Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right, I think let's get started. Good evening and welcome to the June 24th meeting of the City of Bellevue Planning Commission. This evening's meeting is held via hybrid format with both in-person and virtual options via Zoom. Tonight's meeting will provide an opportunity for public comments during the oral communications portion of the agenda, All written comments that have been submitted prior to 11 a.m. today, Wednesday, June 24th, will be summarized into the record. We have two study sessions on the agenda tonight, both of which are seeking approval to set a public hearing. First one is the Parking Reform Luca, and the second one is the Great Neighborhoods Program review of the full draft of Factorio Neighborhood Area Plan Comprehensive Plan Amendment. Now let's move forward with the roll call. I'd like to note that Commissioner Ferris is attending remotely. Vice Chair Villavesis?

President?

Commissioner Kanlu?

Here.

Commissioner Geppel? Here. Commissioner Kennedy?

Here.

And Commissioner Neal-Cheon?

Here.

And Councilmember Bhargava?

Also here.

And I am Chair Liu and I am here. All right. Can we get a motion to approve tonight's agenda? So moved. Is there a second?

Second.

All right. All approved. Say aye.

Aye.

Great. Thank you. Councilmember Bhargava, do you have any updates from the council?

I can provide a quick update. First of all, congratulations on being appointed chair and vice chair. And thank you to the outgoing chair and vice chair for an incredible job last year. We wish you the best for this year. We've got a lot to do. And quick updates from yesterday. We had a pretty extensive public hearing on the budget. So the council is right now wrapped up in putting together working with staff on putting together the budget for the next biennium. And the public hearing yesterday was sort of an early view of what folks have provided as input in the community of what they'd like to see as part of the budget. So that was a must have been 30, plus people who testified on the budget. So it was really good input across a very broad spectrum of things, following which we got a really good update on where staff is on things like rates and forecasts. It was just an information session to get early input on what the council would like to see. So that was a session. And the second one was a study that was initiated out of council contingency funds on the request from council member noon house and this was an assessment following the comprehensive plan update in 24 to see if our electrical grid is going to have enough capacity to support the growth and this was a regional study so the City of Bellevue conducted this in partnership with PSE as well as with the City of Redmond to look at substation capacity, feeder capacity, and all of those things outside of special uses like what could be data centers or very large energy consumption elements that are not part of the typical growth profile for the city. And there's some good findings in there. We got our AECOM as a consultant to come on and they did extensive study in partnership with PSC in the cities. And they found there are places where specific substations that require upgrades in the near term that are also probably a good reason for us to do a more comprehensive evaluation. So they had some next steps prescribed. And so this general support from the council on that. And then there will possibly be there is a request for additional budget allocations that they can be accommodated in the general fund for the next steps in the study to come back as we evaluate the budget. So those were sort of a quick summary of what happened in the last week or so.

Great. Thank you. Any questions for Council Member Bhargava? If not, Kate, are there any reports from boards and commissions? Nope. Great. All right, let's move on to oral and written communications. Kate, could you provide a summary of the written communications we received?

It has been a very quiet week, so I have no written communications to share. Sounds good.

All right. For oral communications, we will have a total of 30 minutes for oral communications. Each speaker will have up to three minutes to speak. Stephanie is on Kate Nessie will call on speakers in the order in which they have registered either in person or online. If anyone from the public has missed the 6 p.m. registration deadline, you may still provide public comment if there is remaining time. Please use the raise hand function in Zoom if you're attending virtually or motion to staff if you're in person to indicate that you would like to speak. Now, there are rules adopted by the City Council limiting the topics about which the public may speak during our meetings. Under Ordinance 6752, the public may only speak during public comment about subject matters that are related to the City of Bellevue government and are within the power and duties of the Planning Commission. Additional information about the rules of decorum governing conduct of the public during our meetings can be found at Ordinance 6752. Kate, can you call our first speaker?

Yes, we have two pre registered speakers. They both said that they're in person, but I see one online. So I will start with Heidi Dean. I see you online. Followed by Pam Johnson. Pam, if you're online, could you raise your hand? Heidi, can you hear me?

I sure can. Okay. Just let me know when you're ready.

Just a moment. Let me see. I can't hear you. So let me see if I can change. All right. Can you hear me?

I can.

Can you hear me? I cannot hear you.

Can you hear me now? Yes, can you hear me?

Yes, I can hear you. Go ahead.

Okay, thank you. All right. Thank you. Transportation Commission did its job of pointing out the issues with the mobility and access element of the Factoria draft NAP. And what's being presented to you tonight does not reflect what the TC told staff. It actually actively ignores and dismisses it, which I will be relaying to the TC members as well as to the city council. TCers pointed out that the mobility survey did not include an option for the number one mobility mode in and around the Factorio neighborhood, which is the automobile. Respondents were asked about bike, ped, transit, but not about automobiles and traffic congestion. Respondents had to be savvy enough to check the other box and type their own response. TC-ers then pointed out that this was actually not a multimodal survey when automobiles and traffic congestion were completely left off of it. Why is this important? It's because the staff are using this survey to boost their argument that the policies reflect the priorities of Factorio residents. And in the memo that you're provided today, they say the reason you're not seeing congestion relief policies for Factorio is because those policies are already covered in the comp plan and in the MIP. That excuse does not make any sense given that the comp plan and MIP account for transit, bike, and ped as well. And yet we see transit, bike, and ped policies covered. in the Factorio NAP. So the staff are choosing to omit congestion relief policies and submit manipulated surveys that downplay how important congestion and vehicular mobility are to Factorio. This is inappropriate or honest community engagement. And that's why the Transportation Commission called staff out on this misrepresentation of data. The TCRs also pointed out that changing how volume over capacity for intersections and arterials are measured as proposed by the transportation staff is disingenuous. That was the actual word used. So changing the method of measuring level of service for intersections and arterials does not improve the level of service. It simply masks the failure of the intersection and how bad congestion is. So here is my request. Please ask staff to add meaningful congestion relief policies to the plan because clearly that's not what staff wants, but it's what the Transportation Commission and Factoria residents have asked for. Residents, not people, the activist groups that come in and take these surveys, not people living outside of Factoria, the people that actually live there and come and do business there all the time. I'm one of them. Thank you. Thank you.

Next, we have Pam Johnston. It will be followed by Alex Zimmerman.

You're good. Thank you. So I came to talk to you guys more about Evans Plaza. Some people weren't here before, so this will be good. One of the things that was mentioned was that there was a blanks, I think you mentioned it, Andrews, that there was a blank lot next door. That's a PSE lot. It's full of trees, but it's basically there for when we need to have more PSE hubs in the neighborhood. One of the things I want to make sure that everyone understands is how the comp plan works. And some of that happens in the alternatives that there are. So the choices actually are alternative zero, do nothing. And then what will happen is the state bill 2026, I mean 6026, will come and it will allow housing in those areas because it will do that for the entire city because that's a state bill. So we didn't get to choose whether we wanted housing there or not. That's not a choice now. It has housing. It's just what kind of housing. And what kind of housing for the whole city will be determined by when the city takes on that work. So why would we jump ahead now? Um, another alternative is they can do housing on some parcels and not housing on other because they can be even, um, can't think the word, but it'll match to their zone. Their zone can be different, but they can have the old stuff still there. Um, then another alternative is to change the account plan for all parcels and then You can change from different versions of that, right? Different levels. But then the other thing is what will the owner have to be able to do? Well, they can do nothing. They can take this comp plan amendment and then do nothing. They can't build all the housing. They could build some of the housing. They could sell it. So you can't count on the owner when you're looking at this as like they're the ones going to do it forever. You have to look at what's good for the city. Pineview, as they call it, was the third highest number of retail visits in all neighborhood centers in our last retail thing. So it's highly active there. I mean... Harley-Davidson is their community place. They have Santa Claus, things like that. So it's a highly active place. It's just that some parts of them are more active than others. And is it the bridal trails feel when we teach it? We don't know.

Time is up. Thank you for your comments.

Next, we have Alex Zimmerman.

Thank you.

Hey.

Hi, my name Alex Everman, and I want to speak today about your duty, only about commission. Your commission, how you operate, and what is you doing, and my expertise for many years. You're only one who give me trespass for two months. Only one. You always interrupt me in every year meeting. Does this not look to me very good? Is this absolutely absurd? For example, you don't show people faces. And I'm talking about this for a dozen years. Why in this room you don't show people's faces? Another commission, show faces. Only room 113 are doing this. He's a criminal because he knows what is, you know, show faces crime. And I'm talking about 5,000 times. So I know what I'm talking about. Right now, I want to explain to you something that you probably don't know in detail. So listen right now to me very carefully. When you give me another trespass, like you did before, you know what I will do? I will go and break the trespass. Policemen will arrest me. It's happened in Bellevue before seven times. I'm in jail. hearing go to court, all seven dismiss. So I want only explain to you what has happened, because you don't have experience with this. Yeah, and I explain to you why. You all will be present like witnesses in jury trial. But before jury trial, this will be interview with all witnesses. I will bring you all of it. And when you don't come in, policeman will be come and pick up you. It's court order. Judge supposed to be doing this, not me. So I want to only explain this to you because the situation is very simple. Why I explain to you this? Because for many years you looked to me like a pure debile, you understand? You intellectual lego claustrotory. You are real debil. You don't change nothing. You always interrupt me, and I don't understand why. I'm only one man in Bellevue who you interrupt. One. I never seen before. And I go to all commission here. And council too. Council is different story. I speak about this yesterday twice. Guys, so I want to deliver this to you because most of you educate people. So when you educate people with college or maybe more, you know what it means? Acting like a debile is making me sick totally. This means you are criminal. You understand? You're doing this for a special reason. And what is your reason? Personal reason. This is not about system what we have. You don't represent system. You're here only for your personal us and for your career. That's it. Viva Trump, viva new American revolution, stand up slave and happy cow. You need to understand, guys, I bring you all in court. Thank you. Like jury, for jury.

Chair, we still have, that's the end of our pre-registered speakers, but we still have about 20 minutes left. I can turn to the room and the online.

Let's do that. Thank you.

If there's anybody in the room that would like to speak, could you raise your hand? If there is anybody online that would like to speak, could you raise your virtual hand. i'm not seeing any hands.

Great, let's move on. All right, let's go to our study sessions here. The first study session will be the Factorio Great Neighborhoods study session. The Great Neighborhoods project was designed to develop local policies to address issues and opportunities to help Factorio grow in a unique way. Neighborhood priorities were identified through extensive community engagement. Planning Director Tara Johnson, Senior Planner Zachary Luckin will provide the presentation.

Good evening chair Lou vice chair versus Commissioners. staff are very happy to be here this evening we're advancing the factory anybody area plan for more discussion with you believe we were last year, a few months ago, and a lot of work has been ongoing and so, of course, Victoria and um. At your next meeting, we'll be also talking about Eastgate are both part of the 2026 comprehensive plan amendment cycle. So tonight, we have a lot of information for you about progress we've made on community engagement, as well as our draft neighborhood area plan policies that are for you this evening. So tonight we're requesting off the commission that you review the policies, provide any feedback on on the policy language. And then we're also requesting if you're ready to do so to set provide direction to set a public hearing. So we'll start off, provide you with some background on the Great Neighborhoods program. We'll also briefly outline the process. You're probably very familiar with that at this point. We've been talking, I feel like, about it at almost every meeting. We're also going to be talking about some of the modifications with the sub-area plan boundaries. We'll talk about our approach with community engagement and what we've heard from the community to date. as well as how they've informed our policies. We'll touch on the way our neighborhood area plans have been organized, and then the important stuff, which is the actual policy language. And then we'll also walk through our urban design framework, which is a very important component of the plans. So with that, I'm going to turn things over to Zach Luckin, who's the project manager for the Factorio Neighborhood Area Plan.

Thank you. Good evening. It's good to see everyone this evening. So I'm going to start by walking through again the Great Neighborhoods Program, probably somewhat familiar to you all, but a quick refresher. So the primary objective of the Great Neighborhoods Program is to develop Neighborhood plans that are part of the comprehensive plan that are relevant, community driven and reflective of citywide and local priorities. The planning process is informed by engagement with the community members who live, work, play and learn in these neighborhoods and their input directly shapes the outcomes of the plan. These plans contains goals and policies consistent with both the city's vision and values, but also reflect this more unique localized community vision for what they'd like to achieve there. Um, and this serves as guides for decision making and informs how the city partners with others to realize this vision. So in addition to the community feedback that we'll discuss in a little bit, other key inputs throughout the plan have been Bellevue's boards and commissions, which we'll talk about, state and regional requirements, such as those around countywide growth centers, which require the city to plan for affordable housing, active transportation, and transit access, and then the city's functional plans, such as the mobility implementation plan and the parks and open space plan. um and we're now here again to present the draft plan for planning commission review and feedback and then the adoption of the neighborhood area plan follows the annual cpa process and these are process for actions and accordingly planning commission will review the updates against the land use codes final review criteria and then make a recommendation to city council So, also part of this EPA, we have an amendment to the glossary of volume one of the comp plan where we define terms that we use frequently within the scope of neighborhood area planning. This is in your attachment G in your materials. While these terms are used in the comprehensive plan or other functional plans already, the proposed conformance updates define the terms in the glossary to ensure consistent definition when they are used and referenced within the neighborhood area plan policies. glossary amendments covered under the factoria neighborhood area plan CPA are also going to be the same and relevant for the Eastgate area, see a CPA, which you'll hear about in a future meeting. In the terms that we have decided to add our access business district, placemaking, public space, threshold and traffic calming. Also, for information purposes, part of the CPA will be amending the previous Factoria sub-area plan in volume two of the comp plan and the relevant policies that remain to ensure that the relevant policies remain in effect where they aren't superseded by either the new Eastgate or Factoria plan through some overlap in the boundaries. And amending these policies and figures are outlined in your attachment F in the materials. Again, this will repeal policies in the Factorio sub-area plan that are specific to the portions of the sub-area that are not covered by the Factorio and Eastgate neighborhood area plans. And then also we're updating the maps to show how those boundaries have been revised in the areas superseded by the new plans. There is some remaining area and policies that won't be covered by these and that will be addressed in the future update to the Somerset plan whenever that occurs. And as background, the neighborhood area plan boundaries were adopted in 2015 to better align with physical boundaries such as arterials, as well as neighborhood characteristics and school catchment areas. Now, here's a look at the current Factory Neighborhood Area boundary. It's bound by 405, as well as I-90. It's predominantly a commercial employment center known for Factory Mall and the T-Mobile headquarters, as well as a density of professional retail and restaurants, many of which are international. The area also includes factory mixed use center, which along with the city's other mixed use centers are where we expect to see the largest share of housing and job growth and support transit oriented development. Beyond the commercial areas, there are pockets of residential neighborhoods, both to the southwest and then up the hill to the east. Now we'll look at our engagement throughout this process. This slide shows an overview of what we've done through each phase of the project, and it really emphasizes that we've had a variety of outreach tools at different phases of the planning process together input to meaningfully inform the neighborhood area plan. Across both Eastgate and Factoria, we've reached over 1,200 people in the last 10 months, and that's included residents, businesses, students, and really anyone else who's interested in the future of these neighborhoods. So during the Discover phase, which is our first phase, our outreach activities were focused on better understanding the values, opportunities, and challenges that shape the neighborhood identity and present-day conditions. Then during the defined phase, our outreach activities translated these findings into future thinking vision elements and policy priorities, which you may remember. And these are the building blocks of the draft plan. And now in the refined phase, we have shared the draft plan with the community. And since early May, we've welcomed input to refine these policies to address any gaps and achieve the desired outcomes. And I just like to use this photo to really emphasize that the plan is shaped by community and that we've heard from many diverse voices and perspectives at every phase of this project, from classrooms to apartment common spaces, even some busy arterial intersections. And a note that some of the successes that we've had resulted from adapting our outreach materials so that they could better reach communities that have historically been less likely to participate, such as our affordable housing service providers and residents, students, and businesses. So during the refine phase, the engagement team held a policy open house and had an online survey. We had 22 attendees at the combined open house and participants were asked to use dot stickers and sticky notes to indicate how well the policies supported community informed vision and goals, as well as identify what was missing or if anything could be improved. We also had an online survey, which very much mirrored what we had in the workshop. And we had 82 responses to that. Again, asking people to provide feedback on the policies and how well they achieved the goals and vision. Overall, we learned that community is largely supportive of the draft policies. There was specifically, especially strong support for policies around neighborhood beautification, providing lighting and pedestrian amenities and high capacity transit coordination. But there was some mixed level of support from communities around policies on affordable housing, multilingual wayfinding and expansion of EV charging infrastructure. However, from the feedback we got, there wasn't really any clear indication of why these areas ran contrary to the vision and goals that were established and informed by community or how we could work to improve them. And then most recently during the defined phase, as mentioned, staff have coordinated and consulted with the city's boards and commissions. A formal recommendation was neither required nor requested from these bodies, but their input was certainly incorporated. The first was the Parks and Community Services Board. They really appreciated the focus on walkability between parks and open spaces and encouraged stronger references to neighborhood history and public safety. Then we spoke with Arts Commission. They really appreciated our concept maps and how we provided clear guidance on arts opportunities. And they encouraged better articulation of space and programming priorities to support community partnerships. And then most recently, we talked to Transportation Commission. They wanted a better understanding of how we engage the communities throughout the process on transportation issues and encouraged prioritizing congestion reduction in our draft policies. So before we get into the contents of the plan, I'll briefly go over the component and the structure. To start off, we have our guiding light, which is the vision statement for the neighborhood, and this articulates the desired future state of the neighborhood in the next 10 to 20 years. Then we have background narrative and imagery that describes the community context for the neighborhood area plan, including its history, demographics, existing conditions, challenges, and opportunities. Then there's our urban design framework, and this describes the opportunities and supports policies for improving public space and is illustrated through our concept maps. Then we have our neighborhood policy summary for each of our five planned sections, which are neighborhood identity, mixed-use centers, community gathering spaces, mobility and access, and environment. And then lastly, we have our goals and policies for each section that, when implemented, will help achieve the neighborhood area's vision. So here's a look at Factoria's vision statement. The vision focuses on fostering a global, vibrant, and walkable residential and commercial community that brings together a mix of housing, people, and retail opportunities. And it reads as such, Factoria is a locally rooted, globally connected neighborhood and major employment center that welcomes people from around the world to live, work, shop, and learn. Centered around its vibrant commercial core, Factorio is anchored by a strong network of local businesses and diverse retail offerings with affordable housing and nature-oriented gathering spaces that bring people together of all backgrounds. A walkable, pedestrian-oriented design complemented by strong access to transit and regional transportation networks supports Factorio as a connected and thriving community. And this vision statement is elaborated on in the narrative sections of the plan. And so now a look at policy. And for this study session, we're not going to do a walkthrough of each individual policy, but I'm going to summarize them by plan section. And again, we do want to call attention to some of the policies that community felt needed more clarification and or did not support the goals and visions for the neighborhood area. And then we'll walk through how staff responded to those comments. So in Factoria for Neighborhood Identity, policies seek to reinforce Factoria's identity as an accessible, convenient, and inclusive location, reflect its diverse community, strong small businesses and walkability, and support beautification and affordable housing. So as an example of this in practice, policy around neighborhood beautification was developed in response to community feedback on the ongoing need for participation in city programs like Keep LV Beautiful. And per community feedback, we did hear some concerns around policies that related to affordable housing and public safety that warranted some further consideration. So to look at the feedback we received and how we addressed it, the first was the feedback we got on affordable housing. And the comments that we got was really questioning if there was a need for more affordable housing, considering that some already exist in nearby Eastgate. However, in relation to policy N3 on affordable housing, we did not make a change, as this both affirms the direction of the King County countywide planning policies, as well as citywide direction in the comp plan and the affordable housing strategy on addressing an entire spectrum of the city's housing needs. The other comment received was on public safety and need to more explicitly call it out in policy. This was in relation to policy N5, which we then revised accordingly to emphasize public safety and public space design. On to Factories Mixed Use Center policies, and these seek to support the growth of Factories Mixed Use Center as a vibrant, connected, and walkable district, provide accessible public spaces, job opportunities, services, and affordable housing, meet countywide center designation requirements, which can provide future funding, and then support the center's integration into the community as the city plans for growth and high capacity transit. So in response to community business owner and subject matter expert feedback, we have policies highlighting the need to coordinate with transit providers to bring on-station siting and access to meet the needs of the growing community there. And we didn't receive any specific feedback on these policies that warranted further refinement. So for our community gathering space policies, these seek to support the development of Victoria and its accessible indoor and outdoor community gathering spaces and explore community partnerships and strategic property acquisition. An example here is our policy around strategic property acquisition for parks development as the lack of access to natural areas was a particular issue for community members. and feedback received on these policies focused on the desire to re explore the opportunity to use schools as gathering spaces. And so here, both community and the Arts Commission noted that the opportunity that there's an opportunity to once again use schools as gathering spaces as they had pre COVID. So based on this feedback and some consultations with our subject matter experts, we've revised policy and 17 to add in schools as partners for providing for these community spaces. And for Factoria's mobility and access policies, these seek to support a safe, connected, and multimodal transportation network, making walking, biking, and transit access more convenient within and beyond the neighborhood, and then improve pedestrian infrastructure, wayfinding, and transit connections. An example here is our policy calling for improved access to transportation connections through high-capacity transit, specifically South Bellevue Station, which was developed in direct response to both community feedback and our engagement with local businesses. As I noted earlier, we did receive feedback on congestion relief, but no policy changes were made because this feedback as the guidance on congestion is covered both in volume one of the comprehensive plan there is citywide policies on how to manage congestion and then there are specific strategies and performance measures in the mobility implementation plan that already covers this area however policies that we do have around improving transit access and active transportation also work to mitigate congestion issues Finally, Factoria's environmental policies seek to support a resilient and healthy neighborhood by enhancing natural systems, support expanding tree canopy and improving access to parks and trails, and promoting sustainable design and infrastructure. An example here is our policy supporting new connections to nearby parks and trails, as many community members highlighted the lack of access to both Coal Creek Park as well as the Sunset Ravine open space, which are currently the only natural areas in close proximity to the neighborhood. and no additional analysis or changes were made based on the feedback we received. So the draft plan also includes our urban design framework. And these are maps and narrative that helps localize these policies and visualize the types and locations of improvements to factories public spaces. The framework is informed by existing conditions, community feedback, functional plans and technical analysis. And rather than detail a set of actions or projects, the framework guides project identification and development opportunities when implementing plan policies. This is also a tool to support collaboration amongst city departments and other community partners. And these maps are intentionally broad, illustrating one potential way of achieving policy intent and distill specific improvements identified by the community during our workshops. And the plan includes two types of concept maps. One is neighborhood connectivity and the other is on neighborhood gathering spaces. And again, the first of these that we'll take a look at is enhancing neighborhood connectivity. And the concept provides guidance on opportunities to enhance walking and biking connections to neighborhood destinations, providing connections within larger blocks and development sites, improving pedestrian safety at intersections and mid-block crossings, and then arterial streetscape enhancements to make them more attractive, safe, and comfortable corridors for all modes of travel. These improvements are referenced in a number of our neighborhood plan policies, such as N5, on enhancing factory streetscapes to create a safer and more inviting pedestrian realm. And then here is a look at the neighborhood connectivity concept map. So you can see how some of these things could potentially be implemented. The pink lines indicate arterials to prioritize for streetscape enhancements, such as landscaping, lighting, furnishings, or other pedestrian-oriented features. Then we have the orange target symbols throughout the map, and these represent intersection crosswalks and mid-block crossings for pedestrians on high-volume arterials and how they get to their destinations. Then we have the light blue dashed lines, and this represents through-block connections to improve pedestrian circulation by breaking down larger blocks and development sites. And tying these elements together, we have the dark blue dashed lines throughout the neighborhood highlighting opportunities for improved walking and biking connections. Then our second area for urban design is the neighborhood gathering space improvements and the concepts within. So here, these seek to provide guidance on programming and activation of third spaces or those community spaces with community partners, potential new neighborhood parks in areas that are not well served by parks and open space today, enhancements to natural areas such as streams and wetlands, and then visual markers reflecting the unique identity of the neighborhood. As an example here of tying policy to urban design concepts is in Policy N2, where we call out the need for threshold enhancements at key locations to better define and strengthen the identity of Factorio. And then here is a concept map itself. um for neighborhood gathering space so we see these green bubbles which indicate new potential park space specifically in areas that lack walkable access to such natural areas today then we have the pinked cogs dotted throughout the map and these represent destinations within the community where people would like to see opportunities for both indoor and outdoor gathering spaces such as shopping areas community facilities schools and campuses And then we have the magenta circles, which we call those thresholds that I mentioned. And these mark entrances into the neighborhood for freeways and adjacent neighborhoods as key opportunities to highlight the neighborhood identity, whether it's through art, signage, or some other visual element. And then we'll now open it up for discussion and review of the draft policies.

Great. Thank you for the presentation. I am now going to call on each commissioner sequentially and just keep in mind that we are here to provide direction. So any comments that you give, please kind of work towards that eventual direction that we'd like to provide staff and keep in mind that we're also, you know, ideally setting up public hearing, but we can go through that discussion first. So with that, I'll start with the vice chair via basis.

Thank you, Zach.

You should turn on your mic.

I don't have many comments on the policies. I just wanted to ask a couple questions. I think it's slide 14. Can you go to slide 14, please? So we're talking about globally connected. And there's a lot of mention of connecting with high transit or creating good connections to transit. I just want to highlight that this connection right now is not It's not existing. Like everything south of I-90 in Bellevue is very hard to get to South Bellevue Station. A bus ride. I got visitors in my house right now and they take the bus to the station when we cannot drive them. And it takes 40 minutes and a car drive is nine minutes. And that's just really discouraging to take public transit. So that's just something to consider. Another point here is I would like you to picture for a second the Ave in the University District. I don't know if you've been there, but It's this really good commercial pedestrian street that is populated mostly by University of Washington. And this is not very different from that. You have, well, you have, of course, you have T-Mobile, you have a lot of businesses, and you have Newport High School. And it's not present, like there's no discussion of the presence of the school almost anywhere. And I think there should be something really... There should be something specific about activating this quarter with the fact that we have all this business and a huge high school. Right in the neighborhood and on that sense to if you go to your concept plan of nodes, you have to either of those maybe that one like you have that. circle next to T-Mobile headquarters. That, I mean, that location is a little bit difficult because you're right by the highway. But if you push that down to like the bottom of the T-Mobile headquarters and you create something that's important there, you start to create that tension between the high school and that. It could be a park, it could be a space for events or something important that creates that flow between the high school and T-Mobile. And that, how are you calling this, that threshold or that space gathering area, it could be really, really helpful to activate this space. And finally, there is no mention between the changes in topography. I really appreciate the sketch of the pedestrian bridge on the packet, but there's not really a mention of the changes in topography between the east and west side of Tractorio Boulevard. And I think that's something that we should Like, acknowledge head on, because it's going to inform how this space gets developed. I think those are my comments on this so far.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Would you like to respond, or are you good? You don't have to.

Yeah, I would just say that our existing conditions report does talk a lot about specifically the topography and some of those challenges in terms of especially mobility for people with mobility challenges getting up and down the hill. You know, our options are a little limited, but it's certainly something, you know, we walked the neighborhood and we heard from folks that, you know, it's tough to get around sometimes. And so. I think one of the things that we would like to do is some of those like through block connections is creating those pathways. So even if it's up and down the hill, making it more direct so people don't have to go all the way around or they're walking on roadways. So I definitely appreciate the acknowledgement of some of those natural features and how that informs policy.

Thank you so much.

Great. Commissioner Conlon.

I think I have a question, Zach and Farah, about a public comment we had. I got pink here and there from different community members too. Can you elaborate about... I understand because we have TR20 and comprehensive plan, which we talk hours on it. I remember doing a comprehensive... I don't even forget TR20, I think, until end of my life. I understand we have that policy, but... I remember when we were talking about that in comprehensive plan, we were saying about like when we are going to neighborhoods, we can have like implementation policies and stuff. Then I don't know if it's missing here or it'd be nice to put it here in the implementation way. For example, I was just trying to write down here and there, but I do have something in my mind, like something about like reduce the congestion and improve travel reliability in the Factorio, blah, blah, blah. But I want to hear from you, where is that missing? And then I can continue my question.

Mm-hmm. So we do have a policy around coordinating specifically with WSDOT on congestion because we've heard a lot of those pain points are as traffic on and off of the highways. So there is a policy in mobility and access around coordinating with WSDOT on congestion. What we also heard from community members is while congestion is a challenge, which we very much document and acknowledge within the plan, when we ask people what they would like to do about it, they say they want alternative modes to get around. We acknowledge this is an auto-dominated neighborhood, but we don't want the future of this area to be defined by that. That's why we want better public transportation. We want trail access, walking and biking, enhanced streetscapes. We don't want to just drive and be dominated by that. And as I mentioned, that's why we try to have those supporting policies to continue to help mitigate those issues. And then, you know, theoretically in the future when there's mixed-use development, people will be able to both live and work and shop within the same area. And, you know, hopefully that could start to address those things too. But I think... Really, the strategies that are already in very fine-grained detail, location-specific in the MIP on congestion relief, we can't really do anything to provide more detail on that. It's already very specific. And within the scope of what we do, mostly around active transportation and what we've heard from community, that's what's informed the policies that, again, somewhat get at congestion relief.

The policy that you are referring is N24? Yes. I believe it's in 25. Okay.

Yes, 25.

Because it's only during the time of construction, which I think that probably the feedback came up, because it was a utility project happening in last two years in factoria. That's why people probably will be frustrated with that utility construction. Like, I don't know if that like saying only impacted during construction is just the policy and the policy level. I'm not convinced, but I can pass and hear from other people. I can ask more questions that go around, but thank you.

Great. Commissioner Goebbels.

Yeah, I would like to focus on that same topic as well. Because I think overall, I could say that having lived very close to Factorio for more than 20 years, I think there are a lot of things that could be improved there in terms of pedestrian access, creating more options to be able to walk safely there, and also the idea of gathering places. You know, in fact, because at this point there are none really. And it's a place that you go to quickly, get your stuff, get out. And it's not a place that you really want to hang out in overall. So I think that'll be helpful. But I was a little bit surprised when I was reading through You know, even the vision statement, the last line of it being a pedestrian-oriented design complemented by strong access to transit and regional transportation networks supports Factorio as a connected and thriving community. It almost seems like an overreach in my mind because I can't get beyond the fact that it's really built around the automobile at this point. And I don't think that's going to go away in Factorio. And so I think... enhancing a lot of the features that you know will make it more walkable and pedestrian is important but ignoring the fact that it's built around the um automobile seems unrealistic to me and so to the extent that you know there are issues with congestion too in relation to the automobile i think we should be addressing that specifically for this neighborhood And I guess I'd like to see kind of an all of the above strategy when it comes to helping mobility and not ignoring the fact that we do have congestion issues. And I'm in the same boat in terms of looking at that one policy and wanting it actually a little bit more broader in terms of trying to address congestion.

Yeah, I appreciate that. And I think with the vision statement, it is aspirational. So, you know, I think we try to offer a blue skies approach to community and that's kind of what they had articulated. But I do appreciate a little level setting and understanding, you know, the existing context and what's possible. Hopefully, again, these are countywide centers which call for these to be served by high capacity transit. They have to be. you know, multimodal, there's going to be mixed use development. We've already got Through HOMA and some of our other recent initiatives, you know, we're calling for improved streetscape designs, those three connections. So we're already starting to see some of those improvements codified. And I think as redevelopment happens in that area, we'll start to realize this vision. But again, certainly it has a history of being auto-dominated and that's to some extent always, or at least for our foreseeable future, going to impact the outcomes and the reality within the community. Yeah.

I'd also add that, as Zach said, this is hopefully we get approved and designated as a countywide center. But what it's sort of a chicken and the egg scenario. So as Zach said, this, our vision is very aspirational, but the intent is that we are wanting to achieve a multimodal environment there. And that's part of the requirements under the countywide center. The hope is that we'll get funding through that designation in the future. And so really be able to have transportation improvements that go into Factorio that help us achieve and realize that vision.

Yeah, I mean, I guess when I was looking at the vision statement, I was thinking it would be more realistic to refer to it as something like, you know, increasing walkability, pedestrian-oriented design elements, you know, rather than saying that that is the nature of the area, that it's a, you know, walkable, pedestrian-oriented area. design overall. I mean, I just, I feel like, I feel like we're trying to, you know, totally redo an area that I don't think is realistic, that it's going to be able to be done even in a 10 to 20 year period with respect to how much it's built around in automobiles. And that's part of the reason why when I think about congestion and the problems that people have, I don't think that I think that should be addressed as well. So. I had one other comment, which is just have to do with the, with the community centers, because one of the things that has always struck me is how different, like factorial mall is from Crossroads Mall, and because it's not really a gathering place. And I don't know whether there's a way that it could become something more like Crossroads Mall, because Crossroads Mall is great in that regard. It is a gathering place for the community. It's a focal point. And I don't know whether that's something the city could... in some way help to make happen. For Factorio, it's never had that feeling.

Yeah. So it's interesting. I think we have a couple of policies and we've heard a lot of community feedback and I've been to them all many times and it's very much noticeable difference. So it's not somewhere you necessarily want to go just to hang out in as you go there for a purpose and you leave, which is kind of Factorio as a whole. Um, so we have one policy that's, you know, better leverage factory as a gathering space. Um, you know, we had talked to, they already have some events there. So it could certainly be a lot more. Um, and when we talked to arts commission, they were thinking, well, maybe they could, um, there could be a program where the city could be almost like an intermediary between the mall and nonprofits, artists, community organizations to facilitate that being more of a gathering space and a hub for folks. So that's kind of one option that came out of that conversation. But I think there's a role that we can play into better supporting the vision for the mall. And we talked to the mall owners and they said, you know, we certainly would like more people at the mall. We're open to events. We have some and would like to have more. And then the other thing is, I think the big difference is that Crossroads has a mini city hall. And that brings people from all over, especially Northern Bellevue, for services and information. And that, I think, brings so much more activity to the mall that then kind of creates other insights, other events and other things. And the shops thrive because there's more activity there. And so we also have a policy calling for a second mini city hall, which is an idea that had been explored in the past. But for funding reasons and a couple other things didn't didn't um wasn't able to move forward but i think re-exploring that especially when we see a lot of growth here there is going to be a need for city services and information um in in south bellevue and i think the mall would be a great place for it and would kind of serve dual purposes for both serving community as well as creating gathering spaces and making that a more vibrant hub for people that's great great great ideas thank you zach thank you uh commissioner kennedy

Thank you. Following the conversation that was just had, I also think that Crossroads Mall has a library and a giant chessboard. So those things are really helpful and very much agree with the sentiment of thinking of innovative ways to... use the focal points and natural centers of the existing neighborhood to enhance those gathering spaces and love those features of the Crossroads Mall. So just plus one. I'm curious on the conversation regarding N25 and addressing congestion. N21 read to me like a policy that's aiming at creating more connections in high capacity areas. And that to me, I was understanding it to be something that is looking at addressing congestion issues. Am I misreading N21? Yeah.

No, I mean, so both public transit, access to it, and active transportation, which is walking and biking, are all things that take stress off of our roadways because they provide alternate modes. So that's when I said, you know, our congestion, we do have policies that can work to mitigate congestion. And through the scope of great neighborhoods, active transportation works. and like enhancing streetscapes, which is in turn, it improves access to public transit. So that that does work to do that. You know, there is a planned light rail station or a proposed light rail station that will serve factory at some point in the future. So whenever that occurs, that'll certainly help that. And we want to, again, create these connections to those to those stations. So we know that we want to plan for the connections because if you just build a station there, people have to get to it. So we have to be forward thinking about how we're creating those connections which again, I think speaks to some of the issues that we've been talking about.

Okay. Okay. And that was also helpful because I think active transportation is more limited to ped and cycle, not car transportation, but agree that that is intended to reduce. I also drive through that area every day, so I do see the car congestion. So share the several comments that have been made this evening around desiring to address that at the same time that we're creating N21-like policies to try to relieve it. So fantastic to hear. And thinking about that pedestrian access and the other policies around gathering spaces and parks and environmental enhancements, one of the things you mentioned early on in your presentation was Coal Creek access and the number of comments that had come up from stakeholders regarding having access to that amazing and world-class trail system.

Mm-hmm.

And I think that is incredibly important. And there is this lovely opportunity for pedestrian access along a sidewalk that connects a trail access that has been enhanced already for Coal Creek and Factoria that leads right to Newport High School. And I was really excited at Commissioner Villavase's comments regarding creating a, my words, not his thoroughfare between Newport and that upper area. I forget, this is a different map. It doesn't have that magenta circle. But yeah, there we go. The threshold at the top. And I think if we could create access like you have here, potentially sketched out where That Coal Creek Parkway is enabling pedestrian access for all of those students from Newport High. Certainly, if it's a new community center, that you can go from the trails all the way up to the threshold at the north of this map. And that would be absolutely fantastic and wonderful. very, very possible and right there. But that current sidewalk that enables that connection is not enjoyable. It is covered with blackberries. I see people on it every day and they look like they are trying to pretend they're somewhere else. And I would too, because it has cars constantly on Coal Creek Parkway and a cement wall on the other side. And so it's Creating some other more enjoyable pedestrian experience there would be amazing. So just wanted to support that as a policy. I see that it's in 31, I think. And I think it's really possible.

Yeah, I mean, I really appreciate that. When we did our walks with community, which included a lot of students, I was very surprised to hear that they didn't even know Coal Creek Park existed because, I mean... Oh, but it's so beautiful. Right, but when you look at it, I mean, there's no way to get in there. It's just kind of this vegetated wall. You could think it was anything else. Right, exactly. So we have, you know, signage and wayfinding is a big piece of that. The reason I was going back to this map is because we've got our enhanced active transportation along Coal Creek Parkway. So looking at, okay, this is complete streets. We want better sidewalks that feel comfortable, that feel safe. And then we've got that arrow that goes directly into Coal Creek Park. So this is like, okay, we need to create that access point. And the reason it's there specifically and not, say, um farther to the east or to the right um is because around that area there's an existing access road like a utility road that goes in there everywhere else uh to the east is a very steep slope so in terms of like people with mobility challenges that wouldn't be a great access point we want to leverage that existing road that is built there and think about we've been talking with parks about this um but that's a fantastic amenity and especially and more of the near term before we can develop new parks through property acquisition or other means, having better connections to the existing nearby national areas is really important.

But that's fantastic. I love hearing it. So very supportive.

Great. Thank you. Commissioner Ferris.

Yes. A couple of comments. Actually, just as an aside, we're talking about Crossroads versus Factorian. It would be lovely to try to get more movement in that direction. I will say that the developer of Crossroads was very intentional about wanting it to be a third place. You might have heard of third place books. So he started with the idea of what Crossroads has now become. So it's, again, just somebody was thinking about that a long, long time ago. Yeah. A couple of quick comments for me. First of all, great job. You have had to assimilate so much input, so much information. And at least when I was reading through that document, it was really impressive. So I just have to say, fantastic. I do have a couple of quick comments and questions. If you could go to slide 24. Are we on 24? There we are. So I was looking specifically at the bike trails, the yellow line, and it looks like it just stops in both places. And here we're trying to connect to East Rail and Daily and also to Commissioner Villavase's point about trying to get access to the South Bellevue Park and Ride. It just seems like. This is a big swing and a miss. This is how I'm reading it, because it sure seems like we've got to develop much better bicycle access to those two places in particular.

So the yellow line indicates existing facilities. So that is true that on one twenty fourth. the bike lane goes about halfway up and then it ends. And that's why we have the dotted blue line, which is active transportation, which includes walking and biking. And we're showing that connection going all the way up to the Factoria Trail, connecting to the Mount Sasan Greenway, and then to the south, having that connect along Coal Creek Parkway to East Rail, because there is only an existing small section. So we're saying we want to extend active transportation, including bicycle infrastructure, all the way up to create a complete network.

Okay. Okay, so you do have that in mind. What about to the South Bellevue Park and Ride?

So, yeah, we do have policy on that. It's not shown within this map because it's outside of the neighborhood area, but we do have at least one policy that speaks to... Um, so we've got develop active transportation connections to high capacity transit stops. Um, and I think there's, there's one more, but specifically, you know, we had heard that from our business community, um, especially those at T-Mobile and AAA that. there is kind of this piecemeal network of a boardwalk and a gravel and a dirt path. And there's no real way to get there, especially if you're on a bike. I mean, if you're walking it. So I think that's where, you know, we said we need both active transportation connections to high capacity transit, as well as the wayfinding and signage. So, you know, okay, it's going to take me 30 minutes to walk to the light rail station. That's the kind of information, even in the interim, when we can't make the trail improvements, at least people know how long it's going to take them. So they have the information for them to make an informed decision. So I think we're pretty intentional about calling both of those things out and it was an explicit need from the community.

So I would just kind of do a pile on. There's lots of comments about trying to address the congestion of cars. I would like to see a really specific policy around getting access to the light rail station because that's such a critical part of our transportation infrastructure. So making that really explicit to me would make a lot of sense.

In terms of just calling out South Bellevue Station.

Yes. Yes. Very specific. And then one more quick thing. Go back to 25. So you've got lots of things listed on here, which is great. I also saw on the plan you showed like a what if we had a pedestrian bridge that, you know, you would allow people to get a refectory bill. My big question is the great idea is who pays for it?

Great Crescent for our transportation department. Also, as far as I know, I don't think we're prioritizing the pedestrian bridge. That was like an old rendering. And we're focusing more on crosswalks on major thoroughfares. So as far as I know, the pedestrian bridge is not a priority for our transportation department and probably also not very financially feasible.

Yeah, I'm assuming that. I'm just wondering... Is this in many of our other code of policies, we're kind of waiting for the landowners to redevelop and then incorporate stuff. But some of these things seems like there's something that really the city's going to have to invest in. So I'm just, and you don't have to answer the question. I just kind of want to put it out there to say, it would be really nice to figure out how in the world would we find funding for this?

Noted. I appreciate it.

Okay. But again, you've done a great job. So thank you. That's all I have.

Thank you. Thank you. All right, Commissioner Nielshian.

Thank you. I'm going to rehash a lot of what you already heard because my fellow commissioners have gone in the same direction that I was anticipating them going. First off, thank you for your work on this and for giving this presentation. I thought it was very, very helpful and I really appreciate the concept maps that you showed. I thought those were great. First, I'd like to applaud that change that you made regarding collaborations with schools. I think that was a very helpful piece of community feedback. And I, you know, I'm glad that that is making it into, into the draft. Um, but then I'd also like to, uh, kind of build off of the comments made by vice chair of Villa basis and commissioner Kennedy on trying to find some kind of additional, um, gathering place, maybe a park, something in that northern half of the Factoria neighborhood to try to pull people from give, give people a reason to go from the high school over to that area and, and engage, increase engagement throughout, uh, the whole of the factorial neighborhood. I, you know, I was happy to see N15 about acquiring suitable property for neighborhood parks. Um, I'd be interested in exploring maybe, um, acquiring property for, for some other kinds of, uh, maybe services, I know libraries were mentioned, some other public gathering space, if that's feasible for us to do in this project. My other comment is regarding this change to the streets infrastructure that we're working on here. I appreciate the emphasis on pedestrian and biking. I also feel like I go to Factoria a good amount. I feel like that area lacks in greenery and trees. I think if you're going to someplace like U Village, you're seeing a lot of trees on the sidewalks and nice green spaces that you can walk through and around. That would be something I would like to see emphasized as well in this, if possible. You know, like Commissioner Ferris mentioned, the question then becomes who's going to implement it and who's going to pay for it. But if we can find a way to emphasize increasing greenery and trees in that area, I think that would go a long way for making people want to stay in that area, not just go there and leave.

Right. Yeah. So we do have policy in the environmental section that specifically gets to that because we've heard that from a lot of folks. So we've got both increased tree canopy focusing on streetscapes, public property, environmental sensitive areas. I mean, that's huge. This is one of our lowest tree canopy neighborhoods in the city. Definitely a big priority. We have that policy. And then 35, which is specifically looking at we have these vast, you know, oceans of paved areas and to be able to incorporate landscaping, uh, our low impact development. So like some of that stormwater management, green infrastructure. So that's definitely something we've heard and we're prioritizing through this. So it might, it doesn't like come through in the concept plan. Um, but it's definitely through policy. That's, that's a focus for this neighborhood, especially, and there's a lot of equity issues, climate issues tied to that. So I do appreciate that. Um, and then in terms of gathering spaces, um, I certainly think in the northern part of Factorio, it could benefit from that. We've got this green dot, which is potential park space, but also gathering spaces, both in the near term and then as redevelopment occurs. And then we've got similarly the one on the former Puesta del Sol school site. So we want to think how can we partner with the school if there's a future for redevelopment or if they're using the school and get some dual use of that site. We've had some conversations with them about that. So that's another kind of natural place where we could have some of those gathering spaces. I think the rest of it, as outlined in policies, we're really relying on community partners, private property owners to collaborate with us to provide those community spaces because this is private property. I know the strategic property acquisition is specifically something that parks does. And so I think their scope is a little narrower in terms of like it would be for park space, not a library. But I mean, I think anywhere in the neighborhood area we could benefit from gathering spaces. But we do, again, try to show a little bit of an equitable distribution

about both sides of factory boulevard and then both to the north and to the south great thank you thank you great thank you all um so the commissioners have made great points already and thank you so much for the presentation and all the community engagement i know there's a lot of events around i attended a couple of them and they were really well done I'm going to just emphasize, I guess, two different points that some of the administrators have talked about already. The first one is the trail access and parks. I think there's N15 and N31 that both kind of emphasize acquisition and then connection. I do think both of them could probably be strengthened. I think the first N15 one is more about connection points to existing parks. I think N15 is acquisition of parks that are near transit. I think this area just needs more parks. I don't think it needs to be qualified by access to transit. I think you can see on that map how lacking it is in terms of overall greenery space. So I'll let staff kind of go about how to go about that. But I do think it's worth emphasizing those points of park acquisition, building community gathering spaces, greenery. I think it all combines into that one. The second thing I want to just plus one to what Commissioner Ferris said about the access to South Public Station. A couple of people have mentioned this as well. I think that we could strengthen the policy around the connection to high-use transit. Maybe it is calling out specifically South Bellevue Station. But one of the problems with the connection to South Bellevue Station from Factoria is specifically you go from the Mounds to Greenway Sound Trail. I always get the name wrong. But yeah, that one, the I-90 Trail. And then you get to the area just south of South Bellevue Station. And then it becomes this really... rickety like partly paved but very broken path and so i think emphasizing a uh you know the policy to say maybe like a fully connected uh pathway or access point some things that kind of add a little responsibility for us to build not just the factoria piece of that access to the south bovie but also kind of extend it out to beyond just factoria would be good for us to see that all the way through those are my two points appreciate it uh i'll do another round uh i think we're we've generally given good direction let's kind of keep this one quick and then we can kind of go on to see if we want to make a motion to uh to set up public hearing so um we'll do a second round here so vice chair via basis thank you i plus one the the comments about mentioning south bellevue station i think uh

I think the priority right now all around the city is to connect to the train. Once you get to the train station, you can go anywhere. And Factorio is kind of this watershed, like it's just grabbing everything from South Bellevue. So as long as you can get to Factorio, you should be able to get to the train and that gap is missing. So I appreciate that. I also would like to include alternative modes of transportation. I know we're talking about micromobility and bicycles and buses and train and all this stuff. I think there's a mode that is very well suited for difficult topography, and that's something that could potentially bridge Newport Hills or Colt Creek to Factoria and then over to South Bellevue Station. This is a real example in my hometown. This is... It works really well.

We've heard something similar from a couple of community members.

Can you describe the picture, Commissioner? It's like a skiing gondola.

I think it's the longest one in the world, right? I forgot how many miles it is. It's so long.

But this is an option to connect all these places that have like, they're choked by topography, right? And axes. And you could connect from Bellevue, from Newport Hill Center to Victoria or something like that, or to Newport High School. And then you could connect from Victoria to South Bellevue Station and so on and so forth. Another one is, we probably should be intentional. I don't know how this translates into policy about which mode is appropriate to which location. And I would like to follow up on Commissioner Lew's comment about expanding the reach. Talking about Victoria, but understanding that this is going to affect what's around it. Not only South Valley Station, but also Newcastle and Renton. I think it would be great to collaborate. I think it's Policy 25. Collaborate with... nearby jurisdictions, I guess. Because Coal Creek is a natural corridor, but it's so dangerous. I don't know if anybody has ridden a bike over there, but it's pretty scary and it's really hilly. But it's a natural corridor for e-bikes. That resolves the topography and all you need to do is have a segregated safe. lane and then all of a sudden you're moving a lot of people from from almost renton from like borin all the way through factoria and then coal creek almost to south wavy station you just have that little gap that you can bridge by kayak across the slope so that those are my comments that's it thank you thank you commissioner khanu

I think I was going through the neighborhood scan and then some of the comments in the questionnaire. On page 44, we have like 15 respond and all the 15 said one of the way that they are commuting is a car. And it's from 15 from the 15 respondents. They have, some of them has a walk or like a bus there, but like the car is the only thing that is repeating there. And then on page 66, I see so many people talk about being congested. And I think it'd be nice if you show the frequency of the response of the questioners. It'd be nice to have the clear picture of what people respond. Because I understand the explanatory of that one, but I feel there's so many things missing. From all the things I was like literally reading stuff. There's so many things like, for example, the congested it's like on page 66 has been repeated like so many times that people can like complain about that a lot. But the question is the way that. That question was not there, but when we have an open question that people can talk about, how do you describe your neighborhood, the first word or the second one was congested. I was complaining. I hate walking in the congested area. If you make a beautiful place, but it's all the cars, congested, I think it's not going to be a desirable, walkable area. I want to figure out if the commission... agrees to figure out to correct N25, maybe removing the impact during construction to make it more high level. Or I was writing something, I saw Commissioner Gephold is writing something too. I was writing something here. I want to say something about design and develop the arterioles and intersection, including vehicle capacity to reduce congestion for existing and future traffic and demand, or something like that, like something along the side to be comprehensive with the comprehensive plan, to just like back up what we have in comprehensive plan. Because we have like two bike policy, which I appreciate it. We need it. But I feel... It sounds like based on the comment that I'm hearing from community, we're just giving up on the car traffic and congestion. I don't want they feel that. And I understand about, I want to hear from transportation commission too. I didn't have a chance to reach out to them, but I think we need to fix N25 somehow to be able to be more better.

Staff would be open, amenable to making that change if there's direction from the commission.

Yeah, I think we can add that as direction. And we don't need to modify the recommendation at this point since it's still a question.

Yeah, there's still opportunity for us to come back with revised language. And that's the whole point of tonight's study session. Thank you.

Commissioner Goebbels.

Yeah, I was just going to plus one Commissioner Conlow's comment as well that I'd like to see a broader, you know, congestion mitigation goal or policy and SF and 25. And I was also going to just plus one the the idea of calling out South Bellevue Station and a fully connected path to that, maybe as part of SFN 21. Because I think that would be a huge benefit to just trying to create uh means for people to be able to use transit and active transportation so yeah those are the two things that um are important for me thank you thanks commissioner kennedy

I don't have any additional comments. I did have a question on the schools being able to use schools as gathering places on this in 17. Is this a policy that Bellevue has in every neighborhood? that we're supporting those schools being part of community gathering spaces? Or is this going to only be specific to Victoria? It seems like it would be a great idea anywhere.

I would say, and Zach, you can probably add on as well. We have been quite lately, we have started coordinating very closely with the Bellevue School District. So really talking through other opportunities as we go through these neighborhood plan updates, other opportunities to really form stronger partnerships. And so I think that this will be an ongoing conversation.

So it won't just be just something that we can incorporate more broadly in other zones and neighborhoods. That's fantastic.

I think we had a similar policy that came up during the Crossroads Newport neighborhood area plan.

Okay. And I also like the two proposals for revisions to N21 and N25 to remove the during construction on N25 and add including South Bellevue Station on N21. So plus one that.

Thank you. Minister Farris.

I actually don't have anything else to add.

Thank you. Commissioner Neal-Cheung.

I have no additional comments except to say that I agree with both of the proposed changes in South Bellevue Park and Ride and the getting rid of the during construction portion. Thank you. Thanks.

Great. I don't have any more either. So I think just going through some of what we talked about. So first one was a mention of more of the school, both as a node, but also connections to different areas within Newport or within a Factorio and then And also as community gathering places, I think N17 was mentioned there. There were a couple comments around support for a congestion-related policy. I think N25 was proposed as a potential alteration or just a net new one, and specifically focusing that around automobile access. A couple points on emphasizing community gathering places. I don't think any specific policies were mentioned there, but I think maybe some proposals around strengthening the policy language that we have right now around some of those gathering spaces and connections there. uh trails and parks access i think n15 and n31 were mentioned as areas for improvement uh south bellevue station access calling out specifically and then potentially modifying n21 uh for that uh as a kind of fully connected lane or fully connected uh connection um and then uh the last one was i think more emphasis on green spaces with n30 and n35 being potentials for moderation yeah

I have another question. I read in the comments that it was someone asking about N24 that we were saying about coordinate the high trip generating location to improve safety and access to driveways at the peak hours. What does that mean, access to driveways?

So this was a result of our engagement with the T-Mobile and AAA folks, and there's on Southeast 36, which parallels 90, they have their two main egresses from their headquarters there, and at rush hour pretty much you can't get out of that driveway you have people driving using the turn lane as a second lane um so more traffic demand management in those areas for safety purposes but just also to help people get in and out of those areas um so that's that's what that's designed this is so narrow to be in the policy level it's just

When I'm reading it, if I have a residential home there, I feel it's about my driveway. Like when I'm reading it out of the concept, I think it's a little bit not clear for me personally. I don't know how the commission think about it. And the other thing was like in comprehensive plan, when we were doing it, we were using the verbiage more powerful, like not encouraging, facilitating. Can you just... we use the web bridge that we were using. It was more like in a harder spot of the web. If we can make it a little bit better, like implementing like something like a little bit to be implementational. Sorry. I just, it just came to my mind is too.

That's good. Sorry, I guess I'm going to clarify that. Are you just saying overall the policies need more enhancement?

It's my personal opinion. I forgot to share that one. And then the other one is in SFN 24. I think the driveways is pretty weak.

Okay, yeah, we can maybe consider alternatives on N24, I think. At least for the policies that we've highlighted here, I think those are the areas where we want emphasis on stronger language.

Can I get a little clarification on N24, just so I understand what you mean? Yeah, I guess I'll...

When I'm reading it, I saw in the public comments, I don't know if you respond to the public comments, so many people added the questionnaire. In some of the questionnaire, people were asking specifically, what does a driveway mean on N24? I don't know what you respond to those people, but I'm assuming those people are like me and they're thinking we are talking about their driveways as a residential single family home instead of T-Mobile specific road, specific section. Right. I don't think that policy is telling us we're talking about that specific section of the factoria.

So you would like to see that more specific because like high trip generating locations is just like too generic.

If it's valid to use it in the policy level for the neighborhood, talking about one section, all this is the impact is so high. I don't know. I'm just...

I mean, yeah, I would just say we heard this not only from the people who work there, but from surrounding residents because that impacts how they access their neighborhood.

Maybe more specific. I don't know how commission feels about it.

Let's... Okay. Uh... I think we can just, we can maybe explore that one a little bit later at the public hearing. I think that one, and I'll just say my personal opinion on that is that there are a number of single family homes there that do also face congestion during high traffic hours, like that area right before you get to like St. Margaret's is like a prime example of that.

So I think that's what we need to specific the area that we are talking in my opinion. Like, I feel like maybe if I'm on like one of the random streets, I feel it's about my driveway too. But again, that's my understanding.

I think that might be the point of it, but we can also just save that for the public hearing and then get people's comments about if they want to see that more specifically.

We had a public comment just now.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. I think otherwise, is direction clear from commission on the policies? Great. Then can I get a motion if people are comfortable with to set a public hearing?

I'd like to make a motion that we direct staff to hold a public hearing to review this.

Second. Great. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

None. Great. Thank you, staff. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Good work.

Is everybody open to a quick five-minute bathroom break and then back? Okay. Sounds good. Let's meet back here at 8.05. Thank you.

Yeah. And in fact, .

Thank you.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How are you doing?

I was just like, how are you, Kate? I couldn't think of that. I was just like, how are you?

I'm actually starting to think that.

All right, we're back in session for our next topic. The City of Bellevue is updating its land use code to comply with new state laws that change how cities regulate parking for new development, as well as updates to the city's comprehensive plan policies. The project will also explore opportunities to simplify and consolidate parking regulations citywide. Planning Manager Christina Gallant and Senior Planner Sean Edgehill will provide the presentation. Thank you both.

Thank you. Good evening, Chair Liu, Vice Chair Villaveses, Council Member Bhargava, and Commissioners. This evening, we are here with our first study session on the full proposed LUCA for the Parking Reform Land Use Code Amendment. This LUCA is necessary for the city to achieve compliance with Senate Bills 5184 and 6015, as well as specific parking-related provisions of HB 1491, also known as the TOD Bill. A side note is that 1491 is a much more substantial piece of legislation, and the bulk of that legislation will be implemented through a separate future project. Uh, so with regard to the Luca here, uh, parking can be a really significant cost driver for new development, particularly when the required parking exceeds actual demand. Uh, when requirements are too high, there's a risk of properties under building to design a prop, a project to the amount of parking that can justify rather than leading with the best use of the land. Uh, this magnifies when underground parking is required, um, along with other factors common in Bellevue, like high water table. So to that end, legislation has introduced limits on how much parking can be required for residential and commercial uses, and also creates new exemptions for transit rich locations and for specific land uses. It also introduced some limits and how the city can regulate the physical characteristics of parking spaces and lots. At this stage, the proposal includes updates necessary for compliance without going further. There's two major reasons for our approach here. First, the updates that are coming with the state law are focused on the areas where we would first look to implementing parking reforms. And those areas that there's the most potential for losses due to unbalanced parking requirements, including our light rail and BRT station areas. These changes are also consistent with our affordable housing strategy goals around reducing parking requirements near transit. as well as several housing element goals regarding promoting housing density choice and affordability near transit, as well as evaluating the housing cost and supply implications of regulations. On the other hand, the second rationale is that we have heard many in the community are apprehensive about these changes. And while there's a lot we can draw from other communities, we acknowledge we can't fully predict the impact of some of these changes. There's nothing to stop us from reevaluating going further once we've had a chance to observe the effects of the minimum compliance approach, especially as ridership on the two line continues to grow. In addition, if we were going to go further, we would recommend more substantial outreach and analysis beyond what's practical to do with the 2027 deadline. We'll get into this a bit further, but we really, despite a heavy push and some really solid engagement plans, struggled to get more substantial engagement on this process, despite the fact that we know this is an issue of high concern to a lot of people. So with that in mind, while we're not going further, it's a good opportunity to set us up for future analysis and monitoring. And just to wrap up, so while it's not required, we did also take the opportunity to clean up and consolidate our parking-related provisions throughout the code to really substantially improve ease of use and clarity. So this evening, the direction that we are going to be seeking, we're going to be presenting the LUCA in its entirety, and we will be seeking feedback on the key components of the LUCA and requesting the commission to provide direction to schedule a public hearing at a future meeting. That I will pass to Sean.

Thank you, Christina. Good evening, Commissioners. To guide our discussion, we're going to begin with the core objectives of the amendment, followed by legislative background driving these updates. We will then dive into the specific components of the proposed code, touch on topics that City Council directed us to evaluate, recap our public engagement efforts, and wrap up with the project schedule and next steps. Let's start by looking at the core objectives driving this amendment forward. This Luca has three primary objectives. First and foremost, we must fulfill state mandated statutory requirements under Senate bills fifty one eighty four and sixty fifteen alongside parking provisions within House Bill fourteen ninety one. beyond strict compliance this project presents an excellent opportunity for code optimization we are working to consolidate disparate parking requirements currently scattered throughout various chapters of the land use code into a single unified section in doing so we aim to standardize our parking ratios replacing outdated or overly complex rules with clear objective and predictable metrics that ease the review process for both staff and applicants Next, we'll dive deeper into what each state bill requires. Collectively, Senate Bill 6015, House Bill 1491, and Senate Bill 5184 introduce exemptions to local parking mandates based on land use and proximity to transit. They establish reduced minimum off-street parking requirements and place strict caps on municipal parking regulations. It is important to emphasize right at the outset here, while the city can no longer mandate these higher parking levels, developers still retain full flexibility to build more parking if their specific project or market demand warrants it. Now let's go ahead and look at exactly where these state mandates apply within Bellevue. Under the parking section of House Bill 1491, municipalities are strictly prohibited from requiring off-street parking for residential or mixed-use developments within specific walking distances of frequent transit. The proposed LUCA draft implements necessary updates for minimum compliance with the state law. Specifically, this applies to any development located within a half mile walking distance of a light rail station or within a quarter mile walking distance of a rapid ride station or bus rapid transit. The walk shed shown on the map here is an estimation measured along streets. Projects are going to be required to demonstrate that their site is within the walking distance when they apply for permits. It is notable here to, again, reiterate what Christina mentioned. The remainder of House Bill 1451, the TOD bill, will be coming forward between now and the end of the decade. I believe 2029 is the deadline that we have set for us as part of a future transit-oriented development, LUCA, that will be coming in the fall. Near future, but beyond specific transit locations, the state is also exempted specific, several specific land use categories entirely, which are shown on this next slide here. So, no minimum parking can be required for any small residential units under 1200 square feet, or for small commercial spaces under 3000. Additionally, exemptions apply to affordable housing, senior housing, childcare centers, ground floor commercial spaces, and mixed-use buildings, and commercial to residential adaptive reuse conversions. It also covers simple changes of use between different commercial activities. By removing minimum parking barriers during a change of tenant, incoming small businesses can now occupy existing commercial spaces without being penalized by legacy parking shortages. For the areas and uses where the state does still allow us to require parking, they have instituted strict caps to minimum requirements. For residential uses, multifamily parking mandates cannot exceed half a space per unit. A shift from our historical range of up to one space for single family uses, the mandate is capped at one space per unit, down from our current requirement of two. For commercial uses, the requirement cannot exceed two spaces per thousand square feet, which generalizes and lowers a standard that previously scaled up to 16 spaces per thousand square feet, depending on the specific use. And in addition to capping the ratios, the state has now also updated on how we regulate physical development standards. Under the new rule, cities must allow both enclosed and unenclosed parking spaces to account equally towards any remaining minimum requirements. We also must permit tandem parking configurations to satisfy these minimums. Additionally, the state establishes a standard maximum required stall dimension of eight by 20 feet for typical spaces with exceptions to ADA accessible spaces. and places minor limitations on how strictly we can regulate parking surface materials. Now that we've covered the state mandates, we can delve further into the code consolidation portion. Historically parking regulations in Bellevue have been spread out with separate neighborhood specific rules scattered across various special districts and chapters. We evaluated these disparate regulations to establish a consistent baseline citywide standard. By bringing these pieces together into a single unified parking chapter, we ensure compliance with state law while making the entire land use code vastly more user-friendly. The first major section of this new chapter deals specifically with consolidated off-street parking. Recent state mandates have significantly changed how Bellevue regulates off-street parking. This consolidated code section establishes a simpler, lower baseline for new development and tenant transitions. Here we eliminate complex and overly specific parking ratios in favor of a broader commercial category to comply with state law and streamline the permitting process. Where older rules required four to five spaces per thousand square feet for office or retail and between 14 to 16 spaces for restaurants, the new standard establishes a flat cap of no more than two spaces per thousand square feet across all commercial uses citywide. Again, as we stated earlier, developers will retain the flexibility to build more parking if the project requires it. This is simply a regulatory cap that is placed. While commercial and standard residential maximums are capped by the state, our second component here focuses on unified visitor parking rules. We have centralized and unified our visitor parking language, maintaining the framework established under the downtown and east main overlays. and including multifamily development citywide that exceed middle housing thresholds at seven dwelling units or greater. This can help to tackle resident concern surrounding spillover parking impacting on street neighborhood parking. And an item of note here, we did recognize an error within our draft language that is going to be updated. While exemptions apply across the subsection detailing what minimum parking regulations we are implementing, state law actually has given us the leeway to make the distinction that visitor parking requirements can still be applied. So we will be making an amendment to that language. Moving from parking numbers to physical spaces. Our third component updates our design standards. This Lucas standardizes minimum parking space dimension citywide to align with the state's 8 by 20 foot benchmark. Importantly, it introduces modern flexibility for environmental sustainability by permitting alternative surfacing materials, such as grass block papers. It also addresses local legal nonconformities by establishing clear, reasonable pathways to allow for certain existing gravel spaces to remain without triggering punitive upgrade requirements. We identified several parking-related sections that, while not strictly required to be changed by state law, made practical sense to clean up as part of this consolidation. We have unified and simplified the minimum dimensional standards for loading spaces and streamlined standard parking lot drive aisle widths to reflect modern design practices. While staff focused on compliance and consolidation, the City Council also asked us to evaluate a few expanded policy options, which I will share next. During initial briefing, City Council directed staff to evaluate two expanded policy options, eliminating parking minimum citywide and expanding parking reform near transit. Following our evaluation, staff recommends implementing baseline state compliance at this time for the following reasons. The state mandates under this LUCA already target areas where parking reform will be most impactful. Additionally, a conservative approach allows us to monitor track and evaluate real world development impacts of these new regulations before considering broader local expansions. And finally, adhering to the state baseline provides a stable, predictable path forward for Bellevue today, while preserving the opportunity to make calibration adjustments in future code amendments. Wallace Luca focuses exclusively on off street parking. We do want to also highlight a critical parallel effort from the transportation department in the place of the curb management plan to manage on street parking congestions and high growth areas. Transportation department is transitioning from free car curbside parking to a paid parking model within downtown Wilberton, Bell Red and the Spring District. uh so coordinating our off-street regulations with this active on-street management also ensures a balanced comprehensive approach to uh city-wide parking demand i apologize on our public engagement community voices have been central to this process we did con we did conduct a public outreach campaign throughout the spring to ensure that residents and stakeholders understood these changes and could voice concerns Uh, this did include a virtual information session in February, followed by series of interactive in person data walks. Um. In April and May at city hall and the crossroads community center respectively. Uh, we conclude our active outreach with a virtual lunch and learn session on May eight. Based on our review of the feedback received, the public's input generally fell within three main areas. Support for reduced mandates was seen as several commenters did express strong support for reducing car dependence, citing environmental benefits, support for transit-oriented lifestyles, and opportunities to convert underutilized parking lots into productive commercial or residential space. However, conversely, we also saw concerns over neighborhood spillover. Many residents did share significant anxieties regarding potential street congestion. They raised concerns about parking spilling over into surrounding residential neighborhoods, guest parking shortages, and potential access issues for first responders and waste management services. Finally, we did receive a variety of targeted questions looking at broader system impacts, including EV charging readiness, standardizing compact stall dimensions, curb pricing or neighborhood parking permits, and maintaining adequate parking access for individuals with disabilities. Many of these comments helped staff to format our draft code proposal before you tonight. Looking at our timeline, the statutory state deadline for full compliance is January of 2027. We are on track to meet this goal. Following tonight's session, the next major milestone will be to bring the refined code language back to you at a formal public hearing next month, setting us up for final council action ahead of the state's deadline. With that timeline in mind, I'll conclude by bringing us back to the specific direction we are seeking from you tonight. Staff is looking to you for your feedback on the consolidated code components that we've discussed and ultimately direction to schedule this item for a public hearing. Christine and I are happy to answer any questions you may have or dive deeper into specific sections of the proposed text. Thank you.

Thank you both. That was great. All right. I'll go around and get every commissioner's opinion again. I'll go in reverse order of last time. I will say I'm not going to discourage everybody from speaking their minds, but also I see this as a very compliance oriented exercise. So let's try and consolidate our points and I'll still do the two rounds. And with that, I'll start with you, Commissioner Neal-Chun.

I am the wrong person to start with this because I, given that this is very compliance oriented, I don't have any questions for you. Just do what you have to do to follow state law.

All right. Commissioner Ferris.

Oh, yes. One quick question and then a comment. So could you go back to slide nine? And I think I'm going to ask what this means. I think I know, but I just want to. So when you talk about tandem parking, I think that was on slide nine. Yes. Is that where like two people can use the space at different times? Tell me what's the what's the definition of tandem parking?

Yeah, so the definition of tandem parking is where you have two parking spaces, one in front of the other, and the front parking space has more access in and out than the one behind. This is a parking space requirement that came out of 6015, I believe. And the allowance for this is one that we tried to make sure that we facilitated.

Okay. And specifically that those tandem spaces are required to count towards the minimum requirements. Yeah.

Okay. That's very helpful. Thank you. Just one really quick comment. Obviously, there's some push to be able to essentially eliminate parking requirements, which I'm I think I would love to see, but I also really respect your decision to say, let's keep it to the state mandated minimums and then let's track it. My only comment back is I would like to see a very specific timeline on when we're going to reevaluate whether or not the parking standards are working or whether we can potentially push it farther. And I don't know whether that's three years or it's five years, but I would like to see not just some time in the future, but a specific timeline on when we're going to reevaluate.

Absolutely. Great. Thank you. Commissioner Kennedy.

I would plus one on the timeline. I was also curious when we would be reevaluating, and I think you presented some interesting options to consider. So what is the criteria for revisiting those options and considerations? You also mentioned TOD LUCA that's coming our way soon. Can you expand a bit on the impact that that may have on parking? Just was interested to hear a little bit more about your reference to it.

I can go ahead and start with this. In regards to the parking impact, the largest portion of the TOD bill in regards to this is the station area development here. So with regards to light rail stations or bus stations, there's actually walking distances where minimum parking isn't actually permitted to be required by municipalities. for residential or mixed-use developments. And that's the largest implementation that we have currently. There's going to be more to take into consideration with those station areas when we actually approach the TOD LUCA itself.

Yeah, so we're in the process of scoping that one out internally. The bulk of the bill has an end of 2029 compliance deadline, and it's going to involve some updates to minimum FARs, pretty significant updates to minimum FARs in all of those station areas. But we do have quite a bit of latitude in how we do that. So the process now on our end is building out what that scope and engagement process looks like to set that up for a really solid approach. And checking in on parking, again, that could be a great opportunity to do that because that'll be a few years out and we'll have the opportunity to kind of see how things are going. But weirdly, with this legislation, the parking components were separated as needing to be implemented first. unusual, but that's why we're kind of addressing that here.

Got it. Yeah, it does seem like a natural opportunity to do that. And it will be very interesting to see what you propose, just pairing that with our prior conversation and thinking about implications of limiting parking thinking about how to do a more comprehensive approach that considers how do we get access points to the light rail stations to ensure that when we don't have parking we have those active transport corridors fully mapped across the city i think that was highlighted in the conversation we were having around the factoria neighborhood plan and it would be really helpful that when we're thinking about well we don't need parking and we're going to have these transit oriented um districts seen a map where we can say here is how we are going to get to those light rail stations and why we don't need parking so when we revisit um we can can really have um both a quantitative and a qualitative analysis of how is this working and and here's here's potentially opportunities to make it work if not so thanks thank you uh commissioner goebbels

Yeah, I was just going to voice some support for staff's recommendation. Thank you, Sean and Christina, for a good presentation. I think that the change that the state is requesting here is going to be a big shift for us. And I think it's a good approach to implement that and then figure out what... further we want to do going forward after that. I had two questions on it though. One is when we talk about walking distances, how is that going to be measured? I know we've talked about that in the past. So that's one question.

Yeah, so with the walking distance, that is mainly, it is provided through currently maps that we have that do provide through... I can jump in.

So right now we're defining the walk shed just based on... distance along streets. So instead of as the crow flies, that's kind of one natural point. However, a lot of jurisdictions have brought up this topic as one that's somewhat ambiguous in the legislation for further definition, because it speaks to that whole transit shed that will define some planning implications for the broader TOD bill implications. So we are expecting there's going to be some more clarification because we've had questions about Can we limit it to, say, places that have sidewalks? Can we think about the relative comfort when it comes to grade and such? And right now, those kind of openings are unclear. So it's possible we might be able to refine it further. Right now, we're just taking the approach of distance along streets as the safest bet.

Okay, that makes sense. The other question I had was, when we met and talked about this topic back in February, there was, I think, some enthusiasm, you know, among the planning commission about looking at opportunities for centralized parking, shared parking between, you know, potentially commercial uses and residential uses. and having the ability for residents to be able to use parking during off-peak times for commercial development. And there are some examples in the Netherlands of people doing that kind of thing. And I'm just wondering if that's something that you've thought about. Is that something that... if there's any way to help encourage at the city level. Just wondering your thoughts on that.

yeah so um in regards to the the kind of shared use off-site alternative parking um configurations uh currently the draft itself has created more of a combined uh section that details with both of these but at this time does not incorporate the addition of allowing for uh commercial spaces to allow for uh residential use um it is something that does provide for shared use of parking no it doesn't mean uses sorry it does yes okay maybe maybe if you can just point me to this section absolutely yes um that would be helpful

Is there a particular section that I should be focused on for that?

Yes, it is. 202590F2.

Yes.

What was that? 202590F2.

Okay.

Sorry, I read line by line.

Okay, great.

We're going to have the draft open here.

Great, okay.

No, that's it. Great. Commissioner Cullman.

I think I wanted to double tap on what Commissioner Geppel mentioned. I think it's nice to just be sure in that 2020 590 F2, we have a flexibility to let the commercial lots be used by the residential, off the pick, or even the visitors. I think it'd be nice to make that one the other one that I wanted. I don't know. I was going with 12 to 18 months, um, um, basically monitoring impacts of this policy. But I don't know, Commissioner Ferris, you might know more. I don't think anything's going to get billed that's going to go be compliance with this bill in 18 months, maybe 36 months. I sincerely want to know if that's going to impact the policy Um, the over part to the neighborhood, if we receive any complaint or anything, I think it'd be nice to monitor that. Like if it's 18 months or 36 months or something like that, I will refer you to you all to know how that's going to go be a good time. And the other one was this, um, For 2025-90G, I want to be sure that we can make it in a way that the required bicycle parking ratio be in a way that's encouraged the residents to get the bicycle. Like having a bike rack and bicycle parking, it's really impactful. I think that'd be nice if in that one we can be sure that we can elaborate a little bit more there to be sure.

um encourage people to have a bicycle um that's a great suggestion to be honest i'm not sure how that would come through in the land use code i i i do know we probably have other city initiatives to help yeah maybe somewhere you guys figure out but yeah yeah land use code you know our main focus is on making sure there's good high quality um opportunities to keep your bike safe so But thank you.

I think that one is talking about the bicycle requirement specifically. On bike parking requirement. Yes. That's what specifically he's talking about. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. Thank you. Vice Chair Villavesis.

Technical questions?

You should turn on your mic.

So Tesla Model S is 7 foot 2 in width. Mm-hmm. And your parking dimension is eight feet wide, which means that you have five inches on either side, and you have the width of the door, which is going to leave like three inches, so you cannot get out of the car if you have columns in between the parking. The compact parking spot is seven foot wide, which means that you cannot fit the car. And A narrow parking, like that works in parallel parking, but for a narrow parking spot like that, you have to kind of aim from far away, kind of when you're going to change your oil, like you have to, so it requires a lot wider driveway. So I would, I know the 20 feet is a state mandate and that, I guess that's very generous, but the eight foot is, you're going to have a lot of angry people.

Yeah.

I would increase that to nine. Parallel parking is fine, but I think for 90 degree parking, eight foot is just not I don't think it's conducive to it.

We hear you. Unfortunately, this was also the state mandate that we absolutely can't impose a minimum size larger than that. However, projects can still choose to build larger. I think for our implementation purposes, perhaps thinking about some materials to help say, Hey, by comparison, like you said, I thought that was a good one to say a Tesla is this width, you know, that a significant portion of your residents are going to be driving cars like this. So our hands are tied there except to on the other hand, knowing that hopefully developers are going to be thinking about who's living in their buildings and who's going to be, you know, paying to rent out spaces. But yeah, we're, we're,

We hear you. Height, you have a page six item to be structured practically clearance, minimum height clearance of eight foot six, including mechanical equipment, pipes, et cetera. That's usually is like seven foot four, seven foot six. That's pretty standard to see one extra foot of clearance where you were in a basement that has like big pipes. That means that your parking ceiling is going to be much higher. I would. It suggests that you leave seven foot six, including pipes, or have a reasonable dimension excluding pipes and leave that to the engineers. But that would increase excavation costs, and it would impact your building height. I think that extra foot is going to have an impact. You also have, we have eight foot parking spots, parking stalls, but we have 20 feet driveway for two-way traffic. I think that's fine in a multifamily, but if you have like a medium density residential, even middle housing with like eight, probably eight homes or something, a 10-foot driveway should be fine for double, like two-way. So, I mean, if there's two people, one arriving and one leaving at the same time, one will like kind of back up and... let the neighbor go by. I would encourage to keep a 10-foot driveway or even 12-foot driveway for two-way circulation on projects up to a certain size and then have a minimum provision for backing up like a parking pad, backing up and maneuvering. It could be like 20 by 20 or 22 by 22. That allows you to do that. But you don't need the entire path to be that width. You can have a 10-foot driveway where you get to the parking spot, then that becomes wider. That gives it a little bit more flexibility. And I guess the last question is about parking surfaces. I know you're talking about grass and gravel. Is there a way to get Wunnerfs included in here? I mean... Because it's a parking surface, right? And the differences like the pedestrian use can apply as amenity area or public space regulation. It's come up more and more in these discussions, and it's a successful... Yeah. It's a successful typology. So I don't know if there's any room in here to include that.

I do love the enthusiasm for Woonerfs. Kind of specific to the scope of this project, this code section is concerned with off-street parking, loading spaces, and drive lanes kind of internal to projects. So not... it's not getting at provisions related to that external circulation, like in a street that you'd have in a one-off, if that makes sense. We'll share your comments as well with transportation on the other provisions, just for context there. Our scope was focused on changes to the specific kind of parking requirements in terms of quantity and size. A lot of those other dimensions are ones where we're maintaining current transportation practices and kind of just updating the language. But yeah, your comments are well received.

The reason I ask is because we have driveway standards and driveway materials that are allowed. And I assume this does not only apply to inside covered parking. It applies to cottages, for example. If you have a driveway, that's the regulation that we're going to look at. So that's where this would come in helpful. So driveways and water... And then this is how it would work. And then that could translate or extrapolate with the language code. Say if you're using a Wooners according to that standard that's outlined here, then you get this bonus or this extra amenity space and whatnot. So I would appreciate it. You can float the idea or raise the issue and see if there's a possibility to look into this. Yeah, we can bring some feedback. That's it. That's all. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Again, thank you for the presentation. I've got to love compliance always. I think you guys taking the minimal approach to see, you know, impact of what happens when we implement this and then taking a future stance on it. I would love to see, you know, more eventually, but I do think it's the right thing to do to kind of approach it with a minimal impact in mind and then... Moving on from there. I'm going to circulate this for another round of discussion. Again, I appreciate all the comments around. I think we want maybe more information on the broader TOD bill. There's a couple opportunities here for a timeline on what future expansion of this could be. Again, I'll circulate the conversation. Let's keep it on the do we want to keep this strategy and approach of using the bare minimum to start and then directing staff towards a public hearing if applicable. So I'll kick this off again with Commissioner Neal-Chan.

Yeah, I agree with that approach. I also just looked up what a Wooterf is. I would also like to hear any comments regarding that. But yeah, I agree with that approach.

All right. Commissioner Ferris.

No further comments.

Thank you. Commissioner Kennedy.

No further comments.

Commissioner Keppel.

Yeah, I'm ready to move forward with the public hearing. You know, one thing that I just looked at the shared parking provisions in the draft code, and I think it's a great start. The one thing that I Don't think it does enough of though is figure out ways to incentivize those kinds of developments because all it does is really address how those shared. Those shared spaces can be counted for purposes of meeting the minimum requirements and so it's it's a step in the right direction, but I don't think it's adequate to really incentivize that kind of shared usage. sufficiently. So if there are other mechanisms and other opportunities, I'd love to see those occur as well. And maybe that's a different Luca.

Yeah, we can we can check back on if that incentive can be boosted up a bit here, too.

Yeah, that's it. Thank you, Commissioner.

I think I'm good, too. And then for the bicycle part, it is on page 16, 17, and it's repeating on that 2020 590G. If you just look at that and just make it again in a way that it's encouraging the bicycle. So it's really like persuade the bicycle parking. It's not like, anyways, thank you.

I'm very sure of your business.

Yeah, this might be a stretch, but What I think what's going to happen is if you're going to have a developer build like what, five parking spots, like eight feet wide, they might get the permit, get the certificate of occupancy, then they're going to repaint the lines and they're going to do four that are 10 foot wide instead of five that are eight feet wide. And I don't know if there's a way to kind of bake this as an option. So you could meet the requirements with the parking count, those dimensions, but you have the ability to repaint as you see fit.

Um, again, very creative. Technically that would be repainting in a way that is no longer compliant with the parking requirement. So that would, that would be a kind of an internal conflict in the code.

So that's an area we wouldn't be able to kind of, but, uh, you could, I don't want to dwell on this, but just kind of to, to change the idea really quick, you could, uh, measure the parking requirement based on linear width right and you meet that linear width and then you're free to paint however you want as long as you meet the minimum requirement which means that you could meet the linear width of five parking stalls at eight foot wide you meet it you get approval and then you can paint four yeah so the the painting requirements i know also we can give some more information on how that process works but um i i feel like

yeah we'll try to think too about if there's any kind of incentive ideas to try to encourage people to to build larger spaces um you know so we can give that some thought i mean i know you're bound by state mandate but these are the type of things that people get sued for you buy a condo you're paying i don't know how many millions and you go you park your car the car doesn't fit it's like

will get sued, right? And so, or at least you need to kind of be upfront with, it needs to be set somewhere that this is for a very small car.

Yeah, well, and part of the and I think that's that's also part of the thinking and the rationale for the parking reform bill in general is that this really is kind of with the mind of this is kind of letting the market decide both what the need is for parking and what those spaces can look like. And there's good and bad with that. You're noting. And so, you know, maybe it could be something to say perhaps you get a further reduction if you're doing larger spaces. something along those lines. But yeah, we can give it some thought. Okay, thank you.

Great. Yeah, no further comments. I think we need to comply with state law. So I think we're ready to move forward. Could I get a motion to set a public hearing for this?

I would like to make a motion that we direct staff to set up a public hearing to review the parking regulations.

Can I hear you for a second? Thank you. All in favor, say aye. Aye. And no opposed. I think we're good. Thank you both.

Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Next on the agenda is the approval of minutes. Do we have a motion to approve the minutes from the May 27th meeting? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? All approved, say aye. Aye.

Aye.

Is there a motion to adjourn the meeting?

I'd like to make a motion that we adjourn our meeting.

Is there a second?

Second. Second.

All right, all in favor say aye.

Aye. Thanks, all. Thanks. Thank you.