Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

We will call to order the Planning Commission meeting for Tuesday, July 21, 2026 at 7.01. Can we have a roll call, please?

Commissioner Hall.

Here.

Commissioner High.

Here.

Commissioner Anderson.

Here.

Commissioner Burak. Here. Commissioners Walsh, Niles, and Keller are excused.

Got it. All right. Next on the agenda for this hot evening, we have public comment. This will be the public's opportunity to comment about any item on the agenda, including items up for final action. And they have three minutes to speak. Three minutes. And please state your name and city, if you would like to speak.

Heather Sanders Camas. Good evening Planning Commission staff. I've come here many times previously to say that rethinking the way we treat parking is one of the most positively transformational things we can be doing as a city. This often overlooked policy of parking minimum mandates has for decades produced poor land use, over allocating our land to parking far above what we need and far above what developers would naturally build. Ask a planner and they'll tell you that it's not clear where our current requirements come from and that the current numbers in the code are completely arbitrary. The case in point is that our extremely valuable, lovely downtown campus would be illegal to build under the standard parking requirements, while the upcoming Parker Village development that's more than 65% asphalt is the only style of development that can be built under our parking mandates. and really go to any big-box store or strip mall in the area, and you'll find the parking supply is vastly underutilized, even at peak times. All that is to say I'm really happy to see that this is being taken seriously in the proposed policies that are being evaluated today, with each of these policies leaning towards more flexibility for developers in choosing how much parking to include in their projects. Also exempted the downtown and mixed use zones from traditional parking requirements in favor of the flexible case by case basis evaluation. Perhaps most importantly, we're adopting the reduced parking minimum requirements from the Washington state law early by including them as an alternate option. These requirements still guarantee that some parking is built and while doing big things to allow for more flexibility by reducing the absolute number of spots required by the city for residential and commercial uses. So just a lot, a lot of really encouraging progress there. There's one key change to this policy that I think we should seriously consider. As it stands, this policy as written still puts up a few considerable barriers to actually using these new requirements. It includes a parking review for smaller projects, a formal parking study for larger projects, and review and discretion from the city at every step of the way if you're using these alternate requirements. Procedural blocks, however, small stand to discourage the use of these new requirements, not to mention burdening our planning staff with unnecessary work. So, I'd recommend that we instead use. We instead allow developers to use these alternate requirements by right instead of the gate, keeping them behind parking studies and discretionary assessment from the cities. Again, I think this progress in lowering the parking mandates is really great progress, a really great thing for us to do as a city. I just like to see us not lock it behind any unnecessary red tape. Let's make good land use easy instead of being a chore. Thank you very much.

Good evening. Randall Friedman from the Camas Earth Day Society. I'm always delighted when Tyler talks about the types of communities where you have mobility without cars. But for our area, that really is going to require development of the Camas Mill and not you know, several hundred acre island of fenced off property. So I'm here, I see it's on your agenda to talk about how it's going to be treated. We have a very different view of that. And let's, if we go back to 1994, well, first the 1990s to 2000, our state grew 21% in population. That's over a million people and grew 27% in jobs. So in 1994, the legislature saw a problem. People were sitting on brownfield industrial sites. There was no process to clean them. There were no agreements. There was nothing to protect them down the road if someone decided they wanted to build residential or recreation. So the legislature passed SB 6123, and essentially what it says is The Department of Ecology no longer has discretion. If it's zoned industrial, it is clean to industrial. And I'll just read a couple of things from the committee report. And this was sponsored by the Senate Committee on Ecology and Parks. The department must adopt rules providing for the application of industrial cleanup standards at industrial properties and adopt rules prohibiting the conversion of industrial properties to other uses on properties where these standards have been applied. That seems pretty direct to what Ecology can and can't do. And the staff analysis continued, the powers of the Department of Ecology are amended to allow the department to enter into consent decrees or agreed orders, including deed restrictions, limiting future uses to industrial use at sites where industrial standards are employed. So that means a covenant. That means it gets a covenant with the state that you cannot do anything that requires public access. If you have a cafeteria, it's only for the people who work there 40 hours a week. And that is the law. That is ironclad. Now, it's interesting, going back to 1994, because I was reading the summaries, and the interesting thing... is the opposition of the Sierra Club in 1994. And what they said was, industrial cleanup standards may not be adequate to protect human health and the environment. Industrial properties are too broadly defined. Well, that's it. If it's zoned industrial, it's clean industrial. Now, there's one way out of that that we found, and that is this idea of future social use. And I'm dealing three minutes. I can't do it justice. It's just to say it's a completely independent pathway that doesn't involve the zoning, and it allows groups like us, groups like Clark County, City of Washougal, to weigh in and talk about the future social use. To just... What the staff is proposing is 100% contrary to what our legislature did in 1994 and why they created it so that local jurisdictions wouldn't mess around with that. And let me tell you, if Ecology tries to do this, Koch Industries will have them in court and have us in court and they will be right because what I read is what the court will look at. Thank you. Thank you, Randall.

Public online.

Okay.

We will move on to the next agenda item. That will be the approval of the minutes for the June 16th, 2026 planning commission meeting. I'll take a motion and a second when you're ready to approve.

Second.

Yeah.

Okay. We have a motion to approve the minutes as written by Commissioner Anderson and a second by Commissioner Burak. Can we have a roll call vote, please?

Commissioner Holt?

Yes.

Commissioner High?

Yes.

Commissioner Anderson?

Yes.

Commissioner Burak? Yes.

All right. The motion passes. Let's see. Next on the meeting agenda, we have Presentation on our CAMAS 2045 zoning code amendments, and the presenter is Alan Peters, Community Development Director.

Thank you Planning Commissioners. So tonight we are continuing our discussion of proposed zoning code amendments that we are looking to have Council adopt this fall with our comprehensive plan update. The intent of these amendments is to implement the new draft plan goals and policies, including the downtown sub area plan, and then also address changes to state law. As we sort of wind this process down, I think we, you know, recognize that there's a lot of opportunity for continuous improvement of the code. And this will not be the end of it, we have one more month of of meetings where we'll be going through some additional changes. But I think we'll still see some significant work happen as we get into the next year after Arctic Plan is adopted. But tonight, I want to focus on three chapters of Title 18. zoning map and districts, use authorization and parking. There's some pretty big items in here that we're looking to cover, get some feedback on, and some pretty significant changes from the way we've been doing business in Canvas for a while. Chapter 1805 Zoning Map and Districts. The Planning Commission actually reviewed quite a bit of this a couple months ago, where you saw the different changes to the zones that we're proposing and how those relate to the comprehensive plan. Basically, to summarize that, we're doing some consolidation of zones. We're also providing some new zones, and we're going from 26 to 25 zones in so doing. Besides just that list, there's some changes to chapter 1805, which describes the zones individually. And those descriptions also do have some regulatory effect as well. Within the residential zone changes, pretty minor here, what we're proposing to do is basically rename the chapter from residential and multifamily zones to just residential zones as sort of the lines between those get blurred more and more with changes that we've made incrementally. And then the zones that traditionally have been considered single family zones are really single family and middle housing zones. And so each of those descriptions would be amended to recognize the allowed middle housing development in them. And then we're also changing from the way we look at density in these zones. So currently The density is regulated in terms of units per acre, which gets a little confusing now when you know the units per acre typically have met you know single home on a single lot and now we allow anywhere from. one to four units on any given lot, right? And that would appear to be in conflict. You could have four times the density. So what we're changing it from is lots, sorry, dwellings per acre to lots per acre. So that's the intended density. And then those lots have different land use rights. And then there's also descriptions for two new residential zones, MF24, which is a new multifamily zone of 24 units per acre. This is a zone that Camas had for many years. I think it was taken off the books probably about 10 years ago, maybe a little bit more, and we're proposing to bring it back. It's a little bit denser than the MF18. And then there's a new downtown residential zone, which would be described in this chapter. The next section, 1805050, describes the commercial and industrial zones. We're also calling out mixed-use zones as a sort of distinct type of zoning formerly that fell under the commercial heading. This section includes descriptions for four new zones in downtown. and the mixed employment zone. This also includes a description of the heavy industrial zone. And so this is where I'm going to point out a pretty significant change. So the heavy industrial zone doesn't only cover the canvas mill, but it is probably 90% of its acreages on that property. There's some additional property as you go south across the Washougal River towards SR 14. Uh, in the heavy industrial zone, uh, but consistent with the draft comp plan and downtown sub area plan. Uh, we're proposing to, uh, introduce a pathway to, uh. see residential development in the heavy industrial zone. And what we're describing is areas west of Black Miss Creek and the Washougal River, which covers the canvas mill property. And there's some specific parameters for when residential would be allowed. So that's something that's identified in this chapter. But as we get to 1807, I'll go a little bit more in depth on what that means and why we're proposing to do that. There's some zones that have been eliminated. So downtown commercial goes away, light industrial business park, and then the light industrial slash business park districts go away. There's a parks and open space zoning district, which would be created from several different park zones. And so there's a new description there. One of the significant changes is that the park zone would also apply to privately owned open space or parks as well as public zones. So that's 1805 pretty quickly. The more substantial materials in 1807 and then 1810 parking. So 1807 is a chapter that basically identifies all the land uses that are permitted in all the zones. So this is sort of a one-stop shop where you can look at a matrix with, you know, that first column is all the potential land uses and that first row has all the zones across and you can find out if you want to do a specific type of use, what zones is that allowed in? Is that a conditional use? Is it temporary use? Is it prohibited? Etc. And it's organized into tables for the different types of zoning districts, commercial, industrial zones, residential zones, park zone, And then what we're proposing to do is provide a new table for downtown zones, and you'll see why in a second here. So table one, which is the commercial and industrial land use table, would be reorganized to correspond with the revised zoning districts that we established in the prior chapter. So eliminating those zones that are being eliminated, adding those new zones, such as mixed employment, and then pulling out the downtown zones into a new table. So the big change here that I want to focus on is this idea of allowing a residential, essentially on the canvas mill property. That is the intent. And it relates to the comment we received earlier about cleanup levels. The draft comp plan as well as sub-area plan articulate a preference for an unrestricted cleanup level to be dictated by ecology. So the mill, as they wind down uses and eventually shutter, will be required to clean up the property. The state determines the level of cleanup required based on a number of factors. I think most importantly, the zoning and what is allowed in that zone. And so if a city's plans are for industrial use, then there would be an industrial cleanup standard, and that's the state at which the property owner would have to leave that property in. The state could also determine that it's non-industrial, meaning that there's other land uses permissible, and create an unrestricted cleanup, which would, just as it's described, have no restrictions on future land use on that site. In the event that a property is cleaned up to the lower standard, a future user could come in, could clean it up at their own expense to qualify it for other uses. So it's not locked in permanently, but that is a higher barrier, right? And I think... generally is going to dictate the use is that cleanup level. As we've explored this topic, early on in the process, city administration essentially decided that we didn't want to pursue rezoning the property, but we did want to focus on trying to achieve that cleanup. The pathway that we're trying to achieve here with this change is to introduce residential into that zone. Residential, as we understand, is that trigger that automatically It puts it into that unrestricted cleanup level. The zone itself, if you look at the use table, allows a multitude of uses, almost every sort of use imaginable besides residential. I think we feel pretty confident with the existing code in being able to support an unrestricted cleanup. But we also feel like, you know, we have an opportunity to bolster our position, not just for cleanup, but also to put a statement out there about our preference for redevelopment. And there are some sites that perhaps could be developed sooner than others. And again, this would support that redevelopment today. And I think providing in that pathway for industrial cleanup. So the language here. If you look at the use table, residential uses would be permitted as a conditional use in the heavy industrial zone, but under certain criteria here. Only when part of the mixed use redevelopment project, and then heavy industrial uses would need to have ceased on the portion of the site proposed for residential development. And the applicant would also need to demonstrate that the proposed residential development will not interfere with any continuing industrial operations on adjoining properties. The purpose of that last sentence there is to, make sure that we are preserving the intent of the industrial zone. It really is to allow users to continue those industrial operations, provide jobs. And so we don't want to compromise that just by throwing residential anywhere. But again, under some strict parameters, you'd need to check these boxes and then go through that conditional use process, which requires a public hearing. There's other criteria. So that is the proposed language. And we think it's consistent with the PB, Harmon Zuckerman, Our comprehensive plan in the sub area plan. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, preserves the zone as is. But again, I think gets us to a sort of an interim period where PB, Harmon Zuckerman, Redevelopment and specifically residential as possible.

I have a chance. Sorry, is this the overview? You're still on an overview and we'll go back and talk about it.

I think maybe I'll wrap up this chapter 1807 and then we can discuss this chapter in detail. But the rest of this is pretty straightforward here. There's some minor changes to Table 2, which is the residential land use table. Basically, what this is doing is addressing fourplexes as a recognized mental housing type. I think that's a change we missed last year. And then allowing the limited neighborhood commercial uses that were discussed as something that would be allowed along design overlay corridors and residential zones as well. Table three would update the parks and open space land uses and consolidate those different land zones into one column. And then the downtown use table. So this is a new table here that applies only to those four new downtown zones. And what's really neat about this and why we pulled it out is because it distinguishes between what we're calling active and passive retail uses. So active uses are those that, you know, maybe are more retail focused, are more pedestrian oriented, have a lot of activity where there's activity that you can see inside and outside the space. And what we're doing is regulating whether uses are allowed on the ground floor or upper floors or both. And so in particular, the historic Main Street zone along 4th Avenue would require that those active retail uses be on ground floor levels, or I guess would require that those ground floor levels be occupied by those active retail uses. And so something like a real estate office would become non-conforming you know, that's not exactly what we're after. Those would still be allowed on Main Street, just on second floors, and they would be allowed elsewhere in downtown on ground floors. And then I think the last change here I wanted to address is child care centers. This is a state law that was adopted, I think, last year. It requires that child care centers be changed to a permitted use in all zones, including commercial and residential zones. So that's a change for us. And then the law also does require that you allow child care centers in industrial, light industrial zones as conditional uses, which is what we're proposing to do here. And I think that is all of 1807. So yeah, now would be a good time for any discussion or questions about anything we talked about.

I'd like to talk about the mill site section. I like to think I'm a pretty smart person, Alan, but I really, I honestly couldn't follow that. I feel like there was a lot of... Well, it sounds like it's currently heavy industrial. Right. And it will continue to be zoned that, but we have a conditional use pathway. I really don't know what that means. Where we can have residential and mixed use...

Yes. So I would say currently the zone allows most non-residential uses in it already. So if you look at that use table, you'll see there's... Certainly heavy industrial uses such as manufacturing, which occupies the site currently. You know, there's R&D, there's office, but there's also commercial, there's retail. I think there's wholesale and retail bakeries. There's recreational uses such as parks, there's schools, museums. So there are a lot of land uses already allowed in this zone. that would bring people onto the site potentially. It's not a mixed use zone though. Mixed use generally requires a mix of residential and non-residential uses. That's as it currently stands. The singular change here is that we would now be allowing residential as a conditional use, meaning that you're not automatically allowed to do residential. You have to apply for a conditional use permit, which is a type 3 review, meaning there's public notice, there's a public hearing, it goes before a hearing examiner, and it's scrutinized for compliance with the conditional use criteria in Title 18. So you're looking at things like, you know, unique impacts to the site, surroundings, compatibility and that type of thing. But in addition to that, there are some additional criteria here in order to qualify. And so what the city is attempting to do here is to allow residential in the zone and. It is primarily as a mechanism to achieve what we are trying to focus on right now with the cleanup level that ecology will determine. So ecology is an agreed order on the mill site where they will eventually be determining what the cleanup requirements for Georgia Pacific will be. And amongst various things, they're going to be evaluating the planning and what the zoning allows. And what we're attempting to do here is to allow the broadest range of uses on that property so that ecology says, hey, the city's plan would support industrial, but it would also support child care centers. It would support parks, schools, retail. And there's a way that residential could come in as well. And so our position and our argument would be that that means that the site ought to be cleaned up at that unrestricted level.

So It's a sort of invitation slash advertisement to apply for a conditional use permit so that ecology will rule in a certain way for what it requires of Georgia Pacific.

Yeah, that's part of it. It also is a legitimate tool to allow those uses to happen in the interim, right? And I think the hope is that there is, you know, there is redevelopment on the site, right? Georgia Pacific, I think, will determine that timeframe based on, you know, when, you know, what their operations look like. But I think most particularly when they're willing to part with the property or any portion of it. So that's what this is about.

Another question for you. First, I appreciate the effort to thread the needle to keep the existing zoning. the industrial use and ensure that we there's additional mechanisms for the city to end up with a result that we all like or even a safe site appreciate the hard thinking that's gone into that um excited by that uh one specific question on this pretty easy how is this the um portion defined. That's like a key word. How much of the land is a portion that industrial use has stopped on?

So, um, Yeah, I think that's to be determined by the project that comes in. And I think the assumption is, you know, well, first off, we're demanding that it be a mixed-use project, right? And so this wouldn't be a project that's simply single-family homes or an apartment building, right? So there's contemplated other uses. I think this addresses that those other uses could not be, you know, that industrial use on that same site in the same building or facility, that type of thing. The portion, you know, that could be something that is split off or sold. It could be the full property, I think. But basically what we're saying is, you know, again, we don't want to interfere with industrial use that's there or potential for other industrial use either. And so, again, I think you're right. It's threading the needle and it's also trying to be considerate of consumers. both industrial uses and residential uses on the site and try to avoid those conflicts.

Makes sense. I think you said that ecology will make the determination whether or without this they can insist on a mixed-use cleanup level or industrial. This strengthens that argument, but is that right that ecology has a discretion to decide the level of cleanup even if it's...

I don't, I don't think there's discretion. If it's, you know, I think if residential is on there, again, our understanding is it's, it's under restricted cleanup. I think also if it's strictly industrial, then it's industrial. And I think our current zoning is sort of in that in between where there's some debate on what the outcome would be.

Can you speak to the difference between those two things, an unrestricted cleanup and industrial cleanup? Is there like a reference on Ecology's website or something where we can see how these are defined?

What I would suggest, I can send a follow up just with a link to Ecology's website. And there's a section on the George Pacific Mill site in particular. But without going into the details of what that cleanup looks like in either scenario, it's really about the level of cleanup and the types of uses that can come back on the site. So industrial cleanup means it's cleaned up to a standard that would only support future industrial use of the site. The unrestricted cleanup means it's clinging to a higher standard that would allow humans who don't work in industrial facilities to visit the site, enjoy the site, cling on the grass there, live there, breathe the air, drink the water, that type of thing. And there's only two ways to do it.

I can add a little bit of context to that. I worked on the Port of Canvases redevelopment where they had the old mill there. So for industrial, and I'm not an environmental professional, so I've may not have exactly right, but this is kind of a general summary. So like on that port accounts washable property for industrial, they just had to cap it. So there was like a four foot cap of clean soil on top of buried contaminated soil. But as soon as they switched to mixed use and residential, which they're building now, Then under all the residential buildings, they had to remove all of the contaminated soil that met a minimum threshold of contamination. So there's a difference between, you know, leaving contaminated soil in place and just capping it versus digging out a whole lot of, a lot more soil. It's very expensive.

I think that's a good example. Also that soil wouldn't have supported the buildings, I think, in any case. Yeah. but there is an option, right, to come in and clean it up to that higher standard, if it makes sense to do so. I think Commissioner Keller has a stand raised.

Sorry, that got clicked by accident.

I had a question for you on this. I was just wondering what it would look like, like a hypothetical, if the mill, if Georgia Pacific decided to sell what I see is like a little bit more ready property above 6th Avenue, and they wanted to change the zoning to a mixed use or a housing to residential use, what would that look like as far as just the process without this proposed change?

Without this proposed change, they could do a lot with the property, they just could not do residential. I'm not saying that They could do anything else because, again, there's a use table with some limitations on what could go in there, but generally it supports most non-residential uses. But there would be no way to do residential on the site without a zone change. And so what we're proposing here is a zoning text change. It's an amendment to that zone, leaving everything else in place, but allowing residential. the alternative would be they would need to request a rezone, request a comprehensive plan amendment. And that is something that is possible amid cycle that happens with some regularity where folks will come in and say, hey, your plan contemplated this. Here are the circumstances that have changed. We would like for some consideration. And so it's a bigger hurdle for that development. And I think that's something that, you know, We could accept, but I think the intent here, while it is sincerely to invite the development, it is really, I think, paramount that we, again, bolster our position with ecology.

The big difference between cleaning up after it's capped and left by the new developer versus cleaning up now with ecology is who pays, right? Right. The new developer pays if they've cleaned up the industrial center and sold the property. In this case, the current operator would pay for the cleanup, which is maybe significant.

Yeah. And I don't want to go beyond my own expertise on the issue, but this is a good conversation. I think another point that's important is it will be cleaned up. That is a requirement. Cleanup is a requirement. that you're not allowed to abandon the site. It's just a matter of how clean it might be.

Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate all the work on that.

So I can move on now to Chapter 1811, which is the parking chapter, which we've, for a few months, reminded you that we should get to that come July, and here we are. And so I think you'll find that we... similar to the last thing, trying to thread a needle here, retain the parking code we have without making a lot of big changes, introduce some interim actions. But as a whole, I think it's pretty significant changes to how we've been doing parking in Kamas. The current parking ordinance, I think, was really last substantially amended in 2009. It could be even older than that, but it's been there for a while. And so as some background, before we kind of dive into what we're proposing to do, there's two pretty big laws that were passed last year in 2025 in the Washington State Legislature. Senate Bill 5184 is sort of the bigger parking bill that sets limits on local government development regulations regarding parking. And what this basically does is for cities of 30,000 or more to sets the maximum minimum standard you could set. What this says is a city cannot require more than 0.5 off-street parking stalls per multifamily unit, can't require more than one stall per single family unit, can't require more than two stalls per thousand square feet of commercial space and then can't require any parking for certain uses so residential uses uh residential units under 1200 square feet commercial spaces under 3 000 square feet affordable housing senior housing child care centers ground level non-residential space in mixed use buildings or for buildings changing use um and i want to focus on the residences here so when it says residence is under 1200 square feet the way i interpret that is doesn't matter what the residence type is if it's a single family home that's detached and it's under 1200 square feet you can't require parking for it if it's a multi-family unit you know an apartment in a building that's under 1200 square feet you can't require parking for it And this applies to cities with a population of 30,000 or more. As of April 1st, our official population estimate from the state, which is what triggers that 30,000, is 28,490. So we grew a bit last year. We're the fastest growing by any means in Clark County, but we grew a bit. And we're about 1,500 residents away from that threshold. So year to year, the number of residents that we add changes. But we're very close. We're on the cusp of that. You know, I would say more than likely four years from now, we're at 30,000 and this automatically then applies. So we're looking at 2030. And, you know, we're not really that far off from 2027 at this point. So this is coming up quickly. The second thing that happened last year is 1183, which has been often overlooked because 5194 is a bigger deal, but this applies already to Canvas. It eliminates parking requirements for certain types of residential projects. This isn't for all uses, but it's for residential uses. For affordable housing, for new construction, or retrofit of existing buildings, meaning passive house requirements, modular construction, and mass timber construction, you can't require any off-street parking. So those are terms that are all defined in the RCW. Affordable housing means, you know, affordable to, there's a different calculation for rent versus for own property. Passive housing is a type of construction method. Modular, same. Mass timber as well. Those last three are particularly interesting because you know, the method of construction, I don't think really has an effect on the parking demand created, but this is a way to incentivize that type of, of, of, of construction. So again, the first column will apply in about four years. Second column applies already. So As we've heard a lot of public comment about parking, and I think particularly about the idea of eliminating parking standards, we're thinking about this, and I think our feeling was, hey, there's going to be a big change. Let's not make a huge change this time, but... We also felt like there's an opportunity here sort of in the interim to gently roll this out. And so we'll get into sort of what that looks like here. But we are proposing to retain those minimum parking standards, which. um is a very traditional way to regulate parking you identify land use and you determine how many spaces are required for that land use um we're proposing some pretty minor changes to those standards basically to bring it in compliance with the middle housing laws uh middle housing uh code changes we adopted last year uh basically matching the requirements for middle housing with single family dwellings so in some cases your single family requirement would go down based on your lot size here so that is a change that's new and then we're also uh identifying from 1183 the no minimum parking requirements for certain types of residential projects so that goes into our code essentially those are the only changes we're making to the the base parking standards uh those base parking standards are automatic that's what you comply with We're also proposing what we're calling alternative minimum parking standards. So these standards are what the state has adopted in 5184, and an applicant could have those applied to their project if they submit a parking assessment that explains the number of parking spaces they want to provide, and talks about the anticipated parking needs, available parking nearby, transportation options, and other site constraints. And then the review authority, which is, you know, either staff or the hearing examiner would determine whether or not those standards could be applied to the project. The parking assessment doesn't require, you know, a professional author, doesn't require a PE, a professional engineer to stamp it or prepare it. We're essentially just asking for, you know, does this make sense at all? Can it work for your site? And there could be site constraints, for example, that might not necessarily be parking related. There's critical areas on the site. There's critical habitat or something like that that you want to avoid. And the parking, the alternative minimum parking standards could support avoidance of a critical area. That's something that I think would support the alternative minimum standard. So I do think it's a pretty low threshold to get across that parking assessment. But we just, I think, are just looking for documentation that you've considered your needs on the site before you default to the alternative minimum standard. So this would allow us to implement this four years earlier than we are required to. But that said, it still does require parking. It doesn't eliminate parking minimums entirely, but for a few uses here.

Is there a reason we shouldn't update the standards like as soon as possible to meet the state requirements as opposed to waiting for four years and having this alternative?

It's just a policy choice. And I think, to be honest, we just haven't fully the impacts of that. And this, I think, gives us an opportunity to see how it works in that interim period. And perhaps, you know, we do it after a year and we're like, hey, this is a terrible idea. We're going to go back to those minimum standards or, you know, probably more likely, you know, we find that it's working fine, right? I think the argument generally for elimination of parking standards generally is that the market is going to provide what's required. And I think in most cases, that's true. Sometimes projects do provide the absolute minimum, but in a lot of cases, they're providing the parking that they think they need, which may exceed this but again i would say it's a choice and uh as uh the planning commission one of the things we're looking for uh we'll be looking for formally but certainly looking for tonight in an informal way is a recommendation and and you could recommend when this goes to hearing uh something different than uh here to me it seems overly cautious but i appreciate it that's all i understand

One question on the minimum parking sense, really it's a little bit on the law, is with the new law on the half space per multi-dwelling unit, is there a requirement that it has to be a certain distance to public transportation or does that play any factor into the decisions?

No, no, it doesn't. So this is sort of a, you know, it's a one size fits all scenarios.

So with that, I think it's a good idea to kind of leverage slowly into that standard since we don't necessarily have to immediately adopt it. Because I think there's a big difference between a unit going into downtown into the downtown district where there is actual public transportation versus a unit that is multifamily being built much further afield where there isn't either adequate street parking or access to public transportation.

And I want to be clear, I think the intent here is not to create a high barrier. It is discretionary, but I will read the language in the code that's drafted. What it states is the director may approve the alternative minimum upon finding that the proposed parking supply is reasonably expected to serve the development. And then you consider information provided in the assessment and available availability of other parking and transportation options. So there's not a requirement that we find that all of the parking is going to be met, but again, reasonably met. So I think it's, uh, It's intended to be broad and I don't think our intent in administering this is to be overly strict with it. But I think our feeling is we want to do a gut check before we allow it to apply. So that said, we're also proposing a I'll jump ahead to the parking study section here, a way to go to a completely different standard. We've outlined requirements for a parking study, which is a more thorough assessment. There are specific parameters included in there. This would allow you to go to a completely different standard, which could be perhaps no parking at all. Parking study would be required when you're trying to go below the alternative minimum standards. It would also be required for a multi family project containing. More than 20 units that seeks to use the alternative standards could be used when there's no comparable parking standard in the code. So, generally, what we're going to try to do is find a similar use. But if someone comes in with, like, a basketball arena, for example, which we haven't anticipated a parking studies, how we determine the parking demand for it. And then it could be required on a case by case basis, depending on the complexity of a project. And so the intent here is it would get you to fewer parking spaces than the parking standards currently do. This is a replacement for the variance process, which already exists. there are different requirements to obtain a variance and you could get and often we have seen requests for parking variances uh the fire department actually recently applied for and was granted a parking variance for their downtown project um but this is another pathway so you know essentially i think now we have sort of four different ways to determine your parking you have your the general standard, the alternative minimum, the parking study, and if none of that works, you can apply for a variance. And I can see how it's a little cumbersome, but we're laying out some options here. But I think there's also some big changes outside of the alternative minimum standards that I want to point to, and it relates to downtown and mixed-use parking. And this is sort of an interesting thing because We have what I think are some inconsistent provisions in our code. And we honestly haven't had a lot of opportunities to apply this code because we haven't seen a ton of development in mixed-use zones or in downtown zones that might have qualified for this. So I'm going to point out the two sections and then share sort of what we're supposed to do to reconcile that. So 1811, which is the chapter we're looking at, generally requires off-street parking in the downtown commercial and mixed-use zones, but it does allow the Community Development Director to the discretion to waive that requirement for certain projects. It does say specifically projects one-half block or less in size in cases where the city engineer determines that parking demand can be accommodated by existing onsite and adjacent on-street parking. I think that's the section that a lot of folks are familiar with. some recent mixed use projects like Clara Flats, like the Livingston, and even to an extent, the fire station project. We've looked at how many spaces is required by that use? How many spaces are you providing on-site? How many spaces are along that street frontage? In some cases, we've required restriping to diagonal spaces to get a little bit more parking on the street. We've looked at the on-site and off-site parking together to meet that parking requirement. And that's, I think, consistent with what 1811 says. Although, you know, even within 1811, it kind of states that the standards don't apply, but then it provides this language for how you can meet the parking requirements. But also section 1819, which is not the parking chapter that's in the design criteria, categorically states downtown commercial and mixed use areas are not required to provide onsite parking. So I don't know if we've applied this in the past to projects, but I will point out that this falls under heading of commercial and mixed uses. And so I think the way we interpret this is that in those zones, downtown commercial and mixed use. commercial and mixed uses are not required to provide onsite parking, which is essentially no minimum parking standard in those zones for, again, commercial and mixed uses. So not for a strictly residential project and perhaps not even for the residential portion of a mixed use project. Doesn't mean that offsite parking would not necessarily be required. But I think, you know, as written, these two sections create a little bit of confusion. And one, I think, is sort of the more know i guess progressive uh position and that's to not require the parking at all and so uh i think we want to acknowledge that and make sure that we're not moving backwards in any way um and so in trying to blend these uh this is what uh we're proposing is that in the downtown and mixed use zones only so that's any downtown zone and any mixed use zone which those exist in north shore and elsewhere in canvas now Commercial uses and ground floor, non residential space within a mixed use building would have no minimum parking requirement. And commercial uses, I want to clarify, are not necessarily all non-residential uses. They are uses that fall under the commercial heading in our land use table. So that is not an industrial use. It's not an educational use. May not be a recreational use or an office use. It's commercial uses. So it's clear in the table. Would not have a parking requirement. And then mixed use spaces within any building. would on the ground floor regardless of what the use is if it's non-residential wouldn't require parking so this is downtown and elsewhere other uses would still be subject to the applicable parking requirements however we would then apply the standard of that one block lesser size project you could waive the requirement um and then in either scenario we could require some improvement of the off of the on street parking. So restriping maybe other pedestrian enhancements or something like that. Um, so it's, I think trying to blend these two, um, I don't think it, uh, is going backwards in any way. And I think blending it removes the confusion. And I think, uh, particularly in downtown, it is pretty significant and that it essentially eliminates parking requirements for anything other than the residential uses. And then consider again, we have the minimum alternative standards and the parking study pathway. So I'm going to go on to shared and joint parking. This is a section that already exists in our code. We looked at other parking ordinances and felt like, you know, we're on the right track, but there are sort of more predictable ways to calculate shared and joint parking. And so there's types of land uses and percentages that you apply to those different ordinances. land uses. So during the time of day, uh, you know, the middle of the day, residential parking is occupied 60%, but in the evening it's 100%. Uh, Conversely, an office is occupied at 100% during the day, but in the late evening, it goes down to 5%. You put these things together to figure out how you can share parking. I do think this becomes less important as you consider our alternative pathways to reach a parking requirement. Other changes, these are some pretty minor ones. There's some reorganization. So moving things around into sections where I think is a little bit more logical. There's the addition of a requirement for wheel stops. So wheel stops are those things that you find in the front of parking spaces that doesn't allow you to go further. That's something that we see as important to preserve landscaping in some cases, but also to prevent cars from overhanging sidewalks. Right. So I think you've all seen, you know, big truck. walking the pathway because they backed up too far and the wheel stop is a mechanism that we think is an important thing to require. There's a section that we've eliminated here, 1811040, which introduces some flexibility on how the parking spaces are determined for a use that's on a second, third, or fourth floor, where the higher up you go in the building, the parking requirement is reduced. It didn't seem logical, and I think the other standards that we're proposing better address That, again, provide other pathways to reduce parking requirements, unspecified land uses. So, again, this is where someone comes in with the land use that doesn't show up in the parking table. Currently, the code says you need to go through a conditional use process to get your parking determined. What we're proposing here is for the director to make that determination based on similar uses in the table, or if there's nothing in the table. That we can compare it to your parking study could be required, but again, that's much less work than going through hearing. then there's a reference to existing ev charging requirements uh we're not proposing to have our own we're just pointing out in our zoning code so early on folks recognize that there are some pretty significant requirements to provide ev charging spaces and ev ready spaces and those continue to change and become more robust at the state level and so we're just referencing that section of the WAC as opposed to adopting our own or even referencing specifically that requirement because it may go out of date. And then a big change is introduction of bicycle parking requirements. And I think these are pretty minimal, but I think something that is important to encourage, especially as we, you know, on the other hand, in this chapter, try to reduce the amount of vehicle parking, motorized vehicle parking. So this just comes from a bunch of other codes and sort of trying to distill them into the simplest way we could approach it. Essentially, there's two types of bicycle parking. There's short-term bike parking, which is typically a lockable bike rack outside of a building. And then there's long-term bicycle parking, which is secure covered parking, which could be outside of a building, typically is inside in a bike storage room or that type of thing. Multifamily dwellings of five or more units would be required to provide two Short term spaces or 1 per 20 dwelling units. That's not a lot. Um, but it is, it is in line with what a lot of other jurisdictions in our region have required. And so a building like, um. The Livingston, which has about 50 units would be provided would be required to provide only 3 of those spaces. So, again, I think very reasonable. Uh, but they would be provided to provide 10, uh, long term bike parking spaces in the building. And so I think we would envision these as like a bike storage room, perhaps in the building. Sometimes those have showers or things like that. That wouldn't necessarily have to be the case. It could be a bike locker outside. It could be in storage, other storage units in the building. Or it could be meant just by allowing residents to store bikes in their own individual units. So that can be an issue. Some apartment... you know managers prohibit that some workplaces prohibit people from bringing bikes inside and so just allowing folks to store their bikes in their apartments would be a reasonable way to comply with the long-term biking bicycle parking requirement uh don residential makes these buildings uh that's going to be determined based on floor area pretty similar requirement here um long term bike parking is really more for the employees of that facility. So two spaces or one per 20,000 square feet. So 100,000 square feet is a pretty big building. That's a big grocery store or a sizable office building. So if you think about that, we're only requiring five long term bike parking spaces. Again, I think that's a reasonable requirement. And then hotels and lodging, this is a category that a lot of other jurisdictions regulate separately for whatever reason, two spaces outside and then one space per 20 guest rooms. So again, not a huge requirement, 100 rooms require five of these spaces. But again, I think the intent here is to not prohibit people that are using bikes to get around from staying in your hotel, working at your establishment, or living in your accommodations. So that is, again, a new change, different from sort of everything else we've talked about. Whether you think this is a lot or a little bit, it's more than we currently require. And so that is the extent of what we have for you tonight. I want to remind you of sort of what the process is we've been rolling these things out in a workshop, um, each month, uh, we're getting ready to sort of package everything together in a bundle and send that to the department of commerce, uh, in early August, um, for their 60 day review. Uh, we may get some review and comment from them. Uh, we'll be coming back next month with our final bundle. Uh, but then we'll be, um, starting you know the adoption process with public hearings uh we're looking at september for that where you'll have the opportunity to formally consider this all make a recommendation um council uh is going to start seeing this next month actually their next meeting we're going to start rolling this out to them as well um and so you know again you have you have a role of recommending these changes Our recommendation, I think, will be for adoption of them. And whether it's that time or tonight, we're here to get your feedback. And then we'll be representing whatever the planning commission's position is to counsel eventually.

Will the public hearings be in chunks like these have, or are you going to give us all of them at once?

Tom Preston- The intent, I think, is to give you all of them at once, you know we'll look at the calendar, but I think realistically planning Commission will have just one opportunity for hearing. Tom Preston- and There's some minor tweaks that I think will be made to what you've seen, what the public has seen, but essentially it's going to be what's been seen, right? Council isn't always required to have a hearing. Actually, they're not required to have a hearing when the Planning Commission does. And so with this change, however, given that's the comp plan and the downtown plan, We expect that Council will hold at least one hearing on the matter. And again, I think we have a couple of workshops scheduled as well.

A quick follow-up question on the parking and the diluting of the statewide requirement should go into effect sometime in about four years. What do you anticipate the cost is in terms of staff time and administrative effort to make that change next year or in four years from the option to apply the state standard to make that official? I think that the workload for.

Yeah. So I think what we haven't really thought about is whether the state standard alone is comprehensive enough. Right. There are some pretty limited categories that they specifically target. And even right now, I'm thinking, are there gaps where they haven't provided minimums for certain land uses? So to just say, hey, that's the standard. That's very easy. Right. We would roll that into an annual update. Right. I think the cause is negligible, right? However, if there are gaps in that, if we find that we have to figure out what land uses aren't addressed by the state law that we have to come up with our own standards for, that's where it becomes complicated. And I think that's why, you know, with this iteration, we decided, you know, we're not gonna revisit parking on our own. We're gonna keep it the way it is, but also sort of do this interim thing where the state law can be met, right? And again, I think it's a pretty low barrier of entry. We just wanna make sure that it's thought out before it's utilized. And again, that's a minimum standard. I still trust that development is going to come in and they're going to build the parking that they think they need for their use.

Well, Alan, I wanted to say, Mara, I think that I like the idea of the alternative parking standards with the study versus assessment. That's the kind of stuff I really like when you guys do that because it really separates a quicker study with a very defined category of what information you guys want from an applicant versus a professional study, which holds back a lot of people that just won't do it. So I applaud you guys for doing that. I also would kind of lean on towards adopting some of these, the 30,000 standards, sooner than four years, because I do see them as pretty reasonable, particularly for most of the established cameras. That would just be my preference personally.

I would second that. I'd love to see that reflected in what we have proposed.

Well, that's almost half of you who made that statement. I think what I would suggest we do is, you know, we'll take some more time looking at it to see whether or not it's as simple as just striking the existing standards table and then going with the minimum. Again, I want to make sure that there's no gaps. And so, you know, if a majority of planning commission made a recommendation, I think, whether it's at our next meeting or the following, you know, I want the planning commission to understand what that would actually look like in the code, right? And so, yeah. Yeah, I think we will come prepared to accept that alternative, or at least make you aware of what that alternative would look like.

Okay.

Any other questions or comments for Alan? Thank you, Alan, for that presentation. Let's see. Next on the agenda is miscellaneous updates. Do we have any?

J. First update would just be on our comprehensive plan update schedule so we're in coordination with Clark county. J. They appear to still be on track to issue their final he is. J. pretty soon here i'll have the date for me, but. J. They anticipate early October adoption of their plan. And if all goes well and their process continues to, I guess if their process runs smoothly, I should say, we would anticipate a late October adoption of our plan. In any case, as staff, we're going to be prepared for that timeline. And, you know, I think we'll be flexible with what the planning commission needs as far as time to review the materials and make that recommendation. And like I was with Council, And so, you know, I don't think we're going to come to you in September and say, this is it. You must make your decision now. And we're not going to go to council that have a position either. But our intent would be for an October adoption that we're working towards. The second item was just in talking with staff, you know, looking at just time of this meeting. You know, it's established by code that it starts at seven o'clock. Our regular council meetings start at 7 o'clock. Some of our other commissions meet earlier. For example, our parks commission meets at 5. Our council does their workshops at 4.30. And so I just want to start the conversation as to whether or not the planning commission is okay with the 7 o'clock start time or whether moving it forward to 5 or 6 o'clock would be preferable or if that wouldn't work. I mean, I think the 7 o'clock time... my understanding is it allows you all to have your day jobs and allows folks to have theirs and come to these meetings. But, you know, I think it's been a number of years since that seven o'clock time has been established and people's schedules and flexibility I think has changed. So just putting that out there as to whether or not there's any interest in exploring something different.

Okay. I mean, for me personally, yeah, any five, six, seven, any of that works. I guess I could see for like staff might be in a situation where they've come into work. Now someone's going to be at this meeting, they leave at five and they got to come back at seven is kind of the

Well, I think for some people that's what we do. Sometimes you're going to abstain until 7, right? Yeah. You know, right now it's still light out, right? In the winter, you know, 8 o'clock feels a lot later than it is, right? And so it's just, you know, we want to be sensitive towards your needs as well as the public's. We think, you know, we can do any time. This is not a problem. something that i think we're we're open to um and so if you have an answer today great if not you know think about it uh and maybe shoot carry an email yeah and if yeah for me personally five or six could work six would probably be preferable to get stuck in traffic that's true yeah for people commissioners online any thoughts about moving up to earlier i'm used to seven but i'd be flexible with whatever works for everybody else i i can make time

i don't have a strong preference yeah my my only problem is i seven works best for me i can probably move it to as early as six but before that i actually have a prior commitment on the third tuesday of every month okay well that's helpful for analysis is probably six as opposed to like

Yeah, I think, I think so. I think, you know, that that's fine with us. I'm not saying we're making that change. That is established an ordinance. Council would have to amend that. Again, we just at least want to have the discussion and see whether or not it makes any sense. And then you always see there's, there's our time and yours, but you know, we're thinking about the public as well. And so I understand where seven comes from, from that perspective. So, Okay.

Thank you. Next meeting date is August 18th. And with that, at 8.13, we will close the meeting. Thank you.