Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening.

She asked. Good evening, and welcome to the January 28 meeting of City of Bellevue Planning Commission. This evening's meeting is held via hybrid format with both in person and virtual option via Zoom. Tonight's meeting will provide an opportunity for public comment during the oral communication portion of the agenda. All written comments that have been submitted prior to 11AM today, Wednesday, January 28, will be summarized into the record. We have one study session item tonight on the agenda, housing opportunity in mixed use area, land use code amendment. This continues our study session following the hearing on December 10. Now let us move forward with that roll call. Westchester Liu? Present.

Commissioner Ferris? I am here. Commissioner Valvesas? Commissioner Gueppo? Here. Commissioner Kennedy? Present. Commissioner Neil Chan?

Here.

Council liaison mayor Malakutian? Here. And I'm chair Hon Lu. Can I get the motion to approve tonight's agenda?

So moved.

Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? All approved, say aye. Aye. Aye. Mayor Melo Christian, do you have any reports for us?

Yes. Very quick. From the last time we were here, we had just one council meeting. The topic that was very interesting was human service needs update, what city of Bellevue community needs are, and then how we are allocating our funds with what percent to what kind of needs. So it was a great study by the staff.

So if someone is interested, these last night meetings. We also did something on the updating the safe speed of the whole Bellevue City arterial roads. We are decreasing speed because we know speed correlate to more injuries and bad accident, I guess. So there was a lot of data, and we are updating all of our speed. So watch that if you're interested.

But something that is related to this body is today today, eventually, we finalize all of the appointments. So from next meeting, a very known person, council member Vishal Bhargava, would be the liaison for this body, and it would be my today, my last day. I'm coming and stopping by because I appreciate you all. I built a relationship with you all, and I would love to continue that. And some of these topics are very interest I'm very interested, so I would love to come and see it in person rather to hear it via some Zoom audio or, in other ways.

So that's all update I have for you guys. If there is any question, I'm all yours.

I would just like I'm gonna guess. I'm speaking on behalf of our planning commission of how wonderful it has been to have you at heart.

You so much.

Thank you. Oh, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Ma'am, I could say on after, I don't know, nine years, you have Wednesday open. I can't believe it. What are you

gonna go do with your calendar? Good luck.

I am not going to remove the blocks. It's blocked for me. No one can

Like, years blocking? Oh my gosh. Kate, are there any reports from board and commission?

No. No reports. Sorry.

Kate, will you provide us the update of the meeting schedule for 2026?

Yeah. The I was just wanting to note that the follow-up discussion on the survey results was going to be tonight, but we've postponed it to February 25. And I've also added the tentative topics for April to the calendar as well. Thank

you. And let us move with the oral and written communication. Kate, do you have any summary of the written communication that you can share with us?

Sure. We had several written communications that came in since the packet was published all related to HOMA, and I forwarded all of those to you. I think there was something like 13. Two written communications have come in since I sent the update at noon. You were also regarding HOMA.

I believe all of those folks who sent the comments have also signed up to speak. Chair, I just wanted to let the public know that if they send comments on the day of the meeting, they're not forwarded to commissioners before the meeting if they come in afternoon. I I know that different bodies have different procedures, and I just wanted to make

sure that the public is aware of that practice. It's 11:00. Right? Whatever we receive by eleven, they're gonna go forward it to us. And after that

Yeah. I I let it go until noon. But K. Yeah. Eleven is better. I encourage commenters to send written comments as early as possible so that the commissioners have the maximum amount of time to review them. And just so folks know, you can find the topics of the upcoming meetings in the materials for this meeting on Legisstar. There's a a calendar, in that in that packet. So, if there's a topic that's coming up at the next meeting, sending the comments early, make sure that the commissioners get those materials.

We have a total of thirty minutes for oral communication. Each speaker will have up to three minutes to speak. A staff liaison, Kate Nessie, will call on the speakers in order in which they have registered either in person or online. If anyone from the public has missed the 06:00 registration deadline, you may still provide public comment if there is remaining time. Please you use the raise hand function in the Zoom if you are attending virtually or motion to staff if you are in person.

There are rules adopted by city council limiting the topic about which the public may speak during our meeting under 6,752. The public may only speak during public comments about subject matters that are related to city of Bellevue government and are within the power of the duties of the Planning Commission. Kate, would you please call for the speakers? And how are we doing about that regarding the thirty minutes?

We have 16 people that are signed up to speak. Nine minutes. So, yeah, that would go over the

thirty minutes. Forty eight. Yeah. My pass is bad. I don't know what's happened to me.

Alright. Move that we extend our session by fifteen minutes. Any second?

Second.

Any discussion? All in paper? Aye. K. Thank you.

Alright. So the first person we have signed up to speak is Brady Nordstrom, who is virtual, and that is followed by a pair of people, Deborah Deutsch and Suba. Brady, can you hear me?

Yes. I can.

Oh, just a moment. I forgot to get the time timer up. Just one moment. Oh, wait. Using a new timer tool. So one moment. Alright. Go ahead.

Alright. So my name is Brady Nordstrom as you see on that screen there, and I'm here tonight to represent the, housing development consortium and the Eastside Affordable Housing Coalition. The EAHC represents over 30 organizations on the East Side that build, design, operate, and advocate for affordable housing, including in Bellevue. Sorry that I'm unable to join you tonight in person, but I'm excited to share my comments. So, first of all, I wanted to thank staff for all their hard work on the HOMA code.

There's been a balancing of diverse stakeholder voices, economic realities, and a range of trade offs and city goals. I also wanted to thank you as the planning commissioners for your deep engagement with, all of, with with staff, myself, other affordable housing sector voices. And we share your values of realizing a welcoming, inclusive, and vibrant future for Bellevue that includes affordable housing for a range of workers, families, aging adults, and young people. And so this is why I'm here tonight, and it's probably not a surprise to any of you to enthusiastically support HOMA draft a with a well calibrated affordable housing requirement. And I know I've spoken on this topic in the past.

I just wanted to put a fine point on some things as you consider action tonight. So, first of all, the proposed affordable housing requirement is well calibrated, and there's been careful city analysis that shows the cost of providing the affordable housing is offset, by the value provided to landowners to the up zone. So the city also provides other benefits to developers, that you're familiar with, removal of some outdated code requirements, FAR exemptions, etcetera. This policy is a common policy in the East Side, King County, and the nation and has a track record of creating affordable housing at scale. So Bellevue's version of this policy is light touch, and it's complemented by a a conservative fee and lieu structure that ensures flexibility with compliance.

And so, ultimately, I find this policy interesting. It's it's exceeds only alongside, market rate development. So we encourage you to create consistency with Wilburton and continue that legacy here today. And, also, MFTE is gonna be important to pair with this program. Unfortunately, city council recently and, I would say quite wisely directed staff when your recommendations arrive to them that they would provide additional analysis to pass MFTE, updates simultaneously with these code updates.

And so I just, wanted to say this is a really important new development, and we hope this enables you to focus on recommending a framework that will help Bellevue meet its housing targets, of which about 85% are between zero and eighty, percent AMI for the next twenty or so years. So finally, last point, affordable housing requirement is technically and legally only being proposed in mixed use areas. So we broadly support the staff's effort in working with

Credit, your time is over. Thank you so much.

Alright. Next, we have, Deborah Deutsch and Suzanne Ba who are in person. That will be followed by Mark Moet, who is virtual. Press the button. Go ahead.

Good evening, planning commissioners. My name is Sue Bohn. You're probably sick of hearing me, but, my name is Sue Bohn. I've lived in Lake Heights for thirty five years. And with me tonight is Deborah Deutsch, a Newport resident a Newport Hills resident for forty five years.

We're here tonight to reiterate our support of the latest draft of HOMA. Thank you for the opportunity to speak again on this topic again and again. As I have mentioned before, I have spoken with Bellevue City Council member and staff since the nineteen nineties about the need to redevelop the Newport Hills Shopping Center. But tonight, we are here to speak as members of the Newport Community Coalition, which includes residents from Newport Hills, Lake Heights, Newport Shores, Greenwich Crest, and including new and long term residents. Our coalition has has supported and still supports the comprehensive plan as adopted, the need for more housing of all types, including housing that is affordable for teachers, nurses, and police and police.

And most recent iteration of HOMA that is before you tonight I didn't space that properly. But, anyway, you know what I mean. Sorry. In particular, we support redevelopment of the Newport Hills Shopping Center. As I have shared with you before, this is the third time that the Newport Hills Shopping Center has been involved in a redevelopment debate and twice the anti development coalition's contingent's adversarial efforts resulted in a negative outcome. We are excited to finally, soon we hope, have the opportunity to change the outcome going forward.

I'm Deborah Deutsch, and the Newport Community Coalition supports HOMA and specifically for what is called in the NB zone that applies to the Newport Hills Shopping Center. We're comfortable with three to five stories with amenities and bonuses as included in the draft. And as a reminder, contrary to what you may have heard, no one in our group supports seven to 10 stories. We're very supportive of adding much needed housing and housing that is affordable to everyone in our community, as Sue mentioned. We also understand that a mixed use center includes retail.

In order to support retail, additional customers are a must. The Newport Neighborhood Coalition representing a large group of residents supports moving forward on redevelopment of Newport Hills Shopping Center, and we are here tonight to again reiterate our coalition support for moving forward with HOMA so we can get that done. And thank you. And

thank you for linking to us again. You can't say we don't hang in.

Thanks. Well Thanks, Debbie.

Next Mark Moet, if you could raise your hand. Mark will be followed by Nikki Steck who is also virtual. Mark, can you hear me?

Can you hear me?

Yes. Go ahead.

Great. Thank you. Good evening, chair and members of the planning commission. My name is Mark Mowat, and I'm here to comment on the city's Houma draft as it relates to the Northtown Shopping Center at 2616 Bellevue Way Northeast. Thank you for the opportunity. We support Bellevue's goal of increasing housing supply, Our message tonight is simple. Omen needs the right incentives and flexibility so projects pencil and get built. Our top priority is the grocery FAR exemption. We support the intent that grocery can be a true neighborhood anchor, but the current approach is unlikely to be used. First, the FAR bonus needs to be stronger.

Grocery is materially more expensive to build in mixed use projects due to loading, venting, structural needs, and operational constraints. In our view, a three to one FAR bonus is likely necessary to make grocery inclusion economically accretive, and the bonus should support not only the grocery space but also the required pedestrian oriented retail program. Second, the permanent grocery covenant, excuse me, is too restrictive, requiring grocery use for the life of the building creates long term risk the capital markets cannot underwrite. We understand there may be an option to convert to another exempt use like childcare, but that also isn't workable. Grocery spaces are highly specialized and costly to repurpose, and many exempt uses are not financially viable to finance.

This creates a stranded space risk. A broader solution allowing repurposing to market feasible community serving uses is necessary. We recommend limiting the covenant to ten to twenty five years or allowing modification after sustained vacancy and commercially reasonable efforts to retenant. On pedestrian oriented frontage and setbacks, we appreciate staff's amendment allowing 15% inset retail in a plaza. We support that direction, but more flexibility for plazas and modulation would improve design and live work units and resident amenities should count toward pedestrian oriented frontage in lower demand locations like Northtown.

Finally, if HOMA includes mandatory affordable requirements, it must include the MFTe supercharger so MFT units can satisfy those requirements. Otherwise, redevelopment will not pencil, and housing delivery will stall. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you. Next, we have Nikki Stutt. Can you raise your hand online? Can you hear me?

Yes. Can you hear me?

Yes. Nikki will be followed by Leila Kademi. Go ahead.

You hear timer. Yep. Can see timer?

Chair Kanlu, mayor and commissioners, my name is Nikki Stuck, and I'm here today on behalf of the Belvieu Chamber plush committee commenting on HOMA prior to the study session. First, thank you to staff and the commission for the amount of work that's gone into HOMA and for the collaborative conversations along the way. We continue to offer strong but conditional support and appreciate the direction this work is moving. I wanna focus on four specific but related items that we think are important to making sure HOMA actually functions as an incentive, particularly in downtown. First, the 3% floor plate bonus is essential to making HOMA work in downtown.

It is a very modest increase, but it provides a real tangible offset to the affordable housing fee in lieu, particularly for office projects that do not provide on-site housing. Without this offset, there is no meaningful incentive for office development to participate, which creates an imbalance in the program. Downtown job growth and housing production need to move together. Tools like the 3% floor plate bonus help ensure we don't unintentionally discourage office development at the same time we're asking projects to contribute to housing. We strongly support this provision as drafted, and we ask the commission to direct staff to clearly implement the 3% bonus in the final code language.

Second, regarding affordable housing development flexibility and maximum floor plates. We are requesting that the exemption for maximum floor plate requirements apply to buildings 85 feet or less rather than 80 feet, and that it applies across all downtown zones, not just the perimeter overlays. We appreciate that staff has previously indicated agreement with the 85 foot threshold based on alignment with the type three a construction, so we simply wanna make sure that commitment is fully reflected in the final code edits. Equally important is the downtown wide applicability. If this provision is limited to the perimeter overlays, the only remaining ADF benefit outside those areas is a five foot reduction in upper level setbacks.

Standing alone, that is not enough to incent participation in the affordable housing development flexibility program. Third, on the grocery store incentive, while we strongly support the grocery store incentive, we encourage the commission to ensure the covenant duration aligns with real world market conditions as a per perpetual con covenant risks deterring use of the bonus altogether. A time limited covenant such as twenty five years consistent with market leasing practices would make this incentive far more workable while still delivering a meaningful public benefit. And finally, on the MFT Supercharger, if HOMA includes mandatory affordability, it must be paired with real economic offsets. We also ask that the MFT Supercharger apply to permanently affordable units provided in downtown as an added incentive for on-site long term affordability where feasibility is most challenging.

These are targeted changes, but they make a meaningful difference in whether HOMA delivers housing and supports job growth in the near term. We appreciate the commission's leadership and staff spirit of collaboration with stakeholders and respectfully ask you to incorporate these points and to direct staff accordingly as your final as you finalize your recommendations. Thank you.

Thanks, Nikki.

Next, we have Leila Kademi. Can you raise your hand online? Great. And Leila will be followed by Amanda Keating, who is in person, I believe. Can you hear me?

I can.

Alright. Go ahead.

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Leila Kademi. I'm a land use attorney at Hillis Clark, Martin, and Peterson commenting on behalf of Westbrook Properties. Westbrook, through the ownership entity, e g b w three eight r, purchased The Woodlands At Bellevue, formal formerly the Bowen Eastgate campus in 2021. The site encompasses 45 acres just north of I 90.

If the city maximizes HOMA's potential, the site will have enriched opportunities for mixed use development with access to expansive public transportation. The recent draft updates increasing the impervious surface limits are essential for transit oriented housing development. We appreciate the city's work towards improving these standards. To strengthen the legislation, the city should take a more thoughtful approach for sites subject to mandatory affordability that have a blended apartment and townhouse concept, where sites include both townhomes and apartments, we request updated language to allow consolidation of affordable units in the apartment building to ensure feasibility of the townhomes. We've suggested this concept in past testimony, and it was supported by several of you during the discussion at past meetings.

Despite the support, the concept has not been reflected in the legislation. Home is a critical step towards meaningful housing development in Bellevue. We appreciate your consideration of these comments and thank staff for their work on it. Thank you so much.

Thanks, Leila.

Next, we have Amanda Keating. Amanda will be followed by Jackson Dillard, who is virtual. Just press the button to turn it on. Go ahead.

Hi there. Thank you very much. In reference to the letter first of I'm Amanda Keating. I'm an architect with Weber Thompson Architects. In reference to the letter and the diagram that I submitted earlier today, thank you for the work on the HOMA code update, and thank you in advance for considering two small revisions that support the goal of delivering more housing in Bellevue, especially in the mid rise mixed use areas.

As you know, the city's vision for these mid rise mixed use areas is to provide an area for a mix of housing, retail, service, office, and complementary uses at a middle scale and density. As architects, we support this vision for middle scale density, and we have direct and extensive experience with this building type. Our recommendation is to ensure that the city's land use code aligns with the building code and construction best practices for wood frame type three construction. This will help the city maximize the housing potential and construction efficiency in these new MU zones. General generally, we request that the planning commission align the land use code heights in the mid rise mixed use zone, especially the new mixed use seven story m u seven zone being created with established building code heights.

Under the Bellevue building code, which is also the Washington State Building Code, the maximum height for wood podium wood frame type three a buildings is 85 feet, but the new M U seven zone in the land use code draft allows for only 80 feet. The city can align those two codes in support of more housing in these M U seven zones by editing, specifically, a section with the name mixed use seven story M U seven, I ask that you consider clarifying the mixed use seven story m u seven to mid rise mixed use to match the attachment d future land use map. Secondly, land use code twenty twenty zero ten, consider clarifying the maximum building height to be revised from 80 feet as currently drafted to 85 feet. This slight change will will align the land use code with the Bellevue and state building codes, which restricts podium and mid rise buildings to 85 feet in height. 85 feet would allow for the full build out of a podium style building while staying within the wood construction height limits.

Adding an extra five feet will allow for another full floor of housing in these zones, while the current proposed 80 feet leaves a full level of housing capacity on the table that will never be realized. 85 feet will still allow for a tall ground floor level that will support retail or nonresidential uses. And I did attach a diagrammatic rendering showing what this might look like in reference to Halt by height, bulk, and scale of the buildings. Thank you very much for your consideration, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Thanks. Thanks. K.

Next, we have, Jackson Diller followed by Jessie Klassen. Can you hear me, Jackson?

Yes. I can.

Go ahead.

Hello, planning commission. Jackson Dillard here. Great to see you guys again. I'm here to comment, regarding the grocer concerns of Houma on the one to one incentive. Personally, we we own the grocery outlet in Crossroads as well as we're also investors of grocery infrastructure on a more national scale.

And I believe that I wanna interject on some of the concerns around here because we're also involved in the building. And the one in one one to one incentive that is originally proposed here raises a little concerns on the investment world, even from someone who is involved in the grocers. There are some long term views that pose a lot of risks, and I wanted to confirm that, you know, a a good three to one incentive is a little bit better and more inclusive for the investment community such as ours. You know? Also, the covenant that, you know, puts a lifetime hold on the building is a little concerning.

As you all may know that, you know, a lot of grocers may be a bit more brick and mortar today, but the next twenty five years, a lot of the infrastructure could potentially change, through, you know, a lot of the ecommerce platforms, which would pose it a very challenging position for future landowners to fill these spaces. And as Mark and Nikki mentioned, who I, do not know, but I was very impressed with their, responses that these build outs for these grocers, as we know, as we personally have them, are quite expensive. And to replace that or to find a tenant to replace, you know, that space is could potentially be near impossible to the for a future landowner. So I I really wanted to put my 2¢ in there, and we had a great conversation a little while ago with, Matthew Menard, with the senior planner and who took an interest in, because we have the grocer out in Crossroads, and that was one of our larger concerns is is that, you know, if we want to incentivize it, we have to make it very incentivized in order for people to put that risk on there for the personal property.

So, anyway, I just wanted to, reiterate that the three to one would be a little bit better for proposed for future investments. Thank you.

Thank you.

We have Jesse Claussen followed by Ian Morrison.

Mayor, commissioners, chair, hello. Thank you for all the care you've put into the HOMA legislation. I wanna speak briefly about why just some of the details that you're hearing matter and why addressing them now can help us avoid having to come back and do another look back, which we're trying to avoid doing. Many of the zoning provisions connected to this package haven't been updated in decades, as you know. Because the city understandably doesn't want to revisit these same sections again anytime soon, it's helpful to make sure the details are as perfect as possible before we move forward with the legislation.

But these are minor, minor refinements, and they will make a really big difference in how effectively the code functions. First, office and non residential development should be incentivized to participate in the fee in lieu program downtown, the same way residential projects are. Residential currently gets a four to one bonus, while office gets nothing under the current code. A simple 3% floor plate increase is visually imperceptible, but it helps attract the investment Bellevue needs, especially right now given what's happening in Seattle. More participation means more affordable housing dollars and a stronger tax base.

This is not a giveaway. It aligns incentives so the city actually gets what it's aiming for. Please recommend that the staff include our proposed amendment in the recommendation package. Second, you've heard about the twenty five year covenant with a fee in lieu option, provides the certainty needed to actually deliver affordable commercial spaces in grocery stores. This is the behavior the city wants, and the structure supports it.

Third, aligning the land use code in the building code by adjusting the 80 foot reference to 85 feet is just good housekeeping. It prevents projects from getting caught between two different standards, and this small fix will lead to more housing. Finally, please voice your support for the MFTe Supercharger for mandatory housing. The reality is that very few projects pencil right now outside of Wilburton where the MFTe Supercharger will exist potentially next week. If Bellevue truly wants housing now, not in five or ten years, its policies must reflect that urgency.

Supporting the supercharger is the quickest way to actually get homes built. These refinements don't change the structure of the HOMA legislation, they just complete it. Council relies heavily on your direction. Including these details now helps Bellevue meet its goals of 35,000 housing units and 70,000 jobs over the next twenty years. Thank you. Yes. Thanks, Jess.

Thanks, Jess. Anne Morrison, who's in person, followed by Heidi Dean, who is virtual.

Thank you, mayor, member of the commission, and staff. I'm gonna be brief because I think we are at a an exciting point here. Thank you to staff. I was talking to Matthew today because we're down to sort of the last refinements to make HOMA truly something that can unlock housing quickly. And he mentioned, you know, we've been working on these issues since 2024 in earnest, and it feels like there has been great progress. So thank you to staff. Thank you to you. Thank you to the council. This is an exciting opportunity. I wanna just focus on two things.

We're here to talk about shopping centers that are not Newport Hills and echo what you heard from Mark and Jackson, and there's also shopping centers like Crossroads, right, where you see there are these are the neighborhood anchors that create these places, these daily places that people wanna go to. So your leadership in the grocery incentive is an exceptional idea. And as, you know, land use attorneys, we believe in regionalism and healthy rivalries between, you know, Bellevue and our friends across the lake here. And I would simply reiterate that where you can have a leadership by directing staff to continue working on that ratio. And the twenty five year covenant versus the permanent covenant is I'm not gonna compare, but we have a city across the lake where there's also grocery things.

They are proposing in the city of Seattle a 35 foot height incentive. That's off the table here. We know that's been settled. We agree with the the small edit to bring this up to 85 feet in the mixed use areas. But I think this is a place where there's a friendly rivalry where you can out beat where Seattle is in terms of these grocery incentives by clarifying the twenty five year and by providing that three to one incentive.

As you saw just yesterday, with Amazon Fresh, grocery technology is evolving quickly, investing in these large format boxes with loading docks and the kind of infrastructure that's near there. These are extreme upfront investments. And by bringing that ratio within the heights and density of Houma to take it to a three to one ratio, I I think, is gonna make Bellevue the leader in the region of saying we want groceries and these community anchored retail spaces in our neighborhood mixed use centers. So I would say thank you to staff. I think we are down to sort of nits and ticks with the twenty five years, the three to one ratio, and the alignment of the building code height with the mixed use height.

With those things, you can look across your friends at the lake and say, we are the leaders on incentivizing mixed use centers. And so I would leave you with thank you to staff. Thank you for all the work. And it would be an opportunity for you as a city to give direction to as this goes forward to the council, to be on the forefront of innovation for neighborhood mixed use centers with those couple of tweaks. So thank you for your work, and we look forward to your deliberation.

Thank you.

Next, we have Heidi Dean who is virtual followed by Luke Schroeder who is also virtual. Heidi, can you raise your hand? Can you hear me? I can. Just a moment. Let me reset the timer. Alright. Go ahead.

Great. Thanks, Kate. Good evening. Heidi Dean from Newport Hills. I wanted to say that it's interesting that the members of the Newport Community Coalition knew about the new strike draft because the planner didn't inform the Newport Hills Community Club until Friday when the opportunity to get comments into the packet had already passed.

So there is a problem again with engagement and and being informed. I also found it interesting that repress the representative for Northtown is there, but none of the businesses at the center nor residents living around the center have provided comment, and that's because they are unaware, which is due to the bare minimum community engagement that totally avoided engaging with both Northtown and Bell East. And I would remind the the planning commission that you did ask staff on May 14. You put the public hearing on hold and told them to go out and do engagement, and they did not do that. You are not hearing from everybody.

I wanted to say that removing ground for retail for the NB zoning will not help vibrancy nor will decreasing the amount of commercial space to 50% of street side linear space. The NB zoned neighborhood centers are already doing well. Go look at them. They don't need that. They don't need more neighbors to support them.

That's a fallacy that Newport, Hill Shopping Center owners like to put forth. Removing the grocery store protections will result in food deserts, and the comments made by the Northtown rep shows that. If you if you don't require them to include them, they won't. You're only hearing from residents regarding the Newport Hills Shopping Center because our community club has reached out to the neighborhood, and Raynier Northwest PR consultant has organized the Newport Community Coalition. But Newport Hills residents have stopped commenting and showing up because they feel you're not listening to them anymore, and you've already made up your minds based upon the disinterest in discussing the impact to MB's own properties and things that have been said, to them when meeting with council members.

Passing a citywide Luca that will impact all neighborhood centers while only hearing from residents living near one neighborhood center equates to passing a site specific rezone of the Newport Hills Shopping Center and taking the other neighborhood centers along with it. That's neither ethical nor is it legal. And I can't see the timer. I'm sorry, Kate. So I don't know how

much You're at thirty two seconds.

I just I wanted to remind you guys. You did really great work. Those of you that were on, planning commission in 2023 and '24, adopting and and separating out Low Rise one and Low Rise 2, and that got adopted into the comp plan. I have a document that I've prepared and I'm sending to you that shows Low rise one, two to four stories. That's what was adopted. Please don't do this to the neighborhood centers. It's not okay.

Thank you, Heidi. Your time is over.

Next, we have Luke Schroeder followed by Alan Battalion. Can you raise your hand, Luke? Can you hear me? Yes. I can. Go ahead.

Good evening. First, I wanna say thank you to the planning commission and the city staff for fostering this dialogue with the development community and and working proactively with the city stakeholders to, you know, first and foremost, ensure that we do address affordable housing, but equally to maintain a pro development sentiment in Bellevue. My name is Luke Schrader. I'm with Schnitzer West. We were founded in Bellevue and have a long history here, dating back to 1997 when we first purchased the land and began the development of Civic Office Commons.

Since then, we've developed over 3,000,000 square feet across nine different properties and are currently in predevelopment on a new office project called the Arcadian on 106 And 2nd. The Bellevue office market is one of the top markets across the nation. And in turn, these tenants and businesses contribute millions of taxable revenues to the city constituents. Companies decisively choose to be here. They choose to be here for the quality of life, talented employment pool, and, again, the pro business sentiment. This

has

been evidenced in numerous conversations I've had in the recent example of a Fortune 500 company attempting to secure the last remaining 400,000 feet of class a office space in Bellevue. Now this was all due to the political atmosphere in Seattle across the lake and their choice to come here and to be in this community and to work with stakeholders such as ourselves. Bellevue is a beacon of growth because they choose to work with businesses and develop a community to reach mutually beneficial solutions. The current home plan as drafted is very reasonable. That said, for new office developments, there's a proposed affordable fee to be incorporated as part of the amenity bonus.

Now I will acknowledge that the fee as proposed is financeable and is a great mechanism to contribute to affordable housing. However, we are worried that this is the first shoe in the door to ultimately be expanded in the future and ultimately without an offsetting incentive that other zoning areas currently provide. We have proposed a simple solution and only a three percent bonus to the floor plate area. This solution is easy to implement for new and already permitted products and will help offset the added cost to build. We appreciate your time and consideration and ask the commission's rec staff to implement this 3% bonus to offset the fee. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Next, we have Alan. If you could raise your hand, that will be followed by Brendan Lawrence who's also virtual. Alan, can you hear me?

Representing the BellRed Professional Center. Didn't know if you heard that. Go ahead. Okay. Thank you. We submitted comments December 10. And, again, today, in writing, I wanted to make sure you received them. I think I emailed them just an hour or so ago. The Bellroy Professional Center was built in 1979 prior to any residential construction. So the focus, for us is the setbacks and the transition to own requirements.

As I stated in the letter, we think that the setbacks should be more flexible. A 25 foot hard setback when the adjacent residential property home is sent back 75 feet would be a 100 foot separation, which should be allowed to be reduced, I would say, up to 15 feet based on the actual distance of the home to the property boundary. We also think there should be allowed roads within a portion of the buffer areas if it's 25 feet to maximize the potential for residential housing. The other concern primary concern, is the transition, zone requirement for the building height. Appreciate staffs revisiting this again, and I know Matthew's done a lot of work on this, but we still think that 45 degree requirement, from the 25 foot setback, taking into account the adjacent residential properties could mean that the top story was over a 100 feet from a residence.

And where the requirement is to maintain existing trees, some of which are now 80, a 100 foot tall dug furs and hemlocks, The idea that the building's gonna, you know, provide more shade, stepping it back is not gonna change that. The trees are there, and they can't be removed. We're still gonna have that separation. So my letter provided some examples as to how you could provide for flexibility and allowing for discretion for future development because it may not be, you know, five, ten, fifteen years before these properties are developed in their transition tone and the adjacent neighborhoods could totally change as well. So the focus, for us is, again, providing more flexibility, allowing for maximum residential housing units by providing more units above 60 feet and allow ensuring that there is sufficient, buffer without restricting the development potential of the properties.

I appreciate your time, and thank you very much.

Thank you.

Next, we have, Brendan Lawrence, who will be followed by Charlie Fouche, who is also virtual. Brendan, can you hear me?

Yes. I can. Thank you very much. Good evening good evening, commissioners. Thank you for the time. And and, again, I wanna iterate, our appreciation to both the commissioners and staff for their ongoing, conversations and consideration of comments around the home implementation. My name is Brendan Lawrence. I'm the senior development manager with the Aani Group. We're a large, developer in North America and have a in progress three and a half million square foot project in Downtown Bellevue, of which 900,000 square feet consists of office. We are excited about Bellevue and getting that project underway, this year.

One of our our strong considerations here is that, Bellevue certainly has a thriving office market as Luke outlined, and that that that really creates a vibrancy and a demand for residential and jobs. Right? So we need to think about incentivizing office on the same scale that we're talking about adding residential. The way the HOMA code is written now relative to downtown is it doesn't have any any offsetting benefits associated with the cost. And as Luke and Jesse and others have noted, we've proposed through the plush committee a 3% increase in the floor plate sizing to help, absorb some of those costs.

Currently, as many of you are aware, it's a challenging environment for for all developments, and especially at the scale, and size of downtown projects, both in terms of their capital investments and time to get those projects approved, it's a challenge to, absorb additional costs and fees in the time frame of those projects. So we are are requesting and asking that the planning commission continues to direct staff to work with the downtown community and implement that that fix, so that we can continue to to incentivize development of the downtown core. Thank you for your time and your consideration.

Thank you.

Next, we have Charlie Fouche. Could you raise your hand, please? Can you hear me?

Hi, Gaye. Yeah. Can you hear me?

Yes. Go ahead.

Yeah. Thank you, commissioners. And and, again, as most have noticed, really appreciate everyone's work on this. Like Brendan and Luke and others, we support the adoption of a 3% floor play increase as well. That would be FAIR exempt as a fair offset to the new fee on downtown office projects.

I work for Skanska. We are a global commercial developer where we have developed both an office project, the eight, on Northeast 8th And 108th, and also, Residential Alley 111, that is also on Northeast 8th. As others have said, the city is a thriving office market. I mean, that maintains, you know, and helps with strong employment and tax revenue. And we also believe that the city needs to have a strong balance between jobs and residences.

The way that the new HOMA fees are written today disincentivize future office development, and we need incentive we need incentives to develop, not disincentives. We've identified the fix, through Plush, for a simple fix and a small amount of additional FAR for office buildings in exchange for these fees, and we, as well, support the the planning commissioning the planning commissioners to, direct the staff to continue to look at implementing this fixed. Thank you.

Thank you.

Our final speaker is Mark Vilwalk, who is in person. Go ahead.

Good evening, mayor, chair, and planning commission. My name is Mark Philwak with D. R. Horton, and we develop both for rent, apartments and also for sale townhomes. And just wanted to, just bring to your attention, there's certain areas, you know, with the pedestrian oriented development that just doesn't make sense in some of the mixed use zones, like, kind of the end of Southeast 37th Street. It's one way. It's dead end. There's no through, road whatsoever there. And so we've proposed, and I emailed in our our comments, some slight changes to kinda carve out that area, so that pedestrian oriented development wouldn't be necessarily required in that area. And that would really allow, more housing to be developed in that area much quicker.

And, you know, there's been several properties that have been for sale in that area that they've wanted to develop over the, you know, past decade or so, but it just hasn't made sense with pedestrian oriented requirements. So I just encourage you just to take a look at our our red lines to kinda carve out that that area in specific to to reduce or eliminate the pedestrian oriented development. So thank you so much for your time.

Thank you.

Can we go to the study? Are we good with that? But I think

We have five minutes left in the in your extended I

see someone is raising hand. Is there anyone online, Kate?

Nobody online is raising their hand.

Hello. Thank you for giving me the time to speak. My name is Nicole Myers. I just wanted to mention that there are some bills potentially under consideration in Olympia that could change how we think about ground floor, retail, and other, active uses. It does look like there's a potential for all of that to become housing.

And I hope that you'll consider changing the structure, not necessarily the outcomes we're looking for, but changing the structure so that even if legislation like that does pass in Olympia, it doesn't upend what we're trying to the balance we're trying to strike here in Bellevue so that we do have the amenities for all the future new residents and that, basically, you know, we still have a certain height that we're expecting. We are still, you know, giving a option for growth beyond what is currently allowed, but that that additional height be dependent on things happening on the Ground Floor that, you know, just support the whole neighborhood, enable it to be more vibrant, enable, you know, a pedestrian experience to match what we think of when we think of a city and that it's not just residential. I do think, you know, when we think about the incentives for building housing, that we are we need more housing here in Bellevue. And so it's not unreasonable for there to be some incentives that exist for residential that don't exist for office space. But I also hope that we make sure that the mixed use stays mixed.

And I hope you'll direct staff to think about ways we can say, you know, in order to get the extra height, it is dependent on continuing to offer things at the ground level. But, you know, there are definitely other things regarding, you know, signage and, you know, access to pedestrians that might be able to be loosened up a bit. So I appreciate that so many people are speaking in support of grocery in particular. I think that's something that really a lot of people depend on. And as we have seen, you know, if if we lose that, then you have to, you know, change a lot of your plans.

And that is such a huge part of how you experience the city. So thank you very much. Thank you.

K. It's really good. Yes. Thank you.

Okay. On 12/10/2025, the planning commission held a public hearing to consider the proposed Luca. Staff made changes to the strike draft related to the impervious and hard surface limits, pedestrian oriented youth requirement, downtown and transition requirement based on the input received from the public and planning commission. Tonight, the staff request that the planning commissioner recommend approval of proposal Luca. We will have code and policy director, Nick Whipple, senior planner, Matthew Menard, and senior attorney, Robbie, will provide a presentation on Houma Luka.

Great. Thank you, and, good evening, chair Kwang Liu, vice chair Liu, mayor Malakutian, members of the commission. We are excited to be here tonight to talk about HOMA for I think this is our sixth touch point with you all. So we are looking forward to a recommendation this evening. And the last time that we were here was on December 10.

We you all held a public hearing, received a lot of community input at that public hearing. There were some specific requests from you all for staff to follow-up on, requests from yourselves, as well as a list of 36 items that you wanted us to look into, respond to, close the loop on. So we've had we've been busy since December 10 and are happy to kinda report back what we've been able to adjust in the draft. So this evening, we are looking for input from you on the LUCA, the land use code amendment. And then after your discussion, we are hopeful that you will, make a recommendation to city councils that we can move this forward, in February. So with that, I'll just pass this over to Matthew.

Thanks, Nick, and thank you to the planning commission. We will start tonight with just a update on process. I will say this presentation will be shorter than the previous presentations, and we'll really just focus on what we talked about at the public hearing. So a shorter presentation from us tonight. We'll then talk about the updates we've made to the code since the public hearing, what we're looking at with the changes for downtown, and then the schedule.

So as Nick mentioned, this is our sixth touch point with you all. The draft for HOMA, the original draft has been out since March 2025, so we are very quickly approaching a year of having this draft out to the public. We have incorporated feedback throughout this process, both from you and the public and our development stakeholders. We are on draft number six of the Luca at this point, and the latest draft reflects what we heard at the public hearing from you and from the public as well. So a recap on the public hearing.

There were 36 requests made by the chamber's plush committee that you all requested that we take a look at and make changes where we felt appropriate working with plush through that process. There were some requests to refine the transition area requirements that we had proposed, explore greater flexibility for pedestrian oriented uses, review those impervious and hard surface limits, evaluate some of the nonconforming language, make some updates there. And we spoke with some stakeholders around Seattle's approach to that as well and discuss vesting. So as I mentioned, there were 36 requests from the PLUSH committee. 16 of those requests have been proposed for incorporation.

You'll hear about those in the following slides. Three of those requests are being addressed through the affordable housing director's rule and some other director's rules that we're working on, which are basically rule setting that are, adopted through the department. They're not adopted through the plan commission or, council process. The affordable housing director's rule, which is the main focus of the request, should be done in the next few weeks. So we will have consistency, and we will have sort of closed the book on those requests hopefully shortly and certainly before HOMA is adopted by council.

There is also a parking reform, Luca, that is upcoming. So the state has passed a law in the last legislative session that limits how much parking we can require throughout the city. That has to be completed by 01/20/2027. So that will also address some of the concerns we heard from Plush. There are nine requests that we are looking at carrying through, to Downtown Livable two point o.

I will say one of those requests that we did mention carrying through and is sort of a top priority for Downtown Livable 2, which I assume will be a large point of discussion this evening, is how we treat floor plates for all uses in downtown. And there are eight requests that we're not recommending moving forward with from that list. We did attach that spreadsheet with those requests and our responses to those requests in your packet. I think it might be attachment d,

if my memory serves. So the next point of discussion was the transition areas. We were asked to look at making more of a transition

responses between residential districts and neighboring buildings that were over 60 feet tall from what were originally proposed. So if you remember, originally proposed by staff was a 25 foot landscape setback, and then, essentially, you could build as much building as you wanted at that 25 foot line. We were asked to go back and reevaluate that and look at some more setting back for taller buildings specifically above 60 feet in height. So what we are proposing here is to essentially allow that initial 60 foot building at that 25 foot line and then a 45 degree, what we would call a daylight plane. So, essentially, going from a 45 degree angle, what you can see in the image there, back away from the property line, your building can't cross that 45 degree plane.

So, for example, if your building is 80 feet tall, it's gonna have to be set another 20 feet back from that property line. You can, as shown in the diagram, create this sort of stair stepping building to achieve that effect as well. We were asked to look at some more flexibility and significantly more flexibility for pedestrian oriented uses at the public hearing. Essentially, what we heard is that our language is too restrictive, and we need more pathways to move away from the strict application of those pedestrian oriented uses. As a reminder, our lower density mixed use districts that are neighborhood centers, we are looking at 50% of the linear street frontage being required of pedestrian oriented use within 10 feet to the back of sidewalk, and 66% in those higher density districts.

So those districts that are allowing seven stories and above. There are certain districts that do not require any pedestrian oriented uses being OLB, office limited business, OLB 2, and the office districts. They're just not sort of designated as those neighborhood centers and aren't necessarily as suitable to those ground floor retail uses as the neighborhood centers. So what we are proposing, we had a departure proposed at the public hearing. It was quite strict.

It required that any use, on a collector arterial, a minor, or a major arterial road, that is visible from the neighboring, neighborhood, essentially couldn't, qualify for that departure. We've loosened that language up significantly. Bellevue, somewhat differently than many communities, has what we call collector arterial. In many communities, a collector road is sort of a step down from an arterial road, so a smaller road. So we've taken that off the list.

So, properties that are on collector arterials could now qualify for this departure, and we've also removed the requirement that you cannot be visible from the adjacent neighborhood. So properties that are visible from the adjacent neighborhood now qualify for this departure to depart from this pedestrian oriented use requirement. That would be at the discretion of the development services department through the design review application process. We've also added a new departure with quite broad language that basically allows you to replace these pedestrian oriented uses with some type of use that encourages pedestrian activity, so things that are gonna make you come in and out of the building during the daytime as long as your project is not greater than 50% townhomes. Our major concern with that is that a lot of these projects that we're asking to be exempt from these pedestrian oriented uses in these areas that were neighborhood centers, were looking to just build townhomes and, basically, townhomes not being compatible with background floor retail use.

It's not necessarily beneficial to the city from a housing standpoint to have a townhome farm on districts that are proposed for 10 stories or seven stories. You have a much more expensive housing type, you have much less density through townhome development. So making sure we do maintain some of that pedestrian oriented use and some of that apartment use in some of these higher density districts that are intended to be neighborhood centers. We did have a request from a few developers to place the pedestrian oriented uses, along a plaza. So you had essentially have a plaza or outdoor space along the sidewalk, and you could wrap your pedestrian oriented uses internally to the site as long as, that plaza is there along the sidewalk.

There are some restrictions with that proposed in the code. The plaza does have to be a certain width compared to the depth of the plaza, so you can't just do a very narrow alleyway. Those uses do have to be visible from the sidewalk. So even if you're sort of at the backside of the plaza, your your use has to be visible from the sidewalk to draw those people in. And there's only a certain amount of the pedestrian oriented uses that you can put along that plaza.

So the proposed limit is 15% of those total pedestrian oriented uses. There are some other code updates that were requested. We have significantly increased the impervious and hard surface limits, pushing impervious surface to 85% in those lower density districts. Most of those are at 60% right now, and 95% in those higher density districts, so seven stories and above. And then hard surface, which are gonna be those surfaces that are not totally impervious but do allow some water percolation.

So something like pervious papers, and green roofs count as hard surfaces either at 95% for those lower density districts and a 100% for those higher density districts. We had several requests around bike parking. We did not propose to change the bike parking requirements for residential uses, but we did think our proposed hotel bike parking was too high. It was one bike parking space for every five hotel room. We have dropped that to one to 20, which is consistent with other area cities.

The there were some existing language in the code around ground floor residential uses that essentially required them to be exterior facing. That's not necessarily the way you design a modern apartment building where a lot of the units are facing inwards onto a double loaded hallway. So if the units are external facing, they still do have those requirements associated with them, is sort of that stoop type development, but we are allowing them to be internal facing, so that is now an option rather than a mandate. That was a request from one of the public hearing comments. We have added a couple of exemptions to the triggering proportional compliance with the nonconforming code, those being demolition and environmental remediation.

We didn't want a development to skip out on something like soil remediation or removing asbestos because it was going to trigger proportional compliance. We'd really like them to do that regardless of what else it is. So taking those off the list, make sure that that doesn't become a concern, as well as vacant or underutilized buildings. Having those knocked down is often a benefit rather than a negative, so we don't want developments to not do that because they're going to trigger this nonconforming code proportional compliance. Again, a request from the development community.

As you heard last time, we continue to recommend option a. As you heard from public comment this evening, we do think it's a well balanced program. It's less aggressive than many of our neighboring communities, but we do think this is the best way that we are going to get affordable housing in the city of Bellevue. History shows that. I do wanna mention we heard a lot about MFTe this evening.

That is not something that is in the purview of the planning commission. It is something that through the MFTe code update, the office of housing has committed to discuss with council anytime we bring them one of these mandatory inclusionary zoning provisions, and we are coordinating with the office of housing to make sure that they are present at the council meeting whenever we get a recommendation on this and move on to council. So we do think option a is the best way to go in terms of really achieving one of the main goals of this, which is to promote more affordable housing. There were several requested changes to downtown, downtown, which you have heard about this evening. Some were just minor clarifications to make sure the code was clear when it came time to submit permits.

Under the new code, there's a very minor update to the assurance device for the green building amenity incentive. So right now, you can get amenity incentive points if you provide some sort of green building code, like lead certification, for example. We require a bond for that under the code right now. Through the Wilburton process. There was a another process and a different portion of the code that was set up for that assurance device that allows a little bit more flexibility, which allows the director to determine what that assurance device is.

So if the developer doesn't, say, get lead certification but has gotten them any incentive points, have them on the hook for something. Just a little bit more flexibility, but no actual change to the program other than, sort of what we're holding as collateral. We are proposing to allow up to 65% of the parking downtown to become compact parking without a departure. Right now, the downtown code requires that you get an administrative departure for that. In discussions with our land use team, we essentially always approve this departure.

So there's no real reason to do a departure. It adds more process on our end, and it adds more cost to the development for having to go through that process. So removing that departure process and just allowing 65% of parking sort of without it. There's was a request to remove side and rear landscape buffering requirements to parking areas in downtown. What we were finding is that a lot of the property lines in downtown are within a single project.

So these projects are spanning multiple properties, and we are requiring properties to buffer from themselves, essentially. So it was creating weird landscaping requirements. There are several districts in downtown already that don't have this requirement, so we're proposing to remove those requirements, full stop. It was a five foot buffer. And we will you heard tonight, we did commit to updating the floor plate exemption flexibility in the perimeter overlay for buildings up to that 85 foot mark. So, essentially, if you provide the point five FAR of exempt square footage under the design flexibility, you can exempt yourself from floor plate requirements. That did get missed in the draft. That was my fault. There were a lot of moving parts. We will update the draft to basically push it to 85% as we had committed to to the development community.

But I did wanna call that out. We are aware that that didn't quite make it into the draft, but is planned for any sort of final draft. We had a lot of discussion about vesting. This is another one of those items that is at council's discretion. We have very much committed to discussing vesting with council. Likely, the discussion will be around allowing projects to either fully choose the old pre com pre HOMA code or post HOMA code. So you can't sort of piecemeal those together. You have to choose one or the other. We have added some language to your recommendation to request that counsel does take up this topic topic with us when we get to counsel. So you'll see that in the resolution.

In terms of schedule, we are at the beginning of phase three. As Nick mentioned, we would love a recommendation this evening that puts us at counsel a little bit later in the spring. Otherwise, all bets are off is when we get to that council point. There are decision criteria in the land use code around adopting LUCAs, which your recommendation should be based on these criteria. Those criteria are the the amendment is consistent with the comprehensive plan.

It enhances the health, safety, and welfare of, the residents of Bellevue, and it is not contrary to the best interest of the residents and property owners in the city of Bellevue. Again, this is a study session. You don't have to make a recommendation this evening. We would love it if you did make a recommendation this evening. With that recommendation, if there are any changes you would like us to pursue, we would ask that you make those in the recommendation, and you are certainly welcome to do that in the recommendation. And with that, Cher, I'll turn it back over for you. We are here for questions.

Thanks, Matthew. Thanks, Nick. We can go to a round, or we can take, like, five to six minutes break if you want it. How do you feel? Break? Okay. It's 07:38. Can we come back at 07:45? Okay. Soon. Okay. Thank you so much for a small break. I can go around and start asking questions. Can we keep it one question? Maybe the next person asks your second question. Commissioner Nilchian?

Thank you. First of all, thank you for going six times in front of us to to talk about HOMA. You actually answered most of my questions in your presentation, so you've really preempted a lot of what I was gonna say. I'd like to start off by asking a couple of questions on the impervious surfaces. I noted in the in the report, you mentioned that you had coordinated with utilities, and there were no potential drainage issues or stormwater issues. Can you just me a little bit more peace of mind on the actual effects that this increase in impervious services will actually have?

Yes. So, yeah, we did coordinate with utilities quite closely on this. Obviously, it impacts them, so we wanna make sure that we're not having downstream impacts when we adopt land use code. There are still, you know, city stormwater requirements. There are state stormwater requirements.

Those remain in play. So we know that there will be adequate stormwater, detention retention on the site based on state and local requirements that are already in place, that we're not proposing to change here. The other thing that is very important is that if there are downstream impacts, so impacts to our stormwater system or any other systems, it is on the developer essentially to remedy those impacts that they're having. So that's that's at their cost. So utilities didn't have any great concerns with us doing this. And, Nick, I don't know if you wanna add anything to that.

Okay. Thank you. Next, I guess I'll kinda tackle what we've been hearing.

Chen, Newtown, one question. Sorry.

I thought it was three.

I was serious. You wish then, Kennedy.

Thank you again for the presentation and for being so responsive to all of our our 36 questions from last time. I have four questions. I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna try to keep it shorter than that. One that I think maybe won't be covered by others is just a clarification associated with the pedestrian oriented use changes that have happened since our last round. Can you clarify again?

We've had at least a couple sets of comments, both today and at our last study session and open meeting associated with the visibility of the parcel for the pedestrian oriented use. You mentioned visibility today, but it didn't seem like it was responsive to those two questions. And I'm trying to just understand, what have you changed? The questions that came in had to do with parcels that were not visible to pedestrians. Well, I think Trailer Inn had a comment.

We had a comment this evening from another commenter about we have a parcel. It's not visible. What could could they get a separate exemption for that? And what have you changed?

Yes. Thank you. So we have there was at the public hearing, there was a basically, a departure that was in a different part of the code that was only applying to the neighborhood use neighborhood mixed use district that we had taken and put into the community mixed use design district, which is the sort of the new district overlay for HOMA that sets all the standards for HOMA. And that departure was quite strict the way it was written. So it required that your parcel not be on a collector, minor, or major arterial.

And the the big one that made it very, very strict is that you also couldn't be visible from the adjacent properties or the neighborhood. So what we have done is removed the collector arterial language there. So you would now qualify if you are on a collector arterial to apply for this departure. It's not saying you will get this departure, but you will be able to apply for this departure. And you that clause the visibility clause has been removed.

So opens up this a bit to those parcels that may have a little bit more difficulty in getting that departure. It's still more strict than the new departure that we have added into the the the latest draft, essentially, which just requires that you have some sort of use that you sort of draw us pedestrian in and out, and you can depart from some of the HOMA requirements as long as you're not doing just townhomes.

Okay. So it's not an exception that that is the rule, but it is being responsive to some of these properties that have unique situations. Got it. Thank you.

Commissioner Villavesses?

Thank you.

Thank you. I love it.

I am not sure if this question is for staff or for chair and the other commissioners. First, thank you for the update and for the patience. There's a lot of comments today in in a way. It's like, why now? Like, we've gone through this for a long time. So I I do agree with a lot of the comments that were raised out today, and I don't know how everybody feels about incorporating this. It seems like there's

You stole my question. Good job.

I don't know if if if it makes sense to get another session for this or make a recommendation with recommendations inside it. So I'm not sure how everybody feels. I don't know

if this is a question I should ask right now.

If I can ask you, chair, what

Matt, Matthew. That was what I had question too. And Nick or Matthew, do you wanna add anything? Because we closed the we closed the public hearing on December 10, and then we ask we directed you all to answer a couple of questions that we ask, and you were working on it. And meanwhile, you got a new comment not corresponding new suggestions. Like, don't I know if he wants that's that's exactly what you are talking about. Right?

Considering all the work that has been done, do we just push a little bit further and get it just right, or or do we just move with what we have and make maybe a couple of amendments that are very specific? Sure. Just wanna get a sense of how everybody's feeling about this. Yeah.

So I believe we've had we had six study sessions for Wilburton. So maybe if you wanna surpass Wilburton, you can consider that as a benchmark. The procedurally, if there's, amendments y'all would like to entertain tonight that weren't addressed either, in the comments that were received on December 10 or had come after the public hearing, that is that is up to you all on how you'd like to manage that. We also don't need precise language. So if you want to say, include the 3% floor plate increase, we know what that is.

We're happy to include that with the recommendation as we pass that on to council. And likely, our processes will work with the commenter and say, was this the thing that you were asking for in the way that you were asking for it? If we didn't get it quite right or they feel like they want to adjust that again, they can go lobby council because that would be the next point too. So these requests can be entertained all the way up until council's ready to take action. And for you all, you don't need the exact language. If you're comfortable giving that policy direction to us, we'll take it. We'll incorporate in the recommendation and move it on to council.

That's great. Thank you so much.

Think we can we can make it we can do, like, a nodding vote if we want to make a decision to consider. If you have a question about those comments, please go ahead. So I

Yeah. Go ahead. Can I just procedurally, if you decide you want to move forward with this and make some amendments, in front of you, I have some suggested, language? And if somebody makes the motion to approve the LEUCA, either attachment a or attachment a with the amendments and attachment b, depending on if you're going with a mandatory or voluntary. Once that has a second, the chair will open it for discussion, and you can make amendments to it. You guys have been through this before. I just wanted to remind you.

We always need you to remind us. Thank you. So

so that said, I'd like to voice my support, I guess, from some some of these are easy wins, like 80 to 85 height, which I think you mentioned is gonna be. Yeah. I do appreciate the comments about, incentivizing office space. This is a good moment for the city. It's great to hear that from from the public.

Different different people, talked about it. The 3% increase seems like a reasonable proposition. I do, like to, encourage you to revisit the consolidation of affordability component into apartments for mixed use of townhomes and apartments. That that was raised before it was, brought to you today again. Amanda Keating had a comment about, nomenclature not matching the future land use map.

So I guess that's also an easy win. And then the grocery comments, that seem to be pretty sensible, especially coming from the developers and users themselves. I personally would be scared to demand something that is forever. So the length of the covenant should probably be considered. That's that's why I think I'm in agreement with most of the covenants that we're set today.

Sure. Just two things if I could address in that. In terms of nomenclature, there are more zoning districts than future land use map designation, so those names will remain different.

Okay. Perfect.

If commission does want to increase the building height in the MU Sevens mixed use seven story district to 85 feet, it's now an eight story District, so I would recommend that you also recommend we call that mixed use eight story at that point. Mhmm. Just a just a very minor thing. But so that will probably the those two are never gonna sync up, essentially. The future land use map and the the zoning destinations are not gonna be the same.

And the mix of where the affordable housing, has to be, whether ownership or rental is covered in the director's rule, it has not been adopted by the department. It has a separate, adoption process. The way it's proposed right now is that we'll have to be basically split the way the units are split. So if you have 20% ownership and 80% rental, it has to be 2080%. We do think it's important that we encourage affordable housing in ownership units.

It's a priority in a comp plan as well as in, hopefully, shortly upcoming affordable housing strategies in the draft as well. So that has been that split has been maintained through the director's rule, but there is a lot more flexibility around director's rules and changing those. But it's unlikely that it'd be something we would address through.

Thank you.

Thanks. Commissioner Geppel?

Yeah. Thanks for a great presentation this evening. I found a lot to celebrate in what you put together. I I I liked it. I liked, the additions that you made on the, the pedestrian oriented uses for more flexibility.

I like the your 45 degree plane for the transition areas. I thought that was clever solution. I think the, the things that, commissioner Bill Basis, you know, mentioned, I I'd like to get a little bit more information on just in relation to the impacts of, you know, this, 3% bonus for, floor area for downtown and also the grocery, requirements. Are those, in your view, necessary or appropriate from a policy standpoint? I I'm just surprised that it seems like that's only come up, you know, at this last at this last meeting.

Sure.

In relation to the floor plates, I don't think staff has any particularly particular heartburn over that change. I think staff has, through our responses, basically said, we'll address this in Downtown 2, which we can do it now and in Downtown Movie 2 if the commission desires. But floor plates broadly have so far been the sort of number one topic that's come up through our very early outreach with downtown. So it will certainly be talked about there, but we don't have any concerns with addressing it through home as well just with the understanding that it may change pretty substantially in the near future. Around grocery stores, probably you don't recall this because it's been nine months now, but we did talk about the twenty five year sort of exemption for grocery stores very early in the HOMA process.

It was a very early request that we got. One of the commenters who you heard tonight made that request probably eleven months ago at this point. Planning commission didn't take that request up. The reason that we don't necessarily recommend that we go down that route is because we're giving them a bonus. And then then we end up potentially losing that bonus use after twenty five years rather than the life of the building.

You know, I think and I've talked to our attorneys about this. There is a compromise permit position we can take, which is, you know, if you can't bring a grocery store back in after that twenty five lease year lease expires, which has been consistent from what we've heard of outreach is that a grocery store lease is twenty five years. So no argument with that point. You could potentially switch it to a different use that's exempted or do something like pay the fee for affordable housing to get that exempt FAR. So we're still making ourselves whole, basically, as a city for that bonus we've given.

We do have some draft language for that if we do wanna go down that route. You all would need to make that in your recommendation. I also don't have that much concern over, you know, ending that term at twenty five years. Grocery stores are something that are very important to the city. It's very clearly called out in our comp plan that we want grocery stores. So if that's an absolute necessity to have grocery stores, you know, it's not that concerning. We obviously would prefer to recoup the bonus that we've given out. The three to one FAR exemption is brand new. This is something I had not heard until, probably two or three days ago. So, I don't know, you know, the validity of that.

I'm assuming that the the commenters are being genuine about that. Supermarkets are difficult, especially in the Ground Floor of a mixed use building. We know that. It's a pretty new use type even in Seattle. We're sort of starting to see those. So, I don't think, from our standpoint, we have any particular concerns with increasing the FAR exemption. I would say we don't wanna push it beyond what the the bonus is for affordable housing as, you know, we do want to say what our priorities are for for this additional FAR. You know, the more FAR bonus you get for one thing, obviously, you dilute the FAR bonus for the rest. So it's that balance, and it's sort of at the discretion of planning commission in this case. But I don't think we have any particular concerns either way.

That's great. Very helpful. I'm I'm ready to make a base motion when we're ready at the right time.

Thanks. Commissioner Ferris?

So comment and a question. Just oh, the comment is overall, I strongly support the 3% floor plate bonus as discussed. I also support the 85 feet increase. I also think that the request around the covenant, the twenty five year covenant ending then, is reasonable. We desperately need grocery stores in our community. We've talked about that even in the in the comprehensive plan. It's recognized just from a business perspective that that is in order to get financing. That's really important. And we also know that things will change over time. So I'm okay with, again, as proposed, the twenty five year.

And then lastly, the three to one bar bonus, again, to spur the development of grocery stores, I strongly support as well. Question is easy. The setback, the one that's over the 60 feet of the building. So is that that particular style because I know this is kind of a balance between trying to open up the skyline, if you will, and not have buildings be imposing as well as having the floor plates be as efficient as possible. Does that 45 degree angle, has that been adopted elsewhere? Are you modeling that after something else, or you just kinda make that up?

Not necessarily in Bellevue. I mean, there are different angles in different cities. Most famously, New York City, sort of the first we call the first zoning code in The United States was that sort of daylight plane coming up from the street. So this is not something that is unique to Bellevue. That angle was essentially trying to find a balance where you have those buildings that are not creating so much shade as was requested by planning commission.

Staff didn't have concerns over the original transition area proposal, which didn't have the daylight plane. Those concerns were really driven by planning commission. So if planning commission wants a steeper or less steep angle, I would not recommend going less steep than 45 degrees because it is already quite a large, setback. I mean, we're looking at for a 110 foot building, you're looking at an additional 40 feet, 50 feet plus the 25. So that's quite a large setback.

Other set, daylight planes that sort of we looked at 66 degrees gives you a much steeper building, more shadowing. But with mature trees, it's probably not that big of an impact. So certainly something that we're happy to hear a planning commission recommendation on a different angle.

My 2¢ would be is to not make it as steep so that it's again, we get more efficient floor space use. That's just my opinion.

I was also gonna note, we did have a daylight plan standard that related related to single family homes that came out through neighborhood livability amendments in the mid two thousands or early two thousands. And that required basically, you do a line at the property line up 10 feet and then shoot off a 45 degree angle. And that was to open up kind of the daylight between properties. The commission did remove that through middle housing to try and kind of relieve some of the restrictions that applied to single family in recognition that we wanna support housing in all ways possible.

Thank you. West Chirlou.

Thank you. First of all, just wanna acknowledge the amount of work that you guys are going through, collaboration and working with us, working with everybody in the audience. I know it's a lot, and I think it's a we're nearing a situation where I think we see this all at work, where 90% of the work gets done in the last 10% of the time. So I also don't wanna rush into this with, you know, too many changes at the last minute. So I'm gonna give early indication for myself that I think as a product that we can push forward to counsel, I'm pretty comfortable with where staff is recommended.

And I think a lot of these, kind of tweaks can be a part of the either presentation from staff or from the chair. And I think that'd be that would allow for at least the decision makers at the next level to study that a little bit more and see what the impacts of those are. And I think all I have is a request. I don't have any more questions. I think those have all been answered.

My request is and it's fortuitous that the mayor is here as well, so I'm gonna try and hold you this later. We have a really cool, maybe not cool, but we have a very interesting use case right now for the grocery stores with all the Amazon Fresh stores closing. And so I would like to see before we make any decisions on yes or no to changing any of these covenants or the the exemptions that we see what the impacts over the next couple months of what these store closures look like. Are they being replaced by other grocery stores? Are they just being left empty?

I think that as far as a presentation to counsel and, you know, getting their input on it would be really valuable for us to be able to kind of what happens over the next couple of months. So I I just wanna caution us as a body to maybe not push forward too much with changes until we can see a very clear example of what happens when grocery stores close down and what happens to those spaces. So with that, I'm I'm pretty happy with where we're at. I'll leave it to you.

Thank you. I think my turn. Thanks for covering all my questions. For me, one of the comment I have I live in Downtown Bellevue. I walk through those wind tunnels and the shades. I felt it's just smart to keep that degree. I understand that housing is important and but I think livability and when you are coming out of your home, wind is killing you nine months of the year. It's really important too. That's what where I'm standing by living in Downtown 247. And then exactly New York and Dubai, like, there's so many places that they leverage that style.

And then even North Lincoln, I don't know if you have pension to pay attention to in that 8th Street. It's smarting it's starting pretty small, and it's just going and bending and going high. Like, just to stand on the intersection of the Bellevue Way and 8th Street and look at the North Lincoln. Same rules. And it's break the wind, and it's better. That's my first comment. The second comment is about grocery. I'm totally fine if we're gonna go do that study. I think we have one Amazon store in Downtown Bellevue. I don't know how many we have.

Maybe there's one in Factoria and Bath. Sorry. That's a good point. But I feel if we are doing twenty five years, I want after twenty five years, we get something back for public. Like, this is for public policy. I want to we get something back for public because I don't want to leave the town after twenty five years. I'm like, somebody is gonna go figure out in twenty five years what's happening there. I just want we have something that after twenty one five years, it's totally reasonable or even ten years, whatever is reasonable, then we can revise and get something back for public. Could be affordable commercial space, could be commedia space, whatever. It's comfortable, but I think we want to get something back for public.

Do we need a second round?

Yes.

Like, about the daylight plane? I agree in general with with stepping it at a 45 degree or one to one proportion.

It's first time

we agree on something.

Sorry? It's first time we agree on something,

But this is not gonna resolve anything about shades. The sun here is gonna fall roughly 65 degrees in summer and 30 degrees in the winter on the south side to the north side. So it's not gonna solve shade, but it's gonna solve, mass bulk and scale. It's gonna provide a different type of scale for the city and and and more views of the sky. What I would like to propose is that you allow for canopies to extend beyond that limit, and it could be semi open canopies, like louvered canopies, and things of that, of that sort.

So that allows more flexibility to developers to provide a different type of language, in the architecture of the city, which is gonna be important because otherwise, you're gonna end up with these chunks that are gonna be the same everywhere. That type of element is gonna just increase detail and human scale and, texture on the on the city is not gonna, be detrimental to the open openness that we're trying to do with with this. So I'd like to see if you can explore that. Thank you.

That's

Anyone needs the second round? Yes. I'm Michelle Kennedy.

Thank you, chair. Two follow-up questions before we would move to a motion and amended motion potentially, it seems. One is on the what would the motion look like for the twenty five year limit if you you said you had proposed language that would enable the grocery store to move to another type of exempted use, what would that look like? Is it possible that the list of exempted uses is modified or expanded by then? How would that be referenced, and how would it be utilized by a landowner?

Yeah. So currently, the language basically, the applicant, if they're gonna get this bonus, they have to sign a covenant with the city saying that this use will be maintained through for the life of the project. So what we would do in the code is loosen that language. So if it were a twenty five year covenant, we'd basically say for grocery stores, the length of the covenant must be no shorter than twenty five years now. So very simple cut and dry.

If it were to be something where you have to transition to a different use on the list and so we have that exempt uses list, so that list could change with future updates, but it would still be within that list. We would basically say that that covenant, instead of required to be with that one use, we would sign a covenant basically saying it could be any of those uses that you've received the bonus for. So that gives you flexibility to transition from one of those uses to any of those other uses at any time. You would likely just have to come in and speak with us to change that covenant. So it wouldn't be so strict on you signed a covenant for this one use. You've signed a covenant for all of these uses, basically.

Okay. So in perpetuity, it needs to fall within the list or be an approved exemption outside of the list through working with the city?

You know, it would have to be on the list. So it would have to be within the list in the land use code that the covenant would have to be specific to that. Okay. Okay. And I can't

like that concept. I mean, that's the feedback that we can take and draft language. So if it's you know, transfer it to one of the already defined exempt uses or work with the city to determine kind of another use, because maybe there's an emerging public need that we might wanna say slot it there. So that's we can work with that.

Yeah. We can do the nodding vote at the end. Okay. I can do that. Yeah. I can I wanna see what's commission wants to do? I can take care of that for you. Okay.

And then the last language question I had on potential amendment was this shift from the 80 foot to the 85 foot. You mentioned that you would not move to m MU or m u call it MU seven. You would call it MU eight, which would be creating a new category. What are we what are we actually what's actually what are we actually talking about?

So not a new category. Basically Melissa. What's been proposed or what's been requested through comment is to currently, the mixed use seven story, which we're also calling m u seven, limits your building height to 80 feet, which would have been a seven story building, which is why it's called mixed use seven story. The request from the architect, and you can see in the schematic in your public comment there that that is now an eight story building when you increase that height to 85 feet. So, we would have to update our dimensional table from 80 to 85 feet as the maximum building height.

Very minor change to the strike draft. And then just for consistency, we would update the name of that zoning district. It's a brand new zoning district, so it doesn't exist outside of HOMA. It would go from mixed use seven story to mixed use eight story just to acknowledge that we're now allowing eight story buildings in that district so there's no confusion when someone comes in with an eight story building and get permitted.

And this, you were saying, is probably the most popular building type because it maxes out a wood frame design. So Nope. This seems like a a very substantial change.

Yes. It would definitely increase housing production, and it's also substantial from the other end. And now you're allowing a full extra building height story in this in this district as well. I will say the mixed use seven story district is quite limited being a new district, and there's only a few parcels that

it would one of those.

Okay. Okay. So this okay. The so it is a limited number of districts that would enable this.

Just this one.

You wouldn't get to it through some of the bonuses that are allowed for Nope. Okay.

It's just this one this one district where the the height cuts off at 80 feet.

Understood. Thank you.

Any other sec around? No. Okay. I do have some items. If I miss something, Nick and Matthew, keep me accountable. Are we comfortable about 80 change to 85? Right? That's one of the amendment that we are having. What are you thinking about the grocery and the 25 con covenant first? And then second, what do you think about Kate, are we breaking rules? Kate. What do you think of yeah. I'll for that one. What do you think about if after twenty five years, we'd give them a list of the items? Like, what are you comfortable, not comfortable, just go around, Ferris?

I like the the compromise that Nick was talking about in terms of being able to have allowed use. And that as I understand it, it's not after twenty five years. It's anytime they're allowed to transition

into Okay. Anytime transition, but the maximum twenty five. Right?

I don't I think the twenty five years goes away. Correct?

It would be moot at that point if you could transition at any

time. Okay.

Just one clarifying question on that. Maybe I just misheard when you initially brought it up, but is the transition only if you're unable to maintain grocery as it stands, or can you just elect to transition?

Yeah. So right now, there's a those list of FAR exempt uses, which are grocery stores, affordable housing, childcare, affordable commercial space. There's a small open space exemption. I think I've left one off, but that's sort of the general gist. So Yeah. Under this compromise, you'd basically be able to choose any off that menu at any time. So you don't necessarily have to do a grocery store now to get that FAR exemption. You can do something else. But if you did have a grocery store and say they went away, like, as we're seeing current some of the current grocery stores go, after five, ten years, you could transition that space into any other space as long as you make that FAR exemption that we've given you whole in the end, essentially. So you, you know, pay us back for that exempt space we've given you.

Are you comfortable with that?

The twenty five year change I'm comfortable with, I'm more hesitant on the on the three.

Giving back to the public?

No. Of the three to one.

Okay. Good. Starting. Caboose J. Kennedy.

Are we asking about a twenty five year exemption? Are we thinking about

just the gross study.

Yeah. The twenty year exemption, not holistic change.

Yeah.

Yeah. I I'm supportive.

You look comfortable, chair Johnny Liu?

I'm uncertain, so I'd rather have counsel deal with it.

Okay. It means we don't amend it. Okay. Bella, what's this? What do you feel about the grocery one? And the couple of

On on the on the grocery one and the exemption, I I have some concerns about providing too much flexibility in the first twenty five years. If the lease terms are really, you know, out there for twenty five years for purposes of these, I think if you're coming in with a grocery development and you're getting a you know, you're getting, additional floor ratio for that, I mean, I think that, you you should have that use during that time period. I'm concerned about just making sure that we continue to have and maintain sufficient places where people can get food, and we don't have food deserts within, the city of Bellevue. So I'm I am more flexible after two or five years, you know, that if we were to design something so that after that lease term, you know, there there is that flexibility. I I'm more sympathetic to that because I don't feel like we can plan out that far in the future.

And I like the idea of either it being in terms of it an alternate use or potentially you could buy your way out of it if you wanted to use do something different. You know? Maybe some fee in lieu arrangement or something like that. So I think that that and and I thought I heard that being one of the things that was in your

I see nodding at that passable

So You could see affordable housing fee in lieu too as that exempt space if you wanted to. So there is that option currently.

But I I would I would be supportive of that, but it's a little bit more of a a tailored exemption K. When it comes to, continuing that usage. I I'm not I'm not all that supportive of the three times multiplier just because that seems to have been a new a new asset's come up at the last minute that I don't think there's been enough consideration of that it merits that it merits consideration at this point.

Thank you. And commissioner, do you feel?

I plus one, commissioner, couple's comment on the twenty five years.

K.

I would like to see an incentive. Incentives are always good right now. That said, we should not just implement the three to one without having stuff look at it carefully. So that's

Are we feeling this is my turn. I'm feeling comfortable with commissioner Geppel too. Are we thinking we should touch this subject or we should let it to council because just brought it up? Or do we feel we are comfortable with what commissioner Geppel was suggesting? Could could could we have three to

I was just gonna suggest maybe we could handle that through the amendment process

Yeah.

And figure out if

because

I want to I want to have a clean amendment. I don't want you withdraw and do it. That's why I'm opening up the discussion. We have that fun couple times. Could

we could we phrase it as a recommendation to counsel? Here are the things that we would recommend you change along with potential consideration of an MFT.

A 100%. Yeah. 100%. Yeah.

And just as a point of sort of process, everything you're doing here is a recommendation. So there is no other way for you to phrase that.

Counsel can change it a 100%. Do we comfortable if commissioner Giphol comes with that amendment? Okay. Good. Is there any other subject that it was really important for us that we want to add as amendment that I missed at?

I think we were talking about the 3% floor pay capacity increase for nonresidential. I'd I'd support that as well.

Three two, three. Okay. WestShare? Four.

You support that too? Support?

Yep. Support.

K. We're good with that one too. Was there anything else, Commissioner Farris?

I saw you win. I would also support the three to one floor plate. I know there's some disagreement on that one. But I just I would love to see grocery stores and having an incentive like that.

Really? Makes sense.

Supporting that?

I support the incentive as well.

Okay. Two? Cherry, you might just want to have since there's some disagreement, you might just want to have a

Motion?

A motion, and then people can decide based on

Let's do that. I was trying to prevent that. Let's do it.

Chair, can I also just earlier, you had mentioned the 80 to 85 feet, and that was a comment that was raised in a couple of different or right up in a couple of different contexts? So it was initially raised by plush as within the perimeter overlay. Please allow up to 85 feet for the unlimited floor plate. That was the item that Matthew had mentioned was an oversight. Mhmm. The other item is much more substantive, and so we just wanna be clear which one you might be directing us on. That was the one that was pertaining to MU seven only and asking to go eight stories rather than seven by allowing 85 feet. So

Alright. We're go pray and look there on that. Gephel, do you want to take a motion at the moment? I see you are. I love that. I

I was gonna suggest doing the base motion.

Okay.

And then we can build on it.

Okay. Let's do it. It's okay. Yeah. Go for it.

So I'd like to move that the planning commission recommended the city council the proposed housing opportunities in mixed use areas, land use code amendment, as shown in attachment a. That's the one with the mandatory affordable housing option. And that'd be adopted because the proposed land use code amendments are consistent with all the decision criteria and land use code 20.3 j point one thirty five. And further that the planning commission recommends that vesting for projects downtown with submitted permits be discussed by the city council and to address the 85 foot piece here, the correction piece, that that there'd an increase to the building height to 85 feet to receive floor plate flexibility in the downtown affordability development flexibility program.

Can I have a second? Second. I'm gonna open the motion for discussion. Any discussion or amendment? Did I miss that? Nomad. I'm good. Okay. I'm just like, oh, shoot. Okay. No discussion?

Do we wanna

And then this is where I think we

get Yeah. This is the time that you guys go into the amendments. Yeah. That's why I'm, like, looking at you all. I'm like, are you sure? Do you want to start to the amendments now?

Well, I'd like to maybe start with the eighty five foot one where because, again, it was we we need to clarify whether this is just limited to the downtown, and I would propose that it's in the the larger context, which would create then that MU eight.

Just to clarify, commissioner Geppel

Already.

Included the correction in his motion. So that correction is taken care of. But I thought there was a discrepancy between the limited aspect of it versus broader aspect.

So the downtown is covered. The broader one

The broader one is messed been covered.

To add it. Okay.

So does that need to be a motion? Or

Yes. We need I would like to a motion. Broaden the definition of this. Basically, we have a big motion. We had a second. We are doing motion to amendment and second and all in favor. And when we close everything again, we go out. Okay. Do I have a second for that?

Second.

All in favor for that specific amendment?

Are we gonna discuss it?

Oh, any discussion?

Yeah. I I guess I'd like to understand the impacts of that a little bit better before voting.

Yeah. So the mixed use seven story district is a new district. It was one of the new ones that was outlined in the future land use map with the new comp plan. I say new. It's a year old now. The newest comp plan. It's relatively limited. Any parcel that would be receiving this district does need to have a zoning amendment on the parcels. There's no parcels zoned for that right now. The impact of the proposed change would be to increase the building height proposed building height in that district from 80 feet to 85 feet.

What that sort of does on the ground is add an additional story to these parcels. So these buildings go from seven stories to eight stories. On the ground, it is the limit, as we heard in building code of basically the the podium style wood framed building, which as we've discussed many times at this point is sort of the most feasible and economical residential building development type. So yeah. I mean, the impact is you will certainly see that extra five feet of building being being built.

Great. Thank you.

We have another question. Please. Can I can

I just clarify the amendment? The amendment is to increase m u seven to 85 feet and to change it from M U 7 to M U eight.

For not only downtown. Right? For entire city?

Just for M for MU 7.

Yeah. K.

I I thank you, chair. I share the concerns that commissioner Gepple was just raising. It seems like a a very major change to be addressing in a small amendment at our last meeting coming in after the the open open hearing and meeting. Feel not ready to to recommend that amendment yet. It seems like a a massive change, a new definition, new category of housing, and I don't know what I don't a new zone.

I'm not sure where it applies to. If we were gonna make this amendment, I would want to look at a map and better understand how much of the city it impacts and whether those impacts are positive. It it seems very relevant.

We have a I need a any more discussion.

Comments

Sure.

To respond to commissioner Kennedy. I correct me if I'm wrong. I don't think it's a big impact. I think it's, the increasing height allows to maximize the most efficient building type to produce more housing. Just by increasing five feet, you can get a full more floor under the building code for the more, economical development type.

Right? So increase just that five feet, you can get a full more floor housing, and it's not a it's not a big impact in terms of the massing of the building or anything else. The amendments to the code, MU seven to MUNA, I think it's just housekeeping to make sure it's coherent. So because it's eight eight stories instead of seven, now you wanna call it MU 8, so it reflects eight stories. So I I actually think it's a very minor easy win to maximize the cost benefit of this building type. Yeah.

And and just Mission Kennedy, for example, I I live in the same height, I think, at MU 8, but it's only six floor because it's really taller ceiling. And we are basically now cutting that cake vertically instead of six section to eight section. They have, like, shorter ceilings. Basically, the total height is the same. West chair do.

This is one where I I think when we were discussing MU 7 during the comprehensive plan, we were pretty intentional about targeting 7 as a building height. And so I think the departure makes me a little bit nervous because it feels like a minor change. You do get more housing. There is some consideration of, you know, the the plan map that we built out had MU 7 basically as the intention there. So I I I hesitate a little bit to make that change at, in our recommendation, acknowledging that, yeah, it it is the the full. I just wanna also kind of give credits like, credit to the past of how our discussions and where we landed with those.

Is that gonna go impact the comprehensive plan that we have m u seven, right, Matthew and Nick? Well, Burton and

The comprehensive plan, the way the future land use map is done doesn't list any specific building heights. So, you know, I'd have to look at it more, but I don't anticipate huge impacts comprehensive plan wise.

What about Wilburton wise?

Yeah. That district doesn't exist in Wilburton. Okay. But, you know, it has been messaged since March, seven stories for this district. Okay. So that has been at least the expectation that's been out in in community. And this is I I had not heard this comment before tonight or before this week,

I guess. This is a new comment. Commissioner Ferris?

Just a quick comment. Also, in terms of just the economics of this, yes, it would increase housing by adding a story. It also could make the difference whether or not that building gets built. Because if you have one more story of housing, that means you're getting more income, which means that that might be just enough to put it over the edge to actually get produced.

Okay. I'm gonna go ask for saying yay or nay, and then we're gonna go kill the motion or keep it alive. Commissioner Ferris? Yay. Nilchon?

Yay.

Commissioner Kennedy? Nay. Johnny?

Nay.

Nay?

Yay.

Three?

I'm gonna say yay.

Yay? Okay. Four, and I'm yay. We have five to two, and debt amendment being adopted to the main motion. Is there anyone who wants to do the amendment about grocery and all of other object that we talked about it?

He Yeah. But, you can do amendment on your own motion. Why not?

I'd like to I'd like to amend the motion to provide for a twenty five year limit on the grocery covenant that is eligible for the, for the FAR bonus, provided that at the end of twenty five years, there's either a transition to, some other use with, a commensurate public benefit or, some, you know, compensation, to account for that for the benefit originally provided for some other public benefit usage.

Can I get the second for this motion?

I'll second the motion.

Any discussion? Can we vote? Okay. Commissioner Ferris? Aye. Neil Chiyang?

Yeah.

Commissioner Kelly? Yeah. Johnny Liu? Aye. And then Right. Okay.

Yeah.

NMI. Okay. We voted fully. Is there any other amendment that you would like to take?

Fully shot down, but I'm gonna still put it out there. In regards to the grocery stores, I would like to amend it that we allow a three to one FAR bonus for a grocery store.

Can I get the second purchase amendment if you want?

I'll take a look.

Second. Any discussion? Should we Make my pitch? I know. And then I have done them. I had a motion who sat on the floor forever. Remember? I didn't even get the second. You got a second. Can I vote for

I'm just the reason I'm very strongly in favor of it is that we all know how important grocery stars are and to be able to give little bit of an extra far bonus to if that, again, puts them over the edge to be able to produce grocery, to me, it's worth it?

Kosha, first, would you like to vote for that? Should we go? I would. Yes. Okay. Kosha Nidjian?

Nay.

Nay? Okay.

Can I ask a question first? Is that Sure.

We are voting, but it's okay. It's okay.

Staff, do you

No. Wait a minute. Should we finish it? I know.

We've moved to the

I know. We moved to the second and voting. Yeah. Sorry. Ugh. Okay. I'm sorry. I was trying to

build I'm inclined to vote vote yay as long as staff doesn't have any concerns with this change, and it doesn't seem like

Staff are pretty neutral here today. Yay. Okay. And Johnny Liu?

Nay.

Nay? Okay.

The second is a yes.

Okay.

No. No.

I am no. It not it did not pass. Okay. Any other amendment, whatever you like, to do in the city of Bellevue?

Just kidding. It's too late for In the base motion, didn't you include the 3% in

No. He didn't. He just did the eighty five one.

Okay. In that case, I would like to move that we allow the 30 3% floor area increase for floor plate increase. Second.

Yes. Just a clarification that that was three, not 30. Three. Three. Three.

And and you

were talking about downtown. Right?

For commercial. Yes. Okay. Any discussion. This is a moment you can ask your did Kosha Farris is the first and Neil Chen is the second. I'm looking at okay. She's good. Any discussion? Sure. Okay. I'm gonna go get the vote. Commissioner Ferris? Aye. Commissioner Lee Chang?

Yeah.

Okay. Commissioner Kennedy? Just a clarification. We said No.

We we can't. Commercial? We can. Are we saying nonresidential uses? Is it relevant to them? Any nonresidential uses. Right? Office

on downtown.

Yay to office in downtown.

Commissioner vice chair?

Yes.

And commissioner Vallesys?

Right.

And Schiphol?

Yes.

Okay. And I am yes. We fully voted for it. Okay. Any other items? I let me look at my list. Matt and Nick, are we missing anything? Okay. I'm gonna go ask you all now vote for the first motion that we took with all the amendment that we wrote. Any discussion about it? If not, let's vote for it. Okay? I wanna go vote for that second motion that we have it for recommendation to counsel. Commissioner Ferris? Aye. Okay. Commissioner Denshong? Yeah. Commissioner Kennedy? Aye. Commissioner White shirt, the blue, Aye. And Geppau?

Aye.

And I am aye. Thank you so much. Congratulation. You won't come here. Oh, wait a minute. Don't go. I have work to do. Can I have a motion to adjourn the meeting, commissioner Ferris? You love to

I'd love to move that we adjourn our meetings with.

Okay. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Aye.

Good job, chair.