bumping up against resources all the time. How about we leave

1:59:22 ↗ the asphalt like it is and we just time the lights? You talked and showed

1:59:27 ↗ a picture of actually changing that intersection and I'm failing to see how that promotes

1:59:32 ↗ our ideals. Moving the traffic along does, but actually tearing up the street and replacing

1:59:37 ↗ it seems a little crazy to me. And that brings me to my next point

1:59:42 ↗ of something that I some suggestions of narrowing the spaces by a few feet so

1:59:46 ↗ we can gain, I don't know, a place to put a tree in what's already

1:59:51 ↗ an asphalt covered area. And we didn't get to mention that we were handed an

1:59:56 ↗ email from from a citizen from Mary and she specifically mentions in it that she's

2:00:01 ↗ concerned about the idea of limiting a space where people are able to freely get

2:00:05 ↗ out. Maybe you have a walker when you get out of your vehicle and limiting

2:00:09 ↗ that space for a parking is something that really should be taken into account and

2:00:13 ↗ we never mentioned those comments. And so I wanted to bring that up that that

2:00:17 ↗ was something that she mentioned along with other things to say that There are repercussions

2:00:22 ↗ to our actions and so in some of these recommendations that you showed on the

2:00:27 ↗ front street street street scape plan. You know some things I love like the idea

2:00:33 ↗ of turning alder into a more pedestrian friendly festival scape. But the idea of tearing

2:00:38 ↗ things up for a look seems a little a little silly to me. Well, okay.

2:00:44 ↗ All right. We will and that hopefully she will send these to city council as

2:00:49 ↗ well. But maybe we can direct her that way to go to city council as

2:00:55 ↗ well so that the committee can talk about it. Well, can I just say thank

2:00:59 ↗ you for the reminder. I really, yeah, Mary Lynch emailed me comments this afternoon. Okay.

2:01:04 ↗ And I've handed them out. She has to make them part of the record. I

2:01:09 ↗ don't know if you want me to read them into the record. I've been sitting

2:01:13 ↗ here looking at it, but I've been so involved in you guys, I haven't read

2:01:18 ↗ it. I'll just briefly say the city

2:01:24 ↗ needs to set some clearly stated policies codes for the following infrastructure. What

2:01:30 ↗ streets need to have sidewalks? Who's responsible for paying for sidewalks? Maintaining sidewalks.

2:01:36 ↗ We need to review the current codes and policies for safe parking space

2:01:42 ↗ along city streets. And

2:01:47 ↗ then I'm going to skip over that generally. And then number two, there needs

2:01:53 ↗ to be clear policy plan about streetscapes, preserving the existing and planting more trees

2:01:59 ↗ in the valley. So to absorb CO2 and give more pet friendly walking paths

2:02:05 ↗ and visual enjoyment. That was my summary of the comments. Thank you

2:02:11 ↗ for the reminder. Thank you, Mary. As always, they're good comments. I'm assuming

2:02:16 ↗ that if you change anything in the way of sidewalks or access, you're

2:02:22 ↗ going to look at people with disabilities or wheelchairs so that they have

2:02:28 ↗ the access among it. Yes, that is a requirement when you do. Yeah.

2:02:33 ↗ So, I mean, I just assumed that that would be a top requirement.

2:02:39 ↗ priority of the city, so cool. - I mean, on one hand, when we have

2:02:44 ↗ people coming into our city and using the retail spaces, they don't have enough parking,

2:02:48 ↗ but then we're proposing that to increase that business, we wanna give them the parking

2:02:52 ↗ stalls to be able to expand their business, because sometimes those sit empty, but they

2:02:57 ↗ sit empty when people aren't there to use the business. So when you have, you're

2:03:01 ↗ wanting to attract someone, like a good example is how the brew house has tables

2:03:06 ↗ outside. We saw examples of the city saying, hey, we could increase our economic vitality

2:03:10 ↗ by being able to bump out. We take a stall and then we're able to

2:03:15 ↗ have tables so that business is able to attract more business by using that space.

2:03:19 ↗ That's when we need the parking to be able to support the business. So the

2:03:24 ↗ theory of saying, Well, sometimes that sits empty, but that sits empty when no one's

2:03:28 ↗ there to use it. I mean, there's a contradiction that's happening that I heard, or

2:03:33 ↗ for instance, you mentioned that we need to come up with more parking, so we

2:03:37 ↗ need to make them build it underground. But we have issues with flooding, and so

2:03:41 ↗ there's really nowhere to build underground in Old Town. Right, well, as a correction, I

2:03:45 ↗ said either under building a parking garage or surface parking, but yes, additional parking. So

2:03:49 ↗ I'm hearing some contradictions that were specifically related to the Front Street Streetscape Plan that

2:03:53 ↗ I hope that when looking at some of implementing some of these things, we do

2:03:58 ↗ broad strokes that help to advance us rather than just focusing on something that's aesthetically

2:04:02 ↗ more pleasing than necessarily a good use of resources. And some of those things are

2:04:06 ↗ things that came up at the council meeting when the Streetscape Plan was presented to

2:04:11 ↗ them last Monday and may come up again at the infrastructure meeting. So those comments

2:04:15 ↗ would be good there too. You've been tasked with finding parking somewhere besides that

2:04:21 ↗ area. So hopefully you find that parking before you start changing the -- making

2:04:27 ↗ up parking spaces that are there now. Well, you know, the -- I just

2:04:33 ↗ -- the parklet, if that happens, it's the business' choice to help make that

2:04:39 ↗ happen because they have to actually pay to have it set up. pay for

2:04:45 ↗ its maintenance, but it's also a temporary thing. So it's something that may happen for,

2:04:49 ↗ you know, two months during a season, but again, it's the business's choice and it's

2:04:53 ↗ their parking that they'd be, that would be suffering. So, you know, it's, it's a

2:04:57 ↗ give and take and something that has to be a partnership and a decision, a

2:05:02 ↗ conscious decision. It's our parking. It's a public street. Right. You're right. It's a partnership.

2:05:06 ↗ We'd have to agree to it and they'd have to want to do it. We

2:05:11 ↗ want the businesses to be there. Right. We need the businesses to be there.

2:05:17 ↗ And so we have to provide them the facility to be able to support

2:05:23 ↗ their business. Anything else? Now that we know that our next meeting is April

2:05:29 ↗ 13th, I will see you there. Thank you for great comments and I will

2:05:34 ↗ close the meeting at 20 to 9. Thank you.

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