Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Call to order the, planning commission meeting for Tuesday, 04/21/2026 at 7PM. Do we have a roll call, please?

Commissioner Hall.

Here. Commissioner Niles.

Here.

Commissioner Walsh.

Here.

Hi.

Here.

Commissioner Anderson.

Here.

Commissioner Keller.

Here.

And Commissioner Barack. Here.

You. Do we wanna introduce a new commissioner before we do public comment? Sure. Great. Welcome, commissioner.

Thanks. Hi, everyone. I'm, Hannah Burak. I've lived in Camas for, about three years now, but I grew up in Vancouver. So I'm local to the area and, moved back. Was away for a while and then moved back when I had, my oldest. I've got a a four year old and a two year old. I work, for remotely for a tech company, and my background is in data analytics. So happy to be here. Yeah. I've been interested in getting involved for a while, and, seemed like a good opportunity.

Very cool. Thank you for volunteering.

You're welcome. Welcome. Because you have so much time on your hands.

Yeah. Okay. Next on the agenda, we have public comment. And note that the only, other meeting item tonight is a a workshop, so there won't be any public comment during that time. So this will be the only one. So if there's any member of the public that would like to comment on any item on the agenda, including items of the election. Welcome to I'll come forward and state your name and city, please.

Tyler Sanders. Good evening, planning commission. I just had a few thoughts related to today's proposed zoning code amendments that I wanted to share. Our priorities as a city are reflected in the in the comp plan drafts and and in this set of documents.

We want to incentivize more density, less monolithic uses, greater flexibility. And in general, we we just want more efficient land use in Canvas. For example, it's it's great to see the attention that ADUs and middle housing options are getting or or really rather the attention they're

not getting by being exempt from site plan review. A ADUs and middle housing are are great for the city as they add housing density with with very low marginal infrastructure costs for the city, meaning they tend to bring in more tax revenue than the cost and do so while performing affordable housing in general. So everything we can do to incentivize their development is a win. These these kinds of policies allow greater flexibility for residential uses, and the flexible development policy in tonight's packet is an item that seeks to add greater flexibility to large scale commercial uses. In this policy, it incentivizes energy efficiency of pedestrian or oriented streetscape and other green features.

Critically, if these developments meet certain thresholds in these areas, we allow them to reduce their setbacks by up to five feet. We allow them to reduce their parking by up to 25% for for basic requirements and up to 50% if if they have a green roof. This last item is a critical area of land use that absolutely needs more attention. Allowing developers to decrease their parking requirements through this flexible development policy, there's the we we implicitly admit that parking is a major driver of development costs and that that is a a large incentive to be able to reduce it, and we and that we can do with with less parking. For example, I work in Camas myself, and every day I go to the office, I see over I I counted.

I I see over a 150 empty parking spots every day I go in. This is a site that's already 50% parking, and and about two thirds of that parking is unutilized. The office I work at is not unique, but it is a stark example of how much precious land gets devoted to parking in our city by requirement that ends up going completely unused. By reforming our oversized parking mandates, we would free up unproductive land for more productive uses like businesses, housing, and community space. So let's not limit reductions in in parking mandates just to this flexible development policy, but allow all development in Canvas to be greener, more efficient, and better in our city by reforming our outdated parking requirements.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Todd. Thank you. Like, there's no other public attending the meeting tonight. With that, we will, close the public comment and move on to approval of the minutes for the 03/17/2026 planning commission meeting, and I'll take a motion and second when you're ready.

I will move that we accept the minutes as submitted.

Second that.

Sorry. It's okay. It happens really easy.

So we have a motion to approve the minutes by commissioner Keller and a second by commissioner Barack. Can we have a roll call

vote, please? Commissioner Hall?

Yes.

Commissioner Niles? Yes. Commissioner Walsh?

Yes.

Commissioner Hai?

Yes.

Commissioner Anderson? Yes. Commissioner Keller?

Yes.

And Commissioner Murak?

Alright. Motion passes. Next on the agenda, we have a workshop for our CAMAS twenty forty five zoning code amendments, and the presenter is Alan Peters, community development director. It's all yours, Alan.

Alright. Good evening, commissioner Hall and planning commissioners. So tonight, we're continuing our discussion of, code amendments that we'll be seeking to implement with the comprehensive plan update, later this year. So, I think last meeting, we talked a little bit about timeline. We're we're targeting specifically for final adoption plan and code amendments.

It's October 6, actually. So that'd be the October 6 council meeting. So we're working towards, a hearing on that day before council and then likely September's, planning commission meeting hearing, for you all to be able to make a recommendation on that that whole package. So we have an opportunity here, just based on timing, several months to kinda go through code amendments little by little rather than throwing them all at you at the same time. So that's what we're doing tonight.

I think some of some of these are lighter touch. Some of them are can be a little bit more involved, and some of it's gonna be a preview of of what's to come, and some is followed from our last meeting. So tonight, you know, there are seven chapters of the zoning code that we wanna touch on with you, and I'll just jump into it. So this chapter 18 o five, was the zoning districts in Canvas. And we're not gonna get into every single zone tonight, but I did wanna talk about, what we're trying to do here in terms of streamlining our zoning.

Currently, we have 14 comprehensive plan designations on the map. The comprehensive plan as proposed would actually consolidate those down to to eight, designations. And so that happens by, consolidating some of our residential zones, not our residential zones, but our residential land use designations, which right now are separated into single family residential land use designations and multifamily residential land use designations. And so we're able to, consolidate those into three residential, residential low, medium, and high, which I think are pretty self explanatory. And then mixed use designation, which is, you know, currently mixed use falls under the commercial land use designation, but we are looking to embrace this type of development a little bit more and so have designated specific areas in the plan as as mixed use, which accommodates both commercial and residential, mixed employment, industrial, and then parks and open space.

So those are the eight designations, which would be implemented through, 25 zoning designations. That's down one from 26, and that number is the result of some consolidation of of commercial zones, and park zones, but also to creation of some new zones, including a new residential high 24 zone and, four downtown zones, which you'll be able to learn, more about actually at next month's meeting. Most of the downtown area right now is zoned downtown commercial, and we're looking to divide that actually into to three downtown zones. The downtown historic Main Street core, which is, primarily gonna be located along 4th Avenue, and then, two downtown mixed use zones, one of a little higher intensity, one of a more medium intensity, sort of around that area. And then downtown residential is a new low density residential zone that, would cover the Evergreen Terrace neighborhood, basically, East Of Garfield Street.

So, that's not currently a downtown specific zone, but we are creating a new specific zone for that to, be able to preserve some of the character there while, accommodating new new housing and, again, making that part of a stronger part of downtown. So this table here shows, those eight new designations and then the zones that would be under each of those. So residential low, again, essentially, is what traditionally we would have called single family zones, the residential six through residential 15. We're moving away from that single family terminology just because we do not anymore have single family zones. We have zones that, you know, are low density and predominantly single family, still allow single family, but, there's no zone that allows only single family anymore in So, again, moving away from that terminology, we have residential six through 15.

And then North Shore lower density residential is, you know, particular to the North Shore sub area. There's just one category, of low density, up in North Shore, whereas kind of in lower campus, you have have five designations of various lot sizes. And then downtown residential, which is, again, that new lower density residential zone in Evergreen Terrace. The idea there, again, is to embrace the, you know, kinda historic low density neighborhood you have there while letting in some middle housing, letting in some cottage commercial development, and then imposing some design standards to ensure that new infill development or rebuilds perhaps maintain some of the residential character of that area. Residential medium would just cover the residential medium 10 zone, which currently is called multifamily 10, just being renamed there.

Residential high includes the residential high 18 and residential high 24 zones and then North Shore higher density residential. So I wanna talk a little bit about this because currently, multifamily 18 is the highest density zone we have in campus. We're looking to introduce a new residential high 24 zone, which would allow 24 units per acre, which obviously is more than 18. We were also talking about doing a residential high 36 zone previously. Instead, we we actually ended up doing last year with the, suite of code amendments that were adopted by council is, in the residential high zone, 18 zone, you are allowed a 100% density bonus if you develop a truly multifamily apartment project.

So, essentially, that zone allows 36 units per acre now for apartments, which is what allows you to get to a three year, four story kind of typical apartment building. And that allows you to utilize some some parking ratios, which can require lower parking requirements for hot, taller buildings. One of the reasons we did that was because we have seen a lot of single family or middle housing type development in those multifamily zones, and we are trying to, you know, get a denser product. And so, again, by incentivizing through density through that density bonus, we're looking to actually get apartments where we haven't seen a lot of that development. So that's sort of in lieu of creating that residential high 36 zone.

So just three multifamily zones essentially here. Mixed use, again, that's a new category, and this will include three new downtown zones. The commercial category, these are all existing commercial zones that we had, moved forward. Mixed employment, this is a new designation. And I think on the next slide, we'll talk a little bit more about what we're looking to do there. But, essentially, that would house two mixed employment zones. There's a North Shore mixed employment zone, which already exists, and then a new mixed employment zone for the

rest of

Camas. Industrial, the one zone in that is heavy industrial, and that's predominantly the Camas Mill property. And then parks and open space, this is a consolidation of a few comprehensive plan designations, and that would have one parks and open space zone. So mixed employment, this is a chap a new code that we will be talking about either in May or June. But, essentially, what we're trying to do here is consolidate some of our Light Industrial And Business Park zones, which we have three currently into one new mixed employment zone.

So, you know, as we've studied the zoning text, you know, are some differences between the Light Industrial Business Park and then what we call the Light Industrial Business Park Zone, but there are a lot more similarities. You know, essentially, the light industrial Zone is I mean, it's very much that industrial type uses, maybe more manufacturing, warehousing, that type of thing. Business park is a little more office oriented, and then we have a zone which is sort of a hybrid of those. Right? And this zone is predominantly what you would see along Lake Road, Pacific Rim, and Payne where, you know, thirty years ago, we were getting sort of these larger scale developments, and that seems to have slowed down quite a bit over the last decade plus.

And so what we're seeing is remnant parcels that are a little bit smaller, that are a little bit more encumbered, and that aren't necessarily ideal for, you know, a large, you know, fab anymore. And we're also seeing that the zone, is really targeted towards those employment uses and less towards services, for workers who might work in that area or residents who might live nearby. And so, this new zone would consolidate those three, but it also would present an opportunity to move away from having those solely industrial type uses to, you know, retain those uses, but also add in some smaller scale opportunity for commercial development, amenities, services, that type of thing. Those would still sort of be the secondary uses. The primary uses would still be, you know, those jobs based, you know, industrial or office uses.

The, you know, kind of a simpler way to look at that is just think of think of 38th, think of Pacific Rim, think of Lake Road, right, where you basically have these these big businesses, and, you know, we might wanna fill in the gaps with with services. Could be retail, could be restaurants, opportunities for people who, you know, work to have some needs met nearby. Right? Places to grab lunch, maybe a place to get your haircut, but maybe a place for the residents who also live live nearby to do those things. It also would allow for, you know, medical uses, that type of thing, which we don't really see in that area currently.

So, again, it's a way to sort of retain what's there, but also provide more diversity and options as, you know, the type of jobs that we bring to Canvas, you know, adapt and the needs that the community has, have changed. This is a zone that we've had in effect, in North Shore for three years now. Haven't had any development in that zone yet, but it's, you know, a step we took then, in other cities in the area. You know, Vancouver is an example. We're moving towards this mixed employment type designation.

So we'll be bringing that chapter back to you again in one of the next couple of meetings and talk more about that and specifically what's changing and what we would be retaining from these three existing zones. Yeah.

Sure. The hours

Yeah. No. We're at the discussion slide, so you're

Uh-huh. On queue. Just some newbie questions about how the districts map onto the comprehensive plan and what that actually means. Assume that the districts are, that's the designation that happens, like, actually in the code. So Right. For residential six, like, that zone has some very particular pieces of code that apply to it, particular requirements for how development can happen. What does it mean that we've mapped it to residential low for the purposes of the comprehensive plan?

So I think starting with residential low is a good example. So our our map, the comprehensive plan map has these eight different designations, and we've identified parts of Canvas that we think are appropriate for residential low. Right? That's where we want the low density residential development. But that's at the planning level.

As we get down to those specific details where, you know, I think the primary differences between any of these zones really is lot size and setback. So the R 6, residential six, is sort of the most dense of those zones where you have lot sizes that are about 6,000 square feet, which is what you see in a lot of newer, large scale subdivisions. Residential 15, on the other hand, that is a zone that's allows lots that are 15,000 square feet in size, so about a third acre. So what's the difference between those two? Residential 15, you know, we've looked at the map, but we've primarily applied those to parts of Canvas where very low density residential exists currently, and that's typically in areas that have really great views because they're located just above very steep slopes.

So along Macintosh Road, for example, that's zoned residential 15. And that's really just because the land can't utilized for that higher density r six that we're seeing, you know, perhaps in North Shore or Green Mountain, right, where you have these larger tracks of land. But, what this allows you to do is, again, we've targeted this is where we want the housing, the lower density housing, and then site specific within there, you can determine which zone makes the most sense. It also creates an opportunity where, you know, within this ten year planning cycle, so between 2026 and when we next review the plan, a landowner could come in. They could do a site specific request, and they could say, well, I'm in the residential low zone today.

I'm zoned for residential 10, but I think we can pull off a residential seven project. And so they can make an application, and that would be consistent with the comprehensive plan because we've designated it broadly enough. Now if we go to, you know, mixed use, for example, we're identifying areas that we think, really, we want to have both uses. And so, within that, there's fewer options to choose from, but they're all mixed use zones. And, realistically, you know, the North Shore mixed use zone is only gonna apply to North Shore.

The downtown mixed use zones are only applied downtown, and that other mixed use zone would apply anywhere else. So there's not as much movement within that zone. We're basically saying through the comprehensive plan, this is what your zoning is going to be. You know, perhaps the best example of that is industrial. If you're industrial, there's only one zone that can implement it. But it's really kinda the level of detail. The comprehensive plan is at a higher level, and then the zoning gets into the specifics of getting lot size uses that.

So it sounds like it is mostly for readability and understandability of the plan.

Yeah. That's the part of the intent. I think we're also looking at long term flexibility as well, trying to move it

to worse, if I'm understanding right, we're taking six through 15 saying now we're gonna designate a residential low so that we don't have to get a variance if somebody's if we think that something can fit in that spot and it's not designated residential six, I don't have to get a variance if I can actually fit seven or 10.

Well, so at that point, it it would be it would still have to be a legislative change where you're asking for a rezone, but you're not asking for a comprehensive plan amendment. And and the difference there is that a site specific rezone request that is consistent with the comprehensive plan is a quasi judicial sort of permit decision that goes to the hearings examiner. So it's a little bit lower barrier. It does still have to be blessed by, you know, counsel and an origin. Not as many Right.

But it's not as many steps, and it doesn't you know, we're looking at it, it's it's not a significant departure from the plan. Right? What is a significant departure would be changing between those designations, moving from high density below density or residential to commercial or vice versa. Right? And that's something where then council has to come into play because it it changes, the overall plan. Any any other questions? Or

Well, actually, one question. Go back

to the chart. Yeah. I'll I'll just let

you There's a still also a bit of a newbie. We have all these North Shore designations Separated out. Separated out. It made sense when there was, like, okay. The we're kind of building the North Shore plan. But as we look at redoing all of this, you know, is there such a difference between North Shore low density residential residential versus just residential low density? It's it's kind of like, is there enough distinct truly, at this point, enough distinction to have this to keep them have almost every category have a category?

No. That's a really good question. And, you know, it's sort of one that we've asked ourselves, and, and this is the time for you guys to ask that question. So I think one good example of where we've determined we don't need a separate NorthShore zone is in parks and open space, which we'll get to soon. But, you know, we have a NorthShore Parks And Open Space zone.

We're proposing just to get rid of that and call it all parks and open space citywide. We think that makes sense. We're going to have two zones types of zones that are gonna look very similar mixed use and then mixed employment. Those have, clear partners in North Shore. You know, I think when we get to that, there's a good question of are they different enough or is what's different, you know, can that be captured in some other way through an overlay or through some design regulation?

And I think we'll be looking for some feedback there. And it it might make sense to say, well, yeah, you're right. As as part of the plan three years ago, this needed to happen, but there's things we learned from NorthShore, which we're carrying forward now citywide. So maybe we can consolidate the mixed employment zones. Maybe we can consolidate the mixed use zones.

Where we get into the residential, that's a really good question. I think, you know, at the staff level, we're looking at the fact that, you know, that North Shore lower density residential zone applies, you know, just one set of standards to a sub area, which is large, but it is still distinct. It's all new development. Right? Whereas, you know, in the rest of Canvas, you have these distinct neighborhoods and you have people that live there already who have sort of bought into a certain, you know, look and feel.

And do we want to change that or be too disruptive? You know, how are folks who live in the residential 12 zone gonna feel about being rezoned to residential six? I think there's still ways that you can mitigate those concerns through leveling standards, which is where if you are adjacent to a higher lot size, then, you know, on the perimeter of your development, you have to make, you know, higher lot size as well. But it's a good question. I think when we get into that, though, it's not just about, you know, being efficient.

It's actually you're making pretty substantive changes in those zones through consolidation. That may be the right path to go. And I think, you know, if it weren't for and to my personal opinion is if it weren't for the middle housing changes that we've implemented, you know, I personally would be much more inclined to say, well, you know, we've enjoyed these different zones for a long time, but we're at the point where we really need to be focused on housing. We really need to be focused on density. And, you know, maybe it doesn't matter that a lot of this is a lower density.

We we just need to up zone all across the board. Right? And so I think, again, the middle housing is what gives us an opportunity to maybe slow roll that, but perhaps there's other ways to to address that. That's why, again, on the residential column, we proposed to, you know, maintain that. I think, otherwise, there's much more opportunity to to look at the similarities and differences there.

Do you see the North Shore developing pretty much on the the same time frame of what kind of envisioned as far as as far as projects in the pipeline and what's actually been going on?

Yeah. Well, so, you know, the the the North Shore you know, basically, any of our plans has a twenty year planning horizon. That plan was adopted in 2022. So, you know, basically, that's a 2042 plan. We're talking about a 2045 plan. Now I would say North Shore definitely is within that twenty year time frame. It's moving at a pace now where I really do think, you know, bulk of the residential is gonna be moving forward within the next decade. I think the bulk maybe even sooner than that. The longer term plan is gonna be those employment opportunities, the mixed employment in those commercial zones. And, you know, some of that's under entitlement now as far as here's the track that's gonna be commercial.

Here's the track that's gonna be employment. Right? But the details that we have right now are on the residential. So, yeah. I mean, I think it's really five to twenty years, for, you know, I don't wanna say full build out, but, you know, where you're gonna see that plan really be implemented through development.

Thank you.

So, yeah, I would suggest, you know, I think probably not in, May, but I think June is when we are gonna start diving in more into the details of each of those zones and looking at some of those dimensional standards. So, again, as we get to residential, it's gonna be lot size setback depth. Right? The larger your lot, the greater setback requirement. And I think that's the time. And we can bring up the map then so you understand sort of where those districts are. But that's really the point at where, you know, we need to have that conversation of,

you

know, does it make sense to maintain separate zones or to further consolidate them? Vancouver, for anyone that's been following their process, they've been doing a lot of consolidation. And, you know, there's there's a little bit of pushback from some of the residents of those legacy neighborhoods about the changes that are coming. Right? That's just something that, you know, we have to face regardless.

There's And a lot of changes here that, you know, are are more than just lot size. We're changing from residential and mixed use and vice versa. So I'll move on to chapter eighteen eighteen. This is a chapter that has, pretty small change that I wanted to highlight, and that is, that currently site plan review is required for any development where more than two to one units are proposed. So site plan review basically means that there's a land use review in addition to getting a building permit.

So building permit, you know, you turn instead of building plans, you get a decision usually within a couple of weeks. A site plan review, can take several months, and requires just a lot more work and cost in developing that application. And there's things we're looking for, like, you know, utilities, civil construction improvements, landscaping, parking, that type of thing when we're doing a site plan review. But, we've, I think, adopted enough standards with middle housing and are trying to encourage middle housing. And so, we feel like this is, you know, no longer an appropriate requirement for, any middle housing or ADU development.

And so, the one thing I wanna point out is, you know, a a a lot with a single family home on it that, proposes to ADUs, which is by right allowed now, would technically have triggered site plan review without this change. And so we are we're not requiring that already. That's sort of just been a policy decision that we've made, because we think that is consistent with the middle housing code, but we wanted to make sure that that's clear that those are exempted. And then there's some, updates to some outdated zones. So, for example, this reference is LIPP zone.

We're looking to well, any any questions on on that change? K. So chapter eighteen twenty three, plan residential development. We had a discussion about this at our last meeting. And one of the things we talked about was that our comprehensive plan draft, does seek to promote the use of flexible development standards.

And this is particularly important, again, as, more of our development becomes infill and the sites that are available are a little bit harder to develop. And development costs, obviously, and construction costs have gone up quite a bit. And so this just adds some flexibility into the process. PRDs are a tool to do that. Couple topics that we left out that we left on last, meeting was, the open space minimum and density bonus, and we discussed that internally as staff.

And what we arrived at was, you know, agreement, which was, I think, with the consensus of the planning commission last time on providing a requirement for a minimum amount of open space. The code previously was a little bit ambiguous where it says, you know, up to 20% area needed to be set aside, and what we've proposed to change that to is at least 15% of the gross land area as opposed to developable, because that was also a little bit vague, shall be set aside, as open space. So there's a minimum 15% standard. I don't see that as a reduction from 20 to 15 because, again, that 20% was not, you know, an objective, you know, minimum requirement. 15 is the requirement.

And then we also added in some language here about, you know, also maintaining existing growth of mature trees or individual healthy trees. So, that is an oh, you know, I think we see this as a way to sort of incentivize preservation of trees even if they're not being used as recreational open space. And so this would also eliminate that reference to recreational. So I'll jump ahead to sort of a a corresponding or related provision that we talked about, which is the density bonus. So this was also a little bit ambiguous as to whether or not that was to be granted automatically.

It seemed like the prior the current code made a discretionary decision of the hearing examiner reviewing the actually, city council in reviewing the PRD where it said a density bonus may be granted. So what we're proposing here is a change that would say that a density bonus shall a 15% shall be granted, basically, automatically. If you are applying for a PRD and meet the minimum requirements, then you're automatically granted that 15% density bonus. So we kinda see that as paired with the open space. So if you're dedicating 15% open space, you can get a 15% density bonus.

Further, what we've allowed here is to increase that density bonus up to 20% as long as you're setting aside 20% or more open space as well. So there is that opportunity to get up to 20 if you, provide up to 20. So this seemed a little bit, more reasonable as far as, again, having a minimum requirement of of open space. 20% seem like it could be a a little bit too much in some circumstances. 15% just a little bit more reasonable.

So I'm wondering if the way it reads right now, it's saying 15 plus 20, but you're just it's intended to say 15 to 20. Right? So it's a the hearings examiner can give an additional 5%?

Yes. That and that is something that as this was being drafted, you know, we wanna make sure it was clear. So the way we would it's you know, you can grant an additional density bonus.

Additional

bonus. Bringing you up to 20%. Right?

Yeah. Bringing you up to sleep. Yeah.

Somehow it should make that clear. Yeah. I don't know.

Another 20 on top of 15. Yeah.

I'll read that way. Yeah.

When it is we've wrapped it to the crude, that'll be much more clear. Before was you get 20% for doing I think this is 15 for fifteen, twenty for 20. Appreciate the quantity. Yeah.

So, yeah, I guess I just wanted to check. So, definitely, we will make note of that and try to seek to make that even clearer. And then just wanna check to see if that was consistent with, you know, the discussion we had last month, how you feel about those percentages, you know, if you wanna go higher or lower, at all. But as staff, we felt comfortable that we're providing enough benefit back to the developer through that density bonus to just outright require a minimum of 15% open space.

I'm happy with that. The only thing I would go back with to the the trees and, I mean, I love trees, but we may wanna check with legal on that wording so we don't set it up to the thing of, okay. Somebody's do you know, hitting doing 20%, and we're giving them the bonus, but they're cutting down a grove of trees so that then a local community can challenge that because they're cutting down the trees. So I just wanna make sure you kinda we checked with legal, but we don't because that that's you know, because it says it shall include the following, an existing grove of tree, mature trees, or other end of it. And we're not setting it up.

If they don't do that, they can't

do that. So it is it is it the and? You know? Because it if it was or that might be Right.

Yeah. Uh-huh.

And I think that that is a good policy question too as far as, you know, not not first of all, not every property has that opportunity. Right. And so I think, you know, practically, if that's the case where there are no trees, you're not gonna be required to preserve something that doesn't exist. But, you know, that is a question of if there is an opportunity to preserve, should that opportunity be taken if you're gonna utilize this this option or not? I I I don't know what the answer is there.

Right? And I think, you know, if you look at a property that, perhaps, you know, 30% of the acreage is sort of in that category where a developer might say, hey. This is land that we could dedicate Mhmm. And and and half of that 30% is is wetland. Right. That's obviously the 15% that they would want to hand over, and then they would wanna cut those trees down. And, you know, the wetland's a little bit harder to mitigate. Right? And so there's an ecological benefit to preserving that, but there's also an ecological benefit and then maybe a aesthetic benefit, right, that the neighbors are gonna be more concerned about. Right. And so That's right. So I

think if I think if you went to an or where it's kind of like or meets the majority of of these things. We don't wanna get definitely lock it and lock in to the point that if you don't meet all somehow meet all of them, you can't move forward.

Yeah. And I think, you know, I think as I as we've implemented this in the past, I I I believe we've sort of read this as an or even though it says and because I think this standard is pretty strict Uh-huh. If it's an and. And I I think that's a reasonable change. I would also say, you know, we have a tree ordinance that applies on top of this. Right? Right. We're we're moving towards more retention, than replanting. And so, you know, looked at those together. There are ways to ensure that there is some retention.

So, yeah, I'll make I'll make that adjustment. Any other questions about comments on PRD? K. Moving on, chapter eighteen twenty six, flexible development. This is a chapter that provides another opportunity to do things a little bit differently from the sort of base zoning.

This is a tool that's been in our code for quite a while. I wanna say probably around twenty years. I don't know how often it's been utilized, but it does exist. And I know of at least one project that has utilized it. As we started this process and working with our consultants at WSP, one of the desires was to do some of that consolidation, right, simplify the code.

And I think we pretty early on sort of wrote this off as, hey. You know, we can just get rid of this because it's redundant. But talking to staff, we got some good feedback about, hey. There are some benefits here. And then we looked at, you know, the changes that we're making, with climate planning.

In the comprehensive plan, we have this brand new climate element, and we realized, you know, there's an opportunity to actually preserve this and improve it and have more of a, climate focused standard here. And so we're the PRD is becoming, a more clear and objective option for residential development. This flexible development code could still apply. It's a little bit trickier, but it does have the benefit of applying to not just residential zones, but also commercial zones. And I think there could be some particular benefit for commercial development in using this.

So what we're proposing now is actually to maintain it and make some amendments to it. And so looking at that purpose and intent statement, we would, propose to add language here that talks about encouraging site and building design that supports, renewable energy, EV charging infrastructure, low impact development, tree retention, and planting, and other features that advance comprehensive plan climate and resiliency goals and policies. So, broadly, the comprehensive plan, has goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and vehicle miles traveled. And so, again, we're looking at this as a way to help implement some of those standards. So, what we're looking to do is, you know, make some adjustments to what's called the flexible development score sheet, and and that is included in your meeting back end.

I think I have a slide of that. But, essentially, you know, there are some different elements that you can propose with the development. So for example, you know, tree retention gives you a score. Tree removal takes away from that score, you know, certain types of sidewalk or street plantings and improvements, green roofs, certification, 50 scores. And if you reach this minimum score based on the quantity of planting, the quality, quantity of pavement, that type of thing, then you can qualify for certain reductions of flexibility in a development.

So some of that flexibility comes from what Tyler mentioned, which is pretty significant reductions in the parking requirements. Another type of flexibility is density, greater density for residential developments. And so what we would propose to do if the planning commission, you know, supported that concept is to update that flexible score sheet, to include, again, some of those, elements from the climate element. So goals around for example, there's goals on EV charging. Right?

So giving credits for provision of EV charging within a project. There's goals around use of solar, use of more efficient, you know, HVAC systems, appliances, other green building techniques. Right? We could add that to this score sheet so that that would be another way to qualify for flexible development. Another option we're looking at is doing something similar to that, but actually maybe removing the score sheet entirely instead of sort of moving it into the text of the zoning code specifically and just providing a checklist of, you know, here are some elements that would qualify you for a flexible development, which might make it a little bit easier to implement.

But, again, you know, this kinda goes a little bit against the the initial goal of consolidating zones, but, it just it it seemed like something that's there that with a little bit of tweaking could have some new value, to implement, again, this this new focus on on climate resiliency in the comp plan.

Contextualize the flexible like, the point of the flexible development. I guess, is this, like, a way it's like an alternative to a PRD? Is this, like, a alternative way to, like, get a development approved.

Yeah. Essentially. And so and if if you look at the the purpose and intent statement, it kinda talks a little bit about some of the things there. But the primary thing is just that that flexibility, which is, again, a way to perhaps reduce setbacks, reduce parking requirements, increase density, deviate a little bit from that standard base zoning. But, again, we felt like there were things in here that also encourage more sustainable development. And so it's moving forward, it can be a way to incentivize that sustainable development while granting flexibility to make that that happen.

What is the point of the score sheet? Is there, like, a particular score that wins an approval, or is it just a way for, I don't know, who approves this commissioners or or the the council? Or

Yeah. The decision maker would vary. It's usually gonna be a staff decision or a decision by the street examiner. And what the scoresheet does is it it basically requires that a percentage of the land being used is dedicated to these elements that would qualify you for flexible development. So, basically, you know, there's there's a numerator, which is, you know you know, individually, it might be this number of trees are being planted.

The denominator is the parcel size. Right? And so there's this point three factor that you have to achieve to get that. And so it's ensuring that you're planting enough trees. You're doing enough permeable, pavement, you're doing enough green roof as a percentage, basically, of that acreage to to quantify. And so does that mean that 30% of the parcel has some sort of, you know, sustainable benefit? Maybe. I don't know that it's exact sort of a one to one calculation. But that's that's the idea as to you know, the way I look at it and this is not a tool that's used very often. Right?

But the way I look at it, it's just to make sure that that the the benefit is proportional to the size of the parcel. So you can't just check a box and say, I've installed one LED streetlight, and therefore, I qualify. You know, you have to provide enough of that per acre to to provide that benefit. At the same time, that's absolutely a standard that I would say, you know, we need to remove because that is that is the standard now. LED lighting should not qualify you for a benefit, and that is what, you know, automatically installed.

So it'd be more like solar lighting or, you know, ensuring that it's, you know, dark skylighting or something like that. So that's where, you know, the scoresheet, again, I think ensures that the benefit is proportional to the flexibility granted, but it could be more straightforward to just identify some sort of a checklist in the code and say that, you know, these these number of elements, are being incorporated into to the development in some way. Right? One of the other changes that is being proposed to the, the flexible development code is, you know, where we, you know, pointed out that there's this parking reduction, which allows you to, if you score higher than the minimum score. Right?

So if you go above that point three score to point three one, then you can reduce, your off street parking by 25%, which is a huge benefit one quarter. And then if you go higher and propose a green roof, that goes into a calculation that would allow you to reduce parking by up to 50%, which, again, is pretty substantial benefit. We added in some text here that says, you know, provided that the project provide an equal number of bicycle parking spaces to offset that number. And so, know, you those don't necessarily need to be, you know, bike lockers or indoor secure barking bicycle parking spaces. They could be bicycle racks or some other sort of thing.

Right? But, you know, the idea there is that, you know, there is some sort of relation to some offset of parking to or, you know, mode shift to bikes or something else. Right?

How many developments typically go this route?

So very few. I I can I only know of one? It was a multifamily project on, Southeast 3rd Avenue, on the East side of town here. There's one other project currently under review that is contemplating it because they think that they, it might produce enough benefit in in residential density to to make some sense. So that's why, again, initially, it was sort of easy to sort of write off as maybe maybe it's not necessary, but, as a means to achieve some climate goals, again, with some minor tweaking, and maybe some low effort, something that I think could be be utilized.

The other thing, again, that is unique about this is it applies to commercial development as well. So that's where I think it really could benefit is, you know, a an office building that comes in, provides, you know, a green roof, provides solar canopies over parking, provides low impact, you know, storm water infrastructure, provides EV charging, provides, you know, bicycle facilities, that type of thing. You would give them a benefit to do that. And, you know, I guess if I were coming in as as a as a developer of a of an office park or something like that, you know, you know, why provide, you know, bike parking if you still have to ride the the standard number of of parking stalls for for vehicles? Right?

And so the idea again is to try to provide that incentivization for those developments.

Would it be hard hard to enforce fairly to with, a checklist? I think the score sheet makes it pretty the number's distinct. And Right. Passing and failing is quite clear. Checklist might be a little more ambiguous. Do you see an advantage to a checklist?

I think, the checklist is probably a little bit easier to implement, but it might not always achieve, you know, that proportional, that proportion that you're looking for. I think what's what's difficult for us today is being so far detached from when that checklist was created to understand how to add things to it in a way that is equal to the weighting that was provided in the past. Right? So, you know, what what number of trees preserved is equal to a certain number of secure biking bike parking spaces. Right?

That that's not clear to us yet. But that's something that we have a we have an intern that's looking at this right now and doing some research around it, and she's been tasked with identifying, you know, what elements you might add to that checklist and how that would be weighted or the alternative of, again, just adding it as a checklist where, you know, maybe it's a menu of a certain number of items, and you have to do so many of them to to qualify.

Feels like if nothing else, it can serve as a precursor to filling out the score sheet just because that way they get a quick idea of whether or not they really wanted to go for that or not.

Yeah. Yeah. And the score sheet that's provided in the packet is actually for that apartment project I mentioned and shows you how they met those requirements. You know? But, you know, as you look at the the benefits, parking is one of the benefits.

Setbacks is another benefit. Density, building height, those are some of the things that would be more applicable. And so as I read it, you know, this is not something that's really likely to ever be used for a low density residential development. It's more multifamily where there's some height and space constraints, or, commercial where the same would apply. So I think, you know, the fact that it hasn't been used a lot in the past, may just be a result of the fact that a lot of the development we've had in the past has been sort of lowered.

I'd say residential, and this may be a more valuable tool. I think, you at know, this point, the question is sort of what amount of effort do we put into this? We we can sort of leave it as an option, as is, or we can try to, you know, modify it somewhat to see if there's any, benefit to us, in trying to achieve our climate goals of greenhouse gas emission and and, you know, while travel reduction.

Yeah. The benefits like, the concessions essentially on things like parking requirements are not explicit. Right? They're at the discretion

of Right.

Right. Okay. Cool. Interesting. Right. I

was just thinking as as we're looking at some of these things about, like, using existing structures, I'm just it gets me thinking going, we we we have a plan to possibly incorporate this with, like, the actual citywide like, I live in an old neighborhood, and we need here to tear down

a house, build a

new one. Mhmm. You know

what mean?

You can just wipe That's happening all over the place. But I'm just I'm thinking of, like, some of these things of getting extra points for putting a little bit higher density if you keep an existing structure, keep a little bit of the neighborhood, some of the older buildings of the downtown area. Not to bite the waters with all these things. But to keep this flexibility and options for, like, infill or even remodels, like extensive remodels, somebody wanted to take a mill property, take a building type. Every time I see something torn down there, I'm like, man, it could have been a cool water park.

Yeah. No. That that's a really good point that I think we often overlook when we are thinking about, you know, greenhouse gas emissions, for example. There's an assumption that, you know, a new building is much more efficient. Right? Yeah. And that's probably true. But, you know, tearing down an old home that is inefficient is is more inefficient, right, because you're you're reducing a lot of, emissions just in the demolition process, and then you're likely disposing of a lot of materials. Right? Not all of that's gonna be recycled.

And so I think, you know, you're correct that there's, you know, there is a benefit to preservation, right, that isn't often, considered when thinking about, you know, energy efficiency or new building terms. Right? The other part of it is, you know, not related to emissions, but just, you know, affordability. Right? There are there's a housing stock in Canvas that is sort of naturally, occurring affordable housing because it's older and smaller and hasn't been updated.

Right? And some might see those as opportunities to rebuild and put, you know, a McMansion on it. One of the things that we've tried to do actually with this comp plan, is focus a little bit more on preservation of those lower density neighborhoods. So, for example, over where you live today, that's all zoned multifamily 18, which, provides an incentive to tear down those old houses, and build, more density on them, which is, you know, I think a good thing. That's happened a lot.

There's been a lot of redevelopment, but you also start removing some of those, again, more naturally occurring owner occupied homes. And so, there are a a couple of blocks in that neighborhood where, you know, we went through and identified, like, 90% of the people on this block own their homes, and they're single family. It hasn't been redeveloped yet. And realizing now that you can do middle housing automatically on those properties, we've proposed to to actually down zone those back to a low density residential zone, to try to preserve some of those homes rather than have them automatically just be redeveloped into a higher density, because those are, you know, more affordable ownership opportunities, which there aren't a lot of in Canvas. And so that's sort of one tool we've done to preserve or try to preserve that housing stock.

The other thing that the state has done is, provided a lot of benefits in retrofitting existing buildings. There are fewer requirements to, bring old buildings up to the newest energy code standards. There's some exemptions from parking, things like that. So if you were to take an existing commercial building and convert it to housing, there are lesser parking and lesser energy code standards that we could apply to it. And that's, again, to sort of encourage the the preservation and reuse of those buildings.

So those are some things that are happening, but, those have come from a lot of different motivations and and not so much this idea of, you know, why aren't we just reusing what we we have. Right? Yeah. But that is something here that, you know, I think could be more explicitly sort of addressed and and favored. The the housing element has goals on housing preservation.

You know, perhaps the city might, implement a grant program to help people, you know, refurbish older homes, that type of thing. So there's I think there's quite a bit more work to happen on this. I think, you know, what what I'd be looking for if I were you is those specifics of, you know, what are we adding to this worksheet. And so I think, you know, we can continue to work and and bring it back, you know, and maybe have better examples of, you know, more concretely how this might provide a benefit. And and maybe there's not enough benefit in there, right, yet.

It's a lot of work for you guys. So

k.

So this chapter eighteen thirty two, this is the parks and open space zoning. So this is a new this is an amendment to an existing zone. And, again, we have four different parks and open space zones. There's a neighborhood park zone, a special use zone, open space zone, and then a North Shore Parks And Open Space zone. You know, as I look at the map, it's not necessarily clear why one zone was chosen over another.

But, you know, I think one of the one of the things that we did observe is most of the park zones apply to city owned property, whether, improved park facilities or open spaces that were dedicated to the city through development. But this also has been applied to privately owned open space, including privately owned open space, you know, maybe attached to a development that's been set aside and dedicated as open space as a consequence of that development, or, in some cases where the city has proactively designated properties, open space before they've been developed. And I think the North Shore sub area is where we have the most of that where we basically looked at areas that were highly constrained, had wetlands or steep slopes and said, k. That's not being developed. That's that's that's open space, which, you know, is kind of unusual to do in the sense that you're taking away development rights, you know, right away, but, there was a strong desire to do some preservation there.

So, this zone would apply to private property as well as public property. That

is

a change from the existing zone, which is intended to apply to to city property only. You know, it clarifies the building setback requirements. They're for buildings, not necessarily for, you know, a play structure. Maybe it would be closer to 20 feet from a property line. Clarifies parking requirements where and what we're saying here is for public park facilities, available on street parking may count towards your satisfied parking requirements.

So you don't necessarily need to build a parking lot for a place structure if there's enough street frontage to accommodate the the the need. And then there's some clarifications to the development review process. Basically, what we're staying here is that private parks projects, meaning, you know, an open space improvement or a playground or something like that, maybe even a rec facility within a parks zone that's proposed as part of a private development would go through a development review process, and that might be a site plan review if it's a stand alone project. Usually, that would come through a subdivision review. Right?

So if if a developer were proposing to do a trail or, you know, a pavilion or playground in this zone, that would be reviewed as part of the subdivision application. For publicly owned land where there where the city is doing an improvement to a park or open space, that could be exempted from site plan review when that project has been included in the pros plan and when it's outside of a critical area. So that's where, the parks and rec director would determine compliance with the plan and the zoning code and wouldn't need to go through a development review process through my department. And then it also clarifies that certain routine maintenance improvements can be exempted from develop review. So, again, just a clarification of process and, again, an idea.

The idea here is to to consolidate those parks and open space zones. This has been developed with and reviewed by our parks and recs recreation director. He's okay with this language. Any discussion on yeah.

Yeah.

So next, we're going to talk yeah. Yeah.

I don't really understand what a what a privately owned parcel in a parks open zone.

Neighborhood park?

No. It it might be a neighborhood park. So like a, like a program, like, kinda taunt lot thing. In most cases, it's actually going to be open space. So so, critical areas, wetlands, deep slopes, tree preservation tracks, are sometimes zoned this. And a lot of times, that zone has been applied after development happens. Right? So, you know, you could have a as 100 acre piece of land today that's on residential. Maybe through the PRD, they dedicate 15% of that as open space. In the next plan update, we might say, hey.

Let's rezone that 15 acres as open space to, you know, enhance the protections that you have on that. That doesn't necessarily mean that they can't do anything to it. So this these changes refer back to, there's language in here about, maybe it's not on this particular slide, but that refers back to any sort of encumbrances that are attached to that open space development review. But, you know, that privately owned open space might come to us for a development review if, again, they're looking to maybe replace a dock that exists or add a trail or a viewpoint or something like that. In some cases, you know, those open spaces have stormwater facilities.

Right? And so there's some stormwater maintenance that might happen in that, but that's where we do have privately owned properties.

And is there, like, a review process right now with for those kinds of things?

Yes. Yes. Got it. But without these changes, I think, essentially, what you're looking at is any public parks project would have to go through that same review process. And Got it. Yeah. I think the feeling was that might be a little

The only change here

is to draw a distinction between the private and public. Yeah. Exempt the public from review. Okay. Yes.

So, chapter eighteen forty three, conditional use permits. Not a whole lot of changes here. This is a pretty minor change on what the hearing examiner is able to do when reviewing the conditional use permit. And it you know, what it explicitly says here is that the hearing examiner can impose conditions of approval to carry out the intent to the code and comprehensive plan, and those conditions, basically can go above and beyond what the code requires. So in order to mitigate, you know, the potential adverse effects of a conditional use, there may be times when it is appropriate to require more than or be more restrictive than the the zoning code.

So I'm I'm trying to think of an example here specifically, but, you know, let's say the zoning code says, you know, you must, preserve 30 tree units per acre, which is something it says. But because of concerns about, you know, noise or screening or lighting or something for some use that's a conditional use, the hearing examiner could say you're gonna preserve 50 tree units per acre. Right? And that's not gonna be in conflict with the zoning code because we've here allowed the hearing examiner to, impose a stricter standard. It may be that, you know, in this case, there's a conditional use where we want more parking because, you there's know, some particular thing going on here or we want a greater setback or we again, just something that's sort of outside of what the code, anticipates.

So this this is just a minor it's a minor change, which, again, I think just clarifies what the hearing examiner is able to do.

And when

I say hearing examiner, the hearing examiner usually responds to recommendations of city staff, but also, you know, could, you know, in a hearing based on public comment, determine that there are concerns that need to be mitigated by, imposing conditions of approval. So pretty minor change again. I think the intent here just to clarify that sometimes those conditions, you know, may be in conflict with the code where they go above and beyond what the code requires.

A little bit of an interesting twist. Yeah. Because those kind of things used to come to planning commission, but it was something that was a little bit more subjective. And then we moved things towards the hearings examiner that were really just implementing the code. Right? They're they're just following the rules of the code. And now we're saying, and I get it. I'm not opposed to it, but it's it's now it's saying, well, the hearing examiner can go above and beyond use. And so the whole purpose of planning commission was to hear the public input on whether we should do something more or less. But I I suppose if the hearings examiner has if there's a public comment period, I I guess that's kind of the equivalent.

Just they're going to hearing examiner except the planning commission. But it it is feels like a little bit of

the change in direction. Yeah. Well, it's not a change in the sense that, you know, the hearing examiner already, and and this isn't really, again, intended to be a significant change. It's just, I think, clarifies for the purposes of, you know, the the applicant that just because there is a standard in the code doesn't mean that that's the maximum standard that can be applied to your project. Right?

We can go above and beyond that if deemed necessary to mitigate. Right? And the decision that the planning commission is making, through its recommendations on zoning is that there are uses that will, you know, sometimes warrant that higher level of scrutiny because, you know, your your job is to to help us determine what uses are permitted versus conditional uses. And, you know, if your feeling is, and I'll use a gas station example, right, because there is a gas station, you know, that was a conditional use recently. Right?

There was a determination made at the zoning level by planning commission and council that, you know, gas stations probably don't work everywhere. Right? And so we're not just gonna allow it outright. We're gonna require it to go through this conditional use process where, there's gonna be site specific review and considerations made. And, you know, on on this property, it might be that, you know, there's not a whole lot you have to impose in terms of conditions.

But on this property over here, you know, it's closer to residential. It's closer to some environmental concerns. And, we're, you know, giving the hearing examiner permission here to say, well, yes, developer. You know, you're you're saying you're gonna provide a six foot fence because that's all the code requires. But based on the public comment I'm hearing based on that use across the street, we think you need to put a seven foot fence.

Right? And and that's not illegal for me to do because the code says that I I can do that. But where, again, it comes back to you is that, you know, as a planning commission, you've supported the idea of that being a conditional use. And if you felt like the code was was good enough as it was, then it wouldn't make sense to make it a conditional use. So we're gonna get into the use tables later this year.

And I think one of the things we're looking to be doing is is consolidating some of those uses as well, make it more clear as far as what is and isn't allowed in the zone. At this point, I don't think we're recommending removing any conditional uses, but that'll be an opportunity to review those, determine whether or not you think, you know, there's conditional uses that maybe aren't appropriate at all in that zone. Right? If you would never want, you know, a gas station as an example to be approved Yeah. Use in a zone where it's listed, then that would be the contract then removing it. If you felt like, no. That gas station probably works everywhere in that zone, then, you know, maybe it could be outright permitted. Right? And, again, I'm just using, you know, for the public listening just that's as as an example. Right?

Bigger change here is, to this performance bond requirement. And so where they're bonding is a common, requirement in development to ensure performance of a certain, component of a project. So for example, let's say it's that fence. Right? And you really need that seven foot fence.

And so, you know, when we approve this, we're gonna make you post a bond to ensure that that fence is installed. But that would provide us the opportunity to actually get that fence installed if for some reason the defaulted. The language currently says that the city council would determine when that bond is required, and then it sets that bond to a 100% of the cost of that improvement. So the city council doesn't have a role in the permitting process. And so it'd be very unusual for us to go to the council and say, hey.

Is there any part of this that you think we'd wanna bond against? And then the 100 the increase from a 100% to a 150%, I think it's sort of just based on best practice and the fact that, you know, a 100% may not necessarily actually cover our true cost. Right? And so this provides some some padding, in the event that we needed to, call that bond. This is a very rare thing that happens, but it's just something that actually our consultants identified in the review as, you know, perhaps been problematic.

A lot of padding.

Well, it it seems like it, but I think where this comes from is, you know, the engineers' estimates. Again, use that fence example, right, for a developer is gonna be a 100% of what their cost as a developer might be. So if we were to come in and build that fence for them

You would have to have more.

We'd be we'd have to pay more just because of our procurement requirements. And then the fact that we're we're installing one component of the project as opposed to, you know, the whole thing where it's built up. So a little bit of

incentive to actually do it rather than say, here's a 100 of what I would have paid.

Go for it.

Do it yourself.

Yeah. That was actually my my take on it as well. You know, I thought that that's just gonna cost $10,000. It's gonna cost 12.

I gave you 10, so I'm off the hook for 2.

Yeah. I'm off the hook for the other two. So

So if a developer, like, defaults on a project, would it not would this, like, not be something that was imposed by, like, whoever the owner like, the the next owner of it would be?

So it could be. And I I don't I don't know.

So this is just, an option. It's an option. Right? It's it's If there's something It's not automatic. About the situation or something like that.

Yeah. It's it's not automatic. And, again, I don't know that this that we've required this. But, you know, it would be for a particular use where there was a particular concern and a really critical condition that you we needed to be followed. Right? And where we thought maybe that there was some risk. And so you know, I can't think of an example of where this would happen. You know, we do collect

I can't.

Trail up a hill and there's no railing. I mean I

was actually thinking about the lovely building in the edge of Vancouver that is boxed over.

Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. And and with any public improvement, we do, you know, have performance bonds if they're reporting a plat or there's warranty bonds. Right? And so this is, again, this is a specific type of bond for a specific type of use where, again, we've already identified there's some risk. Mhmm. And that's why we made it conditional use. Makes sense. Okay. So this is variance chapter. Pretty minor changes here. Basically, we have two types of variances. There's a minor variance, which is up to 10% of the numerical standard, and that is a type one review, basically done by city staff. That turnaround is usually thirty days, a pretty low barrier.

And those are utilized sometimes in the development process where, again, through a really minor numerical change, setback would be an example, building height. We can give some consideration. You still have to meet the variance criteria, so it's not just an automatic, hey. I want a 10%, you know, greater or smaller setback. I mean, you do have to meet the, the variance criteria that apply to to minor variances. So that's a minor variance. A major variance is anything over 10. That's a type three review, much more involved. That's a public hearing in front of the hearing in front of the hearing examiner. There's a public notice.

So that jump from ten to eleven is is pretty substantial, and it, I think does discourage variance requests. And that's probably, you know, a a good thing. But that's the existing, standard. The proposed changes are to, add to the minor variance section allowance for an up to one foot of setback, reduction. So the reason why that's called out is because, you know, a foot you know, it's kind of a small request, but in some cases, that would be more than one sorry, more than 10%.

So you know? And that's the example of, let's say, you have a five foot side yard setback, and a foot would make a difference. Right? Mhmm. So you wanna go down to four feet.

That's that's 20% now, which means you have to have a public hearing over that foot setback reduction. And so, this was an idea just to, on on that specific request, have a sort of a lower, you know, a more streamlined process. Again, the criteria still apply. The process is a bit different where we don't have to, have a public hearing for that. And then for major variance what we proposed here is to set a cap at 40%, just sort of an arbitrary number, but there is no current cap on that variance request.

So that would allow you know, with without a current cap, you can completely eliminate requirements. And, you know, I think what we're trying to say here is that there's a reason we impose setback requirements, lot size requirements, parking requirements, all those things. And so if it's to be reduced, you know, we wouldn't wanna reduce more than 40%. Beyond 40%, I think the position here is basically you're kinda getting into territory of a code change where, you know, your your issue is so great that needs to be brought to the attention of, you know, the legislative body, the planning commission, and council to consider a zone change. So, you know, the first change is, again, trying to be a little more flexible.

Second change is trying to tighten things up. Right? Setting that upper limit. We actually, you know, as staff did talk a little bit about introducing a middle step where maybe between, 1020%, there would it would still be a staff level decision. I think it would be a type two.

It was maybe the the thought you'd have a type one, two, three, or, but we felt like you were comfortable with, you know, sticking with these two here. So any discussion, I'll just go kinda go back to this slide because this is where the primary changes are. There's also some outdated references to the board of adjustment. So those have been the one. K.

Alright. With that, I think the final section, is, some updates to how you request comprehensive plan and zoning map amendment. So we talked touched on this a little bit earlier, but there is a process for anyone to request changes to the comprehensive plan or zoning, and that could be the text of the plan or zoning code or it can be the map. So, usually, those requests come in as I wanna change the zone. I wanna change the map.

And sometimes it's I wanna change the conference plan map and the zoning map at the same time. And sometimes it's just, again, the text. So what the changes that are proposed here are for the kind of less common situation where someone, requests a change to the zoning text. There's a minimum application requirements, which is to identify what that text is that you wanna change, a statement of how that amendment is warranted, a statement how public safety and welfare would be improved, and what would happen if the amendment were not to be granted. So going back to the variance thing, this could be a situation where if we impose that 40% limit, and there's a developer that comes in and they have this project, and there's no way to get a variance.

You're you're maybe it's the parking. Right? And your parking requirement is just too high as a city that, you know, I need it to be reduced more than 50%. And so the only way to do that is to convince council to change the code. So they can make an application and provide some evidence as to why a lower parking standard should be required for their specific use, and the planning commission review that council and review it and determine whether or not to to make that change.

So all this is is just requiring a little bit more evidence to support your request up front. You can't just say, hey. You know, give us up or down, but here's why, and here's what would happen if you don't approve it. The second change that's being proposed is to introduce what's called a concomitant concomitant rezone request. And this is something that, exists in a lot of other codes, a lot of other cities' regulations is when a property owner or developer comes in and they wanna rezone their property, say, let's let's use, you know, residential to or sorry.

Let's say commercial. From commercial to mixed use. And they say, hey. You know, we we wanna put some housing on this property. You might look at it as a planning commission and say, well, you know, that's, you know, that's a good idea if we still get the commercial that we want. Right? And, you know, that developer might say, well, yeah, here's here's the picture of the commercial building we're gonna build, and here are the apartments we're gonna build next to it. You're taking on some risk in making that recommendation. You know, you're you're sort of you you have to move beyond that specific developer's proposal and think about what does that zone actually allow. And so, you take that risk, you adopt that zone, and that developer might come back and say, actually, we're not gonna do this.

We're gonna do that instead. A concomitant rezone allows counsel to impose conditions with that rezone. And that could be, imposed through an ordinance, through a development agreement, through some other form of security where you'd say, we're gonna rezone you, but you're going to provide this, that, or whatever. Right? So you're gonna provide, you know, an office building that, you know, occupies 50% of that acreage, and you're gonna do that within the first so many years of the development.

And because of that commitment, we're comfortable granting you this this rezone. So it basically, you know, is a way to have the city hold, you know, the applicant to their word of here's the promise of what we're asking for. Right? You know, another example might be someone wants to rezone a a low density property to multifamily, and they say, hey. We wanna provide affordable housing.

You can impose that requirement through that rezone request of, you know, we we value the affordable housing. That's why we're willing to make this change. We don't want you to rezone it and then build, you know, luxury apartments or luxury condos, right, before intent was affordable housing. And so, you know, we'll give you that density that you're asking for, but we're also gonna attach the string to it. So, it's it's a new tool that, I think would allow us to be, more sure of any changes that we might be making to zoning in the future when when requested outside of a comprehensive plan amendment process.

So, the the code, here, includes those types of conditions. Here are some examples of that. Again, limitations are permitted or conditional uses, development standards, ratios, phasing, timing, infrastructure, public facility improvements. You know, might be that you're saying, we'll give you the zone change if you commit to providing infrastructure for it on this timeline, that type of thing. So, I think that was it.

So

any any questions or comments on that?

There's conditions applied, and they're not met. What are the teeth?

So those are binding conditions. Right? So they're going to be attached somehow. Either it's an ordinance. So the ordinance, you know, applies. It could be a development agreement, which, again, the development agreement, it's a contract that applies or against some other sort of binding covenant. So it basically it's

Affordable housing and it's not affordable. The ordinance or the development agreement can penalize?

So I think where it starts is you don't allow the development unless it meets those requirements. The affordability example's one where it then triggers a monitoring requirement. So that would be then a violation of the permit. Right? And so that that's that's a kinda tougher one to answer of what happens if, you know, forty years later, they decide they're not gonna make it affordable anymore.

But there is a mechanism in here which allows you to remove those conditions or remove the rezone, and that is basically through the same mechanism. So if it's an ordinance that applied the condition, then the council would have to adopt a new ordinance to remove it. If it was a development agreement that applied the condition, the development agreement would have to be amended or removed or changed by council. And so, in all these cases, a council, you know, is is imposing the conditions through some tool, and they're amending them through that same tool. So, you know, the authority will always lie with with counsel.

Right? So, that's that's it for tonight. Yeah. We will continue to sort of work on these drafts based on the comments we had here. Some of them will follow-up with you more soon than later.

Others, you're really not gonna see until, later this summer where we start packaging everything up together, looking for a recommendation to counsel for for those changes. So, next month, May's meeting, this sort of preview there, we're it's gonna be more of a design focus. We'll be looking at, the design review process, design standards for downtown, as well as some new design overlay ideas we have for for gateways and corridors, that type of thing. And planning on having Nicole McDermott from WSP come and use that that meeting.

Thank you, Alan.

K. What date is that?

Thank you.

That is May 19.

The other miscellaneous updates?

The only thing I wanted to share was, you know, we typically focus our conversations here just on on planning items. But, you know, one of the things we also do is is permitting. And we just completed the first quarter, and I thought, you know, I'd just share some permit information about what what kind of activity we've had in the first three months of the year. So as we look at land use, civil, and building permits together, we've had 356 approvals or 390, submittals in the first quarter. Those are decreases of between 1318% from depending on whether it's approval or submittal from last year.

So it

is a decrease. Slowing down just a little bit. Most of that decrease is actually just on building permits. When you look at land use submittals, which is, you know, subdivision applications or civil construction, which is actually construction of projects, those are actually on par increased. So, I guess what I'm saying is, you know, we're seeing less building, but there's more development that, you know, may come online in the next year or so.

We're sort of eating into the capacity of of, you know, fillable lots in some of the, like, Green Mountain, for example, areas, and we're starting to build that up again. As far as middle housing and ADUs, there's been an increase there. One interesting thing to note is, you know, in the first quarter, we permitted nine accessory dwelling units, which is a pretty low number, but that is as many ADUs as we've permitted in any single year previously.

So Is nine for the last year or last

For the last three months.

Three months. Fantastic.

For the for all of 2025, we permitted nine, and that was the most we ever did. So there was a lot of interest in ADUs and middle housing. In fact, we've you know? So permitting nine over that time period when numbers have generally been lower is a good sign. We've also just had a lot of inquiries and reapplications around middle housing and ADUs. And so, you know, there were a a lot of things we're expecting to happen, and then a lot of new people sort of came forward. So, you know, we'll see, you know, what sort of activity that produces, but that's a good sign that, you know, the changes that were made were well received.

You're tracking this with the new software rollout you had?

Yeah. Yeah. So this is all information that we're we're able to track in EPL, which is our permitting system. And we're looking to sort of do better more quarterly, more frequent reporting quarterly on on that permit activity.

Fantastic. Good to see the EU changes had an effect

Yeah. Immediately. And then the other thing we're tracking, is, you know, our timeline performance. So against, you know, the review the number of days we have to review any sort of permit. And I don't have those numbers for you, but we're actually, you know, compliant, very closely to those. And there were some changes when we went from a hundred and twenty days to as low as sixty five days or as many as a hundred and seventy days for us to review a permit. So that's it. K.

Thank you for the updates. Next meeting is May 19. With that, we will close the meeting at eight