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Planning Policy Commission Auto captions

Thursday, November 18, 2021

6:30 PM · 2h 27m
Section
1. CALL TO ORDER
1a
Commission Membership
packet pp.3
Staff report:
PLANNING POLICY COMMISSION Staff Liaison Christen Leeson, Senior About Planner Created in 1983, this commission serves as a Email policy advisory body to the Mayor and provides guidance and direction for Issaquah's future Regular Members growth through continued review and 2022 – Joy Lewis improvement to the City's Comprehensive Land 2022 – Matt Monahan Use Plan and related land use documents. 2022 – Jason Voiss 2022 – Vacant Membership 2023 – Nina Milligan The Planning Policy Commission is comprised of 2024 – Ron Faul seven regular members, with four-year terms; 2024 – Sara Bader and several alternates, with two-year terms. All members are appointed by the Mayor and Alternate Members subject to confirmation by the City Council. 2022 - Richard Zaragoza Terms expire April 30 of the year listed. For 2023 - Vacant more information, see IMC 18.03 and Rules & Regulations. Meetings Unless…
2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
2a
Minutes of October 14, 2021
packet pp.5–7
Staff report:
APPROVAL OF MINUTES a) 10-14-21 Planning Policy Commission Minutes Page [0000] CITY OF ISSAQUAH Planning Policy Commission 6:30 PM Virtual Meeting October 14, 2021 MINUTES
2b
Minutes of October 28, 2021
packet pp.9–14
Staff report:
APPROVAL OF MINUTES b) 10-28-21 Joint Planning Policy Commission & Page [0000] Development Commission (Special) Minutes
2c
Minutes of November 4, 2021
packet pp.15–19
Staff report:
will focus on the Density Bonus Program, and provided details on how the program operates in the City. She noted so far it has yielded 11 units at 50 percent AMI and resulted in $650,000 fee-in-lieu from the Lofts project. She continued with the City’s mandatory programs (inclusionary zoning, cluster housing, and development agreements), which are currently only required in three zones or in development agreements.
5. REPORTS
5a
Council Update
Received · Minnie Dhaliwal, Director, Community Planning & Development
6. OTHER BUSINESS / ANNOUNCEMENTS
6a
Upcoming Schedule
packet pp.41–46
Staff report:
Planning Policy Commission 2021-2022 Schedule (subject to change) 2021 1/14/21 1/28/21 Land Use Code Amendments re: Electric Vehicle  Public Hearing: 2021 Docket of Proposed
0:47 we're going to start here
0:53 i call to order the
0:55 policy and planning commission meeting
0:56 for november 18th
0:59 and the time is 6 32
1:02 due to the virtual format of today's
1:04 meeting i'd like to start by providing
1:05 some guidelines
1:07 we have participants attending by
1:09 computer and others who may be attending
1:11 by phone
1:12 for all meeting attendees who wish to
1:14 speak please speak clearly and pause
1:16 frequently
1:18 state your name each time and before
1:20 speaking
1:21 reach your microphone when not speaking
1:24 if having technical issues try joining
1:26 the meeting using a different device
1:27 such as a smartphone or tablet or use
1:30 the call-in information located in the
1:32 invite
1:34 and
1:35 kristen will you go ahead and please
1:36 call attendance tonight
1:39 commissioner bader
1:42 mr milligan
1:45 here
1:46 mr monahan
1:48 here
1:49 commissioner lewis who i can never seem
1:51 to get in alphabetical order
1:53 here
1:54 uh commissioner voice
1:57 here and chair fall
1:59 president
2:01 and uh commissioner zaragoza has an
2:03 excuse absence tonight
2:04 okay and we have three
2:08 meeting minutes to approve tonight the
2:10 first meeting minutes will be from
2:12 october 14 2021
2:15 are there any changes
2:17 to the meeting minutes from october 14th
2:22 hearing none the meeting minutes from
2:24 october 14th are approved
2:26 and
2:28 we're october 28th do we hear any
2:30 changes for the media minutes of october
2:32 28th
2:35 a hearing none those minutes are
2:36 approved
2:38 and we have meeting minutes from
2:39 november 4th 2021 are there any changes
2:43 or edits that need to be made
2:46 okay hearing none those minute meetings
2:48 are approved so all three cassettes are
2:50 now approved
2:52 and the structure of tonight's meeting
2:54 we're going to go ahead and open up for
2:55 public comment in the beginning
2:58 and we'll have public comment at the end
3:01 and as before we're going to break this
3:03 up into subjects and after each topic
3:06 there are six topics total after each
3:08 topic
3:10 we will have
3:11 commissioner questions and comments
3:14 after each topic
3:17 that will be the meeting structure any
3:19 questions to how we're going to move
3:20 forward for tonight
3:23 or recommendations
3:25 okay
3:27 so i'm going to go ahead and hand it
3:28 over to kristin to and minnie to go
3:30 ahead and start the presentation for
3:32 tonight's policy planning commission
3:36 actually this is kristin it's going to
3:37 be minnie and lucy tonight
3:39 so i will hand it over to them
3:43 thank you good evening commissioners um
3:46 so can i share my screen
3:48 [Music]
3:50 now kristen
3:52 let me change that let me change you to
3:54 prisoner i thought lucy was going first
3:57 there we go you should be able to share
3:59 now
4:00 okay
4:09 can everyone see my screen
4:11 yes
4:17 okay so
4:19 many it's still in your
4:21 it's not in the presentation
4:24 form yet
4:30 bottom right
4:33 there you go just letting up to the to
4:35 the right
4:36 right one there you go
4:41 so better
4:43 not yet
4:44 there we go
4:45 thank you
4:47 um so good evening commissioners members
4:49 of the community and uh two development
4:51 commissioners who were kind enough to
4:54 come tonight
4:56 for the discussion on processing
4:58 procedures
5:00 for
5:01 processing land use applications so
5:04 that's the topic of title 18 land use
5:06 code that we're going to be presenting
5:07 tonight but before i go ahead and do it
5:10 i want to really quickly address in
5:12 terms of what
5:14 you know we want to have enough time
5:16 tonight to answer all your questions if
5:18 you need additional information we'll
5:21 take that information
5:23 if you feel you have all the information
5:25 and your questions answered
5:28 we have some policy guidance questions
5:30 for each of the topics the six breakdown
5:32 topics
5:33 and
5:34 at that point you all can decide if you
5:37 need additional time we can continue
5:39 this conversation on december 2nd
5:42 um but if you feel you have the
5:44 information or you need additional
5:46 information just let us know
5:48 and and the long term process with this
5:51 whole title 18 as you all know is we're
5:54 still in the gaps analysis and policy
5:56 guidance phase based on the information
5:58 and input we get tonight from you from
6:00 the community members and the
6:01 development commissioners we will then
6:04 go back and start looking at different
6:06 options and to address your your
6:09 direction um to create actual code
6:11 language so then that will come back to
6:15 you in uh sometime next year at which
6:18 time you will hold the public hearing
6:21 and take public testimony deliberate on
6:23 it um before this topic
6:26 and ultimately for the entire title 18
6:29 so there will be multiple touch points
6:31 as is the end end point i was trying to
6:33 get at many many yep
6:37 public comments start with public
6:39 comment okay i will stop sharing i was
6:41 wondering about that but um here
6:45 i'll turn it back over to you
6:48 so kristen do we have any members from
6:50 the public that would like to speak
6:51 tonight
6:56 anyone would like to speak
6:58 yes i believe
6:59 connie marsh would like to speak just a
7:01 moment
7:04 hey
7:06 honey you are a panelist
7:10 okay you can even see me good first time
7:12 through so i'm connie marshall i live on
7:14 squawk and i tried to split up my
7:18 comments because i think what you've
7:20 gotten again is a super dense and
7:22 complicated package
7:27 i'm gonna let those stand but
7:31 as i was going through these topics what
7:35 i was realizing
7:37 is that
7:39 pro proposed changes
7:42 in one topic
7:44 was filling up space
7:46 in another topic
7:48 it's like there was an assumption that
7:51 all the proposed changes
7:54 would occur i think
7:56 and therefore
7:59 iteratively the next topic would work
8:03 with all the proposed changes
8:06 and
8:07 and that's highly unlikely
8:09 and so
8:10 if you wouldn't mind thinking about
8:13 that
8:14 and ferreting out
8:16 what are standalones
8:18 and what are dependent upon changes to
8:22 other things
8:25 i i think that's an important weaving
8:30 notion as they go through all of the
8:33 topics if you wanted to
8:35 give me an example i
8:37 uh was looking at at that today and it
8:41 was a matter of
8:46 interpretations
8:47 right you you
8:50 assume the ability to continue to do
8:52 interpretations in a certain way
8:55 at the at the bottom where
8:58 where we haven't consolidated on the
9:00 idea that you would do interpretations
9:02 at all now i can't remember if they use
9:04 the words but
9:05 it it's sort of
9:09 anyway i don't know if i'm even making
9:12 sense after all the stuff i i
9:14 gave you but
9:15 uh i'm sure and then there i had a
9:18 question it sounded like
9:20 i get to talk now i don't get to talk
9:22 after each topic and then after it's
9:25 over i have to talk to all six topics at
9:28 the same time is that what i heard
9:31 thank you
9:42 is there is there anyone else who would
9:43 like to speak
9:47 yes it looks like mary lynch would like
9:48 to speak
9:53 hey mary you are a panelist and you are
9:55 unmuted you may turn on your camera if
9:56 you would like okay no i don't have the
9:59 brand width
10:00 unfortunately
10:02 um i i guess i would like to hear uh
10:05 response to connie's because
10:08 do we have to you know within a few
10:10 minutes spit and cover everything then
10:12 as far as public comment uh because i'm
10:15 still concerned as i don't fully
10:16 understand some of why things are
10:18 changing
10:20 and um to comment on things
10:23 one of the things i
10:25 was a little bit concerned with the map
10:29 so that not being said since connie's uh
10:32 question wasn't answered or addressed
10:33 i'll go ahead and try and cover as much
10:35 as i can
10:37 my concern
10:39 the map that was showed as far as the
10:42 communicating with the public
10:44 you
10:45 they didn't look at newport way or show
10:48 you newport weight but
10:50 we have for
10:51 ever had issues on newport way with the
10:54 300
10:55 foot
10:56 because there's a wide spans between
10:59 houses
11:00 and we have hoas and we have tracks of
11:02 land that the city doesn't
11:06 view as knowing who the owners are
11:09 so invariably since
11:11 2005 when i first started seeing some of
11:14 this stuff happen we haven't gotten
11:16 informed in our hoa of when things
11:18 happen along newport way
11:21 so i definitely think as far as public
11:23 notice we need at least 500
11:26 feet
11:26 um and i still would like the city to do
11:31 better with contacting
11:34 land that's owned by hoas and um
11:38 supposedly the city was going to get a
11:41 master list of contacts with hoas but as
11:44 far as i know that has not happened
11:47 to date
11:48 and
11:49 what i found in the with the signage
11:53 before kova the city was not following
11:56 through on a lot of the projects in a
11:58 timely fashion
11:59 to put the signs up
12:01 with covet i've identified two projects
12:04 and it took forever to get the signs up
12:07 almost a full year after one should have
12:10 been up it finally got up this summer
12:14 and so my concern is the city has not
12:18 followed the existing code
12:20 and to do anything that would
12:23 um not be transparent and communicate
12:26 with the public what's going on i have
12:28 concerns with
12:29 we don't have a public uh paper anymore
12:32 and that's where a lot of people used to
12:34 find you know what's going on
12:38 we've had issues over the past number of
12:40 years with the active project list
12:42 not getting up to date in a timely
12:44 fashion and giving people you know
12:46 notice
12:47 and so in most of the major projects
12:49 that occurred in the last five to six
12:52 years
12:53 the public is always playing catch-up
12:56 with trying to
12:58 read and be able to then come to a
12:59 public meeting and make coherent
13:03 knowledgeable discussions let alone have
13:06 time to write
13:08 a comment and so
13:10 my concern with some of the stuff that's
13:12 happening here kindness connie said is i
13:14 don't know how it's going to work i
13:16 don't know how it's got people and staff
13:18 are going to be held accountable
13:20 and what i see i'm concerned is there's
13:23 going to be less transparency less
13:25 chance for public input up front when we
13:28 have a real chance and impact to make a
13:31 difference
13:33 i'll try and say the rest at the end i
13:35 guess thank you
13:43 thank you is there anyone else who would
13:45 like to speak
13:50 i'm not seeing anyone else who would
13:51 like to speak
13:54 okay thank you kristen we'll go ahead
13:56 and close public comment and we'll uh go
13:58 back to the presentation uh
14:00 mini floor is yours
14:25 can everyone see my screen
14:28 yes
14:29 okay great so um like i was um
14:32 starting to say in terms of uh
14:35 the time frame for thinking about some
14:37 of these things yes we want to share and
14:39 answer all your questions tonight if you
14:42 need additional time we can come back on
14:44 december 2nd to continue this
14:46 conversation we don't want to you know
14:48 extend this meeting beyond a reasonable
14:50 time frame for all all of you to have a
14:52 good discussion
14:54 uh the second point is there are going
14:56 to be multiple touch points where you
14:57 actually will see the the code language
15:00 and get to debate and discuss that
15:03 based on the feedback you you give us
15:05 with this go around with
15:07 earlier
15:09 so we're going to start off with the
15:10 first topic which is the public notice
15:13 as you heard from some of the community
15:15 members when we get an application
15:18 there are multiple ways
15:20 that we can reach out so what some
15:22 projects trigger posting a big
15:25 white board on on-site uh we send out a
15:28 mailed notice to everyone within 300
15:31 feet at this time
15:32 and so on and so forth and we update it
15:34 on on the city's website so what we're
15:37 going to look at is actually having some
15:39 very specific time frames of when these
15:42 notices uh need to be done by staff so
15:46 when an application is deemed complete
15:48 within 14 days the notice of application
15:50 will be circulated uh in addition uh
15:54 like the map that we've included in your
15:56 packet instead of having 300 feet the
15:59 the distance would be 500 feet and it
16:02 will not only go to the property owners
16:03 that it currently goes to
16:06 but also to residents since 40 of the
16:08 city's population uh is uh in the rental
16:11 units we want to make sure we're
16:12 reaching to all segments of our
16:14 community um and not just uh you know
16:17 same thing for the businesses and the
16:19 and the commercial property so property
16:21 owners and tenants or residents
16:25 and then of course some of the
16:26 implementation things we'll look at is
16:28 you know what what do these
16:30 signs need to include how clear they are
16:33 and and so on and so forth um
16:36 so that's sort of the proposed approach
16:39 we shared with you some of the
16:41 the the maps to give you a visual cue of
16:44 uh how much is 300 foot and how much is
16:46 500 feet
16:48 distance look like and how many
16:50 properties you will end up getting
16:52 notices based of the two different uh
16:54 variations so
16:56 uh for instance here uh 300 foot we
16:59 reach about 43 property owners and
17:01 residents of those properties
17:03 compared to 88 for the other one and in
17:06 addition to the property owners in
17:08 residence we maintain a list of
17:10 interested parties whose whoever wants
17:13 to get on that list uh can
17:15 within the community who wants to track
17:18 uh development proposals throughout
17:21 and um you know other agencies that have
17:23 requested that they get notifications so
17:25 transit for transit planning
17:28 for tribes want to be notified of every
17:31 project we also send it to department of
17:33 ecology if there are critical areas so
17:35 in addition to property owners and
17:37 residents we have interested parties and
17:39 agencies with jurisdiction
17:41 that we notify so really the question
17:44 for you all to ponder today and give us
17:46 some direction is
17:48 what do you think um
17:51 you know
17:52 are there any specific content in the
17:54 land use notices that you get
17:57 that you'd like to see
17:58 do you agree with going from
18:01 300 to 500 feet
18:04 or any additional feedback you think we
18:07 need to incorporate with this public
18:08 notification
18:10 so with that i'm going to stop sharing
18:12 and so we can facilitate this
18:16 and answer your questions first and then
18:20 get your feedback
18:26 okay if you have any comments please put
18:28 them in the chat
18:31 and the first one goes to
18:33 joy lewis so commissioner lewis you have
18:35 the floor
18:37 thank you chair fall commissioner joy
18:38 lewis here uh sorry because you just
18:41 told me minnie do you want questions
18:42 first or do you want questions and
18:43 comments all at the same time
18:45 whatever works for you guys
18:47 okay
18:49 which i think that format
18:51 chair fall said was questions first from
18:53 everyone and then the discussion
18:55 i think tonight because the amount of
18:57 time that is probably going to take us
18:58 to cover it we can do questions and
19:00 comments at the same time okay
19:03 okay i'm i'm going to do that for this
19:05 one because i really like you ron but
19:07 that might be tougher when we get to
19:09 some bigger ones so um for this
19:11 particular public notice of land use i
19:14 will tell you that yes i agree with
19:16 increasing it um
19:17 it's my understanding that seattle is
19:19 500 feet i kind of thought it might be
19:21 fun to say let's be even better than
19:23 seattle
19:24 and just double it and put it at 600
19:26 feet i'm not sure what the harm is of
19:27 having
19:28 a larger radius of notification and so i
19:31 was curious like part comment i i
19:34 appreciate the increase and
19:38 but i would also like to know why staff
19:40 chose 500 if it's just the standard of
19:42 what other municipalities use or not and
19:44 you could jump in here too many if you
19:45 want to stay sure um you know there's no
19:48 magic number i think the topography and
19:50 other things kind of play a role into
19:52 uh and what's surrounding the property
19:54 owners obviously we don't want to you
19:56 know fill up um junk mail you know in
19:58 people's if if it we want to make it a
20:01 meaningful
20:02 uh approach for someone that would care
20:04 about um of that project and if anyone
20:08 else in throughout the community is
20:10 interested in being notified of everyone
20:12 can can get on the list so that's where
20:14 i think that we were trying to be
20:15 balance that out it is um costs too that
20:19 gets involved with
20:21 printing posting you know so we don't
20:24 want to say let's just send everyone in
20:26 the city if if that's not going to be a
20:28 meaningful uh conversation but
20:30 the line between 500 to 600 just looking
20:33 at the geography and um where different
20:36 sizes of the properties are it seems
20:38 seems to make sense for us
20:42 i would just add to your question uh joy
20:46 that
20:47 um issaquah and kirkland are at 300 feet
20:51 bellevue and redmond are at 500.
20:56 okay thank you
20:58 so it sounds like
20:59 the my notion of doubling it is just
21:02 not based in any kind of reality no one
21:04 does 600 pizza popped off that one my
21:07 one um hard suggestion um for the
21:09 science was going to be qr codes
21:11 i think that it would be extremely
21:13 helpful
21:14 when i think one of the biggest ways
21:16 that people actually get notifications
21:18 is those big obnoxious white boards that
21:20 are posted when you're walking your dog
21:21 in the community when you're driving by
21:23 um and being able to have a qr code that
21:25 takes you a direct link obviously to the
21:28 information for that particular site
21:29 plan i think would be very helpful
21:31 uh the other thing that i think would be
21:33 great is to actually have like some type
21:35 of visual tracker like maybe maybe it's
21:38 a graph maybe it's just um you know that
21:40 kind of bar that fills up and it shows
21:42 the different stages of where the
21:45 project is going to hit and then it also
21:47 shows the different places that the
21:49 community has involvement so depending
21:51 on when you've noticed this project you
21:53 can instantly see whereas where is it in
21:56 the build process and then the approval
21:58 process and where is it in the community
22:00 evaluation process
22:02 i think would be a nice visual for
22:04 people to be able to see again once
22:05 they're already on a website that has
22:07 more that information i understand that
22:09 might be a little bit onerous of trying
22:10 to print all that
22:12 my other comment was kind of going back
22:14 to a conversation we've had lucy about
22:16 kiosks
22:18 that we have in the highlands and being
22:19 able to kind of um allowable throughout
22:21 the city i think this is a natural place
22:24 to be able to bring in more community
22:26 involvement when we say how are more
22:28 ways that we can reach people if the
22:30 city said yep we're all in on kiosks and
22:33 we're going to figure out the who's
22:35 maintaining them right and how a versus
22:37 the city and all things let's pretend
22:39 that you know we we figure that out
22:41 that's a very natural place to me to be
22:43 posting anything that's within the
22:45 neighborhood not even within a radius so
22:47 that community members can be just
22:49 regularly checking and looking and
22:50 saying oh i was wondering about that i
22:52 think would be a fantastic thing to do
22:54 so those were my three suggestions for
22:56 kind of hard visuals of connecting more
22:58 information to the community
23:00 and on a side note i will say that the
23:02 active project list
23:04 is tough to use so maybe that's a matter
23:07 of getting an intern
23:09 for the summer from the high school to
23:11 write a better program for being able to
23:13 search i'm not quite sure
23:15 i don't know that we need to put a ton
23:16 of resources into it but i will say that
23:18 i found it in the past to be difficult
23:20 to use and so having a way for people to
23:23 not have to just scroll through
23:25 all the different active projects would
23:27 be nice so again my suggestion was the
23:29 qr code of a direct link but i do think
23:32 it's worth examining
23:33 how are all the different ways that
23:35 people come to this and for people who
23:36 are into the community and they are
23:38 coming at it without a specific site
23:40 necessarily direct link being able to
23:43 kind of say how how is it easier format
23:45 for using that so
23:46 that's what i have on this one did i ask
23:48 one question um you mentioned the active
23:52 projects list
23:54 have you discovered the active projects
23:57 map
24:01 i have not the last time that i looked
24:04 it was in a
24:06 list that had then you had to click on
24:08 the links and it had all the addresses
24:09 let me let me email that to you and
24:12 please send us feedback once you've had
24:14 a chance to look at that
24:17 we do provide it in two formats for
24:20 visual and visually impaired
24:23 and so uh it may be that the map will be
24:27 easier so let me provide that and let us
24:28 know what you think do that because as
24:30 you're telling me what i'm remembering
24:32 is that i use an iphone and when the map
24:35 was sent out to us for one point for
24:37 playing with my iphone did not like that
24:39 so that meant that i needed to go into
24:40 my computer and then that didn't happen
24:42 so that's probably on me so um
24:50 i hit a hard stop and i was lazy so
24:53 thank you and i will make a note of
24:54 playing with that
24:55 okay thanks thank you lucy okay so we
24:58 won't fault joy for using an iphone but
25:02 i second her in terms of some of the
25:04 comments that she made uh i did get some
25:06 feedback and it looks like several
25:08 commission members didn't like the idea
25:10 of having comments and questions at the
25:13 same time so we're going to break it up
25:15 and allow comments and then we'll come
25:16 back for questions
25:18 um i think that'll make a couple people
25:19 happy i'm starting to see them smile oh
25:22 i think the intent is to do the reverse
25:24 to do questions first and then comments
25:26 after that i'm sorry i misspoke i meant
25:29 to say comments
25:32 i had to say comments first and then
25:34 questions
25:37 questions first
25:38 comments second
25:41 having a bad day i've been up since four
25:43 o'clock this morning so
25:45 okay um thank you very much for that joy
25:48 and we're going to move on to
25:51 naina
25:52 i'm sorry
25:53 just saying it's
25:55 uh jason you have a floor first
25:59 thanks to your foul yeah i was around
26:01 lacquer all day so i get it
26:03 oh my god
26:04 anyway um commissioner lewis just took
26:06 us all to church that was fantastic uh
26:10 so we're gonna save the commentary i
26:13 kind of bummed because so much joy said
26:15 that was great but i did have one or two
26:18 questions uh real quickly how do people
26:20 get on this
26:21 this interested parties list so it
26:24 sounds like there's some people in our
26:25 community who are paying a little bit
26:27 more attention to our projects
26:29 is there
26:30 a direct link that we can provide
26:33 what's an easy way for us to provide
26:34 that so they can be one of these
26:36 interested parties
26:39 yeah i mean they can just email us um
26:42 email me i'll make sure that they get on
26:45 the list
26:46 but we will make sure that there is a
26:50 you know we update our website we
26:52 currently have a land use code update at
26:55 issaquah.gov email setup too so if they
26:57 go to the website
26:59 looking at um
27:01 the the land use code update page they
27:04 should be able to have a phone number an
27:06 email you know either way it works if
27:08 they just want to call the main line
27:09 number and and leave that message that
27:11 will work too
27:12 um or just email us
27:14 okay
27:15 and i think the other one was i think
27:18 joy kind of alluded to which was
27:20 why wouldn't we go bigger it sounds like
27:22 cost undue burden more mailers so
27:26 um yeah you guys already answered that
27:27 one so thank you
27:32 thank you very much jason and now we'll
27:34 move on to nina
27:37 thank you commissioner milligan here and
27:40 in full disclosure because i put it in
27:41 the comments i was one of the people who
27:43 said
27:45 the preference for the standard process
27:48 of having questions first from all the
27:50 commissioners and then come back to
27:51 deliberation and the reason being just
27:55 remind folks who might find this tedious
27:57 is that
27:58 it helps me to have
28:00 a valuable comment later if i hear the
28:03 answers to the questions of the other
28:05 commissioners first
28:07 and also to think about the answers that
28:08 i receive and here are my questions
28:11 one is who pays the cost is it the city
28:13 or the applicant
28:15 number two
28:16 can somebody
28:20 flesh out the
28:21 comment by the public earlier and also
28:28 i can't remember who said it
28:30 about the renters um when you have a
28:32 perimeter was 300 or 500 feet
28:35 how do you
28:36 reach members who are in hoas why is
28:39 that difficult and why is reaching
28:41 renters difficult and i guess that's
28:42 forward slash
28:44 how do we
28:46 access
28:48 these people how are they identified and
28:50 how is the notice given
28:53 and then number three
28:55 we used to have a staff member
28:58 designated as a neighborhood coordinator
29:00 who helped
29:02 to facilitate and assure that public
29:04 notice was
29:05 thorough and timely and what happened
29:08 with that
29:09 and that's my questions
29:11 very well thank you
29:16 i think uh chair fall is saying
29:18 something but i can't hear him
29:21 just talking to myself
29:23 it's four o'clock in the morning i'm
29:24 still still out of sleep here um okay so
29:28 thank you very much uh commissioner
29:29 milligan i also wait is anybody gonna
29:32 answer my questions yeah so um our
29:35 neighborhood coordinator we no longer
29:36 have a neighborhood coordinator
29:38 and as far as i know do not have funding
29:41 for another one
29:43 and we are able to get addresses of
29:45 renters i checked with it the other day
29:48 and that is something that is possible
29:49 hoas
29:51 is a little bit harder i mean groups
29:53 like old town don't have hoas
29:55 um presidents change so sometimes
29:57 addresses change unless they have set po
29:59 boxes and we have tried to gather those
30:02 um lucy may know better what's happened
30:03 with that list than i do and i missed
30:06 question number one i apologize
30:10 cost uh
30:12 who pays for it you know the all those
30:13 logistics can be worked out but
30:15 generally the applicant pays the
30:17 application fee and the and the city
30:19 takes care of the mailing
30:21 some cities will charge uh for mailing
30:24 separate from the application fee um
30:27 depending on you know a dollar per
30:30 address or something like that sometimes
30:32 um the the actual board that goes on the
30:35 property is generally the applicant's
30:38 responsibility to get that up well we
30:40 verify that the information on the on
30:42 the board is correct
30:48 we can hear you lucy
30:51 thank you i had it hovering over it but
30:53 i forgot to click
30:58 the way we do it is using gis and gis
31:02 polls from king county so we we can
31:05 collect them from for
31:08 residents as opposed to property owners
31:11 um it's a little trickier but we can
31:14 absolutely figure that out
31:15 um the hoas it's inconsistent whether
31:20 king county has an address associated
31:23 with hoa property
31:25 um and that has certainly
31:28 been a frustration that we've heard
31:29 before
31:31 and as kristin started to say um i i
31:34 think we're working to try and collect
31:37 hoa addresses a generic address for an
31:41 hoa so that we can
31:44 reference that and then be able to send
31:47 them
31:48 um the the problem is if it's not if we
31:51 don't get it from the hoa
31:54 we have
31:55 you know we don't know and they're not
31:57 their
31:58 address isn't tied to their hoa property
32:02 we don't know how to contact them um so
32:05 i think that is definitely one of the
32:07 items that we listed that we would like
32:09 to try and figure out is getting those
32:12 kinds of associations uh addresses
32:14 collected so we're getting it out to
32:16 those groups
32:22 thank you lucy uh so i have another
32:24 question from commissioner lewis
32:28 uh point of order cheerful uh
32:30 commissioner bader is next
32:34 sorry
32:35 go ahead commissioner bader
32:37 no problem um this is sarah vader i have
32:39 kind of a
32:40 iteration on the why can't we go bigger
32:43 question is
32:44 is the 300 or 500 or whatever that
32:47 amount is is that a fixed radius or
32:51 does common sense kind of come into play
32:53 and especially for bigger developments
32:54 if you know you live 750 feet or even
32:57 you know beyond that you're clearly
32:58 going to be impacted by the development
33:00 will you still be noticed notified of it
33:04 well i think part of the reason that we
33:06 use multiple methods is to get to
33:09 different
33:10 groups that um
33:12 see the property in different ways or
33:14 know about the property so one is to
33:16 mail
33:17 that's gone to property owners but not
33:19 to residents
33:21 part of the reason that we're posting
33:23 the site with the notice boards earlier
33:26 is to make the neighborhood aware or
33:28 people who pass by the property aware
33:32 some people like to come to the active
33:34 projects map and see what's happening in
33:36 their neighborhood or in the city no
33:38 matter where it is
33:39 so i think that's why we're interested
33:42 in um exploring with you all
33:45 um other if we're missing other methods
33:48 um because we're trying to
33:52 reach out in a number of different ways
33:55 to access people who may be aware of a
33:58 project
33:59 a number of different ways
34:01 thank you
34:16 so the
34:18 i think i'm not sure it's your fault if
34:20 you're saying but we couldn't hear you
34:21 um while we're waiting for that i may
34:23 add to
34:25 um and share some other uh ways of
34:28 engagement that the city uses so
34:30 if you go to city's
34:32 web page and i'm just going to share my
34:34 screen here
34:37 [Music]
34:38 so there is a notify me if you just go
34:41 to city's web page and you choose notify
34:44 me you can put in your email address and
34:46 there are multiple things that you may
34:48 be interested in so
34:50 development is one of them so if you're
34:52 interested in here all you need to do is
34:54 just add your email address here and
34:56 that should get you
34:58 set up for getting
35:00 information related to that so
35:04 just wanted to share that that's
35:06 maintained by our communications team um
35:08 but they're multiple ways to get to get
35:12 minnie did you share your screen because
35:13 i didn't see it oh i did but maybe you
35:16 guys didn't see it did anybody have a
35:18 chance to come up
35:20 see
35:29 and while minnie's bringing that up i
35:30 just want to note that we are 15 minutes
35:32 in so just from a time management
35:34 standpoint
35:42 can you guys see my screen now
35:52 minnie i could always send them the link
35:54 sure yeah let's do that
35:56 too sure
35:58 i'll i'll do that after this meeting
35:59 i'll send the link
36:01 okay and we still have a question from
36:03 commissioner lewis
36:05 thank you chairfall uh commissioner joy
36:08 lewis here i think that uh commissioner
36:10 milligan hit on a really important point
36:12 that i was not aware of and that was
36:14 that we weren't
36:16 going to continue to utilize the role of
36:18 neighborhood coordinator that was new
36:20 information that i just got so a good
36:22 point also to nina sing why we do our
36:25 questions and then our comment i'm
36:26 curious if staff has been brainstorming
36:30 if there's not funds to bring somebody
36:31 on full time how we're going to solve
36:35 and use
36:36 what what a needed position right in a
36:39 different way
36:40 and my off the top of my head i was like
36:42 oh i wonder if they're going to create a
36:44 board right a community involvement
36:46 board where we want to have
36:47 representatives from each neighborhood
36:49 and have like a little mini
36:51 you know council board that you know
36:52 reaches out and maybe that's a good way
36:54 to be able to kind of have is to kind of
36:56 form our own type of community network
36:58 through the boards and commission system
37:00 but i would be interested to have you
37:02 guys answer how you go oh well if we
37:04 don't want to use
37:05 resources right now for this role
37:08 what are we doing right with me what's
37:11 the alternative
37:12 yeah i mean that those are conversations
37:13 we can have with our our communications
37:15 team has a neighborhood champions list
37:18 and i think they they manage some of the
37:21 the information that gets pushed out to
37:22 those organizations so there are a few
37:25 things like that that are in in place
37:27 like this notify me tool the
37:30 neighborhood champions
37:31 group that gets information from the
37:34 communications team uh at the city so
37:36 there are other ways the city's reaching
37:38 out um
37:41 to to neighborhoods
37:43 okay thank you but today we're focusing
37:45 on the land use application notification
37:48 and and i think what we heard is we need
37:50 to do a better job of uh reaching out to
37:53 the homeowners association so we'll
37:55 figure out how we do that but in terms
37:57 of for tonight's purpose
38:00 you know we we've heard some good
38:01 feedback and
38:03 and we'll continue working to make sure
38:05 we're reaching the most people
38:18 does that mean comments
38:21 you're muted yup sorry
38:23 so um due to sensitivity of time i'm
38:26 going to keep my comments short um i
38:28 have a suggestion that we might
38:31 we might use nextdoor and other types of
38:34 social media to
38:35 reach out to neighborhoods and get the
38:37 word out
38:38 um i don't know if we can do email out
38:41 to certain houses i know not everybody's
38:43 on nextdoor but that might be a really
38:44 easy resource for us to use
38:47 and then when it comes to renters versus
38:49 landlords
38:51 if we're going to send letters out to
38:53 residents
38:55 within the 500 foot range
38:58 do we send it to both the renter and the
39:00 landlord or
39:02 just the renter
39:04 the boat
39:05 both okay excellent and that's for
39:08 that's all for my questions and i think
39:09 that is all the questions we have so
39:11 many you can move on to the next
39:15 thank you so um i think just yeah oh
39:19 sorry commissioner lewis
39:22 all right sorry point of order chair
39:24 follow this is commissioner joy lewis i
39:26 feel believe you guys had stated that
39:27 there was going to be a question and a
39:29 comment period i think i'm the only one
39:30 who technically did comment so you may
39:32 want to open it up just double check for
39:36 good good call there
39:38 okay so now we're going to open it for
39:40 comments
39:44 and we have several comments so uh
39:46 commissioner milligan has a first
39:48 comment
39:51 thank you
39:53 commissioner commissioner milligan here
39:56 i enjoyed hearing the interest in a
40:00 wider diameter so i'm going to plus one
40:03 on a 500 foot and also on keeping both
40:07 renters and owners if it's possible when
40:09 they're both those entities are involved
40:12 to keep them in the loop on that
40:14 mail or hand out noticing
40:18 that can be expensive and so can the
40:19 other things so i was going to ask that
40:21 when this comes back to us that the
40:24 when we are able to
40:30 apply the cost to the applicant in a way
40:32 that is similar to our neighboring
40:35 jurisdictions that i think we should we
40:37 should
40:39 apply the cost to the applicant wherever
40:41 possible especially if the neighboring
40:43 jurisdiction does it that way
40:45 and then about the designated staff
40:48 one of the things that i'll just take
40:50 this moment to also say that
40:52 i found this packet and sometimes
40:55 others difficult for me just to really
40:58 hear
41:00 the staff saying here's where the gap is
41:02 how would you like to fill it
41:05 and you know i know there's supposed to
41:06 be a gap analysis but i'm sometimes just
41:08 in this packet was one of those i just
41:10 couldn't what what is the gap where is
41:12 the policy that's saying that we're not
41:14 doing enough
41:15 and
41:16 or the rule you know the state sometimes
41:19 it's there
41:20 sometimes it's not and in the case of
41:23 the designated staff
41:25 for
41:26 outreach
41:28 am asking for somebody to help me
41:30 because i just don't have the time to do
41:31 all this research
41:32 isn't that a staff or a policy
41:35 does um
41:38 policy defined
41:40 uh objective
41:42 uh because i'm i'm remembering it
41:44 happened when i was on council and
41:45 that's why but i just can't remember how
41:47 it happened so i think that there might
41:49 be a policy that helps guide us to
41:52 not just say hey we don't have the money
41:54 we're not going to do that
41:56 when we say that it's important and it's
41:58 in policy then we need to find a way to
42:00 do it and it can be even a part of
42:02 another job as long as it's the person
42:04 is named and the public knows who they
42:06 are and that they're the source of the
42:08 answers for these sort of things
42:10 uh i wanna uh plus one on louis's
42:14 idea about the kiosk i don't recall that
42:16 we have a kiosk outdoors at city hall
42:19 but that is a place where many people
42:21 put them and it's a wonderful way to
42:23 engage people in our our city center
42:26 we have a bulletin board inside but uh
42:28 wouldn't see it because it's not outside
42:31 and those are my only additional
42:34 comments thank you
42:38 thank you commissioner milligan and we
42:40 have a comment for
42:42 yes we have a comment from commissioner
42:44 voice
42:48 thank you chair foul so i'm in agreement
42:50 with commissioner lewis and commissioner
42:52 milligan
42:53 i'm fine with
42:54 expanding the diameter out to 500 feet i
42:57 think it'll help it'll also
42:59 help notify people that are going to be
43:01 affected by it through traffic so i
43:04 think it's a good call
43:06 and then one thing just talking as far
43:08 as another way
43:10 notify people
43:11 as i'm sure all of you guys are probably
43:14 just as frustrated with those incessant
43:17 text messages
43:18 i have a lovely dentist and
43:20 i get just message after message after
43:23 message reminding me of my appointment
43:25 so even something like that if they end
43:27 up on the notifying list i don't know
43:28 what it costs to do text messages and i
43:31 don't know exactly if you just do a link
43:33 but it is just another opportunity um
43:35 those definitely get through
43:37 frustratingly so so
43:39 that was one
43:40 and i think i kind of answered something
43:42 for myself so i'm going to leave it
43:44 there so
43:46 thanks
43:49 and thank you very much commissioner
43:50 voice
43:53 okay
43:54 not seeing any additional
43:56 questions or comments from commissioners
43:58 so i'm going to go ahead and move on to
44:00 many you can go ahead and take the
44:01 presentation
44:02 sure so um i think um
44:05 in terms of uh the consent majority
44:08 um kind of agrees with the 500 feet of
44:12 radius there are some
44:14 additional avenues that we will explore
44:17 qr codes
44:19 kiosks
44:20 social media uh text messages um and
44:24 also get some
44:26 feedback for uh or look at opportunities
44:28 for cost and then separate from the
44:31 title 18 the community engagement piece
44:33 we heard some comments related to that
44:36 okay so the next
44:38 topic here is
44:43 cipa which
44:47 state environmental policy act and
44:51 basically it is
44:54 a law that was passed in 1970s
44:57 to look at comprehensively for what the
45:00 impact of the environment is so it can
45:02 be for
45:03 policies that the city adopts
45:05 so for comprehensive plan policies and
45:08 things like that there has to be a cpa
45:09 determination made
45:11 for um
45:13 and then also for development um so it's
45:16 not
45:17 tonight we're going to talk about
45:19 what projects trigger
45:21 this review this is an additional review
45:23 from city's land use
45:25 review application
45:28 what happens is
45:29 say some
45:30 today if it is a quest someone wants to
45:32 do a six lot short plant or six town
45:35 homes
45:36 that would trigger a cipa requirement so
45:39 they fill out a checklist um and it has
45:41 different topics um that they need to
45:44 cover um to evaluate what is the impact
45:48 from that development on the environment
45:50 that is not covered by
45:53 compliance with existing codes
45:55 that the city has adopted um and if
45:58 there are things that need to be
46:00 mitigated the test for mitigation is
46:04 that if the these are not mitigated then
46:07 it could be a full environmental impact
46:09 assess
46:10 statement needed so it's a pretty high
46:13 bar for some of those mitigation
46:16 conditions to come come into play in the
46:19 past sometimes
46:20 things that are automatically required
46:22 by code will show up as conditions of
46:25 approval for cpa but
46:27 that's not the purpose of cpa cpa is in
46:29 addition to what your code already
46:30 requires if there's any impact that's
46:33 not covered by code
46:35 so uh we shared with you a table um so
46:38 the law was changed in 2012 and 2014.
46:42 there are minimums and maximums in the
46:44 law the cities can choose
46:47 which where their threshold should be
46:49 for when this this review is required so
46:52 currently
46:53 if you're building for more than four
46:55 units
46:56 you require cpa in essequa
46:59 or any kind of an office building that's
47:01 4 000 square feet and 20 parking stalls
47:05 requires you to go through this process
47:07 or grade and fill of 100 cubic yards
47:11 most of our neighboring cities since the
47:13 law was changed has upgraded their
47:16 their minimum thresholds to a little bit
47:19 larger because it becomes a redundant
47:21 process that doesn't necessarily address
47:24 or make the project or you know on the
47:27 ground better but it adds an additional
47:30 layer of review
47:32 so the options we laid out for
47:35 you all to consider
47:36 if there is concern with not increasing
47:39 the thresholds that's option one there's
47:41 no requirement for you to upgrade you
47:43 know increase your thresholds uh but in
47:45 the interest of streamlining and not
47:48 creating process that doesn't end up
47:50 resulting in anything
47:52 that that is of value to either the
47:54 applicant or the city or the community
47:58 then you can consider raising your
48:00 thresholds
48:01 we've laid the last column here as a
48:04 moderate increase instead of going with
48:07 you know making it line with what our
48:09 neighboring cities are are doing but
48:11 gradually increasing it from four units
48:13 to perhaps 10 units is one option
48:16 so that's option two
48:18 and then the third option is this middle
48:21 column that's really we can go with the
48:23 maximum threshold um so we've limited
48:26 the cpa discussion to just these
48:29 thresholds uh cpa itself is a big
48:33 topic of discussion that we can get into
48:36 you know there are area-wide
48:38 look at impacts so we have a planned
48:41 action that's called a planned action
48:43 you look at the entire area and you see
48:45 what the maximum potential of growth
48:47 here is going to be so you make a
48:49 determination at that scale so that when
48:52 every individual permit comes in it's it
48:55 it just has to make it meet the test
48:57 that it was already planned and
48:58 evaluated with this like the central
49:01 isoqua plan
49:02 has an eis that was done so therefore a
49:05 planned action sepa
49:07 ordinance was adopted
49:10 so that's sort of a
49:11 very quick and uh you know explanation
49:14 of what we're looking for we're happy to
49:16 provide you more information if you need
49:19 but with that i'm going to turn it over
49:20 to your discussion and questions
49:26 okay and thank you very much so many so
49:28 we're going to go ahead and open it up
49:29 for
49:32 questions first and we'll have it for
49:34 comments
49:36 are there any questions
49:40 got a couple questions here commissioner
49:42 lewis has the first question she beat
49:45 commissioner milligan
49:47 thank you chairfell commissioner joy
49:49 lewis here um i think my biggest
49:52 question on this kind of actually goes
49:54 to a comment that nina had made on our
49:56 last thing which was to say that we're
49:58 getting a gaps analysis from you guys on
50:00 this and for me the biggest gap that i
50:02 saw this evening was
50:04 what it's been quite some years with us
50:06 before since some of these things have
50:08 been updated okay that's a gap right
50:10 streamlining right now we want to make
50:12 sure that we aren't having redundancies
50:14 okay great what i didn't see right here
50:16 with the cipa review was a direct
50:19 correlation for the outcome right
50:22 by increasing the threshold
50:25 what does the community gain like like
50:28 i'm going to use lucy as an example
50:29 because i'm an adoring fan of hers if
50:32 lucy came to me and said
50:34 this is how many hours i spend and these
50:37 are the redundancies that end up
50:38 happening with a steeper review because
50:40 we already have stormwater management
50:41 and yada yada in the code that then i
50:44 spend this many more hours with the
50:45 applicant that then gives me this
50:48 outcome right if i take this away
50:50 because based on even if we just do it
50:52 on the moderate threshold i'm wondering
50:54 what we're gaining right what i didn't
50:56 see was this direct correlation of this
50:59 gives us this right what is the gain to
51:01 staff
51:02 and what is the gain to the community by
51:04 doing this i certainly see
51:06 where it would be nice for the applicant
51:09 i would love for staff to kind of help
51:11 me fill in a little bit of that gap
51:21 now or later either way
51:23 yeah i mean we can we can share with you
51:25 how many cpas we've done
51:27 what the minimum threshold of the the
51:29 projects has been what kind of
51:30 conditions have we added uh you know so
51:33 we can bring back all that package that
51:36 information in a summarize that
51:38 information for you if that will give
51:40 you a glimpse of what type of cpas is
51:42 the city doing
51:43 what kind of mitigation conditions are
51:45 we adding
51:47 and are those really super conditions or
51:49 are they just covered by code conditions
51:51 um so you know we can change what i want
51:54 to get to yeah how much of this is
51:55 redundancies right because if you can
51:57 show me um how
51:59 this um is how we can change the
52:02 threshold without having an adverse
52:05 impact on the environment then i'm all
52:08 for streamlining us right so being able
52:10 to have that direct correlation of
52:11 saying this is how much um wasted in a
52:14 sense wasted resources staff is putting
52:16 into these redundancies that we'll be
52:19 able to avoid by changing that threshold
52:22 i would be very interested in sure we
52:23 can put something together yep
52:30 thank you very much commissioner lewis
52:32 and commissioner milligan you have the
52:34 floor
52:35 thank you commissioner milligan here uh
52:38 so i'm going to follow up on that uh
52:39 from commissioner lewis because i'm i
52:42 just don't understand this part i
52:43 thought that the first sentence was cepa
52:47 covers things that's not in code
52:50 and then the next comment was it's
52:52 redundant with the things that are in
52:54 code so i need
52:57 um some clarification of what do you
52:58 mean there because i'm not following
53:01 um i'll just give my questions now for
53:03 sake of time
53:05 teach me can does a sipa have to have
53:08 the same number of questions or can it
53:09 have fewer questions and why do we have
53:12 related to that why do we have
53:14 supplemental questions in our cipa if we
53:16 think it is
53:18 such a pain in the neck
53:19 and then
53:21 when you make these determinations about
53:24 who has to go through sepa is it
53:26 possible to have parts of the city as
53:28 you said who have already gone through
53:30 this
53:32 the uses and
53:34 the things that are covered in cpa
53:35 already done by an eas like in the
53:37 central issaquah could that area have a
53:40 different
53:41 cipa requirement
53:44 those are my questions
53:46 sure i'll um i'll remember all of the
53:48 let's see if i can remember all the
53:50 questions i think to start off um the
53:53 the questions in the cpa checklist so
53:56 that is department of ecology's
53:57 checklist so we we do have to cover the
54:00 the the
54:01 you know the basic questions that are
54:03 it's pretty standard most cities have
54:04 the same checklist that ecology has put
54:07 together
54:08 supplemental questions usually are for
54:11 non-project-based
54:13 uh you know so there's the the
54:14 project-based cpa like i said earlier so
54:17 you also may trigger cpa from your
54:19 policies you know if you're changing
54:20 your policies or it's a
54:22 non-project-based cpa you're doing a new
54:25 new comprehensive plan chapter and so
54:27 you would actually issue a cpa
54:29 termination so so there's that those
54:31 questions that are not project specific
54:34 but those are non-project specific
54:36 questions
54:38 and then um the
54:41 the law also has planned action cpa
54:43 ordinances that the city can adopt which
54:45 the city did for central asical plan so
54:48 yes the the projects the trigger for
54:50 projects in central issaquah is going to
54:52 be different
54:53 than uh than this because everything has
54:56 been evaluated there there are some
54:58 other tools that the state gives which
55:00 we're not getting into the discussion
55:02 because we're not you know going a full
55:04 uh cpap analysis but in order to
55:08 allow infill where transit is there are
55:11 some new exemptions that the state law
55:13 has added but those can come later and
55:15 those can go on you know the future work
55:17 plans for the city um
55:21 but these thresholds there's a minimum
55:23 and a maximum so if you were building a
55:25 single family home that's not in a in a
55:28 honest you know nearest
55:30 on not on a land covered with water
55:32 you're exempt regardless of whether we
55:35 choose whatever threshold there are
55:37 certain projects that are exempt from
55:39 cpa
55:40 but if you are doing a plat
55:43 of four lots in essequa would trigger a
55:47 review versus you can go up to 30 town
55:50 homes or 30 without getting triggering a
55:52 cpa so there's a bookend of minimum and
55:54 maximum
55:55 and there's things that are completely
55:57 exempt
55:59 did i answer all your questions i think
56:02 there was one more mini um and uh
56:05 i i think i understand it but please
56:08 feel free to correct me either
56:10 fine lady if i get this wrong i think
56:13 there was a question from nina about the
56:15 redundancy
56:17 and i think what she
56:19 what which you were saying many is
56:22 if something is in our code is addressed
56:25 by our code we don't need to use cpa for
56:28 it and i think what then minnie was
56:31 adding is that sometimes
56:33 people mistakenly puts conditions on
56:36 sipa
56:37 that repeat
56:39 uh things that are in code when they
56:42 don't have to and that's a redundancy or
56:45 a misunderstanding
56:47 was that your question was that what you
56:49 were saying minnie
56:51 yes i was saying that but um
56:54 let's see if the commissioner's question
56:56 was answered by that
56:58 yeah it's still a little puzzled if if
57:01 the
57:02 purpose of the sipa is to cover the
57:05 things that are outside of code and say
57:07 we have a real robust code and we cover
57:10 all this stuff then
57:14 yeah we can't change the questions in
57:16 cipa
57:17 to reduce it to the topics that are
57:21 outside of code then we're stuck with
57:23 the redundancy
57:25 the mitigation so
57:27 the purpose of cpa is to determine
57:30 if it you know what are the impacts
57:34 you know different categories to the
57:35 environment there's a traffic section to
57:38 to the aesthetics and everything else so
57:41 the if the impacts are covered by the
57:43 code so if your code already requires
57:46 you to go through a design assessment
57:47 and meet a design manual um are there
57:50 you know uh that that that review
57:53 process will cover any aesthetic impacts
57:58 your project has to go through a traffic
58:00 review
58:02 uh process and the city has an adopted
58:04 code
58:05 for assessment and evaluation and
58:08 figuring out what needs to you know add
58:10 two lanes here or whatever the code
58:12 already covers that you don't need
58:15 a mitigation condition from cpel
58:18 so the sipa's point of view is to just
58:21 figure out if there's an impact and if
58:22 there is an impact what is needed to
58:25 mitigate that impact
58:28 so not necessarily covering topics
58:30 outside of the topics but really what
58:32 are the impacts of the if the impacts
58:34 are
58:35 addressed by compliance with the code
58:39 then you don't
58:40 then then what what are we trying to
58:42 achieve that it is a good tool for
58:44 larger projects where or cumulatively
58:46 you know there's accumulative impact if
58:49 if the traffic from five different
58:51 projects coming in at the same time is
58:53 an impact that wasn't addressed or if
58:55 it's a phased project you know 200 acres
58:58 you're going to have this added on so so
59:01 it can be a good tool for a larger
59:03 project that's but
59:05 department of ecology did a whole robust
59:07 study where they had determined that
59:09 these within these bookends there isn't
59:12 an impact that isn't covered by most
59:14 cities jurisdictions
59:16 codes so that's why where these numbers
59:19 have come in i mean there was a lot of
59:20 work that went into what these numbers
59:22 should be at the state level
59:27 okay
59:31 okay and thank you very much
59:32 commissioner milligan and
59:34 minnie so we are actually
59:37 getting a little bit behind and i want
59:39 to try and keep the meeting on task here
59:41 so we're going to go ahead and open up
59:42 two questions
59:44 anyone has any questions
59:46 you mean comments uh comments sorry
59:52 okay and we have one comment from
59:56 commissioner lewis
59:58 thank you chairfall commissioner joy
1:00:00 lewis here i did have a comment on this
1:00:03 and i am sorry that i'm phrasing this a
1:00:06 little bit badly in advance so it's
1:00:08 common that we have trade-offs right
1:00:11 with developers we'll say this kind of
1:00:13 quid pro quo right we want to have i
1:00:15 always think of like the work that we
1:00:17 did on affordable housing right then
1:00:18 we're going to waive fees we're going to
1:00:20 do these different things right so what
1:00:23 i was curious about when looking at
1:00:24 these at changing and increasing these
1:00:26 thresholds is if it was possible to
1:00:28 consider doing a trade-off so for
1:00:30 instance let's say we adopt a particular
1:00:33 number but we
1:00:35 if you have let's say 10 units but if
1:00:37 you have are doing up to 30 units you
1:00:40 can have cipa be
1:00:43 negated if you fit particular building
1:00:46 standards like for instance the zero
1:00:48 energy ready homes
1:00:49 i'm sure that there's other ones but for
1:00:51 instance if you are building that a
1:00:54 green building with green materials the
1:00:55 way you're building
1:00:56 um is also green the way you're moving
1:00:58 materials on and off site uh that the
1:01:00 home or the building that you're
1:01:02 building also has
1:01:05 energy use right so you have a net zero
1:01:07 energy use if we say if you fit this
1:01:10 criteria of a green building um and i
1:01:13 looked at the the particular one that
1:01:14 the environment of the ecology uses is
1:01:16 zero energy ready homes there may be
1:01:18 other ones so i'm just using it as an
1:01:19 example if you fit that then you get to
1:01:21 go up to the maximum that's the state
1:01:23 allowable right
1:01:24 is there an option of creating a way to
1:01:27 be having
1:01:29 um other policies that we have with
1:01:31 green building be able to be integrated
1:01:33 into this threshold as a kind of a quid
1:01:35 pro pro if you want to avoid cepa then
1:01:38 we want to make sure that you're
1:01:39 building the most responsible way so you
1:01:41 get to go up to this other threshold is
1:01:43 that something that maybe could be
1:01:44 considered um and you don't have to
1:01:46 answer it's just yeah we can look into
1:01:48 that from a you know um it's a good uh
1:01:52 observation uh i think we're gonna have
1:01:54 some more discussions about
1:01:55 sustainability and whether it's an
1:01:57 incentive or it's a requirement i mean
1:01:59 you guys will flush that out in terms of
1:02:02 the sustainability requirements uh but
1:02:04 using cpa as a
1:02:06 carrot uh wait wait you know waiver from
1:02:10 cpa uh i'm not aware of any other city
1:02:12 that it does it but we can look into
1:02:14 that we can bring in a state law and and
1:02:17 do that as an incentive so thank you
1:02:22 and thank you commissioner lewis and
1:02:24 commissioner voice you have a question
1:02:28 comment
1:02:30 thank you chairfell uh interesting
1:02:32 interesting comment chair or
1:02:34 commissioner lewis
1:02:35 didn't really think about it like that
1:02:39 i guess what i just wanted to say as far
1:02:41 as for staff is i'm generally in favor
1:02:44 of moderately raising the threshold i
1:02:46 think if you're looking around at our
1:02:48 neighboring cities it seems again that
1:02:50 is a cloth
1:02:52 always seems to be just a little bit
1:02:54 more stringent and we are notorious for
1:02:56 our permitting process
1:02:58 so i am fine i don't think anyone in our
1:03:00 community would like to see us go to the
1:03:02 maximum threshold of the state
1:03:04 i don't think anyone would probably be
1:03:06 in favor of that but i think moderate
1:03:08 increases are probably appropriate so as
1:03:10 far as just giving you guys some
1:03:11 direction that's the way i feel
1:03:18 thank you commissioner voice
1:03:20 so i uh don't see any other comments or
1:03:23 questions uh i have a comment and that
1:03:25 is if we're going to
1:03:29 increase it i'm not necessarily in favor
1:03:31 of increasing it so much but uh maybe to
1:03:33 be in consensus uh instead of raising it
1:03:36 to 10 maybe we raise it to six units or
1:03:38 something like that somewhere in between
1:03:41 as a suggestion
1:03:44 that's my only comment and then we're
1:03:46 going to move on to
1:03:48 mr milligan has a comment oh go go ahead
1:03:50 and commissioner milligan
1:03:57 thank you chair fall
1:03:59 too wanted for the record to say that if
1:04:02 we increase the threshold i would not do
1:04:06 by very much
1:04:08 and i would
1:04:09 it's great that you have shown the staff
1:04:12 has shown us what the other cities and
1:04:13 neighboring cities have
1:04:15 have done because those are really nice
1:04:17 benchmarks
1:04:18 especially if we're feeling competitive
1:04:20 and we want to
1:04:22 we want we don't want to
1:04:25 discourage uh residential development
1:04:28 let's say but but because residential
1:04:30 development
1:04:31 is not
1:04:32 a high burden or demand in our community
1:04:35 at this time that would be one of the
1:04:37 ones that i wouldn't necessarily
1:04:39 increase the number on
1:04:41 and i also would like to
1:04:44 hear more
1:04:46 would it be 10 you know i mean there's
1:04:49 different safety or parking or other
1:04:51 requirements somewhere between 4 and 10
1:04:53 and at what point do they
1:04:55 trigger a different
1:04:58 different buffer averaging i don't know
1:05:00 something that would give me a little
1:05:02 better reason to say that 10 is okay
1:05:05 and then i wanted to bring up for future
1:05:08 consideration i think i saw that the cpa
1:05:11 fee was five thousand dollars
1:05:14 five thousand dollars whether you get
1:05:16 four units or 30 units and that just
1:05:19 didn't seem quite right to me
1:05:21 if this is a project if this is
1:05:24 something that is a burden on staff
1:05:27 seems like we should charge more
1:05:29 on some sort of sliding fee scale that
1:05:32 compensates the staff for their time for
1:05:34 the bigger projects and give me just one
1:05:36 more second i gotta look at my notes
1:05:44 yeah that's it and my questions earlier
1:05:45 had to do with you know if we have a
1:05:47 stricter codebase
1:05:49 um and it's it is very predictable and
1:05:53 very well laid out that you have to
1:05:55 follow these standards and the standards
1:05:56 are very high
1:05:58 if this if we get to this point where
1:06:00 our standards are very high and our code
1:06:02 is very strict
1:06:04 i could see that that could
1:06:07 fill in what might be considered as a
1:06:09 gap if we move up the threshold for cpa
1:06:12 so that's it thank you
1:06:15 thank you commissioner milligan and uh
1:06:18 i'm not seeing any additional comments
1:06:20 so i'm going to go ahead and hand it
1:06:22 back over to minnie to continue the
1:06:23 presentation
1:06:28 you're muted minnie
1:06:31 yeah just to summarize real quickly in
1:06:33 terms of there wasn't a broad uh
1:06:35 consensus or agreement on raising uh a
1:06:38 few uh members felt um uh
1:06:42 below the ma you know one fell moderate
1:06:44 is okay a couple felt even a little
1:06:47 below the moderate is okay but i think
1:06:49 we're going to come back to you with
1:06:50 some more information about what type of
1:06:52 super projects the city has issued so
1:06:54 you can make a more informed decision so
1:06:56 we'll leave it at that on this topic
1:06:59 with that
1:07:00 i'm going to turn it over to lucy to
1:07:02 talk about the next one which is who
1:07:04 makes the decision on different types of
1:07:06 land use
1:07:07 applications here
1:07:09 are you going to share your screen mini
1:07:11 or am i
1:07:13 you can share it or i can share it you
1:07:15 let me know it's fine i can do it
1:07:20 lucy i just made you a presenter so you
1:07:22 should be able to do it now okay
1:07:25 thank you very much
1:07:53 do you see my screen
1:07:56 okay thank you
1:07:59 um so we gave you a chart that showed
1:08:02 examples of all the different existing
1:08:05 levels of um
1:08:08 decisions uh that we use for land use
1:08:12 and uh
1:08:14 described what the existing um
1:08:16 [Music]
1:08:18 processes and some changes that we were
1:08:20 suggesting to that process
1:08:23 and the two that i thought were worth um
1:08:26 pointing out and having a bit more
1:08:28 discussion about
1:08:30 one is level six
1:08:32 uh level six are amendments uh
1:08:34 legislative amendments to the code or
1:08:37 the comprehensive plan
1:08:39 right now only the count uh the council
1:08:42 only holds a hearing if there's a
1:08:44 significant change
1:08:46 after the hearing that's taken place at
1:08:49 um we're considering that maybe the
1:08:52 council should always hold a hearing
1:08:55 um because it's an important way for the
1:08:58 community to hear from
1:09:00 or the council to hear from the
1:09:02 community
1:09:04 uh the other levels that we were looking
1:09:07 at making changes to were levels three
1:09:10 and five
1:09:11 uh those are land use permits they're
1:09:13 quasi-judicial
1:09:15 decisions
1:09:18 level three is a site development permit
1:09:20 or sdp a level five is a master site
1:09:24 plan or msp
1:09:26 right now the hearings are held by the
1:09:29 development commission
1:09:32 and then on an sdp they make the
1:09:33 decision
1:09:35 um on an msp they
1:09:37 send it forward to the council for a
1:09:39 decision
1:09:40 council doesn't love that because um
1:09:43 they are making a decision on permits
1:09:47 when it's quasi-judicial they can't talk
1:09:49 to anyone
1:09:50 they have to take the record that was
1:09:52 created in front of another body and
1:09:54 make a decision and cannot over the
1:09:57 whole arc of the permit have
1:09:59 conversations with the
1:10:00 community um
1:10:03 we're also not just thinking about
1:10:06 changing the master site plan but also
1:10:08 the site development permit
1:10:10 um one
1:10:11 issue is that there's a lot of
1:10:12 inconsistency in the city different the
1:10:15 same permit is handled in different ways
1:10:18 across the city
1:10:21 best practices recommend having a
1:10:23 hearing examiner
1:10:25 make decisions on quasi-judicial permits
1:10:30 at the same time we want to retain the
1:10:32 community input because we think that's
1:10:34 a really important part of the process
1:10:36 so we were proposing and had discussed
1:10:39 with the development commission
1:10:41 last night
1:10:43 having an
1:10:45 early guidance meeting with them
1:10:48 when the full land use permit is in so
1:10:50 that they can see all the different
1:10:52 parts of the permit
1:10:53 and they can
1:10:55 give us feedback and give the applicant
1:10:57 feedback the community can give feedback
1:11:00 and then as we're working through the
1:11:03 review and the staff report
1:11:05 um incorporate those responses
1:11:09 [Music]
1:11:12 i forgot that i have control
1:11:15 [Music]
1:11:19 really the question is what role should
1:11:22 each of these bodies have in making
1:11:24 decisions
1:11:25 on the chart showed once for the council
1:11:28 the development commission the hearing
1:11:29 examiner who's kind of like a judge
1:11:32 and the director which is minnie um or
1:11:35 her designate which would be staff
1:11:48 okay and we're going to go ahead and
1:11:49 open this up to uh questions
1:11:52 so i just wanted to mention that you may
1:11:55 notice that there are a few extra faces
1:11:59 we have uh
1:12:00 mike brennan who is development
1:12:03 commission chairperson and mel morgan
1:12:06 who is a commissioner
1:12:08 joining us this evening they were kind
1:12:10 enough to come and um help convey some
1:12:13 of the development commission's thoughts
1:12:16 to you as part of your consideration
1:12:19 and so i leave it up to ppc to decide
1:12:22 when you would like to hear from dc
1:12:26 well welcome to ppc and i think that you
1:12:29 guys should be part of this team so
1:12:31 interact with us and ask your questions
1:12:33 and comments along with all the other
1:12:34 commissioners if you feel comfortable
1:12:36 with that
1:12:38 and we're going to go ahead and open it
1:12:39 up to comments uh or sorry
1:12:42 questions first and
1:12:44 let's see if there are any questions
1:12:47 in the chat and the first question is
1:12:52 matt monahan
1:12:54 thank you matt monaghan here um two
1:12:57 questions um one can you talk me through
1:12:59 the process for how we retain a hearing
1:13:01 examiner
1:13:02 um and then two i'm curious as to the
1:13:05 development commission's um
1:13:08 recommendation in in the zone and it was
1:13:10 level three and five what's the thought
1:13:13 process behind asking the development
1:13:15 commission to weigh in there
1:13:17 and then relatedly
1:13:19 do we expect the hearing examiner who i
1:13:21 believe lucy you said and my read of the
1:13:23 law is you know they have to be
1:13:25 impartial and have the appearance of
1:13:26 impartiality and my only concern there
1:13:30 if we want the hearing examiner to weigh
1:13:33 the development commission's
1:13:34 recommendations a little bit more that
1:13:36 could run us a foul
1:13:38 of the whole imperial appearance of
1:13:40 impartiality because they would be
1:13:42 relying on something that isn't
1:13:43 objectively in front of them so
1:13:45 hopefully you can address those it's
1:13:47 kind of a three-part question at the end
1:13:48 so four total questions so let's see how
1:13:50 i do feel free to tell me i've missed a
1:13:53 part um
1:13:55 every periodically we do an rfp or
1:14:01 rfq for a hearing examiner a request for
1:14:04 proposal or qualifications
1:14:06 i believe we did that maybe two or three
1:14:08 years ago
1:14:10 we ended up retaining the same
1:14:12 hearing examiner that we were previously
1:14:15 using sound law center
1:14:19 they are attorneys
1:14:21 not hearing examiners are not always
1:14:23 attorneys sometimes they're land use
1:14:26 professionals who um have uh are
1:14:29 experienced enough in language law to to
1:14:32 carry that out but at this time we're
1:14:34 using an attorney
1:14:39 the the idea would not be
1:14:42 that um there's maybe more weight given
1:14:46 to the development commission
1:14:48 i think that the idea is that the
1:14:53 development commission is selected as
1:14:55 representatives of the community
1:14:58 reflect um the community's values
1:15:02 and um
1:15:06 you know the the
1:15:08 standards are the standards
1:15:10 um but if there's color uh in those
1:15:13 standards between um
1:15:16 how maybe something fits together or um
1:15:21 how something is applied
1:15:24 having them weigh in on that and i will
1:15:26 i will give an example that i hope will
1:15:28 bring a smile to commissioner morgan's
1:15:32 the first time we were using the design
1:15:35 manual um that the uh city developed
1:15:39 under the moratorium
1:15:42 uh the architectural style that was
1:15:45 selected was
1:15:46 arts and crafts and one of the
1:15:48 characteristics was complex roofs and
1:15:52 there were images provided
1:15:54 that's an important part
1:15:56 of sometimes understanding what those
1:15:58 things mean
1:15:59 staff evaluated it as being complex
1:16:03 commissioner morgan's
1:16:06 pointed to the pictures and used those
1:16:08 as illustrations that he did not feel
1:16:11 that we had met that test yet
1:16:13 and so um
1:16:15 it's it's not that uh we're looking for
1:16:18 the commission to
1:16:22 say i don't like this project when it
1:16:24 meets all the standards
1:16:26 but that if there is some performance
1:16:30 characteristic it's more of a
1:16:32 performance standard rather than a
1:16:34 prescriptive standard where it's how it
1:16:37 as opposed to having to be exactly seven
1:16:41 that the commission may provide an
1:16:43 important community
1:16:46 component of that
1:16:52 so i may just add real quickly to i
1:16:55 think what we haven't quite figured out
1:16:57 what the two-step process will look like
1:17:00 or the criteria will look like so at
1:17:03 this point we're just seeking feedback
1:17:05 that should there be an early
1:17:07 and a final decision that that crosses
1:17:10 all the x's and the t's and the criteria
1:17:12 has been met whereas when an applicant
1:17:15 applies there's more opportunity earlier
1:17:17 in the process to make some
1:17:19 bigger changes if those are needed so
1:17:23 we could shape it different ways um it
1:17:25 won't just be an open-ended guidance
1:17:28 that's not tied to a code criteria it
1:17:30 would probably be
1:17:32 a big large scale bulk size siding on
1:17:35 the on the building the solar
1:17:37 panel you know access and all those kind
1:17:39 of things but then the more detailed
1:17:43 review for all the traffic and you know
1:17:45 all those kind of things will come later
1:17:47 so so it can be structured differently
1:17:50 from a legal perspective of having a
1:17:53 you know clear-cut criteria for the
1:17:55 early guidance but at this time we're
1:17:57 just seeking should should even be
1:17:59 should we even explore that or just keep
1:18:01 it as one
1:18:03 uh decision that gets made at the end
1:18:07 i don't know if that answers your
1:18:08 question okay
1:18:13 okay and thank you
1:18:15 commissioner monahan and commissioner
1:18:17 milligan you have the floor
1:18:20 thank you chair fall commissioner
1:18:22 milligan here i have two questions one
1:18:24 is i have to look at my notes i know it
1:18:26 looks goofy when i do this because it's
1:18:27 on the same screen
1:18:31 one question has to do with the
1:18:33 distinction between level six and level
1:18:36 when we were just uh talking about
1:18:39 why it would be such a great idea for
1:18:40 the city council to hold a second public
1:18:42 hearing when it's a level six example
1:18:44 why can't the city council hold another
1:18:47 public hearing if it's level five that's
1:18:50 my first question and then my other
1:18:52 question has to do with a public comment
1:18:55 earlier
1:18:56 would any of these be impacted by some
1:19:00 of the changes that we expect to make in
1:19:03 the code say
1:19:04 the lower level examples if we increase
1:19:08 the strictness or the predictability or
1:19:11 the clarity of our code
1:19:13 then would variances be less frequent
1:19:17 for instance i'm just using that as an
1:19:18 example but how would the title 18 code
1:19:22 update impact um how these processes
1:19:26 happen
1:19:30 i think the first question is easier
1:19:32 than the second one um
1:19:34 so that's uh that's a great question and
1:19:37 i know this is kind of complicated so i
1:19:39 i'm glad you asked that
1:19:42 um level six is legislative which means
1:19:47 you're making you're making a change to
1:19:49 the code it doesn't apply to a
1:19:51 particular piece of property
1:19:53 and therefore you can have more than one
1:19:56 hearing
1:19:57 the people who are making
1:19:59 recommendations or decisions can talk to
1:20:02 the public they can talk amongst
1:20:04 themselves you know it it's a less
1:20:07 structured
1:20:09 less rigid format
1:20:11 level five
1:20:13 um is what is called a quasi-judicial
1:20:16 meaning it's like a court and the
1:20:19 decision maker and even the recommending
1:20:23 um have to act like a judge and both
1:20:26 appear and be fair
1:20:29 and that means that everything has to
1:20:31 take place on the record so so a council
1:20:35 member
1:20:36 a commissioner cannot talk to anyone
1:20:39 except on the record they can't talk to
1:20:41 themselves
1:20:43 that they can talk to themselves they
1:20:44 can't talk amongst themselves
1:20:47 they can uh they can talk to staff staff
1:20:50 are considered neutral but all the other
1:20:52 conversations
1:20:54 have to take place on the record in a
1:20:56 recorded meeting
1:20:58 so you know with a project that might go
1:21:01 on uh for a couple of months between
1:21:04 when it's submitted
1:21:06 and there's staff review and then
1:21:08 there's a recommendation and then it
1:21:09 goes on to council
1:21:11 that's frustrating to the council it's
1:21:14 frustrating to the community who wants
1:21:16 to weigh in
1:21:18 the council has to as i mentioned make
1:21:21 the decision based as it's currently
1:21:24 written
1:21:24 on what's called a closed record which
1:21:27 means all the record that was created at
1:21:29 the development commission is the only
1:21:31 thing they can consider they can't
1:21:34 hear any more testimony
1:21:37 from the public and
1:21:40 we're just questioning um we've heard
1:21:43 complaints from the public we've heard
1:21:45 concerns from the council
1:21:47 um we're just and and that is not very
1:21:50 common to have a council making those
1:21:53 kinds of decisions and so that's why
1:21:55 we're having this conversation
1:21:57 is to try and understand whether there
1:22:00 is um
1:22:02 you know value to one approach or
1:22:05 another
1:22:06 [Music]
1:22:08 your second question had to do with
1:22:12 i think the interrelatedness of the
1:22:14 pieces
1:22:16 um and whether
1:22:18 um a choice
1:22:20 to be more strict on one piece would
1:22:23 impact
1:22:24 um another piece
1:22:27 um i think that's partly why we're
1:22:30 trying to have these conversations now
1:22:33 is to hear from the community and from
1:22:36 the commissioners
1:22:37 to understand
1:22:39 what your priorities are as we go back
1:22:42 and try and
1:22:44 weigh these choices
1:22:46 and understand um
1:22:49 between what we've heard from you what's
1:22:51 in the goals and outcomes chart
1:22:54 how we're putting these things together
1:22:57 um what the implications of one on
1:23:00 another are
1:23:02 you know to pick i don't i don't even
1:23:05 remember now what your example was i
1:23:07 guess what i would say is for instance
1:23:09 if we wanted to raise to the highest
1:23:11 cepa threshold and loosen all the rules
1:23:15 on um
1:23:16 [Music]
1:23:17 critical areas and building design and
1:23:21 things that might
1:23:23 not make sense from the kinds of
1:23:25 comments that we've heard
1:23:27 because what you've said is
1:23:30 we you know
1:23:31 i think we're hearing we want to be
1:23:32 reasonable and we want to make sure we
1:23:34 have the right kinds of controls
1:23:37 to achieve the community's values
1:23:39 so i i think we've kind of broken it
1:23:42 into these pieces
1:23:44 with the hope that at that we are
1:23:46 hearing certain trends
1:23:48 as well as certain specific reactions
1:23:50 that will help us
1:23:52 make those decisions
1:23:54 and then bring it back for another
1:23:56 conversation this is not the last
1:23:58 conversation
1:23:59 so i don't know if that helped or if
1:24:01 many you have other more you would like
1:24:03 to add
1:24:12 yeah no i don't have anything else to
1:24:13 add to that
1:24:15 i think there's some more questions
1:24:18 the chat
1:24:19 and we have two more questions uh
1:24:22 we have
1:24:23 commissioner bader
1:24:24 at the floor
1:24:26 yeah hi sarah vader here i have two
1:24:28 questions um the first is that it looks
1:24:31 like the
1:24:32 recommendation to move to a hearing
1:24:34 examiner is guidance from the washington
1:24:36 city's insurance authority and so i'm
1:24:38 wondering if that recommendation is for
1:24:41 community benefit or just for the
1:24:43 benefit of kind of the city um city zone
1:24:45 protection of themselves i guess
1:24:48 and so that's one question and then my
1:24:49 other question we've talked a lot about
1:24:50 kind of streamlining here and if i'm
1:24:53 reading this right it looks like
1:24:54 there'll be actually like an additional
1:24:56 added on to the process if it goes to
1:24:58 the hearing examiner so a question about
1:25:00 like impact on
1:25:02 timelines um you know i don't know how
1:25:04 many of these reviews there are in a
1:25:06 year but does the hearing examiner have
1:25:08 bandwidth for that you know is there
1:25:09 going to be
1:25:10 just i guess what's the implication to
1:25:12 that extent
1:25:14 of these proposed changes
1:25:16 do you want me to take the first one
1:25:19 um so the the risk assessment from the
1:25:22 washington city's insurance authority
1:25:25 obviously the the risk that
1:25:27 is looked at is you know whether these
1:25:29 decisions are made on adopted criteria
1:25:33 uh the other risk is um
1:25:36 you know when you have a a volunteer
1:25:39 board and it turns into a courtroom
1:25:42 where they get question from the
1:25:43 attorneys from the applicant is is that
1:25:46 the place we want our volunteer boards
1:25:48 to be put in so they they it becomes a
1:25:51 legal uh question back and forth uh the
1:25:54 third risk is if they're if they're
1:25:57 members of the community that can run
1:25:58 into each other in the grocery store and
1:26:00 and you know community members expect
1:26:02 that you're going to be making a
1:26:03 decision in this not to say that our we
1:26:06 have excellent board members and they've
1:26:08 done a fabulous job but that's where
1:26:10 some of those risks are
1:26:12 articulated um
1:26:15 and and so
1:26:16 so so that's that part but i think our
1:26:18 ultimate goal here
1:26:20 with with bringing this forward and
1:26:22 looking at process improvements is
1:26:25 to see how we can meaningfully get
1:26:28 community to participate for the
1:26:30 development commissioners to get a way
1:26:32 in and and make a meaningful difference
1:26:34 in the review of these projects
1:26:37 at what stage does it make the most
1:26:39 biggest impact
1:26:40 and and and then also meet the legal
1:26:44 implications that are required for
1:26:46 quasi-judicial so in the perfect world
1:26:47 we want it all we want a very solid
1:26:50 legal process that can withstand a
1:26:52 challenge in the court
1:26:54 can have a meaningful feedback from the
1:26:56 community members get the development
1:26:59 commissioners to weigh in so
1:27:01 but it can be done if it all gets
1:27:03 packaged towards the end and it's just
1:27:05 one decision so we're just that's sort
1:27:07 of the the
1:27:08 the discussion uh not just one filter of
1:27:12 we're reducing risk and that's why we
1:27:14 need to do this
1:27:15 and and just to add on to that um
1:27:18 [Music]
1:27:19 i i think many really hit the nail on
1:27:21 the head we're trying to find the right
1:27:22 balance between being streamlined and
1:27:26 making decisions
1:27:29 uh that reflect the community so what
1:27:31 are the right steps in the right way
1:27:34 to achieve that um and you know i guess
1:27:37 the other thing i would add about risk i
1:27:39 i it may sound
1:27:41 kind of like a disembodied thing you
1:27:43 know that the city's just trying to
1:27:44 reduce risk but in fact
1:27:47 it's your money
1:27:48 and so when there are decisions or or
1:27:52 even if we win
1:27:55 but if we've spent you know it's paying
1:27:57 for the attorneys and and the time and i
1:28:00 think
1:28:01 the staff time the attorney's time and
1:28:04 so we want to be making solid decisions
1:28:08 um that are you know are good
1:28:10 expenditures of of the public's funds
1:28:14 uh so that we are um
1:28:17 avoiding
1:28:18 appeals and and or um
1:28:22 findings against us that that would um
1:28:27 costs
1:28:28 your money
1:28:35 okay and thank you
1:28:38 sorry i just wanted to my second
1:28:39 question was just on the impact on
1:28:40 timeline um
1:28:42 of going to the hearing examiner and if
1:28:44 there is any
1:28:47 you know we still have to meet the state
1:28:48 mandated i mean there's the whole
1:28:50 discussion about how long it takes us to
1:28:52 process permits what what's the state
1:28:54 law there's a 120 day time frame so
1:28:58 the hearing examiner isn't any lengthier
1:29:00 process or any shorter i think the
1:29:02 review has to occur and then the staff
1:29:04 report is done so so
1:29:06 yes it takes more in terms of effort and
1:29:09 time for a packet to go out in the board
1:29:12 but the same kind of process it's still
1:29:14 a public hearing in front of the hearing
1:29:16 examiner we still have to do the
1:29:18 notification anyone can come and speak
1:29:20 and testify at that hearing so
1:29:23 time wise i'm not sure that much a
1:29:25 difference
1:29:26 we use a hearing examiner now for
1:29:28 certain decisions so so we are familiar
1:29:32 sort of that timeline
1:29:34 and how that process works so i think
1:29:37 it's more about what
1:29:40 be a good you know good way to reflect
1:29:42 the community and
1:29:45 make defensible decisions
1:29:51 okay and thank you
1:29:53 so commissioner bader were your
1:29:55 questions answered
1:29:57 exactly okay excellent thank you uh
1:30:00 we're gonna go ahead and jason voice has
1:30:04 floor thank you chair and
1:30:08 good to see you guys commissioner morgan
1:30:10 commissioner brennan
1:30:12 mine is just two real quick questions is
1:30:15 one are we basically doing three and
1:30:16 four right now because that's the way
1:30:18 i'm understanding this we're talking
1:30:20 about the timeline
1:30:22 and then two just out of curiosity uh
1:30:25 what type of claims do we see how often
1:30:28 is this a pretty rare
1:30:29 occurrence or is it pretty frequent
1:30:31 was it
1:30:35 i'm not i'm not sure i quite understood
1:30:38 are we already doing three and four you
1:30:39 mean the policy changes three and
1:30:41 correct yeah because i keep hearing us
1:30:43 talking about splitting it up in the
1:30:45 front end and the back end and that's
1:30:46 basically it's number four as far as our
1:30:48 agenda packet
1:30:51 i think four is maybe something
1:30:53 different and so it sounds like i have
1:30:55 some explaining to do
1:31:00 i could have read it too fast paige oh
1:31:02 no no
1:31:04 not not on you um
1:31:08 there we we do have some lawsuits right
1:31:11 now um
1:31:14 i don't know that we um
1:31:17 you know i think it's also just we
1:31:20 come into a more
1:31:21 litigious
1:31:23 phase in um land use development too
1:31:28 i don't know many of you have other
1:31:29 perspectives you may know about more
1:31:31 than i do
1:31:33 yeah yeah you know i mean
1:31:36 the there's a potential for uh anyone to
1:31:40 to file a claim
1:31:42 uh right so it's not necessarily how how
1:31:45 you know what risk can we take but it's
1:31:48 it's every decision should be able to
1:31:50 withstand
1:31:51 uh any challenge is sort of the way we
1:31:54 see our role and our job to be so that
1:31:57 we're making defensible decisions we are
1:32:00 consistent with making all the decisions
1:32:03 you know different people applying for
1:32:04 the same kind of thing get the same
1:32:06 decision so that's the whole prop part
1:32:08 of this process but but to answer your
1:32:10 question is it a rare occurrence or yes
1:32:12 i mean
1:32:13 because we do a good job of
1:32:16 you know making sure all the the
1:32:20 challenges can be withheld
1:32:22 it is not a common occurrence but when
1:32:24 it does occur it is a costly occurrence
1:32:33 okay and uh so commissioner voice were
1:32:35 your question your questions answered
1:32:38 excellent
1:32:40 now we do have the dc here if they would
1:32:42 like to ask a question or make a comment
1:32:45 on this topic
1:32:53 and okay uh commissioner lewis has the
1:32:56 floor
1:32:59 commissioner joy lewis thank you
1:33:00 chairfall um i want to thank um the d.c
1:33:03 for talking about this last night when i
1:33:05 listened to their meeting today i found
1:33:07 it very informative
1:33:09 i think primarily because i had a lot of
1:33:12 strong reactions to this in my packet i
1:33:15 appreciate commissioner voice's question
1:33:17 because i think it is important to point
1:33:19 out that while there are lawsuits
1:33:21 against the city for particular things
1:33:23 with developers that there hasn't been
1:33:25 an abundance of ones with how the
1:33:26 current system runs with the development
1:33:28 commission
1:33:29 uh i think that it was chair brennan
1:33:31 that said last night something that
1:33:33 really struck me
1:33:35 um and that's that the dc has had a very
1:33:38 measurable and positive impact on the
1:33:40 build environment of our city
1:33:42 i personally think that taking away
1:33:44 their quasi-judicial
1:33:46 role will would greatly weaken the
1:33:48 effect not only of the commission but
1:33:51 also the role of the community in these
1:33:52 decision making processes i think that
1:33:55 there are moderate steps that can be
1:33:56 taken that aren't as extreme as this for
1:33:59 instance
1:34:00 i come at this as somebody who used to
1:34:02 sit on the uvdc so i know what it's like
1:34:04 to be somebody who adjudicates on and
1:34:07 has to be able to say i'm sorry i can't
1:34:09 discuss that i don't i think that's part
1:34:11 of what goes with the job and so the
1:34:14 that maybe our council wants to have
1:34:16 more of a back and forth it's a little
1:34:17 bit hard for me to think needs to be an
1:34:19 actual
1:34:20 impetus for changing how our community
1:34:22 is involved in the decision making
1:34:24 process right now it is a one-way
1:34:26 conversation anyone in the community can
1:34:28 bring up comments to staff and to the
1:34:31 council without actually having them
1:34:34 reply back yes that is the nature of it
1:34:36 but it i think it's important to note
1:34:38 that it is a conversation that can still
1:34:40 take place just because council can't
1:34:42 answer back there's still a wide array
1:34:45 of ways that the community can interact
1:34:47 and be able to voice their opinion for
1:34:49 when they do go to have it i don't know
1:34:51 if it's possible to be able to have
1:34:52 community conferences or joint
1:34:54 commission meetings in the way that we
1:34:55 do so that maybe an ad hoc committee is
1:34:57 formed and some members of council are
1:34:59 able to attend and be able to have more
1:35:01 of a give and take i think that there
1:35:02 are other steps that can be taken
1:35:05 rather than saying we're going to take
1:35:06 all this to a hearing examiner now if
1:35:08 there are serious concerns about how the
1:35:10 development commission operates and
1:35:12 actually changing the nature of that
1:35:13 commission i think that's
1:35:15 a separate discussion that needs to be
1:35:16 had in a different forum related right
1:35:19 now to how we're addressing land use i
1:35:22 do not believe that this current
1:35:24 proposal uh really promotes community
1:35:27 involvement and that's my serious
1:35:28 concern right now
1:35:30 and i would need to see a lot more to be
1:35:33 moved on that position so thank you
1:35:39 thank you commissioner lewis
1:35:40 i would also like to second what
1:35:42 commissioner lewis has just mentioned um
1:35:45 i watched last night and i think uh the
1:35:48 development commission's
1:35:50 position is actually very important and
1:35:52 i don't want to debilitate them i think
1:35:54 they're
1:35:55 feedback and their value to the
1:35:57 community is very very important and i
1:36:01 don't necessarily like what i read
1:36:03 tonight in terms of the changes we're
1:36:05 presenting
1:36:07 um i'd like to go ahead and open it up
1:36:09 to comment for
1:36:13 mel morgan from a commissioner from the
1:36:20 oh i'm sorry uh
1:36:22 mike brennan
1:36:25 great thank you chair paul um and first
1:36:27 thanks for allowing us to join you this
1:36:29 evening um and share the perspective
1:36:31 from the development commission and from
1:36:33 our discussions last night so
1:36:35 commissioner morgan and i uh were
1:36:37 volunteered to
1:36:39 come tonight and kind of
1:36:41 share the discussion so since it
1:36:43 happened last night it's still
1:36:44 relatively fresh appreciate
1:36:47 the commission members that have already
1:36:48 watched the video
1:36:50 that was probably helpful so um i'll
1:36:53 i'll say a few things and and then
1:36:55 certainly uh commissioner morgan can can
1:36:57 add on so clearly the uh the development
1:37:00 commission had some uh strong
1:37:03 reservations about the changes that are
1:37:05 being suggested
1:37:06 but also recognize that reviewing the
1:37:08 process is something that that needs to
1:37:11 happen from time to time to make sure
1:37:12 it's still serving the purpose that it
1:37:14 was intended to serve as things change
1:37:16 and certainly they have since the
1:37:17 commission was created
1:37:19 um i think the the biggest concern and
1:37:21 you've already
1:37:23 stated it is kind of the loss of
1:37:25 influence um
1:37:27 and and how do we um if you're if we're
1:37:29 going to make changes to the process
1:37:31 making sure that the community influence
1:37:33 on the projects
1:37:35 is still
1:37:36 strong
1:37:37 in in how we how the commission
1:37:40 functions and how
1:37:42 it engages with the applicants
1:37:44 and with staff and making sure that the
1:37:47 projects are really
1:37:48 high quality and really meet the
1:37:50 underlying needs of the community
1:37:52 um you heard earlier that
1:37:54 not all of the standards are are black
1:37:57 and white um codes have a lot of
1:37:59 performance criterias as lucy mentioned
1:38:02 and that's where the commission does
1:38:04 really bring the community perspective
1:38:06 to the conversation about how does it
1:38:09 um how is it serving the community need
1:38:12 how is it engaging with neighboring
1:38:13 properties
1:38:14 etc so we do spend a lot of time early
1:38:17 in the process
1:38:18 um also the process that we use does
1:38:20 allow for that early engagement in the
1:38:22 community conference and then the more
1:38:24 formal public hearing that occurs uh
1:38:27 when we get to decision on a project and
1:38:30 at both places along that path there is
1:38:32 a community involvement an opportunity
1:38:35 to for their voices the the broader
1:38:37 community voices to be heard
1:38:40 i think the
1:38:42 discussion you probably heard last night
1:38:44 was probably around the scope of
1:38:46 responsibility of the commission clearly
1:38:49 there's a lot of breadth in the way that
1:38:50 the rules are written now and what the
1:38:52 commission can actually
1:38:54 uh weigh in on and
1:38:57 thinking about that and making sure that
1:38:59 there's maybe additional clarity about
1:39:02 the role and decision making
1:39:04 responsibility of the development
1:39:06 commission
1:39:07 i think was
1:39:10 a point of discussion last night as well
1:39:12 just from our experience we deal with
1:39:15 and get comments on a wide range of
1:39:17 different things related to projects not
1:39:18 only the architectural style uh and
1:39:20 detailing but transportation and
1:39:23 critical areas and
1:39:27 various issues related to the
1:39:29 environmental impacts
1:39:30 so it is um important to make sure that
1:39:33 there's maybe additional clarity um
1:39:35 there tends to be some agreement about
1:39:38 but i think most importantly it's really
1:39:41 preserving the voice of the community
1:39:43 and that's what the commission really is
1:39:46 and um so
1:39:48 and the ability to be the decision maker
1:39:51 obviously creates a significant amount
1:39:53 of influence and of that voice
1:39:56 um but also recognizing what you know
1:39:59 you've heard from staff is there are
1:40:01 risks and so what's the right balance
1:40:03 here to make sure that that influence is
1:40:05 there by not having undue risk in the
1:40:07 process not only for the community but
1:40:09 for the developer that's trying to
1:40:11 manage their way through what can be a
1:40:13 fairly complex and sometimes cumbersome
1:40:16 process to get a proposal approved and
1:40:18 then under construction so
1:40:20 that's kind of my summary uh
1:40:22 commissioner morgan
1:40:24 i'm sure has some additional insights i
1:40:26 think he can share
1:40:30 thank you commissioner brennan and uh
1:40:32 commissioner morgan you held the floor
1:40:35 thank you very much chair fall and and
1:40:36 thank you all for allowing uh
1:40:39 chair brenda and i to come and chat with
1:40:43 i think i feel
1:40:44 very strong about the issue the the more
1:40:47 i've looked into and thought about it
1:40:51 number one we're very fortunate that
1:40:53 lucy and the staff
1:40:55 and all the staff over the years have
1:40:56 done an excellent job of making sure
1:40:59 that the commission makes decisions
1:41:01 based on what's in the code and what we
1:41:04 can and can't do
1:41:06 i think it's fairly clear and that's why
1:41:08 we don't see lawsuits against the
1:41:11 development commission for decisions
1:41:13 that are made
1:41:15 i don't think there's a high insurance
1:41:18 risk involved in in what we do
1:41:21 and i do think it's critical that we
1:41:24 a chance for members of the community
1:41:27 to be involved in making decisions about
1:41:29 what gets what gets built in the
1:41:31 community
1:41:32 the projects we look at are not small
1:41:34 projects
1:41:36 and so typically the developers are not
1:41:38 from the community
1:41:40 and the architects are not from the
1:41:42 community
1:41:43 and the hearing examiner
1:41:45 typically not from the community
1:41:48 so in essence we would have decisions on
1:41:51 our larger projects being
1:41:53 made by somebody outside the community
1:41:55 that might not understand as much and by
1:41:57 a single person as opposed to a
1:41:59 commission of seven members
1:42:01 that don't always agree on things we
1:42:03 don't always vote 7-0 on projects
1:42:07 but we do have to have a majority of
1:42:09 those members agree
1:42:10 on a project that comes through
1:42:12 i think the um
1:42:15 i would agree that there are some things
1:42:17 that we could
1:42:18 change about the the way the commission
1:42:20 operates and perhaps
1:42:22 remove some of the technical aspects of
1:42:26 like the environmental aspects some of
1:42:28 critical area determinations or as
1:42:31 commissioner richard brennan said the
1:42:34 um traffic and so forth
1:42:37 some of those things could be removed to
1:42:38 the staff level
1:42:40 to streamline what our commission does
1:42:42 and perhaps even move it forward in the
1:42:45 project so the developer can get design
1:42:47 guidelines earlier in the process i
1:42:50 think what we really want to focus on
1:42:52 is what the feel and the view of a
1:42:55 project will be for members of the
1:42:57 community
1:42:58 that's really what we're providing
1:43:00 and it's those members of the community
1:43:02 that are going to interact with the
1:43:04 project
1:43:05 accessing it
1:43:07 perhaps living there working there
1:43:09 it's those kind of things that that we
1:43:11 are providing the input
1:43:14 and the decision making
1:43:16 at that at the local level that i think
1:43:18 is critical
1:43:21 i think if we
1:43:22 if we're really only looking to
1:43:25 reduce lawsuit risk i would
1:43:28 um i would certainly not want to give up
1:43:31 local decision making just for that so
1:43:34 thank you very much i appreciate the
1:43:40 thank you commissioner morgan
1:43:42 and uh thank you again for coming to ppc
1:43:44 this evening
1:43:47 your feedback is very valuable to us
1:43:50 okay so we have
1:43:53 that's it for comments uh
1:43:55 let's go ahead and ask any questions do
1:43:57 we have any questions from the
1:43:58 commissioners before we move on
1:44:01 i i think
1:44:02 if i'm reading the
1:44:04 chat correctly i believe commissioner
1:44:06 milligan and commissioner monahan have
1:44:09 comments
1:44:13 okay i see it right here uh commissioner
1:44:16 milligan you have the floor
1:44:19 thank you chair fall and and i think
1:44:22 that we're in the comment section and
1:44:23 that we finished the question section so
1:44:25 i'm going to go with that assumption
1:44:27 and provide a few comments and and thank
1:44:29 the development commission
1:44:31 members for coming tonight after working
1:44:34 so hard last night and i have not seen
1:44:37 this meeting although i hope to but i
1:44:40 witnessed their work in the past and am
1:44:43 so appreciative and and want to
1:44:47 amplify
1:44:49 the comments of commissioner morgan and
1:44:51 brennan in in this way that
1:44:56 in a couple ways especially one thing
1:44:58 that they provide is a is a very public
1:45:01 forum for decisions that are really
1:45:03 important to our community and the
1:45:05 hearing examiner as capable as some of
1:45:08 the hearing examiners that i've watched
1:45:10 and i
1:45:11 show of hands how many people have
1:45:13 watched a hearing examiner proceeding
1:45:16 they're not a real public thing they
1:45:18 don't you know they don't bring out the
1:45:20 um the folks they're not in the evening
1:45:23 you know they're just they're not a very
1:45:26 public forum for decisions that really
1:45:29 impact our community in in a big way
1:45:33 i would not
1:45:36 as in favor of moving responsibilities
1:45:39 to the hearing examiner
1:45:41 and in fact would move more to our
1:45:44 public
1:45:45 agencies such as the development
1:45:47 commission
1:45:49 the city council
1:45:51 and the planning policy commission but
1:45:54 these uh these people
1:45:57 are very accountable to the public and
1:46:00 they are local
1:46:02 uh and in that way i think that we will
1:46:05 a more um
1:46:09 uh decisions that are more aligned with
1:46:14 goals and another thing i really want to
1:46:16 plus one on was commissioner morgan's
1:46:19 comment about a highly functioning group
1:46:21 which the development commission is
1:46:23 is that if anyone has studied this you
1:46:26 get a way better
1:46:28 product out of a highly functioning
1:46:30 group
1:46:31 than you get from a really smart person
1:46:34 because a highly functioning group
1:46:36 performs at a higher level than the
1:46:38 smartest member
1:46:40 as much as we can
1:46:43 stay with that i do appreciate the
1:46:45 staff's efforts in
1:46:47 preventing problems in the future and i
1:46:49 know that they
1:46:51 those they are significant
1:46:53 when we have lawsuits or
1:46:55 misunderstandings with developers but
1:46:57 we're
1:46:59 we're updating title 18. so
1:47:02 some of these things come because of
1:47:04 discrepancies or
1:47:06 unclear code or some of the things that
1:47:08 we're going to talk about later about
1:47:10 where do our developers get their
1:47:12 information about what's required
1:47:16 i too am not in
1:47:19 such a hurry to change or
1:47:23 decision making processes to a hearing
1:47:25 examiner i am
1:47:27 i think i'm in favor of though the
1:47:33 enhancement of the level six
1:47:35 to have uh the city council have another
1:47:38 public hearing i thought that was uh
1:47:40 pretty neat but uh the other ones
1:47:42 uh not so interested let me just make
1:47:45 sure i'm not missing something here that
1:47:47 i wanted i really wanted to say oh oh
1:47:50 yeah and then um
1:47:53 and in fact uh down uh in the lower
1:47:56 levels
1:47:57 lower meaning lower numbers zero one and
1:47:59 two um we have a lot of decisions made
1:48:02 by the director or a designee and in the
1:48:04 past i found those problematic so i
1:48:06 don't know why we're not revisiting that
1:48:09 here's one way though that we could
1:48:12 maintain this standard is that if we do
1:48:15 in our improvement of the title 18 code
1:48:18 we reduce things like
1:48:23 discrepancies or places where
1:48:27 a difference of opinion needs to be
1:48:29 decided by someone in an office that the
1:48:31 public never sees
1:48:33 then that would be okay
1:48:36 that speaks to just the last thing i
1:48:38 want to say and that has to do with
1:48:40 level four especially variances if we
1:48:43 can tighten up our code
1:48:45 so that we don't have
1:48:48 variances i just like to not have any i
1:48:51 know you have to have some because
1:48:52 people are innovative things change and
1:48:55 our code doesn't change as often
1:48:57 but if we can reduce the number of
1:49:00 variances that people apply for and
1:49:03 put in the hearing examiner's decision
1:49:08 that would be better
1:49:10 in closing though i do want to
1:49:13 again support
1:49:14 having bodies like the development
1:49:16 commission
1:49:17 participate for all the reasons that
1:49:19 have been said before me thank you
1:49:24 thank you commissioner milligan and
1:49:26 commissioner monahan you have the floor
1:49:29 thank you matt monaean here i have a lot
1:49:31 of thoughts but i'm going to keep it
1:49:32 brief given the time um and i had a very
1:49:35 strong reaction reading this and but i
1:49:37 was in favor of this move uh primarily
1:49:40 because of the unique nature of
1:49:41 quasi-judicial review
1:49:43 washington state has a fairly robust
1:49:45 appearance of fairness doctrine that
1:49:47 makes it really risky when you put
1:49:49 members of the community on a volunteer
1:49:51 board to be put in the position of a
1:49:53 quasi-judicial officer
1:49:55 i haven't seen it
1:49:57 and as an individual who has personally
1:49:58 filed a lawsuit against the city council
1:50:00 and a planning commission in a different
1:50:02 jurisdiction i can tell you the process
1:50:04 is not pleasant for those uh having to
1:50:06 be deposed
1:50:07 and it wasn't even pleasant for me doing
1:50:09 the deposition so
1:50:11 quasi-judicial hearings are policy
1:50:13 applications they're not policy settings
1:50:16 and because of that distinction i think
1:50:17 that's why a hearing examiner is best
1:50:19 positioned to make that final decision
1:50:21 that being said i'm in complete
1:50:23 agreement that community input is
1:50:25 absolutely essential and that's why i
1:50:27 really like what staff did in
1:50:28 structuring a development commission
1:50:30 review
1:50:31 early on i mean you could even do maybe
1:50:33 even multiple i don't know if state law
1:50:34 would allow that but would allow that
1:50:36 iterative community engagement to
1:50:38 continue and that record would be put
1:50:40 forward in front of the hearing examiner
1:50:42 who would be obligated to follow it
1:50:44 and so to the extent we're talking about
1:50:45 we really want community to be involved
1:50:48 well the community is involved in the
1:50:49 policy setting and it's that policy that
1:50:51 the hearing examiner would then be
1:50:53 grafting onto any any application that
1:50:56 came before him or her and so if we want
1:50:58 more you know if we want to
1:51:01 be able to
1:51:02 put guardrails around what the hearing
1:51:04 examiner can do we can we can change the
1:51:06 code and change the the standards that
1:51:08 apply now peace i get it you can't be as
1:51:10 prescriptive restrictive as we might
1:51:12 want to be right we have to give some
1:51:14 flexibility in the code but i think the
1:51:17 the solution there that the risk to the
1:51:19 city and continuing on with a volunteer
1:51:22 board
1:51:23 doing quasi-judicial activities i think
1:51:25 is really high i get lawsuits don't
1:51:26 happen often but when they do they are
1:51:28 very expensive very disruptive and
1:51:30 washington state courts seem to be
1:51:33 very willing to invalidate land use
1:51:35 decisions
1:51:37 much more frequently than i would have
1:51:38 guessed before i started reading the
1:51:39 case law so
1:51:41 in closing very much in favor of this i
1:51:43 really applaud staff for coming up with
1:51:45 a way to fold in community involvement a
1:51:48 lot more
1:51:49 than i've seen other jurisdictions so
1:51:50 i'm very much in favor of this planned
1:51:53 approach
1:51:58 great feedback my
1:52:00 commissioner monahan thank you
1:52:02 uh and we have
1:52:05 commissioner voice you have the floor
1:52:10 well that just made it a lot tougher
1:52:13 listening to both commissioner monahan
1:52:15 as well as commissioners morgan and
1:52:17 brennan
1:52:19 i think this is one of the great reasons
1:52:20 you have dc come and visit because the
1:52:23 packet doesn't speak nearly as well as
1:52:25 these two
1:52:27 but i gotta admit that now
1:52:30 my fellow commissioner has just shaken
1:52:32 my faith about what i was just going to
1:52:34 so i guess what i would like to
1:52:36 just reiterate is what
1:52:38 commissioner morgan said
1:52:40 i'd like to hear more about trying to
1:52:41 streamline the process at dc
1:52:44 so the applicants during their permit
1:52:47 process can find out information prior
1:52:50 and i know we're going to go into that
1:52:51 maybe on december 2nd or even later
1:52:53 tonight
1:52:55 again i think there's ways to streamline
1:52:57 it without getting any quality or also
1:53:00 usurping um
1:53:02 our different boards
1:53:04 and commissions
1:53:05 so again i'm a little torn right now
1:53:09 that was tough good job guys
1:53:13 thank you commissioner voice tough topic
1:53:17 and uh commissioner monahan you
1:53:18 completely changed how i was thinking
1:53:22 uh okay so we have another comment here
1:53:25 from uh
1:53:26 commissioner bader
1:53:29 yeah hi sarah bader here i don't know if
1:53:31 this comment is going to be helpful and
1:53:33 so just feel free to just dismiss it if
1:53:36 needed but
1:53:37 this whole
1:53:38 packet made me nostalgic from the time i
1:53:41 was a planner in the uk and so i wanted
1:53:43 to speak to like that experience a
1:53:44 little bit because i don't know if there
1:53:46 are pieces of that that can be
1:53:48 incorporated here and so the process
1:53:50 there was you know we get a planning
1:53:52 application and it would arrive on my
1:53:54 desk it would go you know out to public
1:53:56 notice
1:53:58 if there was an objection
1:54:00 a written objection from any member of
1:54:01 the public that automatically went to
1:54:03 the development control committee which
1:54:05 was a committee of elected um county
1:54:08 counselors in that case um for review
1:54:11 and we would write up a recommendation
1:54:13 and then they would deliberate and
1:54:14 decide on that
1:54:15 um if it was a bigger application there
1:54:17 were like additional kind of triggers
1:54:20 that kind of moved things up different
1:54:21 processes and so i guess i don't have a
1:54:23 recommendation for what those triggers
1:54:24 would be
1:54:25 but is there a similar process that
1:54:28 could be put in here um you know
1:54:29 depending on you know what the level of
1:54:31 risk is or what the recommendation is
1:54:35 you know is there a process that can
1:54:37 kind of move things you know some what
1:54:39 needs to be seen by hearing examiner to
1:54:41 reduce risk to the city versus what can
1:54:42 be determined by you know the
1:54:44 development commission is there a
1:54:45 process in that
1:54:47 that can be put in place um i don't know
1:54:49 what that is but i throw it out there
1:54:57 thank you commissioner bader so actually
1:54:58 was that a question directed towards
1:55:00 minnie or
1:55:02 lucy it was just a just a thought um
1:55:07 well uh lucy or minnie would you like to
1:55:10 do you have anything to
1:55:12 comment on that
1:55:13 you know we can share the thresholds of
1:55:15 what what triggers uh these what
1:55:19 triggers level three and level
1:55:21 five and six so i think that may provide
1:55:24 some clarity um next time we meet on
1:55:26 this topic
1:55:28 the the other thing that um
1:55:31 is in code now
1:55:33 that um may be worth thinking about
1:55:36 relative to commissioner uh bader's
1:55:38 comment
1:55:39 is we do have a provision in which
1:55:43 is colloquially called bumping up
1:55:46 where if a project meets
1:55:49 certain criteria
1:55:51 it can be moved to a higher level
1:55:55 and that
1:55:57 sounded to me like potentially um
1:56:02 what commissioner vader is describing um
1:56:06 i think both sharing the thresholds and
1:56:08 and thinking about
1:56:10 whether that
1:56:12 how well that has served us so far
1:56:15 and whether we have the right triggers
1:56:17 um might be a good part of the
1:56:18 conversation as well
1:56:24 okay thank you lucy and i'm not seeing
1:56:26 any additional comments
1:56:28 uh so with that said uh let's go ahead
1:56:31 and minnie
1:56:32 so i'll summarize what i heard
1:56:35 um you know strong preference for
1:56:37 community engagement and uh an approval
1:56:40 authority role for development
1:56:42 commissioners was uh loud and clear from
1:56:45 uh the early part of the conversation uh
1:56:48 we did um have some um
1:56:51 you know feedback on on the role of the
1:56:53 development commission so perhaps some
1:56:55 technical
1:56:57 topics like the environmental and the
1:56:59 traffic
1:57:00 could be parsed out or clarified in the
1:57:04 and then
1:57:05 how we get the legal aspects factored in
1:57:09 uh i think is is the other part we can
1:57:11 work with our attorneys um on that topic
1:57:14 but i but uh in
1:57:16 in the third category of the um i think
1:57:20 i believe it's master site plan which
1:57:23 goes to a recommendation from
1:57:25 development commission and the and the
1:57:27 city council makes a decision city
1:57:28 council has preferred not to be the
1:57:31 decision maker so what we can do there
1:57:33 is leave it at the development
1:57:34 commission making the final decision or
1:57:37 instead of the city council change it to
1:57:39 the hearing examiner so we'll let
1:57:41 multiple options based on the feedback
1:57:43 we currently have
1:57:45 but that's coming directly from council
1:57:47 city council's feedback so we want to
1:57:49 make sure that um
1:57:51 you know we we bring their their
1:57:53 perspective to
1:57:55 their role for a master site plan and
1:57:58 what they'd like to see changed there
1:58:01 um so i think we've we'll come back with
1:58:03 some more additional information so in
1:58:05 the meantime if you have any questions
1:58:06 feel free to reach out to us
1:58:09 thank you for all your time
1:58:14 so we'll move on to the next topic
1:58:18 and it's a time check it's 8 30.
1:58:21 so um
1:58:23 chair fall do you have a preference to
1:58:25 keep going at the stage or
1:58:29 we move all the other topics to
1:58:33 december 2nd discussion
1:58:35 i would like to take a vote of the
1:58:37 commissioners
1:58:39 for all those in favor of continuing
1:58:41 tonight raise your hand
1:58:46 and all those who are in favor of moving
1:58:49 it to the next scheduled meeting raise
1:58:51 your hand
1:58:53 and i'm sorry but chair fall are you
1:58:55 saying how much more do we have and are
1:58:58 we moving all of it are we just
1:58:59 incrementally getting a little more done
1:59:01 tonight
1:59:04 we would
1:59:05 well uh
1:59:06 move the rest of it right many
1:59:09 three topics three topics so we covered
1:59:12 three today and we can cover the three
1:59:14 at the next meeting or
1:59:17 we can
1:59:18 however you all want to do it
1:59:21 of the three topics we have left many um
1:59:25 what would be the next topic that would
1:59:26 be the least amount of time and how much
1:59:28 time do you think that would be
1:59:30 and is that appropriate
1:59:33 yeah it's really up to how much you all
1:59:35 want to have discussion on the topic um
1:59:38 i think um lucy what are the other three
1:59:42 permit um decision timing
1:59:44 conditional uses and adjustment of
1:59:47 standards
1:59:52 commissioner voice you had a comment or
1:59:53 question
1:59:55 yeah just real quickly um so my
1:59:57 understanding is december 2nd is right
1:59:59 now we don't have anything but so we'd
2:00:02 just be having another meeting
2:00:04 we do we have gary schumacher coming to
2:00:06 talk about the proposed goals and
2:00:08 policies for the stormwater master plan
2:00:11 okay so there is something on the agenda
2:00:13 for the second
2:00:16 how would that impact if we moved three
2:00:18 topics to the second how would that
2:00:20 impact the timing
2:00:24 length the potential length of the
2:00:26 second meeting
2:00:29 the first item i believe is uh not
2:00:31 supposed to take you know is a shorter
2:00:34 just uh information sharing so there's
2:00:36 no decision making or anything like that
2:00:38 happening with that so possibly half an
2:00:40 hour for the first item and yes he's
2:00:42 thinking that's about how long it will
2:00:50 so another option maybe we just walk you
2:00:52 through the presentation in the next 10
2:00:54 minutes if you want to continue and then
2:00:57 just hold off your questions and
2:00:59 discussions uh to december
2:01:02 there are multiple ways we can do it
2:01:03 your preference
2:01:06 uh commission milligan
2:01:09 i want to pose that we do
2:01:12 one more topic
2:01:14 uh to reduce the burden on the december
2:01:16 second meeting and do it completely
2:01:19 so that we have that juxtaposition of
2:01:22 the presentation from the staff and
2:01:24 our questions and comments all in one
2:01:26 package so instead of just leaving off
2:01:28 at three we leave off at four and i
2:01:31 would defer to the staff to pick which
2:01:33 topic is best to follow the particular
2:01:37 things that we've talked about tonight
2:01:38 that we have some synergy with
2:01:40 i was in line with my thought too uh
2:01:42 commissioner lewis
2:01:46 thank you commissioner joy lewis i'd
2:01:48 like to propose that we extend the
2:01:49 meeting by 27 minutes and we see how far
2:01:51 we get we may end up finishing
2:01:54 if we just keep going and i don't i
2:01:57 would prefer to not have a presentation
2:01:59 without comments and questions so
2:02:01 instead i would if you guys don't like
2:02:03 the extension of time then i would say
2:02:04 we try one chunk and see where we're at
2:02:06 thank you
2:02:09 so if there's consensus to just cover
2:02:10 one topic in incomplete then i would
2:02:13 suggest we go with the timing of the uh
2:02:16 the because it's sort of related to what
2:02:18 you all were talking about now
2:02:20 yep i think it's a good idea
2:02:23 thank you commissioner lewis and thank
2:02:24 you commissioner milligan
2:02:28 okay have minnie you have the floor
2:02:31 lucy's going to cover it and remember we
2:02:32 have public comments at the end as well
2:02:34 so um timing wise just keep that in mind
2:02:44 um permit decision timing
2:02:48 um is not about the totality of
2:02:51 the permit
2:02:52 it's about a component of the permit and
2:02:56 and it is very similar to the comments
2:02:58 that i think you heard from the
2:03:00 development commission
2:03:02 in terms of some of the technical
2:03:05 studies
2:03:06 that we receive
2:03:08 examples include critical areas
2:03:11 we receive often multiple studies
2:03:14 that go through peer review
2:03:18 applicants are working on tree retention
2:03:21 we receive arborist reports that go
2:03:23 through peer review
2:03:25 traffic studies that go through peer
2:03:27 review
2:03:29 and in both our current process and our
2:03:32 proposed process the beginning is is the
2:03:36 same we're not proposing a change the
2:03:38 applicant submits the studies
2:03:40 the city
2:03:41 um we often do not have um
2:03:45 experts or bandwidth on staff and so we
2:03:49 at the applicant's expense
2:03:51 fire um experts to be our peer reviewers
2:03:56 and they make comments and then it
2:03:58 returns to the applicant's consultants
2:04:00 to um make corrections and respond to
2:04:03 those comments
2:04:04 and it goes through a cycle until um
2:04:07 through that cycle until they agree
2:04:11 the experts agree
2:04:14 um what happens now though is there
2:04:17 you know we say
2:04:19 that the study is approved
2:04:22 but there's no formal approval that's
2:04:25 issued and so really that study is not
2:04:28 approved until the whole land use permit
2:04:32 is approved
2:04:33 so um
2:04:35 in essence the development commission or
2:04:37 the council's or the hearing examiner's
2:04:40 approval
2:04:41 includes the approval of those studies
2:04:45 what we're proposing instead
2:04:50 to once we get to that approval point
2:04:53 um that a decision
2:04:55 is issued
2:04:57 um if there's a disagreement by the
2:04:59 applicant it can be appealed
2:05:02 if there is no disagreement
2:05:04 it then sets the frame
2:05:08 what can happen on the land and this
2:05:10 provides
2:05:11 predictability um
2:05:13 it means that for instance if we're
2:05:15 trying to agree on where wetlands and
2:05:18 the rating of the wetland and how big
2:05:20 the buffer needs to be
2:05:22 those things can be set up front the
2:05:25 developer what part of the site is
2:05:27 allowed to be developed can be
2:05:33 i think the piece that if there is um
2:05:37 interest or openness to exploring this
2:05:40 the piece that we
2:05:42 will need to explore is
2:05:44 um how to
2:05:46 let the community know this is going on
2:05:48 let the community comment
2:05:51 um what kind of engagement would happen
2:05:54 so that um
2:05:56 interested parties concerned parties
2:05:59 um curious parties know about it now
2:06:01 these things are currently posted
2:06:04 to our um active projects map and
2:06:07 active projects list but you have to go
2:06:10 look for those things so um you know is
2:06:13 there some kind of notice that goes out
2:06:16 i think those are things that we would
2:06:18 have to explore if there's an openness
2:06:21 but i think that we have heard um you
2:06:24 separate from
2:06:25 [Music]
2:06:27 the development commission we didn't
2:06:28 hear uh their comments until last night
2:06:30 that they would like to not have some of
2:06:33 those technical studies in front of them
2:06:35 which they don't necessarily feel
2:06:37 qualified to review
2:06:39 so um
2:06:40 [Music]
2:06:42 that is uh the uh question at hand
2:06:46 and um
2:06:48 so you know the the the sort of options
2:06:50 that we laid out in the memo and that
2:06:52 are shown on the slide are you know
2:06:55 should all the decisions with the land
2:06:57 use permit such as a site development
2:06:59 permit or master site plan
2:07:01 occur in one comprehensive decision at
2:07:04 the end of the land use process
2:07:07 or should some of these decisions such
2:07:10 as critical area delineation tree
2:07:12 classifications and assessments
2:07:14 and retention compliance be
2:07:17 administratively issued prior to the
2:07:19 review of the full land use permit
2:07:23 discuss
2:07:33 okay and thank you very much lucy let's
2:07:35 go ahead and open it up to
2:07:37 uh questions
2:07:42 commissioner monahan you have the first
2:07:44 question
2:07:46 yeah quick question um in a situation
2:07:48 where you administ when you when you
2:07:50 give the permits um
2:07:51 administratively and they're appealed
2:07:54 is the thought process that there might
2:07:56 be a situation where the appeal
2:08:00 renders the overall approval meaningless
2:08:02 no longer necessary because you know
2:08:04 whatever you know preamble was already
2:08:06 denied or is it more along the lines of
2:08:09 i guess i'm just struggling to
2:08:10 understand what what we gain by changing
2:08:13 the process and what the problem we're
2:08:14 trying to solve is
2:08:16 yeah fma and lucy kind of give an
2:08:18 example so um
2:08:21 you know there's a there's a debate if
2:08:22 there's a stream or a ditch or you know
2:08:25 where if it is a wetland a regulated
2:08:27 wetland or not a regulated wetland for
2:08:29 instance on a piece of property we go
2:08:31 through the peer review and
2:08:33 and we determine that it is
2:08:36 not you know the applicant argues the
2:08:39 city's peer review agrees that city
2:08:41 doesn't have the code to regulate it but
2:08:43 someone in the community may feel it
2:08:45 should be regulated and they have
2:08:47 additional information that we heard you
2:08:49 know that that needs to be factored in
2:08:51 there's an avenue for
2:08:53 someone that disagrees with that
2:08:55 assessment to appeal it earlier so that
2:08:58 not the whole building is designed and
2:09:00 everything all the investment in the
2:09:02 design has occurred
2:09:04 and that decision gets made at the very
2:09:07 tail end
2:09:08 whether it was regulated or it was
2:09:10 unregulated so some of these
2:09:13 or the other example could be
2:09:15 how much parking is needed for this type
2:09:18 of use which is so unusual and it's not
2:09:21 classified as a standard use with a
2:09:24 standard parking requirement so it's
2:09:26 it's in discretional
2:09:28 parking determination for that
2:09:30 particular kind of use
2:09:32 that will shape how the building looks
2:09:34 how you know
2:09:35 or whether
2:09:37 you know structured parking is needed
2:09:38 how much is needed so there may be some
2:09:41 components like critical areas or trees
2:09:45 in this example
2:09:47 that need to be
2:09:48 figured out whether
2:09:50 what the city's rules are going to be or
2:09:52 determination is going to be so that
2:09:54 gives an avenue for some predictability
2:09:57 and and possibility for building design
2:10:00 and site design is sort of the thought
2:10:01 process here
2:10:03 lucy do you have anything to add no i
2:10:05 think that's a great example
2:10:11 alexa thank you very much commissioner
2:10:12 monahan did they answer your questions
2:10:14 for you
2:10:15 excellent uh commissioner lewis you have
2:10:18 the floor
2:10:21 thank you uh commissioner lewis actually
2:10:23 minnie i think you just answered my
2:10:25 question which is really uh the larger
2:10:28 when if we readdress this again
2:10:30 of getting more info is trying to really
2:10:32 understand like what are what are we
2:10:33 gaining right and so that's what you
2:10:34 really kind of answered is to say by
2:10:36 doing some of these things earlier on in
2:10:38 the process we're going to be able to
2:10:39 get a better outcome effectively and so
2:10:41 i think that we're all in favor of that
2:10:43 so so thank you i think that uh
2:10:46 basically the way that i looked at it is
2:10:47 that if critical area designation has
2:10:49 been a historical issue then yeah this
2:10:51 looks like we're solving a problem so i
2:10:53 kind of wanted a little more of like
2:10:54 what are we gaining or what how what
2:10:56 have we found is kind of not working in
2:10:58 the process and this helps solve so a
2:11:01 little more information on that again
2:11:02 but thank you that that answer was great
2:11:07 thank you commissioner lewis
2:11:09 i have not seen any additional questions
2:11:15 so i guess we'll open up for comments
2:11:22 if you'd like to make a comment please
2:11:24 raise your hand
2:11:26 i commissioned my all again oh i'm sorry
2:11:28 wrong one i apologize
2:11:32 ah come on
2:11:36 commissioner milligan here thank you
2:11:37 well uh thank you for bringing this uh
2:11:40 topic in tonight because it is
2:11:42 interestingly juxtaposed to what we were
2:11:44 just talking about and and i'd like to
2:11:47 testify as a past uh land use
2:11:50 commissioner that when um when an
2:11:53 applicant comes to us and the staff is
2:11:55 trying to help us decide whether a
2:11:57 geotech report is adequate oh my god you
2:12:01 and i can remember more than one
2:12:03 occasion where
2:12:05 as the urban village development
2:12:07 commissioner
2:12:08 we had to qualify and we made it very we
2:12:11 were trying to be very careful to say
2:12:13 yes we approved this application except
2:12:15 for the geotech report we'd have to call
2:12:17 these things out because we didn't want
2:12:19 anyone to think that we felt
2:12:22 uh qualified to rule on that
2:12:25 so uh i appreciate uh this consideration
2:12:29 and i'm tracking with you uh the
2:12:32 uh the only uh
2:12:34 maybe uh
2:12:36 helpful
2:12:37 uh feedback that i might give is that
2:12:40 when this goes into the administrative
2:12:42 process that is behind closed doors i
2:12:44 like getting it done early because then
2:12:46 you do get those really important
2:12:48 environmental issues taken care of first
2:12:50 and then and then the development can
2:12:52 follow
2:12:53 those important decisions i like that
2:12:56 but to lucy's point i would like to see
2:12:58 it balanced with some kind of public how
2:13:02 do we engage in the public so that they
2:13:04 don't come to the party too late that is
2:13:06 so frustrating so if you can solve for
2:13:09 great and also if we can solve for
2:13:12 the um
2:13:14 the variabilities so if we can nail down
2:13:18 what's important how important is it in
2:13:20 and what's our standard then there'll be
2:13:22 less of a burden on staff
2:13:25 consider you know what what did you
2:13:27 really mean by that i don't want the
2:13:29 staff have to to worry about that i want
2:13:31 the rules to be clear they can
2:13:33 administer them give an approval early
2:13:35 and then the developer has that
2:13:36 opportunity then to go forward with
2:13:38 something they know they have
2:13:40 so thank you those are my
2:13:43 thank you
2:13:46 thank you commissioner milligan
2:13:49 are there any other
2:13:50 comments
2:13:55 hey i have not seen any so with that uh
2:13:59 [Music]
2:14:00 kristen uh let's go ahead and open up to
2:14:02 public comment
2:14:04 my turn now yay this is your turn
2:14:06 officially
2:14:08 so if there's anyone who would like to
2:14:09 make a comment please raise your hand
2:14:13 connie
2:14:14 marsh would like to make a comment
2:14:19 you are a panelist
2:14:25 we'll see if you guys can hear me
2:14:27 because i had to go to cell phone
2:14:29 because the internet went out up here
2:14:31 um so can you hear me at this point i
2:14:34 can hear you yes okay and
2:14:37 uh so i'm gonna do it without video just
2:14:39 in case now
2:14:41 massive topics
2:14:45 after you all have given your provided
2:14:47 your input is one of my least favorite
2:14:51 things
2:14:52 it's very hard to phrase anything
2:14:54 important before you hear how it's going
2:14:56 to be presented
2:14:58 so i'm not really sure
2:15:03 well i can see why so few of us are
2:15:04 following this out here in the world
2:15:06 very hard to be effective i i don't know
2:15:09 if you read all my emails because i
2:15:11 didn't hear much come up but i'm hoping
2:15:16 uh this is some feedback
2:15:18 mainly on
2:15:20 what i perceive
2:15:22 as potentially
2:15:24 unintentional half
2:15:26 information
2:15:29 because i've been through this process
2:15:31 for so long i just have experienced it
2:15:34 viscerally
2:15:36 i'm just going to start with
2:15:37 notifications um we have i-90 in the
2:15:40 middle of our town
2:15:42 and i-90 is an enormous barrier we also
2:15:45 have big huge ravines in places like the
2:15:48 issaquah highlands
2:15:49 where one side of a park
2:15:53 and the other side of the park might
2:15:56 impact each other substantially with
2:15:58 things like lighting
2:15:59 and that's well away yet it would still
2:16:02 be impacted and i-90 all of our water
2:16:06 flows under i-90 to the other side of
2:16:09 and so water issues are significant our
2:16:13 traffic issues are significant
2:16:16 because we have bottlenecks that only
2:16:19 get worse
2:16:20 and we also have that in and out
2:16:22 ingressing egress situation
2:16:25 all over town where if if you build 10
2:16:27 more houses in an area you are going to
2:16:30 create
2:16:32 massive
2:16:33 problem
2:16:37 the distance is
2:16:40 it's not distance it's likely impact
2:16:44 so i think you need to start with a
2:16:47 distance and then say
2:16:50 uh reasonably impacted
2:16:53 anyone who looks like they could be
2:16:55 impacted because the rally pipeline is
2:16:57 going to go underneath the freeway and
2:17:00 outlet
2:17:02 on lake sammamish which is having
2:17:05 lake level issues right
2:17:08 this could impact people so what do you
2:17:10 do you have to have the conversation so
2:17:16 let's
2:17:17 uh also
2:17:19 there was an interesting thing where
2:17:21 many said that the majority concurred
2:17:24 with that 500 feet i didn't see a
2:17:27 majority concur
2:17:28 i didn't see a vote so i'm not sure how
2:17:31 you got to majority concurred nobody
2:17:34 refuted it when she said it so when you
2:17:36 all if this is a yes no flipping switch
2:17:40 thing you need to vote after each topic
2:17:42 if you're going to come up with majority
2:17:45 concurs
2:17:46 right
2:17:47 then you need to raise your hand
2:17:51 development commission
2:17:53 super valuable they have the
2:17:54 conversation
2:17:57 the risk
2:17:58 for development commission
2:18:00 as they
2:18:02 use it
2:18:07 not huge
2:18:08 if it happens once then we can change it
2:18:11 but really the risk is not that big and
2:18:15 in the um
2:18:17 the value that they bring
2:18:20 as a decision-making body
2:18:23 is important because in my experience
2:18:26 unless you're a decision making body and
2:18:28 ppc has experienced this it is very
2:18:32 difficult to get what you say
2:18:36 into action
2:18:38 because
2:18:40 they will tell staff staff will decide
2:18:43 whether it's important staff will put it
2:18:45 in a report development commission will
2:18:47 never see it again
2:18:48 the public might see it
2:18:51 at the hearing examiner if they can go
2:18:53 to the hearing examiner at 10 o'clock on
2:18:55 a wednesday morning and go to the public
2:18:58 hearing
2:18:59 and so the line between the community
2:19:02 input through development commission to
2:19:05 reality
2:19:06 is not trans parent and i after all
2:19:09 these years have zero trust that it will
2:19:13 by definition happen if we actually have
2:19:16 the trust
2:19:18 i would be a much easier on this but i
2:19:20 have no trust for comparing transparency
2:19:23 i have the opposite because of my
2:19:26 experiences
2:19:28 so the timing issue and the cepa issue
2:19:32 we have a cepa determination
2:19:35 that is in theory talking about the
2:19:38 impacts that would fall outside of code
2:19:44 and that has never happened
2:19:46 except for at the very end it seems like
2:19:48 there it's always a race to get the sipa
2:19:51 done i don't understand how we'd have
2:19:53 all of our critical area reports and all
2:19:55 this other stuff done
2:19:58 early
2:19:59 somehow with some unknown public process
2:20:02 and some unknown
2:20:04 you know wow this is happening enough to
2:20:07 get attention now that will interweave
2:20:10 with cipa and that whole decision
2:20:14 making and appeal process so to me that
2:20:17 sounds like you've got two
2:20:20 conflicting
2:20:22 cipa and
2:20:24 and potentially environmental appeals
2:20:27 at two different times in a process
2:20:29 seems terrifically unwieldy to me so i
2:20:32 think the reality of all how all that
2:20:34 works together
2:20:36 is something that you're gonna have to
2:20:38 happen uh have to look at closely then
2:20:42 one neighborhood champions is defunct as
2:20:45 far as i can see notify me i've signed
2:20:47 up for that thing like 16 times i don't
2:20:50 get anything doesn't work at all um and
2:20:53 we used to have boards at city hall and
2:20:56 at the uh for meetings it might work at
2:20:59 the library any public places where
2:21:01 people might be
2:21:04 looking right and
2:21:07 to some extent i think you all have it
2:21:09 on channel 21 but you'll notice the
2:21:11 calendar is at the very bottom of our
2:21:13 webpage there is no you have to find it
2:21:16 then you have to click away from events
2:21:18 and into meetings
2:21:20 and then you can find what's happening
2:21:23 next and that is because fewer people
2:21:26 click on those on the website instead
2:21:28 they click on the jail and so
2:21:31 there's different things that are at the
2:21:33 top and though they put the things the
2:21:35 top that are most people click on most
2:21:42 yeah it's that's the reality of the
2:21:45 world trying to find the active projects
2:21:47 list on our city website
2:21:51 is a monster
2:21:53 lots of work to do
2:21:58 thanks i think you guys did really good
2:22:01 for what you were handed so i appreciate
2:22:04 your efforts
2:22:10 whoop stop in my video
2:22:20 we have one other person mary lynch
2:22:22 would like to
2:22:25 speak
2:22:28 mary you are now a panelist
2:22:33 okay thank you
2:22:35 um i want to thank you all for
2:22:38 what was said tonight and also for the
2:22:40 development commissioners being there
2:22:42 and speaking up
2:22:44 um stating and carrying forward our
2:22:46 public comment because my experience has
2:22:49 been is there have been very few
2:22:51 community meetings
2:22:52 um i know there's a plan to change those
2:22:55 early on
2:22:57 um but
2:22:58 when we've talked to the community
2:23:00 meetings it goes into a black hole
2:23:03 and then we don't find what our comments
2:23:05 at those community meetings are done
2:23:07 until we get to the development
2:23:08 commission and then that's when we try
2:23:11 and beg and plead and present what we
2:23:14 presented at the community meetings to
2:23:16 the development commissioners and where
2:23:18 they've had the purview they don't have
2:23:20 it with traffic they have tried
2:23:24 you know put conditions on because they
2:23:26 realize what we have said at the
2:23:28 community meetings have brought
2:23:31 knowledgeable information and as i said
2:23:33 last night at the meetings and to build
2:23:36 upon i think what mayor
2:23:37 mel said and and i think i might have
2:23:41 we have and connie we have no trust in
2:23:44 city staff we haven't seen the new code
2:23:46 yet we won't see the new code yet until
2:23:49 sometime in february and we'll have less
2:23:51 than a month
2:23:53 to look at it all the city code that
2:23:55 you're writing what happened with the
2:23:57 tree plan back in 2007
2:24:00 is i spent probably a year and a half of
2:24:03 my time
2:24:04 working with the city to get a tree coat
2:24:06 and when it came out it has no teeth
2:24:10 we aren't replanting trees when we cut
2:24:12 there's a slap on the hand maybe if they
2:24:15 catch someone you know cutting a tree so
2:24:18 i have no faith until i see the code
2:24:20 that it's there
2:24:22 we need to have purview early on in
2:24:25 these
2:24:26 meetings with traffic as connie
2:24:29 mentioned you know how are your things
2:24:30 interconnected it's more than the 500.
2:24:34 i've had to write the mayor to ask to be
2:24:37 copied on every single meeting because
2:24:39 the other clicking on the website
2:24:42 doesn't happen and just fyi i checked
2:24:45 the community meeting last night was not
2:24:48 on the city's website the only place
2:24:51 that the city people knew that there was
2:24:53 a hearing was a development commission
2:24:56 meeting which didn't really clearly say
2:24:58 it also was a community meeting
2:25:02 it's still not working and that's
2:25:03 evidence go look at the city site and
2:25:06 there's nothing on the city website
2:25:08 about a community hearing last night for
2:25:11 the community so it's still not working
2:25:14 and we've got to do better we've got to
2:25:17 get the code that says what we want and
2:25:19 then yes maybe in three to four years
2:25:22 some of these other things you can relax
2:25:25 on and not have to have the
2:25:26 commissioners meet as much as they do
2:25:28 but until we have a code until we have
2:25:31 it in place and we have accountability
2:25:34 with staff
2:25:35 there is no trust
2:25:37 and we aren't
2:25:39 building a better issaquah
2:25:42 if you look at what most of the
2:25:43 developments have done at the most
2:25:46 they've restored what should have been
2:25:49 built out and restored a long time ago
2:25:51 with our critical areas but we are not
2:25:54 adding to the value of our community
2:25:57 with the developments that we've seen
2:25:58 lately thank you
2:26:15 there anyone
2:26:17 no that's the
2:26:18 rest of the public we have so there's no
2:26:20 one else who's
2:26:21 to speak
2:26:23 okay and thank you kristen we're gonna
2:26:24 go ahead and close public comment
2:26:28 we have
2:26:29 next thing on the agenda here is regular
2:26:31 business so
2:26:33 um i'm sorry not regular business uh is
2:26:36 reports
2:26:38 so i just have one the
2:26:41 comprehensive plan and sony map
2:26:42 amendments went to city council study
2:26:44 session on november 9th
2:26:46 and they literally had no questions so i
2:26:49 told them that was the easiest i've ever
2:26:51 it's ever been so
2:26:53 that is going to the december 6th
2:26:55 council meeting for
2:26:56 action but i also want to note that the
2:26:59 climate action plan will also be there
2:27:00 that night
2:27:02 for discussion and action in case you
2:27:04 guys want to tune in that's all i have
2:27:08 all right thank you and any other
2:27:10 business or announcements
2:27:14 i'm hearing none uh we will go ahead and
2:27:17 adjourn and the time is
2:27:19 8 58.

Attendance

Council / Members (13)
Administration/Staff: Ron Faul
Christen Leeson
Senior Planner Jason Voiss
Minnie Dhaliwal
Director
CP&D Joy Lewis Lucy Sloman
Land Dev. Manager Matt Monahan Valerie Porter
Assistant Planner Nina Milligan Others Present: Sara Bader Mike Brennan
Chair
Dev. Commission Commissioners Not Present: Mel Morgan
Jr
Dev. Commissioner Richard Zaragoza
Alternate (Excused)