Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Call to order the April 21st, 2025 Bremerton Regular Planning Commission Meeting. First, I want to introduce our new Planning Commissioner, Anna Doering. Welcome, Commissioner. We're glad to have you.

Thank you. Happy to be here. Thank you. Happy to be here. Red light's on. You're on.

First, our agenda is a roll call to confirm we have a quorum.

Yes, Chair Wofford, we have a quorum with all commissioners, all seven commissioners present. Thank you.

Next up is approval of the agenda as presented. So moved. Hearing is seen, no objections. We'll approve the agenda as presented. Next up is approval of the February minutes. Do we have a motion to approve the minutes of February 24, 2025?

This is Vice Chair Tift. I make a motion to approve the minutes as presented.

Do I hear a second?

This is Commissioner Peterson. I'll second. Thank you.

We have a motion to approve the meeting minutes from the February 24, 2025 meeting as presented. The motion was made by Vice Chair Tift and seconded by Commissioner Peterson. All in favor?

Aye.

Any abstentions? I abstain.

OK. Great.

Minutes pass with six ayes and one abstention. Thank you.

Okay, next up is public comments. There will be no public comments accepted via Zoom tonight unless prior arrangements were made through the project assistant by calling 360-473-5269 at least 24 hours prior to the meeting. I don't see anybody wants to talk tonight. Nobody on zoom. OK, I will now close public comments. First public hearing tonight is on the 2024 comprehensive plan update for the Planning Commission is expected to make a final recommendation to the City Council. Presenting is Mr Garrett Jackson, planning manager with the city of Bremerton. Mr. Jackson.

Okay, thank you planning commissioner. We're here to review the final comprehensive plan update for the City Council. We made it. Thank you planning commission. We'll be providing a summary of the elements of the comprehensive plan tonight and tend to focus more on items that may have changed since the last time that you saw these documents. First off, thank you, Planning Commission. We started this process in 2022 and it's been a long haul and you've reviewed every vision, goal, policy in the Comprehensive Plan and helped shape those individual policies through this process. We've had about 25 public meetings just with the Planning Commission. Uh, you've had feedback on public surveys, public testimony and written comments. You helped shape those district digest by reviewing those for later district meetings with city council, shape the development regulations and reviewed hundreds of pages, if not more than that, in preparation for the comp plan. And these development regulations really just for this evening's work. So which leads us to the potential recommendation. So the staff recommendation is that the planning commission conduct a public hearing tonight on the proposed comprehensive plan update, consider public testimony, deliberate, and forward a recommendation to the city council for adoption. We have a small review with every comprehensive plan update meeting. And that starts with the layered review for other jurisdictional authorities from our individual comprehensive plan. 1st, and foremost, our comprehensive plan needs to conform with Washington state requirements through the growth management act. We, we coordinate with the Department of commerce to ensure that our local comprehensive plan aligns with the guidance from the state. We have an attachment in our tonight's planning commission packet demonstrating conformance with commerce requirements. The Puget Sound Regional Council, they're our regional planning body that we plan jointly with King, Snohomish, Pierce, and Kitsap County to form those PSRC jurisdictions and their guiding document, Vision 2050. We have a checklist within the packet tonight demonstrating conformance with that guiding document. And then the Kitsap Regional Coordinating Council, or KRCC, those are all the jurisdictions in Kitsap County, they form and publish the county-wide planning policies, which our comprehensive plans also conform with. Um, we plan out to the year 2044 where we are projected to have a population increase to just under 64,000 people and just over 58,000 jobs. So our comprehensive plan needs to demonstrate that we have the capacity for those population and job increases. In our EIS scoping, 75% of respondents noted that they think that we should keep our increases in population density to existing centers and other existing high density areas. That has been a focus of this comprehensive plan update. Our final environmental impact statement. That was published on April 7th. The Planning Commission had feedback on that DEIS, Draft Environmental Impact Statement. The FEIS completes the environmental review for the comprehensive plan process update. It includes comprehensive plan and implementing development regulations, and it has a record of all public comments made with the and responses to those comments comments were typical of. Arguments for and against increases in density arguments for and against minimum parking standards. limited to open space requirements, view preservation, historic preservation, and all comments are a matter of record in the published FEIS on our city web page. Moving into the comprehensive plan review. Our comp plan is composed element, transportation, environmental and an ad For the land use, the vision of the land use section is for Bremerton is a metropolitan city that provides for economic vitality and diverse lifestyles through a broad variety of jobs, housing, and strategically located commercial and recreational opportunities. The Planning Commission has reviewed the vision goals and policies for each one of these elements. We'll be reading only the vision statements here tonight, but know that we are thankful for that Planning Commission review along the way. So like I said earlier, we're going to focus on alterations that have been made since the last time the Planning Commission has seen these documents. And first and foremost is we added land use mapping into the land use element of the comprehensive plan. The DEIS had three alternatives. The Planning Commission selected one preferred alternative, and that preferred alternative mapping is now in the final draft of the comprehensive plan. added urban growth area mapping. So our urban growth area changed with this comprehensive plan update. You'll see on the map areas in orange are new UGA's associated to the city of Bremerton. Areas in purple are existing UGA's and the yellow area is the incorporated city. So the map that you see here has already been adopted by Kitsap County with their comprehensive plan update. If there's any questions on that, I'd be happy to answer them. And then a couple of tweaks to land use policy. So to reflect the Planning Commission direction on minimum parking standards, a couple of the land use policies needed to be tweaked. So previously, LU1 centers, F, would have read, implement parking ratios that reflect the least amount of spaces required for development. and so on. That didn't ma parking standards potentia to read, implement parkin transit, housing and comm than expansion of an autom And then we talked previously with the Planning Commission about a mineral resource overlay language. We'd come to a previous workshop and the language that we had presented wasn't very clear. And the Planning Commission asked us to work on that language to add a little clarity. And we think that we provide that here. So for the mineral resource overlay, we've added on to LU3 LDRD that in cases where the landowner has no intention of commercially mining potential resources, allow for development consistent with underlying zoning standards. And that in such cases, submission of a geologic study is not required. for alteration of the mineral resource overlay. So this is an expansive area that's mineral resource overlay. This is just getting to the point that if you're a property owner there, you can develop to what's allowed in the zoning code. The intent of the low density residential zone, this is also new. So throughout this comprehensive planning policy, comprehensive planning process, we have been talking about adding uses to the low density residential zone, middle housing, multifamily housing, but that wasn't quite reflected in the intent portion of the LDR zone in the comprehensive plan. So there is just a couple of words here that would be different that you can see in strikethrough to create new and support existing single-family neighborhoods has been altered to low density neighborhoods. The location, land uses, and intensity density area are the same as what was previously reviewed by the Planning Commission. It's just that small alteration to reflect updated housing choices. housing. So moving on to the next element, the vision of the housing element is to encourage the growth of Bremerton by strategically locating a wide variety of housing types throughout the city in a way that protects the environment and fosters community health. So once again, the vision goals and policies of the housing element previously reviewed by the Planning Commission and The intent of the housing element is to demonstrate that we have sufficient capacity for the numbers of individuals we're going to be seeing by the year 2044. And we do that on a zone by zone basis in the housing element appendix. Alterations that have been made since the planning commission is last seen these materials. We added reference to recently recently adopted ordinance 5510. So that is an update in the city code for that provides protections for renters. So, if. Renters are located in substandard housing. This ordinance provides some additional protections up to and including relocation assistance. This has been adopted by the city. We just wanted to make reference to it in our comprehensive plan. You can see it in the underlined here. that in an effort to address displacement, Bremerton adopted ordinance number 5510, which encourages landlords to maintain existing housing stock in good condition and adds protections for vulnerable populations that may be residing in substandard housing, including relocation assistance to secure better housing conditions. So we've added that language. And then there was some updated emergency housing information to be consistent with revised Department of Commerce guidance. So per KRCC adopted housing numbers, the city of Bremerton is required by the year 2044 to have 403 emergency beds. That's what our projected goal is for that time period. When we run the commerce land capacity analysis methodology, we end up receiving about just under 4000 potential beds in the city, which is a surplus of that KRCC number by just about 3600 beds. And these assumptions that we used are consistent with our neighboring jurisdictions in Kitsap County.

Can we also note that the other jurisdictions also ended up with the same kind of surplus we did? We followed a methodology established by the state, and their methodology just makes it look like you could accommodate so much more than you actually can. And so the same thing happened in Kitsap County and in the city of Port Orchard when they ran this number.

Okay. Moving on to the economic development element. The vision is that as the only metropolitan city within Kitsap County, Bremerton expects to substantially expand employment and job variety over the next 20 years to support a growing economy and lifestyle diversity within our region. purpose of this element is to demonstrate that we have the capacity for the estimated 58,000 jobs that were expected to absorb by the year 2044. And we do that in the economic development element appendix, where we have a zone by zone analysis of job absorption by that 2044. The transportation element. The vision is that Bremerton strives to promote, manage, and maintain a safe, efficient, and integrated multimodal transportation system to support a healthy and vibrant community. Things to note for the comp plan update are that the active transportation plan, which deals with bicycles and pedestrians will be updated after the comprehensive plan is adopted. So anybody in the audience that's interested in participating in that plan, please contact Vicki Grover, who is with us here tonight. She's our long range transportation planner. Also, that there are some additional tweaks that need to be done to the capital capital facility projects and some mapping changes that will occur before city council adoption, but that are not currently in the packet tonight. So things to be aware of with the planning commission and the public changes expected there. Um. and that we updated a transportation policy for the Planning Commission to consider to reflect Washington state mandates for parking. RCWs are listed up on the screen, but that previously, reduce auto dependency, especially drive alone trips by employing and promoting the application of programs that enhance mobility and assist in achievement of land use vision. This includes and we're at we're posing to add a bullet that develop a parking ratio reduction or parking elimination policy for development around planned high capacity transit corridors as identified in the kids have transit long range transit plan. So that's proposed There's this state requirement that we have the verbiage in our comprehensive plan for areas around high capacity transit. We're trying to add that in there while also flagging that we will likely be eliminating parking standards in the city. City services. The vision that the city of Bremerton strives to deliver exemplary municipal services to our community when and where it is needed. Those services include drinking water, waste water, storm water, police, fire, parks, transportation, schools. The Puget Sound Energy is our electricity provider, Cascade Natural Gas is our gas provider, and various telecommunication companies. Now those are interwoven between the City of Bremerton and our UGA's and Kitsap County that are specific to each one of those services. We have a City Services video on our webpage for more information on that if anyone's curious about specific service areas. And alterations to the city services appendix, new funding sources were added to section 2.5.2 that name tax increment financing and community revitalization financing as potential new sources of revenue. So we're just ensuring that these sources of revenue that exist are on our potential new revenue for the future so that we can use those if the opportunity arises. A UGA analysis for language was added to section 3.7.6 to account for future stormwater regulation Of our, which would in short is just that when we annex those areas, they will then apply to our city wide storm storm water permit. That was added level of service. So exhibit was updated related to level of service standards for sewer. and water service. And that was consistent with information at the City Council meeting on March 19th, 2025. Once again, that video is posted online for anyone who's interested in that level of service. And the environmental element. Protect Bremerton's natural environment by meeting the needs of today's citizens without compromising the needs of future generations. There was a request from the Department of Natural Resources to add some reference information here, specifically to reference that in our environmental appendix, that the reader should consult the environmental appendix for additional mapping and discussion on critical area types. It was a request from DNR. It was easy to meet, so we're proposing to add that. And then for policy E4G, collaborate with other government agencies such as Puget Sound Regional Council, Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, Washington State Department of Ecology and DNR suggested that we add in Washington State Department of Commerce. So that's the underlined portion. Kitsap County and other cities and the private sector to develop and implement strategies for addressing climate change and greenhouse gas reductions. This seemed like a fairly easy ask to accommodate, so we added that into the comprehensive plan for your review. Public participation. So we've added a public participation appendices to the comp plan, which just documents the number of events and outreach efforts that the city staff and the planning commission have heralded in this time of comprehensive plan review. And first and foremost, i 44 dot com. We have video documents, our final dra let the public know about dates to consider and we milestones saved on the Every public comment that we've received is published on Bremerton2044.com to ensure that we have absolute transparency so that the community knows what other community members are commenting on what they're interested in in this comp plan process. We've had a number of planning commission meetings over this period to discuss every element of the comprehensive plan. We've posted flyers at physical locations. You'll see here this map indicates the 12 areas within the city where we posted physical flyers. And the Bremerton School District has been a great partner in adding those to Peach Jar, which is how they communicate with Bremerton School District families. They've been sharing those flyers also with BSD. Uh, families, we've sent out postcards with scoping and also, uh, excuse me with scoping and then later with our, that went to every residents and, uh, and business in the city asking for comment on the comprehensive plan. City council district meetings. Each council district had an in-person meeting where we discussed the comprehensive plan. Once we had those council district digests that the planning commission provided feedback on. And that breaks down comp plan changes at individual council levels so that you can understand more how these changes might affect your neighborhood rather than the city at large. And city staff attended over 100 public events. So Planning Commission, City Council, there's a number of events through the community just trying to get this plan out in front of as many people as possible to ensure that everybody knew the comp plan was coming. We were waving our arms and wishing for participation. We've got a collage here that includes a number of events, some swag that we've had from cups to candy to postcards. Everyone's got a sticker. And yeah, we're proud of our public outreach efforts. And to close this off, once again, that staff recommendation is for the Planning Commission to conduct a public hearing on the proposed comprehensive plan update, consider public testimony, deliberate, and forward a recommendation to the City Council. We do have a recommended motion, both in your packets and on the screen now. Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Mr. Jackson. Does anybody in the public have comments on this public hearing? Yes, sir. We ask that you state your name for the record. Please limit your comments to three minutes or less. A timer system will be used so that everyone is treated equally. Please come up to the podium and wait to be recognized. You're on, sir.

Good evening, everybody. My name is Mark Goldberg. I'm from Seattle. I've been working here in Bremerton for almost 50 years.

Mr. Goldberg, will you speak up to the microphone? You're very weak.

Thank you. so i've spent uh quite a bit of time talking to staff about this comp plan and i'll talk about two areas because see i've been in a multi-family development world for well over 45 years. And I understand how development happens and it all starts with land being properly zoned. And having three minutes to talk about a subject of such vital importance to the city is pretty preposterous. Like I've had these conversations with staff about how this stuff is not gonna work. Like having downtown with no parking, that's a disaster, this new plan. And you have out there by Lyons Park, 10 units per acre. Like on those little blocks, you have any place from 12 to 15 structures. and the assessed value is over $3 million of those properties and you're gonna put 10 units per acre there, that means somebody's gonna pay $300,000 to put one house there or one dwelling unit, it's absurd. I would like the opportunity to have a sit down and really rethink what's being done here. This is the future of Bremerton we're talking about. I had this conversation with Andrea Spencer years ago when they rezoned where the huge apartment complex is on the bluff. They got 40 units per acre and she thought she was doing something wonderful. I said that apartment building will be there forever, account of your zoning. And now you're doing the same thing again at Alliance Park. I am available anytime. I would love to sit down with staff and the planning commission, not for three minutes, but for maybe an hour and I'll give you diagrams and I'll show you data that will absolutely without any doubt.

Thank you so much. The three minutes is up. Thank you.

Just what I was talking about. Wonderful.

Thank you for your comments. Anybody else?

Good evening. My name is Brandon Bishop. I live at 618 Washington Avenue, just down the street. I work for Napton Development, a developer, and we own an apartment complex and a house and another property here in Bremerton. And I want to thank this group and Mr. Jackson and Andrea, thank you for having us tonight and allowing us to voice our support for the vast majority of what the new plan proposes. look to partner with the city and work with the city to build additional housing. We're a huge pro-Navy. We want to provide housing for those workers. If you're working, we want to house you. That's the kind of partnership we want to have with the city, and we want to move forward. And growth is inevitable. We don't have to like every single thing that is proposed. We have to work together so that people can say I'm pro this. I'm pro that. And we just want to say from napkin development. Thank you for all the work that you've done. And we really appreciate it. We're particularly pro. putting an eight-story limit on housing in the downtown core. We like that, you know, more units per land. Yes, housing units are expensive, but we don't get, by building vertically, we have the opportunity to provide more housing in the same area, so the concentration can be higher. We're pro-land use with multi-family housing in the city. So I just want to say, you know, we're willing to work with you guys. Thank you for having us, and we hope you have a great night.

Thank you for your comments. One comment on Zoom, okay?

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes.

Good evening. My name is Jamie Clough, and I'm speaking on behalf of the Kitsap Building Association, which represents local home builders committed to meeting the needs of our growing community. We support the City of Bremerton's 2024 comprehensive plan update. This plan takes critical steps to accommodating future population growth, expanding home options, and monetizing land use policies, especially the removal of minimum parking requirements, which will reduce barriers to housing production and support more affordable, walkable neighborhoods. We appreciate the city's efforts to plan for infrastructure, housing, and economic growth in a balanced way, and we look forward to continuing our partnership to ensure that Bremerton remains a place where people of all incomes can find a home. Thank you very much, and thank you very much for this plan update.

Okay. Thank you for your comments. And we have Jamie.

Hello, can you hear me? My name's Marla Powers. I work as staff and environmental planner for the Port Gamble Squallam Tribe. And I just wanted to give Mr. Jackson a big thank you for his specific and direct outreach to the tribe for comments on the EIS and for the comprehensive plan. He both gave me personal phone calls and specific emails and gave me specific deadlines. So I just wanted to let you know that he really did reach out to everybody and the tribe appreciates his support is interesting concern for our comments and feedback. Thanks.

Thank you, Ms. Powers. Is there anybody else that has a comment? No. Okay, I'll close the public testimony. Is there any feedback from the commissioners? Oh, Mr Jackson.

Yeah, thank you. Chair Wofford. We just wanted to make some quick comments. Just some respectful corrections for the record for the comments made. The area by Lyons Park is zoned for 18 dwelling units per acre and downtown wouldn't be 8 stories, but an 80 feet maximum height limit. Also, we wanted to note that a written comment was provided to the Planning Commission from a Jack Stanfill. We have copies of that comment here if anybody is interested, and it will also be added to the Planning Commission packet. We've reviewed those comments and do not think that they are relevant to this proceedings today, but they are available for the Planning Commission.

Thank you. Okay.

This is Vice Chair Tift. A couple comments. You mentioned early in the presentation, Mr. Jackson, overwhelming number of respondents. How many respondents? Do we have that number?

As far as the number of respondents for scoping for locating population increases in centers,

Yeah, you use that terminology early on that you had the overwhelming number of respondents responded this way.

It's 75% of respondents, but I don't have the number of respondents.

Okay, because last time that was a pretty small number, as I recall. But maybe not. Okay, that's fine. The second question I have is the height limits. early on in this process we had a comment from the navy about height limits particularly along burwell avenue and the linus site and so forth did those ultimately get resolved they did we have

new criteria in the downtown sub area plan related to advanced notice to the Navy. So with that implementing those new criteria into the downtown sub area plan, the Navy was satisfied with those changes. We'll continue to coordinate with the Navy on any other potential conflicts, but that downtown sub area plan portion was what they had commented on.

Okay. And then I noticed a couple of other spots in the appendix C, I think it is about 65 foot height limits. And do those take into account view corridors or anything like that? Or are they, remind me where those areas were. Was it Harrison district? Was it?

So those are located throughout the city of Bremerton in the general commercial zone, which is generally located along the Kitsap Way corridor and Wheaton Way corridor. And there is language when there isn't a view protection language. There is language about adjacency to low density residential and having kind of a tiered height when you're close to LDR and then also in the high density residential zone, which is located throughout the city. Typically in areas that already have large apartment complexes in them, it was really just an effort from the 2016 comprehensive plan to identify existing apartment areas. So typically if it's HDR, it's an existing apartment complex zone.

Okay, all right, thank you.

Mr. Jackson, could you put your motion back up on the screen, please? Okay, the chair will entertain a motion.

Hi, this is Commissioner Peterson. I'd like to move to recommend that the City Council adopt the comprehensive plan update as shown in attachment A of this report based on the findings and conclusions presented in attachment B.

This is Commissioner Miller and I make a second.

Any discussion?

No discussion?

The only discussion, Commissioner Tift, we are going to revisit the parking standards as part of the zoning, correct?

Correct. We have in tonight's motion as part of the comprehensive plan is the downtown sub area plan. So for a very long time you've been telling us you didn't want any parking in downtown. So tonight's motion with the comprehensive plan is the no parking in downtown. When we talk about the parking in the other areas, we're going to be talking about that in the meetings to come, not tonight. Tonight, make no mistake, it's in the downtown sub area plan. It's included in what we're doing with the current motion that's on the floor.

All right. Thank you.

Any more discussion? No? Okay. Call the vote.

We have a motion to recommend that the City Council adopt the comprehensive plan update as shown in Attachment A of this report based on the findings and conclusions presented in Attachment B. I will now do a roll call vote. Browning?

I approve. Okay.

Doering? I abstain. Miller?

Approve.

Powell?

I approve.

Peterson?

I approve.

Vice Chair Tiff? Chair Wofford?

Yes.

Motion carries with six ayes and one abstention.

Okay, the second public hearing tonight is proposed development regulations to implement the 2024 comprehensive plan. Presenting again is Mr. Garrett Jackson, planning manager with the City of Bremerton.

All right, thank you, Planning Commission. As so stated, we're here to talk about the implementing development regulations. So if there's any increase in height, density, or other policies in the comprehensive plan, then we're here to implement the development regulations that end up in subarea plans or the Bremerton Municipal Code Title 20 for zoning. Staff's recommendation is that the Planning Commission conduct a public hearing on the proposed development regulations, consider public testimony, deliberate and forward a recommendation to the City Council. Now the items that we'll be reviewing tonight are for the Downtown Sub Area Plan, Puget Sound Industrial Center Sub Area Plan, Bay Vista Sub Area Plan, East Park Sub Area Plan, and Title 20 Zoning Code. So once again, these are items that have previously been reviewed by the Planning Commission, were incorporated into our environmental documents. This is more of, if anything has changed since those were reviewed, we wanna make sure it gets in front of the Planning Commission for consideration. And that starts with the downtown subarea plan. So in summary, we are updating the downtown sub area plan for conformance with PSRC center's criteria. The maximum height in the new mixed use zone, which is the pink area up on the screen here, would be increased to 80 feet, which is consistent with our other centers in the city of Bremerton. No maximum density in that pink new mixed use zone. We aggregated several other several other zones in the downtown sub area plan to create that mixed use zone. There are added provisions for urban tree requirements and that an increased public open space opportunity along that waterfront overlay so that as properties develop in the future, they would provide a pedestrian promenade area, one that will one day connect to Evergreen Park. So updates to the downtown plan, since you've seen it last, beyond just basic graphics. We have a PSRC request to update our outreach language. So section 1.5 added some additional language about outreach efforts with the downtown Siberia plan update. There was also a request to note how Naval Base Kitsap outreach was made to them, and that was added to section 2.4. Activity units per acre, so section 5.2 is updated to reflect activity units per acre as a PSRC requirement. And public works were updated for, sections were updated for DRC exhibits 27, 28, and 29. And we removed minimum parking standards throughout the sub area plan. So previously we had a system where we had a recommended number of parking spaces with planning commissions, clear guidance to eliminate parking. We revised those standards to say that there are no minimum parking requirements within the downtown sub area plan. You'll see that reflected in individual zones and. There was one section, section 7.2.6 that we updated today because there was still mention about those minimum parking standards and it didn't make sense once we were eliminating those from downtown. So 7.2.6 before used to say that if you're rehabbing an existing building, then you're essentially grandfathered into the amount of parking that you have in place. It no longer makes sense with eliminated parking standards. So for the Puget Sound Industrial Center sub area plan, Uh, we have updated the sub area plan for compliance with centers criteria. That's 1 of our 2 centers in the city of Bremerton 1, downtown the other, the sub area plan. We updated development standards. consistent with the PSIC market study. So we did a market study that reached out to property owners in PSIC and that included the Port of Bremerton and there was some development standard tweaking that the Planning Commission has reviewed previously. We also removed duplicative requirements for storm water, streets, and other housekeeping items that have been reviewed by the Planning Commission previously. But we still have to make some tweaks to that capital facilities plan prior to City Council adoption. So when we do see the City Council, they'll be looking at some updated dollar numbers for those existing capital facilities that are noted in the plan. The Bay Vista sub area plan. So we've been talking about the village commercial zone primarily with the planning commission, and that's the blue zone that's located kind of the upper left hand corner for the most part in the sub area plan. And that we had a request from property owners. I believe it's Kitsap Credit Union, I believe owns one parcel in Peninsula Community Health Services. owns the remainder and those are the only vacant parcels that are left in the Sudbury plant. They support allowing multi, excuse me, mixed use as an allowed use in the zone. And that's what these changes are limited to, allowing mixed uses in the village commercial zone. Currently residential is not allowed at all. So there's some, oh. Also some minimum and maximum density standards that are applied to that zone now that it allows for residential. And then mapping updates to account for final platting. So there didn't used to be all of these parcels. The configuration has changed slightly and so this map represents updated platting and then the sub area plan updates those mixed use uses. uh... the east park sub area plan so this was limited to updating mapping for uh... that accounts for final plat once again there was no there was no parcels here when the sub area plan was created it was more of an artist's rendering this incorporates those final parcel layouts and also the madrona forest wasn't incorporated into the east park sub area plan It was adjacent to it and so there's been some just final configuration of where these zones are located due to platting and the incorporation of the Madrona forest there on the west. And then the Bremerton Municipal Code Title 20. And this is the more lengthier part of the discussion. All of these items are in the packet. All of the proposed changes are in legislative markup in the attached document in Attachment A. But we will look through these briefly. So with the April 7th update that was published with the FEIS, and this is reviewed by the Planning Commission, were provisions for unit lot subdivision. That's added to our subdivision code, BMC 21-2. BMC 24-2 definitions, we added some definitions for middle housing that are required by the Department of Commerce with this update. In 2044 general development standards, we've added some language for lighting regulations. We've heard from planning commissioners, city council members and members of the public that they would like to prevent light pollution into the dark skies at night. We have added language here to account for that. A special development standards per 20.46, middle housing. These have been reviewed by planning commission in the past. The 1 change here being that we have some additional commerce guidance about density requirements, not applying to critical areas, which seems intuitive, but. We added that language that these density requirements, which you're allowed to have middle housing at 4 units on any lot in the city that doesn't include critical areas or their buffers. So we added that language in to account for that commerce guidance. uh the low density residential zone 2060 we added in multi-housing and multi-family uses as allowed uses we'd heard previously from the planning commission we uh we have a standard in our residential cluster development of a open space being a 20 of the lot We'd heard from the planning commission in the past. We should lower that to 15 consistent with kits at county regulations. And so we did that here and added in basic design standard. And remove lot size criteria, so. Beyond the minimum density and maximum density allowed in the zone, the low density residential zone had minimum and maximum lot sizes that were allowed. And that is very much geared towards single family homes. But now with these additional housing types, that lot size criteria isn't relevant anymore. And so every development will need to demonstrate compliance with minimum and maximum density, but those lot sizes weren't relevant. any longer. In the general commercial zone, BMC 26-2, that maximum height language was added for 65 feet. Previously it was 45. Minimum density of 15 dwelling units per acre is going to be standard in all of the zones. Mixed use development requirements were also added, standard with other requirements for our mixed use zones. April 7th continuing on the district center core BMC 20.70 added a minimum density of 30 dwelling units per acre. That's our existing standard that we have for the DCC zone. This is just setting it more plainly into the zoning language in 2070. BMC 2074 business center core is completely repealed. It's only mentioned in the downtown sub area plan that exists today. BMC 2074 and it's 1 of those zones that gets aggregated. So that reference is completely washed away. It doesn't make sense to keep it in the BMC anymore. That's the proposal for appeal. The medium density residential zone, 20.78. Once again, adding middle and multifamily uses to that zone, a maximum height of 45 feet. Currently, it's 35, and in some cases, conditionally allowed to 45. And once again, that multifamily housing set aside open space and have design standards. And once again, removing that lot size criteria, even in the medium density residential zone, we had some lot size criteria that are more typical of single family residential. Now that we're transitioning into additional housing types, it didn't make sense to have those lot criteria any longer. BMC 2079, high density residential. Once again, raising that height up to 65 feet. And for those at home, why that 65 feet? It's intended to allow for wood frame construction over a concrete podium. It's a more efficient and cost effective development type. And so we're trying to promote that. by increasing heights in existing high density areas, thus that 65 foot requirement, excuse me, criteria, and raising the density up to 15 dwelling units per acre. BMC 2082 neighborhood business adding the minimum density of 15 dwelling units per acre and in the institutional zone also that minimum density of 15 dwelling units per acre. 15 dwelling units per acre is cited in some of our staff documents to the Planning Commission as the minimum number to promote transit development. So that's at a minimum amount of density that we have proposed from the initial land use tables submitted to the Planning Commission. An update from today, once again, we talked about that update for the comprehensive plan for the intent of the LDR. section of the comp plan, this mirrors that language in the zoning code. So previously, you might expect that these areas would be relegated to single family homes. Now that we have added other additional housing types, the intent should reflect that. So the language previously would have read the intent of the low density residential zoning district is to accommodate single family housing by infilling at ranges of lot sizes consistent with urban growth patterns. This revision would say that it is. The zoning district is to accommodate single family housing, duplexes, townhouses, multifamily and low density, low and low intensity compatible uses by infilling at a range of lot sizes. So that. Underscored section is a direct quote from the comprehensive plan that's been reviewed by the planning commission and inserted into the intent of the zoning code. The struck out portion once adding these uses seemed duplicative and so it is struck from the remainder of the intent section. The staff recommendation is for the Planning Commission to conduct a public hearing on the proposed development regulations, consider public testimony, deliberate and forward a recommendation to the City Council for adoption. Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you Mr. Garrett. Does anybody in the audience have any comments? Do we have any? Nobody on Zoom. Okay. We'll close the public testimony and go to the commission for any comments. No, no, no, no, no. Yes, sir. Mr. Miller.

This is Mike Miller. Garrett, I'm curious about the floor-to-floor height calculation and the 65 foot height. Can you walk through the logic on that?

Absolutely. So the way we measure height in the city of Bremerton is from average final grade to the midpoint of the roof. That's the same way that the International Building Code measures height. That was a change made by the Planning Commission some years back to add consistency between those two documents.

Okay, so my question is at 65 feet, If we have a building, and I'm just going to stack it up and say we've got a 14-foot floor-to-floor on the first floor where you've got a concrete podium, that takes a little more structure and a little more depth. And also, if you have a lobby or something like that on your first floor, then you're going to want a little bit higher space. And then five floors of 10 feet each get you to 64 feet. 10 feet floor-to-floor nets out at a ceiling you know, an apartment, for instance, at around eight feet, where something more than eight feet, like eight foot eight or nine feet, would be more generous and more appealing to a condominium or something like that. So I guess my question is, is there an ability to modify this height so that it might fit better with design and structure?

So we've processed all of our environmental review at 65 feet, so increasing it probably isn't recommended. But that being said, there are certain things that might be exempt from the height increases. If there's rooftop mechanical for like an elevator or a parapet, there's certain items that would be exempt from height if that's helpful. OK, thanks.

Any other comments, questions?

65 feet is the limit of a stick built of a wood structure. Is that what you said?

So I believe it's between 75 feet for that total. Anything above those becomes a high rise, in which case you need to have your building constructed of concrete and steel. This is a way where you can utilize wood frame construction. So that's the idea behind it, is that it would provide a construction type that's more affordable and able to provide more affordable housing throughout the city.

OK.

commissioner jack powell one of the members of the public that testified in and others have talked about your getting rid of parking requirements in the downtown core and that's not maybe the correct portrayal and it's we're eliminating minimum and maybe maximum. We could say that there's no minimum or maximum. It's market driven that what determines it. So for optics, I don't know if there's a way toward it that we're getting rid of minimums and maximums. But that being said, could somebody build an 80 foot parking garage downtown? I don't know the answer to that. One question. And then the other was on the open spaces, wanted to confirm. I can't remember if activated roofs count for open space.

A rooftop amenity would count for open space in the downtown sub area plan. I hear your comments on on wording for minimum parking requirements, so message received. Yes, you can build parking structures, so a parking garage in the downtown sub area plan, and those would be subject to the height limitations in individual zones. In many cases, there are requirements for ground floor commercial for those parking garage uses. Did that answer all your questions? Yes, thank you. Okay, yeah. Just as far as parking is concerned, also added provision to the downtown sub area plan would be that certain commercial surface parking, new commercial surface parking would be prohibited, which was also with this update to the sub area plan. Very important so that that doesn't proliferate downtown as the planning Commission has been made, made their opinions on that. Well, no.

Mr Miller, Mike Miller again. In the low density residential allowing four units per lot, I believe is what you said, correct? Is there any open space requirement allocated to those four units?

There is not. This is guidance from the Department of Commerce. So we followed their guidance very closely. This is regulated by the state and typically you can't require anything of middle housing that you wouldn't require for single family homes. So there's some added strictures from the state on how we can regulate those uses.

Okay, thanks. Any other comments? Mr. Jackson.

If anybody has an interest in that, though, that's not doesn't prevent staff from looking into that in the future for a future zoning code amendments.

May I make another comment on that? infill housing on small lots is, you know, you can go vertical two, two and a half stories, no parking, no garage or anything like that. And there have been some pretty interesting, and I would say, unfortunate developments in Seattle, South Seattle, the area around Georgetown, where single-family lots were used for up to six units. And six units had been placed in those lots, and that maximizes the density on that lot. But they're really pretty dreadful, in my opinion, because there's no open space. And the houses have basically a sidewalk that goes between them. You park on the street, and you access your front door by going past another unit, possibly, or something like that. So that's my only concern, that if we don't have any open space for those four units or three units, then it becomes a less than optimal living situation.

So we can take that feedback suggested the planning commission review and make a recommendation to the city council on tonight's scope and look into potential open space in the future for a future public workshop. That being said, larger jurisdictions are required to have more. Units per lot that 6 units per lot is a requirement for. larger jurisdictions like Seattle. So Bremerton fits into the tiered criteria of requiring four per lot, whereas other jurisdictions would be six based off of population size.

And if I could just add the reason why we're recommending that you make the recommendation on this code proposal is we're trying to get it adopted by June, which is the state mandate for the implementing regulations for the comprehensive plan. middle housing, all those provisions. So that's why we want to make sure what we've brought before you is the minimum necessary per the state standards. But we can certainly flag this for additional work. When it comes to development code and your zoning regulations, we can update those as frequently as we want. We're not limited to the one time per year, so we'll certainly flag this for something to look at. And it could be that we start talking about design standards for all housing types because you're not allowed to target one housing type like middle housing

you must meet these standards but if we have requirements for all housing types then it can be broadly applicable so we'll certainly flag this one okay okay uh someone for the commission want to make a motion on recommending that the city council adopt development regulations as shown Nope.

Looking at which document here. Never mind, it's actually in the first one we already approved, so I'm good.

Okay, still looking for a motion. I'll make a motion.

I'll make it. You can put it back on the screen. This is Vice Chair Tift. Move to recommend that the City Council adopt development regulations as shown in Attachment A of this report based on the findings and conclusions presented in Attachment B.

Thank you. Is there a second?

This is Commissioner Browning. I second that motion.

Discussion? No. Call for the vote.

We have a motion to recommend that the City Council adopt development regulations as shown in attachment A of this report based on the findings and conclusions presented in attachment B. The motion was made by Vice Chair Tift and seconded by Commissioner Browning. There will now be a roll call vote. Browning?

Aye.

Doering? Abstain. Miller?

Aye.

Powell?

Aye.

Peterson?

Aye.

Vice Chair Tift?

Aye.

Chair Wofford?

Aye.

Motion carries with six ayes and one abstention. Thank you.

Okay, the public portion of the meeting is now closed. And we'll go into the business meeting. And first item on is chair report, and the chair has nothing to report. We'll now go to the director's report, Ms. Spencer.

I'm going to have Garrett share his screen. Something new that we're doing because we no longer have our beautiful minutes that we used to be able to do. We had to go to just action minutes. And when somebody after the meeting might pull up your planning commission packet and then they pull up the minutes, they're like, they don't get a real flavor about what it is that you've accomplished. So what we've started to do is to take your planning commission packets and after the meetings, we actually update them and add a new page one to them. that basically gives a reader a notion of what has happened at that meeting. And he's going to pull up our most recent one so you can see what it looks like and share it on the screen here. Is your share screen not working right? It's just loading. It's a big packet from the last time you took action. There you go. So you can get an appreciation here on the screen. I just wanted to share because it's really quite helpful. And it actually paid dividends because the Washington State Department of Commerce, we have to send all of our adoption intentions to change our regulations. to them for their review and comment and actually Garrett was able to get on a meeting with them and share your planning commission packet and show them this look the planning commission's already made a decision to direct staff to remove parking standards so we already had kind of this captured nicely so you never know when we prepare these packets oftentimes there's three and four different options available to us and and a reader doesn't know after the fact well what did the planning commission do so we started appending this to it so that people kind of have a follow along if they're not here watching what's going on. So I thought that was a bit of good news that I'd share with you. And the other is I just want to give congratulations to Garrett. I mean, you saw in your presentation more than 100 meetings of public outreach and more than 25 meetings with the Planning Commission. And that doesn't even come up with all of the meetings that have been done with the city council to show them what's been going on. So I think he's at well over 150 meetings of comprehensive plan outreach. And I just wanted to thank him publicly for all his work to bring us to tonight. It kind of feels very anticlimactic. tonight the room is empty because he's answered a lot of questions. There has been so much time he's spent on the phone, sending emails, telling people what's going on. And I think tonight, although it feels kind of depressing that there's not a lot of people here, he's done so much good work that's gotten us to this place. So I just wanted to say thank you very much to Garrett for all he's done to give us to this place.

I'll second those.

And that concludes my report. Thank you.

Okay. Is there any old business? And tonight we have new business.

We do have new business, and Garrett's going to share that too, and I'll just kind of hold the space while he pulls up the meeting packet so we can walk through what we're doing here. What we concentrated on right now is first and foremost trying to get all the middle housing stuff done, but that's not all the work that we have to do for the comprehensive plan update. There are going to be many zoning code changes that we have to work on, in the coming months. And so what we thought we'd do tonight is just kind of flag and just pre-warn you what we're going to be talking about at the next meeting so you're prepared and so that you could take this opportunity to give us any additional direction that you might have on these topic areas. So we anticipate in May there's certain workshop items and I'll hand the mic over to Garrett who will walk us through what we were going to do in May. Sorry.

All right, thank you, Director Spencer. So we have here a list for the May 19th workshop items that will be reviewed this coming workshop, and that includes boundary line adjustment. The Planning Commission has seen some draft code on boundary line adjustment revision already. We've been working with a local surveyor. We just need more time to have a back and forth to make sure that we have a code that's more complete before providing to the planning commission special development standards so BMC 2046 is due for a number of updates including provisions for transitional housing permanent supportive housing indoor emergency shelters and indoor emergency housing which is required by the state so that's going to make it into our BMC Permit family daycare as also required by the state in the corresponding RCW there. Co-living, which is also required by the state per HB 1998. Neighborhood scale commercial. Not required by the state. Well, we've heard interest from the planning commission, city council and members of the public for neighborhood scale commercial. So like a small restaurant or small market and whether it makes sense to allow those in the low density and medium density residential zones. We will provide the planning commission with options on that to to select if if it's your if it's your in your interest. BMC 2048 minimum parking standards will be bringing a code for elimination of automobile parking standards and also some parking requirements that are required by the state. There's certain scenarios where legally established gravel parking allowing for pavers as a paved surface to park on. Uh, there's some items they're required by the state that would be adding into 2048. That includes not only the, but also sub area plans to make sure that our sub area plans reflect that removal of minimal parking standards. Nonconforming provisions in 2054. There are once again requirements from the state of Washington for reuse of existing commercial buildings with residential uses. So that'll be added into our nonconforming provisions. And in the second half of 2025, we want to know the planning commission will be working on and that's our critical area ordinance to include updates for definition. definitions, increased tribal notification, cultural resource protection, and riparian buffers. So that will be an exciting lift for the Planning Commission to consider in the second half of 2025. And also for our Shoreline Master Program. And that's to allow for uses that are approved with the Comprehensive Plan Update. And once again, that tribal notification and revised standards for cultural resource protection. And then lastly, to update our landscaping standards. This comes along at the same time as the SMP and CAO because we are working with our stormwater division to ensure that our landscaping code will coincide with new state requirements for tree retention in the stormwater code. So while we are developing those together, we will be bringing those to the Planning Commission in the second half of 2025 We're happy to take any Commissioner comments or questions on those new business items.

Yeah, and if I could add, we'd probably concentrate, if you have any feedback for us, can you scroll up, for the items that are going to come next month, if there's any additional work that you want us to prepare in advance. Some of this is very straightforward, the BLA things and non-conforming provisions, but if you had any feedback about that, the special development standards or the minimum parking standards. If you wanted to give us any additional work or research you'd like to see before we come back to you on May 19, this would be a good chance to give us feedback.

I like this. Is this going to be a standard preview of the next meeting?

If you'd like it to be, we just thought this was a good chance to kind of pre-warn you and have pre-discussion. We're just trying to keep you informed and open and having the public have an opportunity to know what's coming. I'm seeing head nods, so we'll note that you like this.

Are we allowed to, if we think of things in the interim, are we allowed to email you with ideas?

Yes, you can absolutely send us emails. Yeah.

Go ahead.

Vice Chair Tift. I know we had a pretty lively discussion at the last meeting regarding minimum parking standards and heard from developers and architects and so forth. And we left I think in semi-agreement with eliminating minimum parking standards, but in the two months since then, I have become a little more concerned about low density residential and the impact on a community of housing development built without parking. that results and I agreed and perhaps you know the developer might not be able to sell those homes but if you were someone just starting out with your own home first home you're pretty willing to sometimes accept something less than ideal just to get into that into that residence not realizing the impact it might have to you and your family and your neighbors later on so i guess i'd like to know if there's other jurisdictions that have adopted something like that i'll do my own research i will go back to the kitsap building association and talk to them personally about because they were the ones that recommended that particular um they advised us on that soda we had a member from rice fergus miller i'll speak to him but i'm I'm aligned with what we discussed two months ago with regard to multifamily and the other elements that we discussed, but low density residential, I've just got some concerns about that. And knowing, I can know that You know, the first home I bought, wanted to buy. My dad talked me out of it, fortunately. But I was willing to just get in, no matter what, and accept all the warts that came with that particular house. And so I could see that someone trying to get into a home might accept no parking, looking for curb space and i've even seen on the bermudan facebook page a couple of folks saying i did not realize i i moved into a place without parking went to the city to try to get an on-street parking permit and was denied and the question at the end of the post was where do i park so um anyway just not saying i'm misaligned with what we discussed last time, but I do believe we need a little bit more information on, or I do personally, on low density residential. Thanks.

And we can certainly pull some data. It seems like every week we turn around, jurisdictions are doing different things. So I think between now and the meeting in May, there's probably some jurisdictions that are publishing what they're doing. There's some other examples that we can pull. I mean, what we've heard from you over and over again, you want to incentivize affordable housing. You want to make sure that our commercial centers are viable. You want to do the things that encourage that kind of development. And so we can just look at opportunities, maybe even tie it to uses and those kind of things. So we'll just bring you some options rather than just a straightforward ordinance. We'll give you options in that packet that we prepare. Or if there's consensus among you that perhaps you want to leave single family residential off the table for parking exceptions. So there's not consensus. Some of you are nodding, and some of you are saying no. So we'll present that as an option that you can choose from.

Mr. Miller. Yeah, just to answer Mr. Tiff's question, if I can. I'm quoting from an article, and I don't know the source of the article necessarily, but the cities of Port Townsend, Salem, Eugene, Corvallis, Oregon, Seattle, Tacoma, and Spokane have all eliminated parking minimums, to my understanding. And one of the reasons that I'm in favor of parking minimums. And I think that maybe a discussion about single family residential in low density is a good idea. But for multifamily, for sure, and maybe some commercial uses and things, on the multifamily, the cost of those housing, of supporting space for a car is pretty significant. And whether it's surface parking, the cost, My understanding is, from recent data, around $20,000 per vehicle space just on a surface parking. And it goes up from there to about between $45,000 and $60,000 for structured parking. And that's money that could be better spent with the ability to create more housing. The space that the car takes also reduces the amount of space you could have for housing. And parking always governs how much development you can put on a piece of property. It always does. So if you want to do 40 units of housing and you have a requirement for one car per unit, you have 40 cars at 350 square feet per vehicle which is what you would need for the parking lot, then that space can no longer be used for housing. So my thinking about it is I think we should look at single family residential with a garage or a parking space on a driveway. But I think that eliminating parking minimums for multifamily housing, is a good idea and let the development world figure out how much parking they actually need.

This is Vice Chair Tift. I agree with Commissioner Miller. I'm only talking low density residential. I was convinced last time from the testimony we heard and reinforced by Mr. Miller, Commissioner Miller's comments. So I want this to be clear. My only concern is low density residential.

And only in the low density residential single family uses.

Yes, single-family, yes.

So is there consensus in the group if we were to just bring that forward if it was eliminate parking minimums but for single-family residential in low-density residential zones? Is there consensus for that? There's not. I see one, two, three.

I would be, yeah, I agree with that.

Okay.

Mike Miller.

I see that you're sort of split.

Sorry, I wanted to clarify. I would be very much in favor of at least that much reduction, but I err towards wanting a cleaner, straight elimination of parking minimums.

Because what we heard before was just eliminate the parking standard. And now I'm hearing some reluctance about single family residential uses in low density residential. So that would be the only carve back is just to make sure that if you're building a single family house, have the car because that's we don't really want to incentivize those. We want to incentivize duplexes or triplexes, and those would not require any parking that would be exempt from parking. That's what I'm hearing. Commissioner Miller and Vice Chair Tip say. So is there consensus enough to bring forward that carve-out for single-family and low-density residential? I see one.

I would like us to still be given the option of a clean reveal, just to discuss next time, because I don't think we have a consensus here, but maybe we need to discuss it.

We'll just bring that as an option that can opt in or out. We'll craft it in a way that it's easy to make that choice.

This is Commissioner Wofford. We have a 25 foot setback. Correct for single family.

On the low density residential zone, it's 15 feet to the structure and 20 feet to the garage.

So 20 feet. From the structure to the sidewalk or the street. To the property line. To the property line. So that's generally enough area to park today's car.

And that's why it's 15 feet to the structure, but 20 feet to a garage to ensure that any larger car model would fit on the property and not overlap onto the sidewalk. So that's what that 20 feet is for.

But what happens if you don't have a garage? Is it 15 feet?

It would still be 15 feet.

Okay. Let me think about it. Okay, any other comments? Okay. That concludes tonight's meeting. Thank you. The next meeting is adjourned. The next meeting will be May 19, 2025. Thank you again.