City Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome, everyone. I now call the July 14th, 2026 regular city council meeting to order. We'll start to take a moment to take a roll call of the council members by position number. Please stay here when the city clerk calls your name.

Thank you. Council Member Ungulary.

Here.

Mayor Thompson.

Here.

Deputy Mayor Alderks. Here. Council Member Curd.

Here.

Council Member Miles. Here. Council Member Dodd. Here. Council Member Alcabra. Here. All present.

Thank you. First up on our agenda tonight is meeting agenda approval. And we're going to start with a city manager review of the agenda.

Thank you, Mayor, and good evening, Deputy Mayor Aldrichs and members of the City Council. Tonight's agenda, before your approval, you'll notice that it has several items that you've been working on through the Council pipeline over the last few months and a couple that are newer to Council as well. On the more familiar side, you're going to be asked to adopt the Parks, Recreation, and Open Space, or PROS, plan this evening. And I just want to note, as that's coming forward, it's an important foundation for the Council vision area of a joyful and healthy way of life. And I know a lot of work has been going on in that. In addition, the council will be asked to consider appointments to vacancies in the Landmark Preservation Board and Lodging Tax Advisory Committee, and also holding a study session on the downtown subarea plan, which has been in the works again for quite some months. In addition, council will consider a new electric vehicle charging policy related to charging stations at city-owned facilities, as well as several items coming for approval on the consent calendar of work in progress, software licenses, as well as a couple related to the development of the Cedar Grove Inclusive Playground. And again, as always, I do support all the items on the consent calendar for approval. With that, I'll turn it over to you, Mayor.

Thank you, City Manager. Next up is council approval of agenda. Are there any changes to tonight's agenda? Seeing none, we'll move on to public engagement opportunities. Council in the community. You can join some of your city council members tomorrow for our next Council in the Community event. Stop by to chat with us, ask questions, share feedback, and learn more about city services and priorities. That's Wednesday, July 15th, tomorrow, 3.30 to 5.30 p.m. at Centennial Park in the North End. Outstanding Artist Award nominations. Know an individual or organization that has made a meaningful impact through the arts in Bothell? We want to hear from you. Submit a nomination to help the Bothell Arts Commission celebrate the people and organizations that make Bothell's arts community thrive. Submit a nomination by July 20th. Help shape the future of downtown. Help us plan for the next 20 years of growth by attending the Downtown Subarea Plan Open House. Learn about the draft plan, explore its recommendations, meet the project team, ask questions, and share feedback. That is Wednesday, July 22nd from 530 to 730 p.m. right here at Bothell City Hall. And next up is public comment. The city has accepted public comment in writing as well as accepted signups for those who wish to speak at tonight's meeting. Written comments submitted to the city clerk no later than 3 p.m. today were forwarded to all city council members and are part of the record. When the clerk calls your name, you'll have three minutes to speak. Please note that council will receive your input, but we do not engage in discussion of these topics. Staff will make note of items requiring follow-up. City clerk?

Thank you, Mayor Thompson. We have one person that signed up to speak tonight, and that is Alicia Ruiz. She is online. Alicia, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Go ahead. You'll have three minutes.

Great. Good evening, Mayor Thompson and members of the council. My name is Alicia Ruiz and I serve as the new advocacy and policy manager for Habitat for Humanity, Seattle, King and Kittitas counties. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you tonight. As you know, Habitat partners with local families and communities to build and preserve affordable homes. giving hardworking individuals and families a stable foundation to build their futures on. Our mission goes beyond just construction. It's about strengthening neighborhoods, creating opportunity, and ensuring that the people who work in our communities can also afford to live in them. I'm here tonight because we're actively working to expand Habitat's presence and impact right here in Bothell and throughout the East Side. This means identifying new opportunities for development, deepening partnerships with local organizations and city leaders, and aligning our work with the values this community has already shown, namely inclusion, sustainability, and long-term affordability. I want to take a moment to recognize Bothell's leadership on this front. The city has consistently stepped up as a regional leader in addressing the affordable housing crisis. This through thoughtful zoning policy, support for mixed income development, and a genuine willingness to collaborate with nonprofit partners like us. This kind of leadership doesn't go unnoticed, and it sets a standard for other cities in the region to follow. As Bothell continues to grow, we believe there's a real opportunity to build on that momentum together. Habitat is eager to be a partner in that effort to bring our experience, our volunteer network, and our commitment to sustainable, affordable housing to the table. Thank you for your time and for your continued commitment to making Bothell a place that everyone can afford to call home. I look forward to working with all of you. Thank you.

Thank you. I do not have anybody else signed up to speak. However, if there's anybody in the virtual audience who does wish to speak, please use the raise hand function and we will panel you in for three minutes. And if there's anybody in the audience, which I don't see, it looks like all staff, please step to the podium, state your name. You'll have three minutes. That's all I have, Mayor Thompson.

I was going to say Quan, it's your opportunity. All right, we have the city manager report and presentations up next. City manager.

Thank you, Mayor. And we do have one presentation on water conservation. And if you're welcome to come up and get your presentation set up, if you'd like, as I go. But before we start, I'll also note that on tonight's city manager report, there's also a written item for just to update you as well about bike storage standards and what the Planning Commission's been working on. So you'll see that in your packet, too. And if there's any questions, staff can follow up with you. via email, but we wanted to put that out for council awareness and for the community. But before we have our presentation, I did want to give a brief update about the status of the Regional Fire Authority Board that last week we had a public hearing. And while we didn't have as many public comments as I'm sure we would have loved, We did have a conversation and there were some updates about negotiations. So subsequent to last Tuesday, the Shoreline Regional Fire Authority Board did have their meeting on Thursday. I was able to attend in case there was any questions that came up on behalf of the city. But at that meeting, the RFA Board did adopt the regional fire plan that is one of the precursors to the council taking action. And again, we had been unsure if that was going to take place last week due to negotiations, but things did get worked out and approved. And so with that, council can expect a potential action to come to you next week. We were looking at potentially a special meeting, but we're still moving forward with July 21st. consideration of where the council will be doing is your decision will be to determine whether or not to send the question to voters on whether or not to annex into the shoreline RFA. Within that resolution there's also then a citation to this plan that was adopted by by the RFA board and that will also be in your packet, but it isn't something council needs to adopt. It's something that you will be incorporating by reference saying these are the terms that we agree to. You'll also have the opportunity to appoint a pro-con committees at that point, presuming that you do decide to move forward with putting on the ballot. um the city clerk did receive two applications for the pro committee and none for the con so there will be decisions to be made next week with that i did want to highlight just briefly to um some of the things that we have been talking about that are in that rfa plan just for people who are tracking um a couple of important ones is first of all, is that if the community were to vote and vote, uh, affirmatively about annexing into the RFA, the effective date of that decision would be, uh, scheduled for March 1st, 2027. And so there'd be three months before, uh, into the year before things would switch over. There's also an important thing to note, um, for, for the council and the community to know is that we will be, uh, continuing in for the year 2027, the city will continue to, collect the property tax, and essentially we'll be acting in a full contact capacity of where we'll be paying the RFA for the services they have. So in the budget for 2027, nothing really changes. 2028 there will be some potential changes and that is where Council will be able to consider lowering the property tax collection rate commiserate to the services that we are sending over to Shoreline when they start collecting directly. So that'll happen in 2028. So also just kind of as a precursor as we consider the budget for 2027 and 2028 this fall, we'll know that there's a potential scenario of where things could change in November. And as I often say, budgets are wrong the minute they're adopted. So we'll know that, again, if in November, if the voters did approve joining the RFA, we'll need to amend our budget for 2028. A few other things of interest is governance. The plan does confirm that the board would be made up of nine members, three from the historic Shoreline Fire Department, three from the North Shore Fire Department, and three elected officials, council members, and Bothell. There's also tonight Snohomish County Fire District 10 is considering whether or not to place this on the ballot and they will be doing that at their meeting tonight. I'll get an update from the fire chief here soon, I'm sure. In terms of fire stations, that's been another frequent question in a discussion last week. The city would retain ownership of both fire stations 42 and 45 through the duration of the bond that the community so graciously approved. And then at that point, we would be looking at transferring the stations over to the RFA. We also, last week, there was conversations about financials. While the city is not going to be contributing anything towards operating reserves, which was one of the topics we were discussing, we have agreed to including funding for asset replacement in the form of a payment of $105,000 within 30 days of the effective date and $505,000 no later than April 1st, 2028. Those are all consistent with budget requests that were that are being considered again you have not approved the budget for 27 and 28 so there's actually really no authority to do so but in my capacity as city manager and as i look at what we are planning for a balanced budget for 27 to 28 we would be able to accommodate that payment and it would not affect any other departments in their ability to replace assets. So, I thank the finance department for finding a solution to that. So, with that, all of the details have lined up, and really the remaining question will be for Council of whether or not to put this before voters in November. And as I mentioned, that is planning on coming in November, or next week's meeting, and you will have a chance to decide. I'm happy to answer any questions you might have tonight as well, but otherwise, I think things are moving forward.

Yes, Council Member Dodd.

Thank you. Kyle, do you know when the application period closes for the pro-con committees?

I do. It was last Friday. Great. Thank you. So the application period has closed. As Council will recall, this is an appointment process. And so much like last year, you had the same opportunity for a levy. We did not have any applicants and two council members volunteered. So you are able to make decisions at your next meeting as well. That is not peer pressure, however.

Council Member Miles.

Thanks. I just want to say thank you, Kyle. You worked really, really hard on this, and I know it wasn't easy. And there was no bare knuckle brawling, but it was here and there. So I appreciate all the work you did. Thank you.

All right, I think we're good on questions.

Excellent. Well, then, Council, as we move forward to the next item, we do have a brief staff update for you tonight. As you know, we've been seeing drier and drier summers and different climate, and sometimes somebody... I was with today did say something about the clarity of the air. So let's hope that that stays. But that's not necessarily what we're here to talk about tonight. But we do know that we are in the throes of summer and are having to make decisions. And so tonight you're going to get a briefing about water shortage contingency plans. And with that, I'm happy to introduce Emily Warnock, the sustainability coordinator. And she's joined by Riley Haffetz for our management analyst from Public Works. And thank you both.

Thank you for the introduction and good evening council as mentioned we're here for initial feedback on proposed updates to our water shortage contingency plan and associated code We'll share an overview of the plan to start along with the proposed mandatory water curtailment actions the enforcement process and fines with time for discussion at the end Setting the stage with a quick water supply status update and one of the reasons we're here today, you may have heard that Ecology declared a statewide drought in April and that this summer is expected to be warmer and drier than normal. The declaration does include a qualifier that the areas served by Seattle, Tacoma, and Everett Water Utilities plan for drought conditions early in the winter and don't anticipate any impacts for their customers. And that continues to be the case. That said, the drought declaration brings attention to the importance of our water shortage contingency plan and code and brought us to reassess them. So we're proposing updates to the code and plan to better align with one another and to better prepare and provide clarity for the community and the city in the event of a water shortage.

The Water Shortage Contingency Plan provides a framework for action during forecasted events such as droughts or system failures like a major infrastructure break. Its primary goal is to ensure adequate water availability to protect public health and safety while minimizing adverse impacts on the economy and environmental resources. These goals can be achieved through water curtailment measures. The plan, which uses a similar framework to complement SPU's Water Shortage Contingency Plan, includes four response stages, that being advisory, voluntary, mandatory and emergency, and also steps to take during an immediate crisis. Each stage also outlines communication mechanisms, roles and responses during a water shortage. Over the past two decades, water shortage events have typically been managed through voluntary water reduction measures The city and SPU most recently activated the voluntary stage in 2015 and 2023. And SPU has only needed to activate the mandatory stage twice in 1986 and 1992.

All right. So the plan outlines how and what to communicate to the public to reduce water use and stretch our supply. Beyond the plan, we have ongoing water conservation programming offering technical assistance education, tools, and rebates for longer-term behavior change. During a shortage, though, it's critical that we more drastically reduce water use. And to do that, we need to educate the community about short-term water curtailment measures that they should take and why they're needed. So those will be shared out through many of our typical communications channels including social media, Bothell Bi-Weekly, bill messages, code red alerts, mailers, flyers through our community partners and the media based on the severity of the event and as outlined in each stage of the water shortage contingency plan. Again, specific water curtailment actions are also listed in each of the plan stages. And in the mandatory and emergency stages, as well as during an immediate crisis, we're proposing that the actions be mandated by city code. And that's given the significant impacts to our water supply once we reach these phases. So these actions include what you see here, not watering lawns, not using automatic irrigation systems with the exception of allowing drip irrigation, soaker hose use, or hand watering of landscaping other than lawns once a week in the mandatory stage. Not filling things like swimming pools, hot tubs, and fountains. Only washing cars at commercial facilities that use recycled or reclaimed water. not washing sidewalks, parking lots, driveways, or other hard surfaces except when it's necessary for public health or safety, and requiring arrangements to be made to fix any residential leaks upon notification by city utilities.

These updates are intended to ensure consistency between the code and the water shortage contingency plan by establishing an enforcement process for mandatory water curtailment measures. While Bothell has never activated the mandatory or emergency stage of the plan, the proposed code updates and enforcement process will provide clear guidance and educate the community on how residents, businesses, and the city will work together during a water shortage event. Prior to the start of mandatory curtailment actions, robust communication detailing expectations and allowed actions will be conveyed to the public. Upon the first violation of a mandatory curtailment action, a customer will receive a notice in the mail. This will alert them that continued violations may result in a fine. Upon the second violation, a customer will receive a final warning and subsequent violations will result in a fine as outlined in the annual fee schedule. Each day during which a violation occurs will represent a separate offense. Lastly, water shutoffs may occur for irrigation customers that receive more than three violations at the discretion of the Public Works Director. It's also important to note that City Council will ultimately determine when the City activates its mandatory emergency or immediate crisis response, which would put this proposed enforcement process into effect. Fines will be used as a last resort to ensure compliance with mandatory water curtailment measures and encourage reduced water consumption. We're proposing a water use violation fine to be added to the 2027 fee schedule to align with similar existing water utility fees, which are currently set at $532. This fine would encourage positive behavior change by imposing immediate financial consequences, reinforce the severity of a water shortage, and promote community-wide reduction. Establishing a clear enforcement process for violations also demonstrates the city's commitment to environmental stewardship, which aligns with council's adopted 2040 vision and strategic priorities. The next steps will be to incorporate council feedback into the proposed code and water shortage contingency plan and staff plan to return in September to adopt code changes and the updated plan. Again, no action is required, but staff are seeking initial feedback on proposed water curtailment code updates.

Councillor Dodd.

Thank you. Thanks for the presentation. couldn't tell you why this was my first question but for the proposed fee or fine to be added to the fee schedule is it going to be scalable in a way whether that's the amount of the overage or like a percentage of their typical bill or some kind of it's not one-size-fits-all so it might fit the situation as of now that is not what we are planning to do due to different

Classes that exist, residential irrigation, the amount of water consumption differs by class, and that can be rather challenging, especially for utility billing, to calculate how much the overage would be for every single customer. So as of now, no, and that is why we've tried to stage, give the customer multiple opportunities to correct the behavior with. notices and warnings before they would be reaching a fine. Okay, thank you.

Councilmember Kerr.

Thanks, Mayor, and thank you for the presentation. I have been bothering Kyle about what are we doing about water supply stuff since I started Council, so this is really good to hear and good to see all the work that's been put into the update of the plan here. Two things jumped out to me. One was If notifications come through the mail, it could be up to maybe three or five business days before a customer might know that they're out of compliance. And those three to five business days could put them in significant financial distress more so than they might need to be. And I'm thinking because the utility only serves even just a portion of the city of Bothell, it should be relatively easy to do flyers on a door or door hangers or something just to make it a quicker notification so that they could take corrective action a lot sooner than by receiving a mailer. So that's an idea that I had. The other thing is in the packet there is information, this is pretty technical, but information about in the event of an emergency like a disaster. And it's a different process. I totally get it. There's inner ties. It's really complicated. One of the like the fifth step down of the list is looking at Penn Park and the water well there. And it's not potable water right now. And there are permit pathways through the Department of Health and Ecology to get emergency non potable water up to code for emergencies. So I would encourage the team to look into that in conjunction with emergency management and especially Department of Ecology has even a website dedicated to it too. So there's already information out there. Look into it and see if that could inform that emergency step-wise function a little bit. But I totally support the other steps and just the overall reassessment of this because it's very timely. Thank you.

comes on regularly.

Thank you, Mason. Thank you, Mayor. I was thinking I had an interesting or a stupid question. Can we collect rainwater legally and store and use it for our gardens or whatnot? I was looking online. It looks like King County has a program called Rainwise Program. Can you tell me a little bit more about it? How many residents are using a bottle? Can we use it regularly?

That's a great question. I don't have that information currently, but I'd be happy to look into it and get back to you.

Do we know, are we eligible as Bothell residents for that program?

Yeah, I would assume so, but we'll look into it and provide you with some more information.

I think if we can, I think we should incorporate and educate our residents. I think I might be the first one to see if I can. I know we have solar panels to store the sunlight. Why not the rainwater? Thank you.

Council Member Dodd.

Sort of building on what Council Member Aguilera said, I know that there's been really great rain barrel workshops for the collection of rainwater. Is there maybe the thought of having some more of those to kind of use it as a way to educate people on the drought situation and all the other stuff that we're doing? Not doing, but experiencing and then responding to.

Absolutely. We can connect with our surface water team to look into the options there.

Cool.

I just wanted to say in public, Emily, thank you and your team because I was super excited that reusable plates and glasses were at the 4th of July parade and that it made me really happy when I saw it and I wasn't expecting it. So thank you. I appreciate it.

Appreciate that. Thank you.

And I appreciate the work you're doing with water restriction. I echo the comments of my colleagues and I think we're good.

All right. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

And that concludes the city manager report.

There is one more item on the city manager report in the packet.

It is the written report, so no verbal update, but just information to have for council and community.

All right. Next up is council reports and conversations. Council members. Council member Anguillery.

Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. I think during the retreat, Council Member Rami Al-Kabra mentioned that we wanted to start a youth committee. I would like to know if we have any status and next steps on the youth committee. I just wanted to know where we are at forming the youth committee.

Just very briefly, we have started... I just met today with Assistant City Manager Becky Range, and we are on some good track. There's no timeline when we're going to get something back here yet, but we had a good discussion on a path forward, and hopefully we will hear about something at some point in the near future. I don't want to commit them to a timeline. So, City Manager, do you have anything to add?

No, that's perfect, and yeah, Council Member Ranguilari, as a reminder of when the priorities came back, this was one that any formation would be something that would come in 2027, so you wouldn't expect to see anything in 2026 other than planning and getting ready for it.

Okay, thank you. I want to add, is it okay? I want to ask, since we're in the conversations part of this, we're mixing and matching. The cool thing I learned today, there are a lot of youth committees in a lot of community groups. So we don't have to reinvent the wheel as a city. So it could be a very efficient way of engaging the community, and it could be actually a good thing for everybody in our city and even regionally if we have to get that far. So that's a good thing.

That's great. One of the reasons I was mentioning, because of the summer, a lot of families are reaching out, hey, does the city of Bothell have any paid internships or internships, or how can we contribute to the city? So that is one of the reasons I was trying to bring it up, if there is any way, even along with the internships, I don't know, do we have any paid internships that we do during the summer?

I'll be happy to follow up with you on a check-in, but the ones that we do get posted on the city's website and are available for application, but we have very few.

Very few. Okay. Got it. Okay. Okay. So that's the reason I'm just wondering, people are reaching out, oh, how can my kids contribute to the city's work? So I wasn't sure. I thought the idea that you had, I mean, I thought that's great to see if you want to do anything about it. That's all.

Yep. So 2027. Yeah.

Actually, it's council conversations. Right.

So I was going to just suggest to Council Member Angulary that there are a few youth seats on boards and commissions, and you could point people to the boards and commissions webpage. Those openings aren't generally until the spring. So not necessarily like in preparation for the new school year, but it is something that we can inform folks about and keep them, you know, looking forward to those opportunities that can come up.

Great, thank you. That's a good one. And I think I have a different question for the city manager and the staff. Last time when we were discussing on the budget, I think yesterday you also mentioned, Kyle, that I think August will be in the races, so I think we talked about are there ways we can save the money from the city budget. I know we have a little bit of a tough time going forward while our Our budget is, I think, when it comes to the revenue, especially from the sales tax, I think we are seeing a little uphill battle. So just wondering, I know we have August we are not meeting, and can we see some of the items where we can save expenses? I think we were also talking about additional revenue, not only taxing the revenue, Through the levy, are there any other ways that we can have additional revenues? So just wondering if that's all, if we can, because I think September or October, I think we need to finalize the budget. Just wondering if we can see more information on those two items.

Thank you, Councilmember. The cadence for the budget is, statutorily, it is my responsibility to bring you a balanced budget before a certain date. We've traditionally done that in October. We are trying to push that into September so that the council can adopt a budget in November. And so we are on track for that. In that process, we will be discussing of the efficiencies that the city have put in place, the things that we're doing to trade off to be able to meet the needs of the community based on budget surveys and the things that council has asked for and the priorities that you've set, as well as looking at revenue options. So that'll all be taking place and we will, the executive leadership team has delivered a proposed budget to me and I will be reviewing it in the month of August and bringing it to you in September.

Good, thank you.

I went to Municipal Solid Waste Advisory Council last week. They're in the process of doing their own comprehensive plan, and while they are focusing most of their outreach efforts to cities through Sound Cities Association, of which we are not a member, they are doing redundant feedback through MSWAC as well, the committee that I'm sitting on, so we should be Hopefully well represented. If you have questions about it, let me know. Also, they were advertising some tours that are coming up this summer. I already went on a tour of the dump. It was really cool. Actually, there's like... eagles everywhere, so it was very patriotic. But Cedar Grove Maple Valley facility tour is where a lot of organics, your green bins, are processed, and that might be pretty interesting. They have a tour coming up on Wednesday, August 12th from 10 to noon, and you need to RSVP to the coordinator by July 28th if you're interested. I'm not able to go, but if you are interested, yeah, it's an opportunity. Also, personal privilege. My day job is in surface water for a nearby jurisdiction. And I wanted to mention that it is legal to collect rainwater in Washington. And it's actually encouraged because it can offset summer watering needs. Rain barrels don't go very far. They get used up within about a week of summertime watering for people with a normal size garden. But cisterns are a possibility too. There's a lot of information out there. Rainwater is not potable. You can't drink it unless it's been heavily treated. So there are very specific requirements by King and Snohomish Health Departments and that information has on their website with permitting and all that or other requirements and information on how to along with contractor recommendations too. So if you're interested in that sort of thing reach out to the County Health Department or look for nearby jurisdictions with information on rainwater collection.

I'll also share about a letter that staff received from NUSA not too long ago about the risks and dangers of kratom, which is a herbal supplement used that has been linked to addiction. And so there is an effort by the resilient communities committee at NUSA to raise awareness of that to North King County cities. I believe that came through collaboration with other coalitions in Snohomish County, which is how that came to NUSA's attention. And so that may be something that comes to council at some point or that staff might update us on. And maybe Councilmember Dodd knows more.

I did pass the letter on to the city manager's office. I do think given our positioning, how we're surrounded by unincorporated areas, that the hope is that we can push for state law, too, as we craft our legislative agenda soon. But I'm staring at Kyle and Claire saying, please correct me if I'm misremembering.

The series of emails? No, and I see Assistant City Manager range too, but that is correct. The letter from the North Urban Human Services Alliance was addressed to City Council and Council Member Dodd did forward it to staff for awareness and to see if that would be something that local legislation would make sense. I think in some of the regional conversations of Noosa cities or the North King County cities, there has been thought of aligning to see if there's a way to craft state legislation on it as opposed to enforcing community by community, but I welcome any further information from the Assistant City Manager if there's anything I've left out, which is always possible.

Actually, I do have a very current update hot off the presses today, and we received notification from NUSA that the DEA is actually going to be placing restrictions on this particular substance, which is very positive news for NUSA and the human services community. And they do feel like that the restrictions that are being put in place will eliminate the need for our cities or states to take action for now. Just came in today. NUSA has incredible reach.

Cool.

Thanks for bringing that up, Deputy Mayor.

All right, we'll move on to projected agenda discussion. You faked me out. All right, and if there's nothing, I would love to accept a motion to approve the consent agenda. Council Member Dodd?

I move to approve the consent agenda. Second.

I have a motion from Council Member Dodd and a second from Council Member Alderks to approve the consent agenda. Would anybody like to speak to the motion? Seeing none, City Clerk?

Thank you. Please say yes or no when I call your name. Council Member Ongulary?

Yes.

Mayor Thompson?

Yes.

Deputy Mayor Alderks? Yes. Council Member Curd?

Yes.

Council Member Miles? Yes. Council Member Dodd? Yes. Council Member Alcabra? Yes. Passes 7-0.

Thank you very much. We will move on to our first ordinance of the day. It's Agenda Bill 26129. It's Electric Vehicle Charging Policy. City Manager? Yes.

Thank you, Mayor. Yes, this is an item for potential action for Council tonight. And as you know, as part of the electric vehicle strategy that Council had asked for us to have, we're doing a number of upgrades to different city facilities, including City Hall. Tonight is an item to introduce a proposed electric vehicle charging policy and related fees for consideration. We're joined tonight, and the presentation will be led by Omasun Iyeromi, who joined the city about a year ago, I believe, as a project manager and brings tremendous project management experience to the city and has been a great asset to our team. We're really thankful for her expertise. She's also joined tonight by Erin Lenhart, the Director of Public Works, as well as Jeff Sperry, our Fleet and Facilities Manager, depending on the questions that you have. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Omasun.

Thank you for the introduction. Good evening Mayor Thompson and council members. Tonight we will be presenting the city's electric vehicle charging policy and this policy will help us ensure that the EV charging system is fair, reliable and financially sustainable for the city, our employees and the public. So before we dive in, here's what we're asking for tonight. We're asking council to approve a resolution adopting the electric vehicle charging policy and establish fees for use at city-owned EV charging stations with an effective date of September 1st, 2026. So the most important question, why an EV charging policy or a fee right now? So the short answer is demand has gone up and costs have also gone up. The longer answer is all the chargers were not capable of collecting fees and weren't able to manage the assets. But with us having to install our new smart chargers in January 2026, We now have the technology to manage our EV sessions, track our usage and apply rates. Previously, the city has offered free charging for years, but with more vehicles using our chargers and having higher electric cost and network cost, our current model isn't longer financially sustainable anymore. So having a formal EV policy and fee structure would help us manage demand and keep our system running well. So a little bit background, our grant funding and infrastructure upgrades. So in November, 2024, we received federal grant funding through the energy efficiency and conservation block program. And that helped us to replace our other charges, which were three and which charged just three vehicles at city hall level P1. And we used that funding to install four new dual-port smart hodges. And having those stations now, they're faster, more reliable, and give us control over assets and pricing. And we've been able to expand our capacity for fleets, employees, and the public. So, what are our goals with having the charging policy in place? Our goals are to help us keep access fair for all users, the public, employees, and fleet. Also, to maintain reliable infrastructure in the city and support the city's climate action plan by expanding EV infrastructure, support fleet electrification, and reduce transportation-related emissions. So on this slide, you can see here our current charger usage so far since we installed those chargers in January 2026, precisely January 28, 2026. And currently we have four charging stations which provide eight charging ports. And in the eight charging ports, we have eight dedicated EV charging spots. We have six for the public and employees, and one is for fleets and one for ADA. And so far, as of July 8, 2026, we've been able to record 3,000 plus charging sessions, and we've had more than 61,000 kilowatt hours consumed, which equals about $15,000 in electric costs at a rate of 25 cents kilowatt per hour. And we've been able to also track our fleet's usage. We currently have three fully electric vehicles, and so far they've consumed 88 kilowatt per hour, and that's all about $22 from January till now. So the bulk cost comes from public and employee charging so far, and these figures show a strong usage overall, and they enforce the need for us to have a sustainable rate structure in place. So our approach for the rate is based solely on cost recovery and not for profit. Our rates are based on the components that we were able to come about for our model were based on our actual operating costs, which include electricity, the charge points, software subscription, maintenance and repairs, and our future equipment replacement. This approach ensures that our charging system pays for itself and does not rely on the general fund. So what are we proposing? We're proposing a rate of $0.34 per kilowatt hour for all users, covers the public, employees, and fleets. And public users and employees would also be subject to a $5 overstay fee after implementing a 30-minute grace period once their vehicle finishes charges. And this is to create a turnover and maximize available spots for other people to utilize the charging stations. Fleet vehicles would not be charged idle fees and the reason being is that they have operational needs for overnight charging and they might charge during off hours also. And all this will be set up in the ChargePoint platform. And to give more context of our rates, this rate is pretty much in line with other other nearby cities and what they charge. We were able to do a market research and we saw that other jurisdictions, their rates range from 21 cents in Redmond and 39 cents in Lynwood. We also looked at privately owned charges here in Bothell. from different locations, and those range anywhere from about 25 cents to 48 cents per kilowatt hour. And this all depends on the vendor and the time of day. So overall, our proposed 34 cents places the city of Bothell right in the middle of both municipal and private rates, while still achieving full cost recovery for the city. So after council approval, our next steps will be first to demonstrate transparency. And we're going to do that by updating charge points, display screens, and also network settings so that users see the new rates before they begin a session with the approved rates, which we're proposing to take effect in September 1, 2026. We'll also update the on-site notice. We currently have them at City Hall P1, where we tell users of upcoming rates. So we're going to update those on-site notice. And thirdly, we're going to provide at least 30 days advance notice for all users. And it's going to be done through the city website, our social media platforms, and internal mails to employees. And finally, we will continue to monitor usage using the ChargePoint platform and cost for future adjustments, and also alongside with our ongoing fleet EV transition implementation for the city. So to wrap things up, this policy gives the city a consistent framework for how we manage EV charging at city facilities and ensures that the system remains self-supporting moving forward. So our final act is we ask Council to approve a resolution tonight to adopt the e-retargeting policy and establish fees for use at city-owned e-retargeting stations. Thank you for your time this evening and we're happy to answer questions.

Council Member Miles.

Hello, thank you. This is a lovely presentation. I learned a lot about EV charging and I don't have an EV car. I'm just curious, how many people in Bothell know that this is a service that we provide?

So given from the ChargePoint app, most people that use EV are able to track where they have available EV charging stations. So also from my research, you can go to PlugShare, where you can search or Google available EV charging stations, and we pop up. So people are able to see and come here and charge. Okay, got it.

And then I know we're talking about cost recovery and the pricing, and that's fine, but are we expecting to really make money on this?

No, it's fully cost recovery profit.

Thank you again. Thank you.

I'll just say I'm on those apps. I have an EV. Everybody in Bothell knows that we have EV chargers here. You can sort by free on those apps, and I promise everybody knows, yes. Okay.

It's very public, very free information. Yeah. I am an EV user and also a user of the chargers. So I am glad to see this coming to us. One of the questions that I had from... from your presentation is, did you consider setting a time limit on how long charging could be happening in a day? For example, my employer, also a local municipality, has a four-hour limit. And so if folks come in, you know, if employees are charging, they do need to move their car after four hours. And I'm wondering if that is something that you had considered for these chargers as well.

I would say what we consider was based on how long it takes each vehicle to charge. Then afterwards, once we put that in the charge point setting, it's able to like, it kicks in the idle fee afterwards.

Yeah, I was seeing in the presentation that the average charging is three hours and 37 minutes with about an hour of idle, which pushes it over the four. And so I'm wondering if maybe just putting a limit on it might cover that. like exactly what we're already seeing. There may be people who are there for longer and charging, you know, I've seen, you know, charging overnight and things as well. But that does also, because there's only six chargers available to the public and employees, that might help with turnover and reduce the fees that can be associated with being there and idle, you know, what is it, idle time for too long?

Yeah. Thank you. Okay.

Just weighing in. And a question, Deputy Mayor. Are you suggesting that rather than doing an EIDL fee, that we just do a set amount of time limit for charging?

Maybe. And I, and I realized like, this is not a study session. And so you are not necessarily bringing it to us for, you know, for like shaping it. And, um, and so really my question is more of like, did you consider, um, not to say that like this shouldn't pass or that this should be edited. Um, but like there, that might be something to look at. Like I. in a, in a way is this sort of considered like a pilot, like you're trying, trying to policy and like be able to make changes over time. Um, and so if that's the case, then that might be something to consider in the future. Um, we also don't have like garage workers who would be able to like, you know, accept payment for things. And so that would be probably what going through our customer service desk or how, how would those fees or fines be paid?

Yeah, so that's all done through the app itself so when someone registers it's registered to a credit card or something and so Once the vehicle is done charging that's when the 30-minute grace period would start and if you don't move your vehicle or get off the charger by that point then the Idle fee would start kicking in

Got it. Okay. That makes sense because it's all managed through the app. Um, and then the other thing that, um, I, um, as, as an employee of a, of an employee, my employer doesn't charge for the first four hours of charging, um, that I'm wondering if. there is a kind of a pathway forward for maybe, like right now, employees would be paying for their charging through the app, but might that change in the future where employees might not be paying for charging?

I'll take this one. Thank you for your question. We have had that conversation about if if we should treat staff differently. And from the leadership perspective, we plan to have a conversation about that as part of our climate action plan and what the items are that the city plans to pursue. Right now, we couldn't really come up with a nexus to say, just because you drive an electric vehicle, we're going to essentially the city will cover your fuel when we don't cover fuel for other types of vehicles. But it's certainly an ongoing conversation.

Thank you. I'm glad that those conversations are happening and being considered, which leads me to my last question. I will try to keep it to be my last. When we're just talking about the eight charging ports that are here at City Hall, but as we have sought feedback from the community around where to place other charging ports, is it being considered that other off-site, not City Hall, other Bothell buildings will also get charging ports? That's, I see nodding.

Yes. So it's part of fleet expansion plan. We're going to have, we're looking to have other facilities, operations center, PD. So it's part of the plan.

Great. Thank you. I'm glad that you've put so much thought and effort into this and brought this forward to us.

Council Member Miles? Yeah, go ahead.

Thanks. Just a quick question. It's a New Yorker in me. So there's always somebody that's going to try to get over. So let's just say I, thank you for laughing. It's like I know Mason is charging and he's like, yo, I'm done, come over. So I drive my car over and then I'm there. And we just kind of repeat the cycle. I don't know if that's actually a use case, but how do you factor abuse in our charging policy?

So I know ChargePoint has a feature called the waitlist notification, and that's one way they're able to reduce folks from abusing charging. So we're hoping that once we are able to utilize that feature in ChargePoint, that might be able to curb that.

Sure. And people here are much more honest than they are in my hometown. So thank you.

I was just thinking, that doesn't sound like abuse. That sounds like good planning.

Great presentation. A couple of questions. First, a quick question. So 34 cents per kilowatt, what is the standard average rate that usually other private organizations charge? Do we know?

Yeah, so I know from my research, I'm just looking at my notes real quick. I know other private stations, it falls between 25 cents to 48 cents.

Oh, we are higher.

So, no, we are in the middle, private.

Okay.

Yeah. So the range for other private stations in Bothell, it ranges from 25 cents to 48 cents. 48, okay. So we're in the middle. We're in the middle, yeah.

Okay, and then as per, I think we have a climate action plan and we have a map. How many are we expanding from city of Bothell? How many stations? Do we have enough grants to expand? What is the expansion plan? How many are we adding as per CAP or whatever? Okay.

For the current expansion plan is part of the EV transition plan that is included in the CFP for the 27 through 28. This is the first project of phase one. Overall, through the plan, which lines up with our asset replacement for city vehicles, the infrastructure build-out lines up with the need of of the infrastructure improvements with the addition of the asset replacement vehicles.

Is it only for our city, not for the residents?

Correct. This is for city fleet.

And then, Councilmember, in addition to the efforts that we have going on at city facilities, I think what you might also be familiar with, Community Development Director Jason Greenspan recently sent you an email about a grant that we received from the Department of Commerce. It was only $25,000, so that isn't going to proliferate at charging stations, but what it is doing is it's for engineering work and also consulting work with other or other government agencies as well as private to identify locations for additional charging stations. It also tends to be a lot of times grants build on each other. So by winning this planning grant makes us eligible for larger grants that could help fund installing charging stations throughout the community as well. So there are efforts to do that, but it is in that planning, taking slow steps phase.

Thank you.

And also adding on to that, thank you, City Manager. We have talked, we've been talking about perhaps if we pursue charging stations in, say, parks or other public access at city properties, that this policy would apply to those as well. The policy was written very broadly, so any city-owned chargers would have a Similar the same rate.

Yeah, that's what I meant to we have a lot of parks and everything. How about we expand it? Great. Thank you

Councilmember Dodd.

Thank you. Thanks for the policy. I think it's pretty important, especially looking at the cost that we are incurring. I support it as is. I do want to add, I think if we get to where we are subsidizing the cost of operating a vehicle for an employee's personal use, I'm not sold on someone bought an electric car so now we help pay for their commute because there will be employees that don't have electric cars. It's not not a trigger of like are they driving the car for work or is there some reason where that becomes the city's job I'm also cautious about charging spots at parks we don't have a lot of parking in our parks it should be for people who need to park and can't access it another way not somebody parks their car there and goes down the street to visit a neighbor or something like that that seems kind of funny so I would really be interested in balancing why the park is there where the parking is at the park not just it's a convenient city-owned place for an electric car charger. So I think that's just informing future work that it sounds like we're looking at. So thank you very much.

Deputy Mayor?

Thank you. This is irrelevant and I'm sorry. But I'm just remembering all of the time I spent at parks with my kids and how much charging we could have been doing during that time. And then the next thing that came into my mind was imagine if we could just like bottle kids energy and use that to charge the cars.

I think about the laughter from Monsters, Inc. That would have been very convenient. But I also think about being a disabled person where I don't always want to use a placard, right? But sometimes I might want to park close. And then that's electric charging at a lot of places now. And so thinking about all my, well, now I have no small children. But if you run around with small children, they have a lot of accessories. And I just don't want to use up too much of a limited resource for that.

Absolutely. Yeah. I hear your concern and also think that there might be plenty of parents who are happy to charge their car while their kids are releasing their energy too.

Council Member Curd.

I move to approve resolution adopting the EV charging policy and establishing fees for use at city-owned EV charging stations with an effective date of September 1st, 2026. Second. Council Member Curd.

I didn't get a chance to speak, but we now have a motion on the table and a second. Would anybody like to speak to the motion? You would. I would. Council Member Kirkwood, would you mind withdrawing this motion so I can speak and then make the motion? Sure. Okay, thank you. I have a couple of things that I've been waiting to say. Rather than exempting fleet vehicles from EIDL fees, did we look at, because obviously they stay overnight, but sometimes the public and staff also stays overnight. Ask me how I know. And, you know, if your car finishes charging at 4 a.m., like, are you going to get hit with 20 bucks for the vital fees by the time the garage opens? And like rather than exempting fleet vehicles, it feels like just exempting hours from that would would be a better way to go. Is that something we looked at?

So I know we looked into different options for idle fees to answer your exact question. We'll have to get back to you on that and take a look.

Okay. Like it just seemed like if somebody's charging overnight and it like, I don't want to charge them 20 bucks cause they didn't get up at four in the morning to get their car. Like, I don't know if, and I know we have city hall hours, like maybe we could exempt the hours that the city hall parking garages closed from those idle fees. Um, as we go further in this. And question, I saw that the, at one point in the slide, we used 25 cents per kilowatt hours, our cost for electricity. I saw in the packet that we're planning on like future increases. But don't we pay like a whole lot less than that right now? I think I pay, and I know that it averages, depending on time of day, around 15 cents a kilowatt hour, and that's like 70% more. So did we use 25 cents per kilowatt hour for our cost recovery estimates? And do we pay more than a residential customer for electricity?

We do. Excuse me. We do. So this was our actual costs and average per month from our city building costs.

I mean the cost per kilowatt hour. Is 25 cents is what we pay?

Right now, currently, that's what our average is for City Hall. Okay.

Residential customers get a deal. The Oh, I just wanted to say, Councilmember Dodd, you mentioned not subsidizing employees for their private driving. And I think that Director Linhart mentioned that when she talked about addressing it in the climate action plan, because the goal there isn't necessarily like equitable treatment of employees. It's how to incentivize behavior that is beneficial to the climate. So I'm looking forward to that work happening too. And if somebody gets free fuel by driving an EV if they work here, then that is an incentive for them to drive an EV, which is good for climate. And I think that is exactly the right place to have that conversation.

And it works. Totally. I will tell you it works.

I think that's all I got. Council Member Curd.

I move the previous action.

Second. I have a motion from Council Member Curd and a second from the Deputy Mayor. Would anybody like to speak to the motion? Seeing none, City Clerk?

Thank you. Please say yes or no when I call your name. Council Member Onguluri?

Yes.

Mayor Thompson?

Yes.

Deputy Mayor Alderks? Yes. Council Member Curd?

Yes.

Council Member Miles? Yes. Council Member Dodd? Yes. Council Member Alcabra? Yes. Passes 7-0.

Thank you, and thank you guys. All right, next up we have the PROS plan, agenda bill 26-130. Say what? Oh, city manager.

Thank you, Mayor. And yes, the next item is the 2026 Parks, Recreation and Open Space or PROS plan adoption. Council's heard about the PROS plan several times over the past few years. And as you'll recall, every six years, the City Council adopts and updates the Parks, Recreation and Open Space plan. It helps maintain eligibility for grant funding through the state and also as articulated in the council vision and priorities, is a foundation towards investments for our community of the things that they're asking for in our Parks and Recreation Department. We're joined tonight by Nick Stroop, the Director of Parks and Recreation, and I'll just note, Nick, is the type of leader that would always thank his team. And I'm pretty sure he will. And through life circumstances, his team's not able to be here tonight. And so I'm going to take the opportunity to thank Nick for his leadership in this. There's not a single event that took place for the pros plan conversations that I attended that I didn't see Nick front and center. And I know. He takes leadership in this conversation and many conversations with our community very personally and steps in and helps things through. So there's not much about this plan that Nick couldn't answer. So I'm glad he's here tonight and he'll walk you through the final steps towards approval. Take it away, Nick.

All right. Well, thank you, City Manager Stannard. Kyle's right. We actually had, I had planned originally to bring my team up here, which was Aaron Milner, who's our project manager, Blaine Land, and Kai Patnode, who just spent countless hours over this past year working with our community. As life would have it, there's some events that came up and they were unable to be here tonight, but they are excited to have this action before you. All right, so tonight we're here to ask that you approve a resolution adopting the 2026 Parks, Recreation, and Open Space Plan. And tonight I'm really excited to bring this forward because This was such a community plan, and I kind of want to start by thanking the community. Throughout this process over this past year, we've engaged in more than 3,000 touchpoints with our community. That was at open houses, it was in online surveys, it was at pop-up park events, we had eight of those. There was focus groups, there was stakeholder meetings, board and commission meetings, and ongoing conversations with our residents, our community organizations, and our park user groups. Every one of these conversations helped shape the vision, priorities, and recommendations before you this evening. On behalf of our department and our team, I want to sincerely thank everyone in our community who invested their time, shared their perspectives, and helped create a roadmap for Bothell Park's future. At last week's meeting, during the public hearing, we heard firsthand how much our parks mean to our community. We heard from partners like the Bothell Historical Museum, who are identified in the PROSE plan as an important partner in helping tell Bothell's story, and we look forward to continuing that collaboration. We also heard from members of our Bothell Skate Park community, whose passion and advocacy continue to help shape the future skate park at the park at both landing their involvement is exactly what this planning process is intended to foster. I'd also like to recognize the incredible work of our parks and recreation board. They spent countless hours with staff alongside Our consultant design workshop, helping us develop what I truly believe is one of the best PROS plans that we've, at least I've ever had the opportunity to be a part of. And while tonight's action is to adopt the PROS plan, this moment for us represents the beginning of the next chapter. The PROS plan will serve as our strategic roadmap for parks, recreation, and open space. It will guide how we prioritize capital investments, pursue state and federal grants, strengthen our community partnerships, and inform future budgets as we thoughtfully invest in parks, trails, recreation facilities, and open spaces that our community has identified at their highest priorities. Perhaps most importantly, the plan establishes a clear, community-driven vision that will help guide future policy discussions with Council regarding the long-term implementation and sustainable funding strategies. As identified in the Council's 2040 vision, those conversations will include exploring opportunities such as grants, strategic partnerships, and the potential for a future parks levy to help fund and implement the priorities as identified in the PROS plan. Finally, our PROS plan positions Bothell to remain eligible for state grant funding. It provides a thoughtful framework for future decision making and reflects the values and aspirations of the community we serve. So on behalf of the Parks and Recreation Department, I'd like to thank City Council for your continued leadership and investment in parks and recreation. And again, tonight, we're here requesting Council's approval of the resolution adopting the 2026 Parks, Recreation, and Open Space Plan. And with that, I'll turn it over to Council for discussion. Council Member Dodd.

Thank you. Thanks for being here tonight, Nick, and for being all the people on your slide. I really appreciate the work that you've done, that your team has done, that the Parks and Rec Board has done on this. I think it is probably not very fun to get excited about all these future parks every seven years and rebuild a plan for what's possible, and then hope and hope and hope and you know sometimes there's global pandemics and things which is what really affected the last one that i got to participate in um but i just want to call out that that sort of like constant optimism is really appreciated when you guys build these plans so thank you

I will say we actually do get excited about these things. And I will tell you a year ago, as we were putting together all of the data, that's the fun piece of this job. We get to really, you know, put together a plan and we get to work with our community. And that's the, for us, that's the exciting part. All the community touch points.

I totally believe it. Thanks for all the work you do.

Council Member Miles.

Thank you, Mayor. I just want to say thanks, Nick. I know you have worked really hard, you and your team, and I just love your enthusiasm. And you have taught me a lot in my first few months here. And again, I just love what you do. So keep on.

Council Member Anguluri.

Thank you, Nick. And both residents love it. So whatever we have been doing. So thank you very much for everything that you are doing. And the team.

Deputy Mayor.

Thank you. I'm excited that we have come to the end of this process and that now we can take all of these big ideas and start making those efforts become a reality. I was really hoping to hear just how many community members participated in the development of this plan, and 3,000 is an excellent number. That's very exciting. And so I really do appreciate that you started out by thanking the community because it really was a group effort and many, many voices were involved. And it speaks to the community engagement efforts that your team does and also the enthusiasm of our community. Our parks are beloved. People love visiting our parks and across all ages. And I hear that from people of all ages. So it is really, it's very special to be able to vote on this. I did not get to participate in the last one other than as a community member. And parks was an interest of mine long before I even imagined that I might someday run for city council. And I will just say the one piece that really got me interested in thinking about like, how do I get involved was a splash pad. And it's not necessarily in this, it is in this plan, but it's in the Bothell Landing design. And so I'm excited to see that. you know, this plan is the touch point for other planning projects in parks across the city. So it means a lot to me to see, you know, something that, like, my kids were so little back then, and they're not little anymore. They're, you know, one of them's an adult, one of them's about to be a high school senior, and it's amazing to see what the... The planning process can really look like and and to see that this plan is going forward. And I joke with them that, you know, maybe by the time they have kids, they'll see some of the plans and dreams that we had when they were kids become reality. And and that speaks to just. you know, all of the work that your team has to put in, not just to the coming up with the good ideas, um, but wrangling the funding and, and doing all of the construction too. Um, so looking forward to a new park coming online soon, um, for, you know, all of the, you know, the acquisitions of new land, um, hopefully being successful with Shelton view, right? Like we, there's a lot of really exciting, um, eventualities that we're waiting for and working towards. So thank you for all of the work that you're doing on this and for your team as well. And thank you for thanking the community because they're making it happen.

I want to echo everything that my colleagues said. I don't think I had much to say for the last time. I just want to say this time, it makes me really happy to know that your staff has the space to have personal things come up and not be here tonight on a night when you wanted them here and they wanted them here. That makes me feel really good about the organization that you run over there. And we see that in the great work that comes out of everything that you guys do. So we appreciate you and thank you for that. And with that, Council Member Dodd?

I'm ready to make a motion if you're ready to have a motion. Okay. I move the recommended action. Second.

I have a motion from Council Member Dodd and a second from the Deputy Mayor to approve a resolution adopting the 2026 Parks, Recreation, and Open Space Plan, the BROS plan. Would anybody like to speak to the motion? Seeing none, City Clerk?

Thank you. Please say yes or no when I call your name, Council Member Ongulary.

Yes.

Mayor Thompson?

Yes.

Deputy Mayor Alderks? Yes. Council Member Curd?

Yes.

Council Member Miles? Yes. Council Member Dodd? Yes. Council Member Alcabra? Yes. Passes 7-0.

Thanks, Nick. All right. Next up on our agenda is appointments to the Landmark Preservation Board and the Lodging Tax Advisory Committee. City Manager.

Thank you, Mayor, and not related to that topic, but I just will interject. I did hear from Chief Cowan, by the way, and Snohomish County Fire District Number 10 did approve a resolution tonight to go out to the voters of their district to potentially join the RFA. So I'll tie that somehow into boards and commissions, but it's not really related. Getting back on topic, though, our city clerk, Laura Hathaway, has been working with staff who oversee the two boards and commissions today. question tonight to be able to fill some vacancies and we did have some applications and Laura will fill you in on the rest I'll turn it over to our city clerk

Thank you, City Manager Stannard. Yes, Council, as you know, we had our annual recruitment back in January, January 20th through February 20th. And on that, at that time, we had one opening on Landmark Preservation Board. We didn't receive any applications for that. So we went back out. And in the interim, we had another resignation on the Landmark Preservation Board. So we went back out May 5th through the 26th. And we did receive two applications, one from Mark French and one from Andrew Schell. And so because we received two applications for the two openings, we just sent the applications to the full council and asked if they wanted to interview or if you wanted to forego the interviews, both meet the eligibility requirements. And so council elected to forego the interviews. And so tonight we're asking for a motion to appoint both Mr. French and Mr. Shell to the Landmark Preservation Board and their terms would start immediately. uh... also during this this time we received a resignation on the lodging tax advisory board and that is one of our hotel years uh... and as you know they're hard to come high in there they they they they transition quite a bit so because we were bringing the landmark preservation appointments to you this evening We asked if we could throw in the, we did have one person that offered to apply from the Hilton Garden Inn, and that is Mark Lee. And so we asked if council would also make a motion to appoint Mr. Lee to the hotelier position, position number six on the Lodging Tax Advisory Board this evening. And I want to thank all of the applicants, especially Mr. French and Mr. Shell, because they had to wait quite a bit. We left it open for a little bit just to see if we got any others. So I want to thank them for their patience. And they're both really interested in serving. And that is all I have.

I will just echo the thanks and the good news is they didn't even have to interview to get on, but the bad news is we didn't get to meet them and interview them. So I hope they, I hope if you're watching this, feel welcome. Congratulations. We appreciate you. And I think we're ready for a vote. If somebody wants to make a motion, Deputy Mayor.

I motion to approve the appointments of, do I need to read the whole thing? Okay. Of Mark French, position number two, and Andrew Schell, position number six, to the Landmark Preservation Board, and Mark Lee, position number six, to the Lodging Tax Advisory Board.

Second.

I have a motion from Deputy Mayor Alderix and a second from Council Member Dodd. Would anybody, or to move the recommended action, would anybody like to speak to the motion? City Clerk?

Thank you. Please say yes or no. I want to call your name. Council Member Ungulary?

Yes.

Mayor Thompson?

Yes.

Deputy Mayor Alderks? Yes. Council Member Kurt?

Yes.

Council Member Miles? Yes. Council Member Dodd? Yes. Council Member Alcabra? Yes. Passes 7-0.

All right. With that, it is 7-21. We are going to take a quick break before our study session tonight. We will come back at 7-35. All right, it is 7.35. Welcome back. It is time for the study session for the downtown sub area update. City Manager.

Thank you, Mayor. And yeah, City Council, this has been a process that's been undergoing for a little bit. And as you'll recall, our current downtown sub area plan was first adopted back in 2009. And so this has been an opportunity to now take a look at what what is happening downtown, what parts of the plan are coming to fruition, what parts maybe need reimagining, and what parts now would we look at with fresh eyes to say, this is the vision for downtown that we want that didn't exist in 2009. So it's an exciting opportunity to make a real impact on what downtown Bothell looks like. And so tonight's study session, we're joined by Cameron Colvin, who's our senior planner and who's been leading this effort. He'll be providing an update on the sub-area plan itself, including key takeaways from there was an existing conditions inventory that took place, as well as community engagement efforts, and some next steps that are going to be taking place for the release of a draft plan to get reaction to here later this month. So there's a lot going on. There's a lot of work going into it, and Cameron is going to keep us in the loop on what's happening. So with that, I'll turn it over to Cameron.

Thank you very much for the introduction and good evening council members. So as mentioned, I'll be taking you through the initial draft of the downtown sub area plan that was included in your packet. I'll mention upfront that some of this information may not be new, especially given the downtown walking tours just a couple of weeks ago, but wanna provide sufficient information in terms of what's included in the plan and kind of next steps as we move forward. So primarily tonight we are seeking feedback on the vision and desired outcomes that Planning Commission and Council discussed earlier this year to help guide the planning process as well as the draft strategies and actions that were included toward the end of your packet as part of the plan. And so just as a quick project status update, we did just release the initial draft, which is now up on Engage Bothell. That can be reviewed online. The public can provide direct comments within the document itself through August 31st is when that window will close. And in addition to that, we'll be hosting a public open house. that you saw earlier, which will be on Wednesday the 22nd here at City Hall, where residents can learn more about the plan, speak with city staff, and provide additional input. So revisiting the vision and desired outcomes that were discussed earlier this year, the vision that was landed on is that downtown will be a vibrant, beautiful, welcoming, and inclusive heart of the city and regional center providing a place to live, work, play, learn, and rest. Downtown will feel like the town village where people love to be, having an abundance of small shops and dense and varied housing. And so for the plan itself, we tried to structure it roughly around the desired outcomes for downtown Bothell, focusing on seven different topic areas, including land use and development, housing, economic development, transportation, parks and public spaces, arts, culture and historic places, and natural resources. And the strategies and actions that are included in the initial draft are in response to a lot of the challenges and opportunities that we heard through community engagement. And these will be continued to be refined as we receive additional input. And that feedback will be incorporated before we return in the fall with an updated final version of the plan. So I'll quickly kind of run through just a little bit of the data and key takeaways from each of the sections. As we all know, Bothell is growing, which is one of the reasons that now is a critical time to update the downtown sub area plan. Over the next 20 years, we're expected to see almost 2,000 new housing units in downtown, a population increase of about 4,000, and 2,000 new jobs within the subarea itself. In addition to that, we recently applied for countywide growth center designation for downtown through King County. That is currently in the review process, but has been recommended for approval, and they'll be taking action on that item in September. And so one of the exciting things about that is it will qualify us for some additional funding and resources to go toward infrastructure investments within our growth centers. Looking at land use and development downtown, as we've seen, a lot of growth is occurring and it's trending and expanding beyond the historic core. A lot of the feedback that we received from residents is there is some concern about now some of the stark contrast between our historic Main Street and some of the newer development that's occurred. During the development of the last downtown subarea plan, the city owned a significant amount of sites downtown, which were able to be leveraged to support redevelopment. And so now as we move forward, there are fewer and more select number of key redevelopment sites, including the lots here next to City Hall, as well as Triangle Junction that are undergoing environmental cleanup. And both of those sites really reflect key gateways that will help eventually tie together various parts of downtown, including the Park at Bothell Landing, Main Street, and Bothell Way. And as part of this project, we are contracting with an urban design firm to begin some of the conceptualization for those sites and a couple of the other prime redevelopment sites that have been identified. and then looking uh the map on the left of your screen there is the future land use designations map for downtown currently and as you'll recall from our comp land discussions a little over a year ago one of the things we did as part of that process and the city's future land use map was simplify some of those designations so that our zoning districts weren't completely mirroring our future land use designations. What you'll see in kind of neighboring jurisdictions is more generalized future land use designations that provide a bit more flexibility. And then the zoning is really where those distinctions between different districts, height restrictions, those types of things come into play. And so one of the things we may look at as part of this planning process is updating those uh future land use designations for downtown to simplify and consolidate those a bit and then we'll look at any potential impacts to zoning next year as part of the subsequent code updates And then one other thing I'll highlight here is that as a result of the comp plan updates in 2024, we also now have some discrepancies between our downtown transition zone and the neighboring neighborhoods, primarily of Lower Maywood. And so I've got a graphic to kind of highlight that for you all. within our rm4 zoning district that currently outright allows a height limit of 55 feet whereas currently our downtown transition zone which if i bring up the map here is indicated in that kind of pinkish purplish color on the north end of downtown here only allows up to 35 feet. And so that'll be part of our zoning and code update process is also trying to resolve some of those differences and smoothing out the transitions between downtown and surrounding neighborhoods. In terms of housing and affordability, we know that affordability is a common and growing concern. We've experienced a lot of housing growth since 2009 downtown, but a lot of that new housing development has been delivered at market rates. The pie chart on your screen there shows the types of housing within downtown, and that's showing total housing stock. So about two-thirds is apartments, followed by the other categories, including single-family townhomes, manufactured housing, and duplexes. There's... We do, downtown is unique in that we do have existing overlays that require a certain portion of affordable housing units, but we haven't seen that result in new affordable units. Really where we're seeing the most gains are on city-owned property, especially with Lot P coming online, as well as the recent SAMHSA senior apartments. And one other thing, the last two things I'll highlight on this slide are when we look at median household incomes, specifically within the downtown subarea, we do see that those tend to be lower than citywide household incomes. That may reflect the younger demographic. Within downtown, there's a larger portion of those between 20 and 40 living within the downtown subarea. as compared to the city as a whole. And this may also reflect earlier stages of people's careers as well. But something to keep in mind as we look at housing strategies moving forward and what is affordable to this demographic. related to that we do see a very high percentage of renters that are cost burdened so paying over 30% of incomes toward housing that equates to 52% and when we look at owners about 20% are spending over 30% on existing mortgages and then One other statistic that may be of interest is that almost half of the existing housing stock was built between 2010 and 2019. So pretty significant growth numbers during that period of time. Looking at jobs and businesses, we have similarly seen a lot of job growth downtown, and it is a growing employment center within the city. We looked at the top sectors based on the number of businesses downtown, number of employees, and annual sales revenues, and we do see that downtown has a high concentration of healthcare businesses. The second largest number of businesses are service related, followed by retail and restaurants. And then in terms of the highest employers downtown, we see healthcare followed by restaurants, and then education reflecting the campuses, and government reflecting city. And then in terms of most sales, healthcare followed by retail, construction, restaurants, and finance. And so in talking with the community, there is a lot of interest in more dining, retail, entertainment, and programming downtown. And it is a little bit of a chicken and the egg situation where, you know, People want more businesses to make downtown more attractive and then the businesses need more people to visit downtown So that they can be successful and so looking at how we can best support Businesses and also make downtown a destination that people want to visit Looking at transportation and mobility Since the 2009 downtown plan, major transportation investments did also help. Instagate allowed the redevelopment downtown, including the improvements to Main Street as well as the Bothell Way, Multiway Boulevard. And there are several planned improvements that will continue to increase access and mobility, including improvements to Bothell Way, north of Reeder Way, as well as Beardsley Boulevard and 102nd Avenue. There's also major bus rapid transit improvements that will be coming to downtown that will improve access to local and regional connections and reduce dependency on single occupancy vehicles. And one of the most common things that we heard during community engagement was concern about existing parking availability and curbside management. And so I know that we have had discussions in terms of the curbside management strategy And some of the other things that came up in those discussions are the need for additional wayfinding and kind of available information on what parking is available downtown, what hours it's available to the public and getting people in and out of those destinations. Then parks and public spaces, downtown has a large concentration of parks and public spaces, primarily due to the vast amount of natural resources that cut through downtown. As part of the PROS plan, they did look at a walk shed inventory. And so, as you see on the map to the right there, colored in blue, are the areas that are within a 10-minute walk shed of a nearby Parker open space, which is a majority of downtown. In addition to that, we do have requirements for privately provided and owned public space as part of new developments. And so this has helped increase the overall supply. However, we found that in talking with the community, there's not a lot of awareness that these spaces exist and that they are actually open to the public and so there is interest in how we can better utilize those spaces either through programming or other marketing efforts um Downtown Bothell has a rich history and the arts, culture and history plays an important part in its identity and sense of place. And so we heard from residents that that's really important for us to highlight and continue as Bothell continues to grow. We heard from our artist community that it would be helpful to have some more specific processes and procedures for the integration of public art throughout downtown and in front of businesses. And so that will be something that we look into as part of the code updates next year. And then there's also interest, people love all of the events that go on downtown, and so in addition to city council's priority, the public is also interested in expanding those programs and events throughout the year as resources allow. And then finally, natural resources. The access to nature is highly valued by residents in Bothell and the Sammamish River provides a really unique opportunity for that within downtown. And so that's something that people would like to be retained and expanded upon as downtown continues to grow. We know that growth downtown will continue to place additional pressure on our natural systems and so really the opportunities looking forward are continuing our environmental restoration efforts along the river and incorporating stormwater and green building techniques as that growth occurs. So I've got just a few more slides regarding next steps and then I will open it up for feedback from council As mentioned we will be hosting an open house next Wednesday, July 22nd here at City Hall and The draft plan will remain open for public comment through August 31st, and we will be incorporating that feedback and Bringing that back to council later this fall. I And with that, I will turn it over for any questions and discussion.

I was really excited to see how much market rate housing we've gotten and see how that market rate housing has attracted folks with lower incomes that can't afford to live in the rest of Bothell, but they can afford to live here. And that's exactly what we're trying to do. And it's cool to see it happening. And I think we should keep our foot on the gas so that we can make room for folks that can't afford to live in the rest of Bothell. So big picture, I would like to see this plan be really aggressive in terms of getting more housing built through redevelopment. I'll pause for you all to be shocked. With that said, there's a couple things, and I know I've brought this up before, so, like, I'm sorry. I'm probably repeating myself. You've probably heard all of this. And I think I said this on the train. Wasted vertical space, like, really frustrates me. Like, seeing some of the apartment buildings that are a few blocks away that were built to three stories when they could have been built to five stories. Like, that's just two stories of housing that will not exist for the next hundred years or however long. However long those buildings go. So I would like to, if possible, see the downtown sub area zoned as much as possible for realistically like the maximum that we would see built here. I've heard from the development community that eight stories will give them everything they want in Bothell. And a lot of them won't build that high because they can only get about five of stick built. Not everybody's going to want to build a podium. But I'd also like to see a height that enables mass timber to be developed, if that's possible. if somebody wants to do that, because I think mass timber is cool and I would love to see a mass timber project here in Bothell. And man, each one of these buildings that goes up that doesn't have any ground floor retail in it just makes me really sad. Because even the community members I talk to that don't love all of the development that's happened down here, they all say, yeah, but at least there was a new restaurant. At least we don't have to go to Kirkland to go out to dinner anymore. Like, there's new restaurants, there's new businesses, and they really enjoy that. And, like, I don't know how long this goes until planned adoption, but, like, I would like to get the ground floor retail done as soon as possible. Like, just because I, you know, each one that I see that goes in that is a bare wall along the side just makes me have a sad... In terms of big picture stuff from the plan, we pedestrianized one block of Main Street in 2020, and I would love to have a conversation about what it looks like to expand that zone, maybe on a temporary or a future basis as redevelopment happens, and then potentially design our redevelopment around what that looks like. Because obviously buildings are going to need to have access and maybe in certain buildings the access for certain things needs to be on another side, on another block if we have a pedestrian zone where we want to be able to close that up and have a long weekend or something like that. We've also talked about creating a town square of sorts. I would love to have that. I would love to have a space that is designed for gathering, not just a street that we have repurposed, if that's at all possible. If that's not possible, a street that we repurposed will do. And maybe that's a temporary thing that we do while we look at something else, but I'd love to kind of see what that looks like. We own some property downtown, and maybe that's not the best property, but maybe we can look at how we could acquire a piece of land that would work really well for that. and create a really cool, vibrant public space. I remember going to Europe when I was in my 20s. And every town had a big town square. And there were a bunch of events happening there constantly during the day, during the night. It was just a really cool place where people could gather. There was a really strong sense of community identity around that space. It's just really fun. When our community comes together and gathers, we have a really good time, and I want to create physical spaces that make that easier to do.

I had a quick question, Mason. So in your mind, what does this town square look like and how is it different from Bothell Landing? I know what a town square is and I'm thinking about the Redmond Town Center. And when that came online in the early 2000s, I was a Redmond resident. And that just brought folks to that area. But I'm just thinking, kind of in your mind, what would that be? Are we trying to just bring folks, obviously downtown, but are we trying to do events or are we trying to organically create...

A physical space where people can gather, that is designed where people can linger, where people can show up with their friends and family. They can show up with a lunch and hang out. And it's a pleasant place to hang out where we can have events and it's set up for that. And there's electricity plug-ins and there's a place for a stage and there's ingress and egress. And all of it's been planned around both the casual day-to-day as well as the events that we would like to see more of. So a space that's really designed for being present at, for arriving at.

Understood. So it's a third place.

Correct.

Got it. Which I think is something that would be cool and that we would do. It just goes back to where it almost feels like we're trying to create this where in some ways it could be organic. I don't know what the right answer is, but... I would love to have these cool spaces, but I feel like we're in a place where we're trying to create the cool and we're trying to make fetch happen. I think if we create the infrastructure, maybe it happens, but I think it's the people have to lead and drive. Just a thought.

A hundred percent, but the people also need a place to go. The people can't lead and create a third space out of a highway. Like there needs to be a physical space that people can do that. And because I'm not just a mayor, I'm a cool mayor. Like I want to, hey, she did it first. We're gonna go.

I think if you call yourself cool, you automatically disqualify yourself. Point of information.

He's dead, mayor. We're referencing a movie.

We are better than the United States Congress right now.

Seriously. And so, yeah, and, you know, when we look at the growth projections and we look at, I don't know, we've added thousands of new housing units, and each one of those housing units probably averages More than one people more than one person and we're gonna have thousands more people in 20 years living down here living within a short walk of down here and I think you're right and that like We can't create a public space without the people without the vibrancy like that absolutely has to be here but that's what we're planning for and if we're planning for the people like we should plan for making this a really cool place for them to live and

Totally agree. Totally agree. And I think it goes back to your statement about retail. And that was on the walking tour. That was one of my big things. It's like, we need more retail because there's no reason for me to come here because there's nothing that I'm attracted to. I mean, I love the pop-up shops, but that's not what I'm coming for. I'm coming for somewhat of that Woodinville retail.

Yep.

Right? And we have an opportunity, but are people making money with the retail that's there, and is that why some of the builders are just like, eh, I don't know if I really want to have retail on the ground floor. I agree. I think it should be there. As a New Yorker, that's what I would expect. I want that bodega. I want that experience. And that's still a new experience here for a West Coaster, so that's something they have to get used to. But I just come back to the bottom line. Are people actually making any money in downtown? And do we know that, and can we find that out?

I mean, what I would say is that whenever there's a restaurant that doesn't make it, another restaurant goes in. And there's clearly businesses that are sticking around a while, and they're making enough to keep it going. And I don't think we have access to their books. But again, every new apartment building that goes in is going to have 300, 400 new people in it. Then those people are going to want to walk downstairs and go to dinner. I don't get in my car to drive places if I don't have to. And if they can walk across the street and go to whatever business that is, I think we should give people more businesses to go to and business more customers or more potential customers to be there. And it should be both.

Agreed. And I think we need to open up and have the conversation of small business is great. That's where we would hopefully index. But I think we're going to have to open it up to bigger box. You know, a Starbucks, dare I say it, you know, daily grinds don't come after me. But having something like that, that's another magnet for people. Right. In some way, I don't.

I think we should focus on creating the retail space for places, and whoever wants to fill it's going to fill it. It's not really our job on land that we don't own to say, here's who you need to lease to. It's more just like, we want a certain amount of retail in these buildings that are going up.

Sure, understood, but I think we could help make it friendly for folks. But I interrupted your flow, had those questions.

That's okay. We've talked about, like, study sessions being more engaging, and, like, I'm chatty, and I'm more than happy to have a conversation, and I like you, so, like, this works just fine. There you go. I don't consider it an interruption. It's conversation. The... I... The other thing I've brought up in the past is all the different downtown zones we have, and I don't need to probably tell you about this, but the new developments going in on the corner of Main Street, that lot is on two different downtown zones for one lot, and that's just wild to me. So I would like to, as much as possible, have a uniform downtown zone zone it for eight stories, give people as much as they'll use, knowing that not everybody is gonna take advantage of all of that, and make it simpler and make it more vibrant, more people, more businesses. That's all I got.

Similarly to the last thing the mayor said, the cool mayor, I'm sorry, is I would love to see a minimum density downtown. And broadly, I think we have too many zones. I caught the note that, I'm gonna probably get the terminology wrong, but I think the downtown transition zone now has a lower height limit than lower Maywood. I understand the logic of how that happened, but that's very silly. And then I did wanna, dig at a few things to understand them. So, Cameron, you mentioned more processes and procedures for public art. So I know we have the 1% on public buildings. I guess, because I don't think we can tell, nor should we tell people who are building apartment buildings I'd like to be able to tell them put retail on the bottom and and not like put a statue out front I also think we get a lot of weird public art when we require it of private home builders so I what does that look like was there more than that

Yeah, so it's mostly an administrative process and cleaning up our code and being more specific, specifically calling out different types of art. Right now, the downtown sub-area regulations have very specific sign standards and so that historically has been used to review art as it comes in but having a more distinct review process for things that fall outside of that like murals as they come up would be helpful for folks like review to make sure it meets size requirements or like that the subject of the mural is likeable I

didn't realize we were kind of I thought people just put it up they they do get reviewed and maybe Jason can speak to this more we you know when it comes to things like murals we want to ensure that they're not being utilized as a sign and I think that's probably what the code is aiming towards but once we have that security we step back and say it's really...

So it's not just like a bunch of people shopping at the store that's inside the building? Exactly. Okay. That could be kind of fun, but I also think it would be weird. That makes sense. And then the other thing is the stark contrast between Main Street and nearby. I mean, the further our current time gets from when Main Street was built, I think that'll keep going. But what was the specific sort of like harm that was noticed with that?

I don't know if there is one, but I would say it's a common community sentiment that, you know, people that have lived here for several years, they see the new development. And I think some of the concern in speaking with them is mostly about building massing. And so some of those issues could potentially be resolved through different types of facade articulation, requiring more pedestrian cut-throughs, alleyways, connections that kind of break up those pieces. But that is primarily what we were hearing from residents.

I'd probably need examples to buy in on more facade articulation. I think pedestrian cut-throughs make a lot of sense. I don't love big, giant buildings, but I also want a lot of housing. I think it's really great that we see that this part of the city is more accessible to a broader range of households. That's really cool. Um, which the cool mayor also already said, so I'm going to try not to repeat it.

Look, I only know so many quotes from mean girls.

I'm just going to say cool mayor every time forever. Now it's totally fine. Um, and then, yeah, I, I would be personally more excited to, to make sure the minimum density makes sense. I'm not given that we require that, um, when you put a building in you, have you make upgrades to utilities to make sure it happens safely. I'm not worried about maximum density so much. So I wouldn't want to limit if we can get especially affordable housing. So creativity there would be great. I think. Yeah, I think this is all really exciting. Do we set like comprehensive planning? We have a statute from the state that tells us how often to update that. Do we have a set cadence for updating the downtown plan? 2009 feels like a long time ago.

Since the sub-area is within the comp plan, it is part of that annual update. So the work that Cameron's doing now is going to be combined with what Katie brought last time. Yeah. So end of year. But yes... It was a bit of a long duration. We did delay it with the comprehensive update, because it was just too big of a project to throw on top of already a gigantic project, which is why there's those variations with lower Maywood and downtown. We just said, hold off on that. We'll get to it next. But a regular cadence, it really does depend on the environment and the place. If it's every five years, every two years, every 10, every 20, it really does depend on kind of what we're seeing and regular implementation and monitoring of a place is worth going through. It does make sense that we would look within our annual updates every year to say, did we miss something in this sub area? Did we miss something in that sub area? Not to say that they're off limits, like anything within the comp plan, if that helps.

I would love to hear when you come back to us with more, just more options. I think public open space is great. I think a lot of the ways we see it, it's not serving a great public need. The cool mayor made a point on our walking tour. Sorry. Every time I made a walking point or a talking point on our walking tour, like how many apartments could fit in this open space, which is interesting. Like in one or two here, isn't a big thing, but, do we lose anything requiring it, and could we require something different or more useful instead? So just some very easy questions to address. Thank you.

I just had one quick thing. I am so sorry I invoked mean girls there. I am not even a millennial. I'm very proud of you as a millennial. Oh, God, no.

I'm not a millennial either. I'm just a dad, so cringe is my lifeblood right now.

but you're a late Gen Xer, so we know.

I'll just jump in and say that I've been looking forward to this conversation since around the time that I moved here when the last downtown plan was new. I remember kind of looking at what I knew that lots of changes were occurring, um, and was like, was curious about, okay, so where is this all headed? Like, what are we trying to accomplish here with the, with all of these, you know, Mount Bothell and all that. Um, and, and I remember there's a couple of features that like didn't get accomplished from the 2009 plan, specifically the gateway at the crossroads of 522 and 527. because soil remediation and triangle junction and then also the redesign of Bothell landing because that was that was part of what was envisioned and and I know that not every plan has to be finished before you can create a new plan there was a pandemic in their stuff stuff happened And so it's really interesting to be able to, like, track the planning cycle and see that now it is the appropriate time to do it. And to your point, it wasn't as we were coming up to a comprehensive plan. And so I do remember those conversations when we as a body decided, like, yeah, we'll move that until after. It's coming, it is due, it is time. And so this is, you know, this is... we're finally here, is what I'm saying. On Planning Commission, I was able to have some of these conversations about, you know, privately owned public open space and, which I just learned today has an acronym of POPS. And I was also able to be a part of conversations around, you know, building modulation, like the exteriors. And so I'm going to try to recall some of the takeaways from participating in the Canyon Park sub area plan and take some of those best ideas and make sure that they're heard and included in the downtown plan. And one of the things that when we talked about Canyon Park was, um making sure that we had like through block connections and like pedestrian walkways between buildings so it's not like the we have a lot of you know donut buildings in downtown where you have to walk all the way around the outside all the way around the block and they're big blocks and i think when we are looking at kind of future bothell we do want you know housing above we do want retail below but they don't need to be like we could have alleys and we could have courtyards and we could right like um and they could be inviting and and and so i think that those are some of the the design kind of features that um that we you know we hope for in canyon park but we can also hope for in downtown another takeaway from the sub area planning process that i did on planning commission for Kenyon Park was that when we do first floor retail, we often end up with like big spaces that only like large corporations can really move into and customize and become their own. Because they're newer buildings and their leasing prices are higher, we end up losing a lot of the creative local entrepreneurs. And so we talked a lot about, on the planning commission, how do we create kind of flexible, smaller spaces that can be affordable for entrepreneurs who are just getting started. So instead of, you know, does every space have to be 5,000 square feet? Can we have a 1,200 square foot? And we do see some of that in downtown. I think most of those kind of like spaces that could be converted between apartments and retail are now apartments, as we've seen over time. But those are some of the, I think, principles that I want to take away. I have a kid in my house who is interested in becoming an architect. And so I hear a lot about buildings and a lot of complaints about modern buildings and like the early 2000s, like we have to have lots of different colors and like depths and facades. And so we don't get the kind of classical, um like harmonious proportions of repeated patterns that are really lovely in like classic architecture and i don't know if i said that correctly and i'm sure there are architects who would like to correct me on that but i have been picking up something from them and and i And so like, so I don't, I'm not a fan of exactly what we were talking about a little bit ago around, you know, the facade or like modulation, because we could actually have some more classic type looking buildings here that doesn't necessarily follow the more like modern contemporary look that we're seeing come up everywhere. And if we release some of the design restrictions, we might be able to see more of those like classic styles. So I just want to put that out there. Those are my thoughts around that. I think I did have one question kind of in the details of if our goal is 1,800, almost 1,900 new housing units in the downtown sub area over the next, yes, on slide seven, over the next 20 years. is like could you also compare or let us know or compare what's the potential capacity for downtown housing units like i think we did that through the the comprehensive plan anyway so we might already have that data but you know i i don't like out of out of context 1900 is we don't know how doable that is we don't know how easy that is like you know if we know what the capacity is it it may not end up being remarkably different than what we are already experiencing, especially since we have seen, you said, I think an almost 50% increase in housing units from 2009. So that's a curiosity question on my part.

Yeah, that is something that we can look into. just the initial gut reaction is that our existing zoning, at least downtown, probably provides well beyond that capacity, but that would require redevelopment of certain sites and new construction to accommodate, so.

I just want to jump in and co-sign everything that the deputy mayor just said, because that was all really fantastic, especially like the smaller, more granular retail requirement. And like, there's kind of a theme with like the height tapering downtown, um, the facade modulation that, um, they just mentioned, um, can we get rid of upper story setbacks? And like, there's all these vestiges of our code that like apologize for building more housing that prevent us from building more housing. And can like, we just go through our code and look at those things and make them go away because we celebrate building more housing and like making our city more accessible for people.

And also I would love to know our options for encouraging like property managers to lease commercial space, living by what I still call the new Safeway, right at the county line. It's only 10 years old. But anyway, it's not so bad now, but there's always been a lot of vacancy there. And I've heard a lot of reasons why. I would love to understand if there's some way we can put code in that is like, it's vacant and you could be leasing it it's worth your while to lease it because when it's vacant some bad thing happens I don't want to say random ideas because I don't know if they're legal but I would love to understand how we can ensure occupied commercial space yeah it sounds like you're talking about like an incentive for not leaving vacancies

I'm putting on a slightly contrarian hat, which is something I don't readily like to do. I believe in vertical development. I am a New Yorker. That is where I come from. Things go up. They don't go out. But just on the walking tour, we talked about how, you know, the look and feel of downtown is changing. And, you know, folks have to kind of get used to it because, you know, we're moving forward in the 21st century. But how do we balance, and I'm not an architect, don't understand how that works, but I appreciate the beauty. How do we balance that? Like keeping it, you know, some of that small town feel, but yet modern, but yet vertical. Because folks will complain. And, I mean, complaints are fine. But I'm just thinking how... How do we manage that balance? What does that look like? I'm not saying we don't do it, but I just think maybe there might be some pushback.

I think the ground floor retail can help because it's not just a big building you didn't ask for. It's a big building you didn't ask for with things you want to do on the bottom of it. For you, a Starbucks, as you mentioned. Not for me, just for you. Or whatever it is. I think that That's part of it. I think it's hard to feel connected to a space. You don't go in, maybe you don't know anybody who lives there, and there's no reason for you to be there, right? But that's one thing. I think if we refined the way that we require a public open space, if we continue to do that, if it adds a space that you find useful as a resident or a place that you like to visit, that might also help. But it's hard, because it's like trying to encourage good feelings, which you can't manufacture for someone.

True. And I mean, I've been a resident of the greater east side since 1995. Windows 95, that's why I moved here, for Microsoft. And it has changed, and I didn't have a car for a very, very long time. So it's gone from what I would call, you know, ex-burbs, suburbs, to where we are now. The fact that downtown Redmond has an elevated light rail, which makes it look like a mini Chicago, blows my mind. Because I never thought I would see that, and I don't even recognize downtown Redmond anymore. And I lived there for years, for years. And I think... And as the population ages, the older Gen Xers like myself, and then you have your geriatric millennials and then your Gen Zs, we're going to be used to seeing how the suburbs have changed. But there's still going to be those outliers that are still living in their houses. It doesn't look like it did in 1999 when we had all these trees here. And that's okay. It's just, like you said, I think it's finding the retail or finding a story of why this still has the character, why I still want to live here, why I still feel connected to this community. And I think that's the most important thing. And again, I'm just putting on a contrarian hat, which I will now take off because I don't like it. Because I think what we're doing is moving people forward in the way that we need to move forward. I mean, the world has changed. It does not look like it did in the 1990s by any stretch of the imagination for those of you that were adults and might have remembered it. It is vastly changing where there's no line of demarcation between the big city and the suburbs anymore. You have to go way out. And even then, I still think that's changing into a suburb. But I'll stop talking now.

calling Redmond mini-Chicago is a thing of itself.

It was a stretch, but I'm already there tonight.

I, for one, love your contrarianness because I think it's We're having a better conversation because of it. We're getting to explain some of the things that we think about this. And I know that there will be people that watch this that hear themselves in what you say. So I don't think you're being contrarian as much as I think you're just helping drive a little bit different discussion than we normally have during this. And I really like it. So don't apologize for it. To your question, though, what are we doing for those folks that really liked it here 30 years ago and they see it changing a lot? I would just point out that we do have facade protections in for Main Street, for like that historic block. And nobody's talking about getting rid of those. Like, we like that. We want to keep it that way. And even with the change in what the buildings look like, I think that we have a lot of continuity and tradition and activities. Like, you know, everybody puts their chairs out. Yeah. early for the parade. That's, you guys know that's weird, right? Like, like Bothell does that, like, and nobody else does that. So like, we have our, we have, we can have continuity and place and tradition and values. The other thing is, is like, even if we try to keep the buildings from changing somehow all that means is we're going to move the change to something else and like like we've seen a whole lot of people that can't afford to live in a lot of our neighborhoods be able to live downtown like we're going to enable more of that and if we didn't make these changes like we would stop that and then where would those people move i don't know somewhere else that they would rather live less because they live here so like i i would just say that It's really important for a community to kind of hold on to its values and hold on to itself. And I think that it's really important to still be a community like it was when I bought my home here that has access to like all the Eastside's job centers, pretty easy access into downtown Seattle. And you can actually afford to live here. And it's more affordable than some of our neighbors. And I think the continuity in who is able to live here is more important than the continuity in what the buildings look like. Even if I had a magic wand and I could make everybody happy with something, I would. I don't want people to not like the buildings, but I think it's more important that we have continuity in what kind of community we are and who can afford to call it home.

I agree. People do like the chairs out. Reddit was confused, a new person, but everybody's like, bro, are you new here? This is what we do. This is what we do. And I love that. And I think it is cute and kitschy and slightly corny, but you know what? That's the stuff that stays. That's what people stick to. People love that pancake breakfast. Reddit was just like, that hit. That hit. And that's the stuff that we should be known for. And I think that's the stuff that's important.

over an eight-story building. Great inputs from fellow council members. Great conversations too. So I'll try to just take maybe five minutes. Is it too much? Okay, we'll take one minute, but we'll talk 10 minutes. So I will start with a conversation that I had with a senior citizen. She's a multi-generational resident. She came to me while we were talking about DEI. Prasad, do you think city of Botel have a diversity visible in our Botel downtown? She was asking me, she doesn't feel, I mean, I started thinking that struck me quite a bit. I started thinking, OK, of course, I've been only living last 20 years. She's been living all her life. She's not an immigrant, definitely. So I wanted to see in the strategy, can we include that? Can we include that? I like the banners, for example, like football banners on our Bothell downtown. If there is a Chinese New Year, can we see a dragon? Like in the parade, amazing cultural, every culture was presented in the parade. So how can we embrace that in our downtown planning however we can? We do have it. arts and culture budget however we can utilize some of it to include it and some of these banners we can use it every year uh every time then when there is a chinese new year i don't know i'm not suggesting i'm just asking when she came to me i'm like wow that's a great question i did not have an answer i said maybe we'll speak and this seems to be a perfect place i just wanted to bring it So that's one thing. She also mentions, she's a senior citizen, she has seen the complete growth. Everybody had a great input. She was also mentioning about transportation and mobility. She doesn't see, but again, she's just one resident. I'm not saying that we need to agree everything that she's saying. Prasad, I'm not seeing I have enough mobility to do the things that I wanted to do as a senior citizen. I'm not sure what else we can do. I know we've been working on a lot of plans and everything. So those are the two things I just wanted to share. Yeah, definitely town square. Hopefully the pop up space that we have, maybe that will be a little town square. I don't know. But those are the two things. I don't know if I took five minutes. Just want to make sure. Thank you.

That's right. He doesn't make the rules. I think what you said was great. It just reminds me of New York, where you would see these different things, where the MTA might do something, or the city might do something, where you would see dragons, or you would see certain emblems or something, which is the tapestry of these cultures. And I'll be really honest. I don't know if you know this. I am a black woman living in Bothell. There are not a lot of us. I will honestly stop my car. You might see a red car. and I will be black people in Bothell to my daughter and I will point. And she's like, yes, yes, there are black people in Bothell. And it's important that we start showing these people that live here that they are reflected as part of the community because it is, I feel invisible. I know I'm here, but I don't know if other people know I'm here. And I think it's really important that, to Prasad's point, is that we start celebrating culture. If we are about culture community, then we need to show that to the community.

Thank you for saying that, because I think there's not always an environment where you might be comfortable saying that. Well, you probably are. I think it's a matter of visibly being diverse, but also ensuring that the way that we grow includes a lot of people. I don't mean to harp on the fact that downtown has a lower than city average population. median income but the more we can develop and add spaces that work for more kinds of people whether they're fully accessible units right so that there's more opportunities for people who use mobility aids to rent spaces right like apartments because there aren't a ton of apartments out there that have like sturdy grab bars in the shower and full wheelchair access roll-in showers and stuff making sure that as we right size and manage our parking, we have abundant ADA spots like that kind of stuff. Um, so I want us to focus on the visibility, but also all of the, I'm going to make an architecture reference. I'm so sorry, but like the foundation in the basement has to also be strong so we can build that visible diversity on top. Um, otherwise it's a flag, but you can't actually get a space as a wheelchair user to rent that kind of thing. and making sure that we don't have like food deserts, right? So we have enough grocery stores and places for people to get services and all that jazz. I do wonder too, the town square idea that the cool mayor brought up, if that's a way to also offer that like cultural groups that have formed in Bothell. you mentioned the nineties and being an adult, I was not quite an adult in the nineties, but I got to see just from my time in North shore schools to my kids time, the amount of diversity and that's the whole school district. But we went from what Amanda experienced as a North shore student to like 50 languages are spoken in our schools now, which is amazing. And that was not true in the nineties. Um, and we have all these really cool cultural groups. And so having spaces for them to have events and, I would hate for like our parks department to be like, how do we throw a culturally inclusive event when we might have a community group that wants to throw a Lunar New Year event and they can just like use a town square to do that. So making sure we have those spaces feels like part of that. But you guys tell me if I'm missing the mark, too.

No, I think our role here is plug and play. We help with the infrastructure and let other people who are, I quote, quote unquote, are the professionals or the ones that know how to do it, let them do it. And we're just here to support. And I think that's the flag that we fly is that we're here to catch you and hold you because you are a part of the community. So we're here to support you.

The other thing that I would point out is the second year of Summer Nights in Bothell, we outsourced some of our community events to folks from different cultures that would run their events like right on Main Street on our public street in our pedestrianized areas. And that was amazing. And we don't have that anymore. And like, I think that's a big loss and I would love to find a way to get that back.

I think the town square conversation is, is part of that. Um, because when we, you know, we, we heard this from, from parks and as we've been, you know, kind of going around about, uh, what, you know, what makes an effective downtown event and it was the missing infrastructure from main street, like bathrooms and water hookups and that kind of stuff. Um, a town square could, could be built with the end goal in mind of hosting events and having the space that works for that. And I absolutely, like, you know, I recall a Diwali event on Main Street that was really lovely. Having Chai Holi at the park. Like, we've seen some very successful community organizations come in and bring, you know, cultures from around the world to celebrate in spaces that are publicly available. I love it. I want to see more of it. And I think that goes... It goes a long way to helping people who may be immigrants or maybe have moved here see themselves and be welcome in this space. There is no good way to make this transition, so I'm just going to say there's another piece of the design elements that I thought of as folks were talking. And I don't want to believe the Atlantic when they say that the American dream is dead, I know you feel that way. But one of the things that has gone away in the American dream that we don't see very often anymore is small-scale commercial that is owned by the business owner. It's not leased, it's owned, because it's a small lot and there's usually housing above. Like, that used to be how, like, immigrants to America... made like built their equity and they ran their business and they lived where they worked and and like our modern design standards modern urban planning has really gotten away from that and like one of the reasons why our downtown is as like it doesn't have the housing above but um like would be really lovely as a community to be able to get back to that and have that be possible for people again um and it's been a long it's not it's not seen very often anymore so yeah just wanted to include that as like it would be a throwback but in the best way thanks um

I like a lot of what's been said already. A couple things that when I was reviewing haven't come up yet. The strategies and actions go hard at downtown Transition zones, which is rightly so they don't need to exist but one of the zones downtown that has been underperforming my expectations since 2009 is the 522 zone I think that the types of development that have been coming through have been sort of hampered by some of the development regulations, and I realize that it's early because development regulations will come afterwards, but as long as we're rethinking which zoning categories are necessary, I think that we should really pay attention to that 522 zone It's got a lot of potential, redevelopment potential, with big parking lots, a lot of asphalt. And so I've realized that that's sort of a corridor zone that we're not really excited about putting people close to traffic. But it has a lot of potential. So I'd like to kind of call that out as an opportunity. I have a question, too, which is how have the downtown special design area, how does that work right now? How are you utilizing it as a planning department? I know that it was sort of developed with a nexus for historic preservation and landmark stuff, but there's also architectural regulations that aren't really enforceable but are uh pointed in the municipal code as well and so i look at the map and i see the area of special design sort of regulations and i recognize that when people see new development coming up in bothell a lot of those new development Areas are going to be outside of that Green box on the map. So I'm just wondering how how is it being implemented right now? And do you see an area that might be able to bring some of these? questions about well we want to have Buildings look a certain way or we want to You know increase The bang for the buck. So can you tell me a little bit more about how that's playing out? I

Yeah, so for those that may not be familiar, I'll try to highlight it here. But there is a downtown special review area that is primarily the center block between Main Street and 185th. And as mentioned, it was put in place because of the historic nature of the buildings in that area. And so It does provide some stipulations for historic review as well as architectural standards. And I think one of the challenges we have run into is that some of those are requirements and some of those are encouraged. And so trying to clean that up is something that I think is on our radar to speak with our community. landmark preservation board more about we met with them last week to talk about this plan update and and had some conversation around that so it is on our radar okay that's good to hear and it sounds like it's really limited to mod modifications or demolition of existing structures so it's not really like

Dave Kuntz, redevelopment of vacant parcels in our downtown sub area wouldn't be subject to these. Dave Kuntz, architectural suggestion heavy suggestions, but that could be a way or expanding that area could be a way. to get at some of the ideas that have been kind of thrown around. So it's worth a look. And then the final thing, I am happy to hear about the sort of transportation nexus with the downtown plan and encouraging better connections to bus stops and for walkability. That's so important and kind of a defining character of downtown is that it is walkable one of the only areas in our town that is and so I think that there are other improvements that could be added to strengthen that strategy namely the lighting it's hard to think now but it gets dark at 4 p.m. in the winter and there's a intersection that's got a lot of congestion at where Kaysner turns into 104 Main Street where it turns into Beardsley that's already kind of a weird intersection the bus stop is right after on Beardsley and so there's frequent pulses of pedestrians in that crosswalk and it is pretty dark and that's a function of it's not slated for improvements under the BRT. It's not slated for TIP work because it's outside of the downtown core and it's probably really low on the redevelopment potential in that on those other areas under current economic conditions. And so I'm just thinking When does it start to become important for the city to put lighting in to help make sure that visibility is okay for folks who are walking around downtown in the evenings, not even night, but evenings? and after, like literally after work. Yeah, so before work is even over, oh gosh, winter is coming. Yeah, so I wanna include that just as a reference that this is something that we do care about and it is something that we're looking at when we talk about walkability, when we talk about connections for transit. I think that lighting is just as important as making sure that there are sidewalks and crosswalks.

I'm going to jump in and add on to that because I love that. And the other thing that I would love to see is shelter at a bus stop. You know, buses don't always come on time. You generally like to give yourself a few minutes of like wait time just so you've got some buffer and you don't miss the bus. And having to stand in the rain, even if you've got an umbrella, really sucks. So like if there was lighting and some sort of structure where people could at least be out of the rain and maybe put a bench under there while we're at it, especially in the areas where we are going to be building a lot more housing and we are expecting people to take transit and like like we we should do a better job of making those making folks waiting for transit to be a little bit more pleasant.

I think a lot of that is coming with stride improvements to because most of our bus stops downtown will be frequent. So that'll be helpful that some transit and community transit take care of that. But where there's access improvements for people walking to their house from or their home. Totally. Yeah.

But there's still a bunch of bus stops around here that serve Metro and only Metro routes. And those are going to continue and people take them. A lot of people take them.

Yep.

So if we, if we have these areas where we are trying to build a lot more housing, like, like, I mean, I'm just trying to imagine if somebody was on their commute to work in a car and we made them stop and get out and stand in the rain for a little while, how they would react to that. And I don't think we should have different standards for people that take different types of means to get to work. A couple other things that have come up is people have said really good ideas. I really like also what Council Member Kurtz said about looking at the 522 corridor. I would like to take a look at Beardsley. Like, you know, that is, we've got a college right there. Like I would love there to be more businesses along Beardsley. I would love there to be more housing, especially housing that's appropriate for students. Like I know we've had one developer look at micro units and hopefully when we get the MFT fix, that's something that is, that they can do. But I think that is incredibly underdeveloped over there right now. And we haven't seen a bunch of redevelopment. So like, let's see what we can do to get redevelopment over by Beardsley. And the other thing I've been thinking about, there was a conversation, I think it was Council Member Miles brought up, where people are like, you know, there's kind of a mix between the old and the new. I think that's okay. Like, I think it's okay to have a mix between the old and the new, because if everything's just old, then we're stagnating, and we're not growing, and there's nothing for our future there. And is it awkward? Yeah. Does it look a little weird sometimes to have, like, a 100-year-old house next to a five-story apartment building? Yeah. But, like, that's what a community that's growing and changing and adapting and being relevant in the future looks like. And I think, like, yeah, it might look a little funny, but I think that's okay. So...

I agree with you. Growing up in New York, nothing stays forever. Everything changes. There was always this thing that used to be there, like the bars and restaurants that I used to go to in the 80s, 90s, and the early 2000s. They're gone, right? Because things change. And it's okay, and it's all right for cities to be living... breathing entities because they are. Because new people come, other people go, people live, people die. So I think just because we're not like a major city, we're a small suburb or a mid-sized suburb, I should say, things can change. Things can grow because we have different people here now. And that's okay.

Just to add to the bus shelter thing, and I've brought this up, like I've annoyed Steve over there quite a bit with this, I think. But buses... buses was not the word I was going to say, benches. So, and I don't just mean at bus shelters. I think accessibility has kind of good for a lot of people framework, but like I'm one of those lucky people where my disability, I can walk, but if I have to stop, sometimes I have to sit or I will sit wherever I am. And so having benches for people to take breaks adds the accessibility of a walkable area for people who can't, whether it's walk at long stretches without resting or stand for long stretches without resting. And I appreciate the lighting notes. The other thing I will say is garbage and recycle cans. It is really nice when walking around Bothell, I finish my coffee and then, oh, look, I'm downtown and there's a garbage can right there, right? I don't have to find some reason to go bother somebody's garbage can in their business. I'll buy a new water and throw away my old. It's just ridiculous. Because I don't want to just throw something away at a business and not be there for no reason. So just that kind of stuff that helps control litter, it helps just make it more livable. So I think they can feel small in a big plan where we're trying to accommodate all this growth, but it is what makes your neighborhood feel nice and more usable.

I do want to add one thought that came up in the conversation around 522 improvements. I believe that this is like this happened a long time ago, but I'd love to see an opportunity for restaurants to exist along the waterfront so that people could, you know, be sitting on a deck overlooking the river. And I don't know what kind of like development regulations need to change to make that happen or what kind of like rules need to be in place so that we're protecting the waterway and make that possible. But I think that there's got to be a future, like a way to make that possible so that, so that we could have, you know, just a really lovely dining experience along the water or several of them.

Just, I have a question, just to jump back to what Councilmember Anguillory and Miles said about diversity and all that. How can we, as when we're doing planning, how can we enhance that? Aside from having events and parties and all that, like actually increasing the amount of residents, is that something that we can actively work on?

Just in terms of strategies, you mean?

Yeah.

Yeah, I think there's definitely a lot of different ways. I think a lot of the suggestions that came up, the way we utilize spaces, helping support or host events is a great way to do that as well. But I will also mention that that concern or topic also came up in our initial stakeholder interviews that we did with some local downtown residents and businesses and Mentioning a similar theme of not seeing themselves reflected downtown.

And so I think that's something that we can definitely look to strengthen as part of the plane Can our DA committee I think we have almost 15 members in the DA committee Can they also assist what they can research other cities doing? I just don't know. I mean, I'm just say thinking can they assist anything and if possible.

I was going to ask a similar question. I know they're not a commission, but would it be possible to for the DEI advisory board to see this presentation and be able to weigh in kind of like the planning commission gets a chance to do. I think there would be some really valuable insights that we might get from that crew.

Since they are advisory, that is scheduled to happen.

This has been a really good study session. I've really enjoyed the conversation we've had. I've really enjoyed the back and forth. Thank you all. And I think with that, we're adjourned.