Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

We'll open the meeting at six o'clock and we'll stand for the. Carly? Here. Joanne Overfield, present. Tom Green is excused absence. Andrew Hodruski?

Here.

Nick? Here. Laila Church?

Here.

And Carly Noir? Here. Okay, great. All right, so I'm going to take a minute to have our new members just tell a little bit about themselves and why they decided to join the Planning Commission. So, Nick, I'll start with you.

Hey, my name is Nick Krantzewicz. I'm a resident here in Edgewood, and I was excited to join and to be more a part of the community and to do what I can to further help the community and do what I can with what I know. I'm excited.

Okay. And tell them how long you've been in Edgewood.

About four years now.

Great. Okay, Nick.

Andrew. I'm sorry, Andrew. That's okay. I respond to most anything. I was excited about the opportunity to get on that planning commission. I've been a resident of Edgewood myself for about 10 years now. My wife's family has been here for many decades. But I work with a lot of different municipalities in my professional life. And so I really wanted to get an idea of better understanding of how things are going to go from the inside and felt better place to start than my own community. So here I am.

Okay, great. Well, we're glad to have you and your expertise and whatever you have to offer. Okay, so we have a presentation. First, we want to do the consent agenda. So I'll need a motion to approve the consent agenda. So if anyone would want to.

So moved, Commissioner Guillory.

And I'd like a second, please. Anyone? Anyone?

I second Commissioner Church.

Okay, great. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Okay. So this next part is for citizens' comments to comment on any items that are off the agenda.

So if anyone is... For a chair, the presentation is first.

The presentation will be first, okay.

Yes.

It was on there, but I wasn't sure that... Okay.

Okay, so we're going to go with the climate planning measures that we have hired...

person to deal with that. So go ahead, Ann. Ann, you're right.

Thank you, Chair. Yes, we have measurement available tonight to do a presentation on the update on their climate planning. We have both Kara Odegaard and Annie Murray available. Am I supposed to share the screen or will you be sharing the screen?

We can share screen. Thank you, John. Okay.

Yes.

Awesome. Wonderful. Thank you, everyone. I am going to pull up the presentation here. Okay. I always wish this part would be instantaneous.

Okay. Okay.

Wonderful. Well, thank you for the opportunity to present today. My name is Annie Mirai. My partner and founder of Measurement is on the call with me tonight, Kara Odegaard. We are a small climate planning firm. We have experience working with municipalities, tribes, and corporations and their climate planning work across the Northwest and especially in Washington State. We partner often with a firm called Lotus Engineering and Sustainability. They're also a small firm and we work together. They have extensive experience in greenhouse gas accounting. So I wanted to keep our introduction brief here so that we could get to the content, but I'm happy to share more about who we are at any point if that'd be helpful. And really today, we just want to do a project update for you. When we meet again later in the project, we'll have some more detailed documents for you to review. But for tonight, we want to recap the work that we did for the City of Edgewood in Phase 1, which was in 2025, and then update you all on our work to date in 2026 so far. All right, so for phase one of the project, which was, I believe, January through June of 2025, we kicked off this climate work for the city. And for those of you who weren't a part of that process, what we're talking about tonight is really the product of House Bill 1181, which requires cities and counties in Washington state to plan for climate impacts. There are two sub elements. One is greenhouse gas reduction, and the other is climate resilience and adaptation. And while it is required that cities consider these things in their comprehensive plan updates, there really is a lot of flexibility. So we know that Edgewood just went through a comprehensive plan update. We want to make sure that this climate planning work is really additive to what you have done already in the community. and that we're really being strategic and creating something that's very customized for your community. The state also has a heavy focus on environmental justice. So throughout this project, we are going to be making sure to reach communities that are typically hit first and worst by climate impacts throughout this, especially community engagement that we'll be talking about. So that's a bit of the, that why we're here. And in 2025, we really focused on looking at the climate data for the city and the region. This is our overall climate planning process graphic here. You'll see two tracks there that mirror the two requirements or the two sub elements. So the emissions data on the top, and then the climate resilience on the bottom, those orange boxes. And really what this is saying is that we do a lot of data collection first in our process. This typically looks like a lot of desktop research. And then we take that data and in the assessment phase, really understand what that means for the community. This is where we do a ton of community engagement and understand what that data actually means for people in their day to day. And then we use all of that work to create goals and policies that will help address the issues that are raised in the beginning. So the phase one work, like I mentioned, a big piece of that was the climate impact report. However, there were two other kind of background analyses that are very important to this work. The first was completing an equity analysis. This map here shows Mortality rates from cardiovascular disease. Why something like this might be important to look at with climate. If those types of pre-existing conditions worsen with high heat or smoke events, for example. So that's the type of data that we collect in an equity analysis. The policy audit was looking at where you have current strengths and where there might be opportunities to increase resilience through your policies. looking at your comprehensive plan, the hazard mitigation plan at the county, and various other documents that are relevant to the city. So all of these documents are available on the city's climate planning webpage for you to review, as well as the rest of the community. And we welcome your input at any time on any of these documents. They are all very foundational to this work in ensuring that we're capturing everything that is important to the community in the ultimate climate element. All right. So that was phase one of the project. And what we're working on now is filling in the rest of the data and really diving into the climate risk and vulnerability assessment. And I will probably move to the, Next slide here to talk about our timeline. So we are in the thick of the climate risk and vulnerability assessment, like I mentioned. We have aligned on an engagement plan and then we'll be carrying out that implementation throughout the summer and fall. And in the background is the greenhouse gas emissions inventory, which we'll talk about a little bit about later. And then really in the fall, in earnest, we'll be taking these draft goals and policies and creating a climate element that we can then do some more public engagement on and really take to you. So when we present again in your October meeting, we'll have a lot more detail to provide you and we'll be looking for input at that point. Okay, so a key piece of this work is the engagement. Like I mentioned, we really want to give opportunities for community dialogue and hopefully build on the work, like I said, with your previous comprehensive plan, you know, potentially reach people who haven't participated before and to show them where we heard their feedback and where it was incorporated into the climate element. That's a key piece of our approach. And then, while we're doing this engagement, we really see it as an opportunity to provide education to the community as well on the climate data that we found and what it might mean for them. So hopefully it's a dialogue, as we said, kind of a two way street. We have various methods to accomplish this engagement. The one that I think is really key is the climate advisory team. This is an interdisciplinary team of experts that is meeting monthly. to really co-create this work. I smile because we were just talking about how that word can be overused. But really we gave the climate advisory team a choice on whether they wanted us to do the assessments and bring them the results to truth test, or if they really wanted to be the ones to do the assessment work. And they chose the option that's really hands-on, which is fantastic because that we find really leads to better outcomes and helps build ownership of the ultimate element once it's done. So this team is meeting monthly, like I said, at the moment, and we really have appreciated the time that community members have put in already to make this very useful for Edgewood. We are also doing one-on-one interviews for those who cannot commit the time to the climate advisory team where we need that outside expertise. And we are conducting those primarily this summer. We also will have public survey and outreach materials available. As you can see the key dates on the right at those two July events, and we'll continue to keep the website updated as we go along. And then something I really want to emphasize tonight is that we'll be hosting a policy charrette And the idea, that'll be in the fall, the idea with that, Charette, is that we can really take this planning process and help bridge the gap to implementation. We find that oftentimes these planning processes can be lofty or somewhat out of touch with what resources might be available, for example. And we want to help Edgewood really take the results of this planning process and put them into action. So that will be the goal with that charrette in the fall. And we will have more to come on that soon. All right, so a big piece of what the climate advisory team is working on is this climate risk and vulnerability assessment. I want to go through what that looks like at a high level, and we can spend hours talking about this process, and we will over the months with the climate advisory team. So I'm going to sum it up at a very high level for you tonight. And like I said, we're always happy to talk more about our process at any time. The first step is to identify assets in your community. The assets is a very broadly defined term. It can mean communities and different groups of people. It can mean your infrastructure, a more traditional use of the term asset. It can mean community centers. So we really take a broad approach when we're looking at community assets. It's anything that you might wanna protect in your community. And then we look at how those assets will be exposed to climate change and how they may or may not be sensitive to climate impacts. So one example, if an asset in your community is a middle school, for example, we look at how that school might be exposed to high heat or flooding events when we're looking at climate projections. And then trying to understand, you know, is the building sensitive to those impacts? Is it in a location that may or may not, you know, have it see the worst effects of those extreme weather events? So we have this discussion with the climate advisory team. All the boxes in blue here are where really the climate advisory team is making that call on whether or not the assets are exposed or sensitive to climate impacts as we bring them the data. And then the next step is to understand what the consequences of an extreme heat event or a flooding event might be on that asset. So if there is a flooding event, is that school impacted by transportation routes being blocked off? Are kids able to get to school? Those are the types of questions that we would ask in this round where we're understanding, what does that really mean for people? And each of these, we take a lot of qualitative data as we're having these discussions. And then we ask the climate advisory team to make a rating so that we're able to rate each of these assets as far as their ultimate risk. And then for any that have a high risk, we look at the current adaptive capacity of that asset. Are they prepared? Is that school adequately insulated? And does it have air conditioning, for example, would be the types of questions we're asking in this last step here. And then again, we're providing a rating for that adaptive capacity that lets us understand kind of where these assets rank as far as which might be the most important to prioritize. And that gives us our ultimate vulnerability. So this is a very detailed process that we go through. And like I said, we look for lots of input from the community along the way. And then what we end up with is a very detailed understanding of where your risks are as a community and where you may need to build more adaptive capacity. Okay, and then lastly, the last couple of work we are currently working on is the greenhouse gas inventory. There are two inventories involved. The first is a municipal inventory, which looks at your government-owned operations. That includes heat and cooling for city-owned buildings, as well as other power and for streetlights. And then city fleet vehicles and equipment, any fuel usage in those as well is included. And then the community-wide inventory is more broad. It includes... additional activities from community residents. It includes vehicle travel within the boundaries of your city and activities like waste generation. It also includes the city operations within the community wide inventory. So conducting this greenhouse gas inventory gives us an understanding for the greenhouse gas reduction sub element of where your largest sources of emissions are. And again, allows us to prioritize those goals and policies to what's going to be most relevant for Edgewood. So I hope that was an appropriate amount of time. I know you have a long meeting tonight and I rushed through a good amount of that, but I'd like to stop here and see if there are any questions for us or if that's appropriate at this time.

So thank you, Annie and Kara for, you know, coming tonight and filling us in where we are in the next steps. And it will be interesting to get the public input later in this process. So does anyone have any questions that they want to ask of Annie? No, I guess we're good. Commissioner. Oh, sorry. Go ahead.

Hi, Annie. Hi, Kara. Nice to see you. Sorry I'm not in person. And I don't have my camera on tonight because I'm not feeling well. But I just wanted to, if we could look back at your phase two timeline real quick.

Yeah, I was just wondering where...

the potential revision cycle timeline would be after we get community feedback? Sure. Great question.

Yeah, so we have built in a number of opportunities for community feedback. We will, let me pull up the slide here so you can get it. So once we have drafted the climate element, we will put that out for public comment on any piece of the document that they can give us detailed feedback on. And we will have that opportunity open likely in the late fall. And then we have built in multiple months after that. So we're really counting on the first part of 2027 there to be able to have revisions and and be able to take the document with that public feedback and get your feedback as well, as well as the city council's. Yeah, Carrie, what would you add to that?

Yeah, I would just add, Layla, to answer the question. The charrette that we're planning for the fall as well is meant to be a public opportunity. So we are hoping to get as many folks as possible to come to that event. So there will be opportunity to help draft some of the priority actions and goals during that time. And then, as Annie said, we'll produce a draft late in the year and spend a lot more time in the first part of next year doing revisions.

Okay, thank you. Okay, great. Is there anyone else that wants to ask a question of Annie or Kara? Okay, I guess we're good then. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.

And I didn't mention we're really excited to be working with the city again. So thank you all for having us. Okay, great. Thank you.

Bye.

Yes. So as mentioned in the presentation, the Growth Management Act, which kind of governs how we plan all our cities throughout Washington, was updated to require the greenhouse gas reduction sub-element and the resiliency sub-element. So we have until 2029 to implement a sub-element that meets the GMA guidelines. The state has provided funds to assist cities to do that. We started in the 2025. Basically, ecology or commerce asked us to, we need people to apply, so we did just to start. Then came the second part. We're like, okay, we don't have any more money. We got to wait. But then they decided to reopen it up for us, and so we reapplied. But we're doing it early, and the idea is just that we get it done early and don't have to rush it at the end. So they're working on providing all the background information. When we start working on the sub-element, that'll be a lot of the planning commission review comments. So next year, it's going to basically become a sub-element into the comprehensive plan.

Great, thank you. And the Growth Management Act is our county, requires certain things of our city. So when you hear the G...

Those terms.

They're the boss.

Question. The funds mainly came from the CCA Climate Care Act. Is that correct? Correct. All of them did. Okay. Check it.

Okay, great. So now we'll go on to the citizens comment to anyone who would like to comment if you're online or present on anything that's not on our agenda this evening. Okay, state your name and address for the record, please.

Nusha Tashakur. I work in Seattle. I live in Bothell. I have a project that I'm working on in the city of Edgewood. Okay. Reason for being here. As I said, I'm a real estate developer with the Intercorp Homes working on a project in the city of Edgewood. I'm here tonight to express my support for the proposed multifamily tax exemption program that is on the agenda. Edgewood, like many communities across our region, faces a housing shortage. The challenge is that the cost of developing new housing continues to rise due to construction costs, financing costs, and infrastructure requirements. The proposed MFTE program is one of the most effective tools available to the cities because it creates a partnership between the public and private sector. In exchange for providing income-restricted affordable housing units, developers receive a temporary property tax exemption on the residential improvements. The result is that more affordable units are created without requiring direct public subsidies from the city's budget. Importantly, MFTE programs don't just create affordable housing, they often make projects financially feasible that otherwise would not be built at all. When a project moves forward, the community benefits from new housing opportunities, increased economic activities, construction jobs, and long-term investment in the city. Speaking from direct experience, programs like this can truly be the difference between a project moving forward or remaining on the drawing board. Thanks for your time.

Okay, is there anyone else out there in cyberspace that wants to speak?

There are no other commenters at this time.

okay all right so we'll end that so we'll go on to the action items um we're not going to do the uh electric alarm system this this time we will do that um next week or next meeting we're going to go on to the um home business and licensing and

Yes, thank you, and I apologize now for the mix-up on the fencing action. Wrong documents were uploaded, so we'll be addressing that at the next meeting. We'll be moving on to item B, which is the home businesses and licensing regulations. Over the past couple months, we've been working with the Planning Commission to update our own businesses and limited businesses regulations to match our comprehensive plan goals by basically consolidating and updating them as needed. As part of that, we also updated the business license section based on the Department of Revenue updated regulations as well. We had a public hearing last month and we received no public comments during that time. In here we provided the findings that the proposed amendments conform with the GMA, that they're consistent with the city's comprehensive plans and goals, and simplifies the overall regulations. Um, as such, staff has, um. Uh, following a further discussion on the matter plan commission's vied to make a formal recommendation to city council on adoption of the proposed draft amendments. Uh, titles 5 and 18 regarding home businesses, license regulations. A draft recommendation has been provided for consideration. There hasn't been any updates to the home business section. Um. Since our last discussion, we'll be sending it after a recommendation from Planning Commission, sending it to the city attorney for legal review before getting to city council.

Okay. Thanks, Josh. So the new members probably, I mean, you had a chance to read it. And so if you have any questions about anything, it's been worked over by the Planning Commission for quite a while to review You know, benefit those that have businesses or want to have businesses in in the city. So, if nobody else has any comment, I'm going to ask for a motion to pass this on to the city council. So, Carly, go ahead.

I was just going to say, I'd like to. Recommend this move on to the city council for approval. Make a motion to do that.

okay may i have a second on that motion please second commissioner gillary okay great all those in favor to pass this on to the city council say aye aye aye okay we're good to go josh thank you and if uh if you have it i'll sign it before i leave otherwise i'll come back and sign it okay okay Okay, so now we go on to the discussion items regarding the rezone on Sumner Heights Drive East for the comp plan.

Yes, just to... Oh, Chair.

Sorry. As a point of order, I'd just like to offer to the Commission that I'd like to recuse myself from this item. Given my proximity to the site and potential relationship with the applicant that I haven't confirmed yet, I think in light of the appearance of fairness doctrine, it'd be better if I recuse myself. So I'll sit right out here. Okay.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Carly, for doing that. Okay.

So, Josh. Yes, thank you. So the... GMA allows the city to update its comprehensive plan once a year or annually to allow for rezones of the future land use map. We received two applications. One is the Shover comprehensive rezone from residential to industrial. Um, as we're going, which was approved by the, um. Recommended by city planning commission, and then eventually also documented by the city council for review. So now we're actually doing the review of it, but no decision has been made been made yet. The TANF schedule is provided on your screen here. Right now we're doing some introduction. The idea is that we have a hearing on it next month to get additional public input, then have a discussion in August and then potential recommendation in September. I provided here in the staff report the overall process, basically, this is the criteria that the city has to use to decide if we're going to or planning Commission and the City Council will determine if if it meets this criteria to approve it or deny the application. So the description of the proposal is that the applicant wants to redesignate the comprehensive plan, future land use map, and current zoning map of the two properties listed here at 5626 and 5628 Sumner Heights Drive, a mixed residential MR1 to industrial. Just to show the exhibit here real quickly. These are the two properties that we're talking about. This is what's currently zoned around with the neighborhood, followed by their proposal. Public comments were received during the notice of application. They were provided here in the staff report. The Planning Commission also received a good amount of public comment during the, I believe, February meeting, which were basically the same comments reiterated again. Generally, it was about the general noise, light impacts, traffic, and air quality concerns, from the rezoned to industrial to the nearby residential properties, incompatibility with surrounding neighborhood, and impact to existing residential property values. will be another comment period associated with the SEPA determination and then the planning commission public hearing so we'll be sending out those notices again to all the properties within the 300 feet for the public hearing as part of this process we'll be doing a SEPA review environmental review which allows us to add mitigation measures that are not addressed in code Um, we are providing here a list of 5 potential mitigation measures. We haven't landed on as a city. This is some that the city staff and the official determined. So this is a planning commission item. I just want to make you aware of what we're thinking we are heading. So that might impact your other thoughts. Um. about the reason so we'll what we're looking at is doing a type uh for 15 foot solid barrier landscape being uh required between the proposal uh proposed industrial uses and summer heights drive so basically along the roadway limit property access to both property parcels to the existing 15 foot driveway along the southern property boundary Future non residential development shall improve summer Heights drive east to meet current commercial standards. Future development within 500 feet of the residential zone properties, which is would be would be required to do noise impact. Assessment and make sure it follows doesn't exceed any of the city noise ordinances. And then. Prior to any issuance of building permits or future development, a design review application and administrative approval is going to be required to ensure that the development is mitigated for any access to stormwater management, landscaping, building orientation, buffering, measuring, and other potential impacts that might be needed.

So in the attachment, so all the comments were sent to the applicant.

As part of that, they are revising their proposal to request an overlay to reduce the types of industrial uses that would be allowed in that overlay zone. So it would be potentially industrial, so all the industrial uses normally allowed, but an overlay placed on top, which would then limit what exactly those, further limit the industrial uses. So in the attachment, there's a table provided by the applicant of what they're proposing for the overlay. Staff has reviewed the proposed prohibitions and agrees with limiting industrial uses, and it would also help mitigate some of the potential impacts. Staff is interested in recommending an alternative version, though, that would go further than what is being proposed. So the question for the Planning Commission is, would the Planning Commission entertain an overlay that restricts certain types of industrial uses? We didn't want to go down this route if the Planning Commission is going to be, no, this isn't something we're worth looking at. Or if it is, then we can at least spend time, staff time, looking at it. So that's my first question.

So It seems reasonable to try and mitigate what is going to go with the residential area so close to this. So an overlay sounds like a good way to mitigate. So I don't know, does anyone else have any thoughts on that? I mean, I think it definitely should be... There should be some way of tempering what happens there.

Commissioner Church?

Yes, thank you. So is the overlay just an additional assessment that we would do within the SEPA environmental review?

No, it would need to be a code amendment update. It would be a part of the rezone, but then it will also include a development regulation update as well.

Okay. And so you're asking the commissioners here tonight if we think it would be good for you to consider that overlay in the research?

Correct.

Okay. How much time is that taking staff to do? And does that cause like any additional rounds of review?

We don't believe I'll take any additional rounds review. It's obviously ends up being a planning commission item. So ended up being whatever your bank commission decides. This will play a little bit though, into our next discussion on West Valley, our idea or our thoughts is that it would be a overlay applied to both zones. So it's more of a combined effort on our end to address those issues.

I see. Okay. And, and what,

what is staff's recommendation do you feel like then that this would be a useful um exercise to do we believe to best address the west valley and what the applicant is proposing that we should at least evaluate this part um it is in the end up to the planning commission and the city council to determine if that's the end result is still moving forward with it or not um but We would like to have something in place for the public hearing so all the public can make comments on it.

Right. Well, that makes sense to me.

So we're hearing that the overlay seems to be what everyone would choose. And we... and to go forward to talk about it in light of the West Valley rezone too, obviously.

So the second question is regards what the planning commission plans View of the proposed land uses by the applicant. So we can kind of get a sense of what what you're looking for as we are drafting our version of it. Let me bring it up here on the screen. Fortunately, I do have a lot of public comments to get through. So, obviously the residential. Uses would all go away when it's rezoned, if rezoned. I'm going to just slowly go through the list here, and you can just kind of view them. I'm just looking for any type of input the planing commission might have on if you think some specific uses should be looked at it being removed or added based on this. And I can zoom in a little bit as well. Don't expect much for utility section of land uses. There's not much changes there. Manufacturing could be one of those items. They are recommended heavy manufacturing be limited or not be allowed. Right. Wholesale retail trade is another. They're not showing many changes in that except for the sexually oriented retail businesses. Warehousing and storage is the other. No changes for the businesses and professional services. No changes for educational services. No change for healthcare and social assistance. For arts and entertainment and recreation, again, social-oriented entertainment. I'm going to go back. So services, this is going to be a lot of your personal care services. So it'll be permitted outright, automotive, car washes, a lot of your auto uses. They're proposing, so the reason I would allow a lot of these uses, maintenance, And that's the list. So the question is, is there anything specific that you think should be looked at as potentially being removed from the industrial list as part of the overlay as they might be overly not compatible with neighboring residential uses?

Well, it is always problematic with... with the warehousing, but you know, it is, it is part of our life and, um, really the only thing that, uh, That seems bothersome. The truck's backing up. The beeping noise travels so far. And I know there's really no way to get away from that because it's all warehouse down there. I have one right below our house. And luckily, it's low-impact. They don't bring things in there very often. So I don't know whether we can... If there can be hours, the hours that they can operate can be mitigated.

So I can say that. So what you're kind of mentioning is what a noise study would look at. Yeah. Example is the Prologis Industrial Project has done a noise study and they are limiting their nighttime hours. Because of the exact noise, because those trucks running will exceed the noise allowed. So they're going to be limiting what they can do in those hours because of that. So it'd be something similar here. Like if, I don't know if it's feasible for them or not, but we would be requiring the same study, same look at for it. Overall though, we are, our idea is that, or from staff perspective, What we're thinking about doing is limiting warehousing in the area because it is not really compatible with the topography of both West Valley and this area. So that's one that we are definitely looking at, at least limiting to maybe a square footage size or something like that.

You know, I live above the Sumner Valley, and I have to say that I'm wondering if they changed some of their – I don't hear it as much. And I'm kind of wondering if Sumner put some restrictions on the nighttime deliveries. I don't know whether you know, but I just – I've noticed that I don't hear it as much. So I'm thinking that something – that might have changed. Either that or I'm just getting used to it like the trains are.

I know some of their warehouses are also up for sale, so they might be empty.

Okay. Well, that could be a combination. You know, West Valley, of course, the topography is kind of weird down there. But it's pretty obvious that having residential property right on West Valley is just... in light of everything that's around it, is just not reasonable. And if somebody decides to stay there, they obviously are willing to put up with whatever's going on. But a change there is definitely something that we've looked at for quite a while. And I sort of agree with the property owners down there that in light of the fact that everything across the street has changed, that something should change.

I'll just remind the planning commission that it previously, so before the 2024 comprehensive plan update, the future land use zone for that area was industrial. And with the 2024 update, it was changed to the, because the zoning was always residential. Right. The future land use map was industrial. But when we updated the comprehensive plan, we did update the future land use map there to be back to residential.

Right. Anyway, and I read, you know, that there are some concerns with fish and wildlife, I guess, down there. Now, I have to say that... Just I'm just going to go into a little history here. This little area below where I am was was annexed into Sumner and Sumner. They didn't want to cooperate with the city of Edgewood to try and mitigate what happened there. And the person who developed it. did all kinds of stuff that they shouldn't have been doing and they finally got caught. But I don't know where Fish and Wildlife was through some of it. And I don't know where Sumner was not exactly on top of it either until the environmental people you know, stuff started washing into the Odo property on the other side of West Valley. And so that person got dinged and he was put in jail. And then even after that, they started logging off some stuff on one of the hillsides. So, you know, although I appreciate Sumner, you know, having some issues with the sewer and fish and wildlife, but their record for there has not been...

good as far as i'm concerned having lived through it so staff will provide our recommendations at the next for the hearing and then we have further discussions of that list um and that could be an alternative to the applicant's proposal that we can vote uh have the planning commission review and make our recommendation on when we get to that point I do expect that we will have a robust public turnout. So if there is, if you have any questions about you not being able to attend that meeting, please let us know ahead of time because we don't want to have a no quorum and then have people waiting for us.

And, and, um, some of the, some of the residential areas that are above West Valley, um, I mean, they get a lot of noise from 167. I mean, I hear it too. And I know some of the developments that went in that if you bought in certain areas, you would kind of have to feel that something was going to change below you in terms of West Valley, seeing what was happening in Sumner. But I can understand that there's a lot of people that may be unhappy. But if we're good about trying to mitigate things, I think it can work.

Have there been any complaints on the evergreen precast that's there? I'm sure it's noisy and dusty. That's right next to them.

It's a long-term legal non-conforming use down there. We haven't recently. We've actually had complaints against the property itself that's currently being requested for rezone. It's a code enforcement case because they're using it as an industrial storage yard right now. So this is trying to address it, but they understand that if they don't get it, then they still have to leave. So we have received noise complaints and other complaints on this property, but nothing recently on Evercast.

Okay, so I guess if there's no further comment, we've discussed it and we'll move on to the next phase for this project. Okay, so on to the concurrency code.

Actually, West Valley. Oh, sorry. Will be the next one.

I thought we were talking about this. I sort of morphed into it. I'm sorry.

yes understood um now just for a little bit of background for the new commissioners just so aware last year um city had city staff had proposed a rezone of the west valley area to industrial um based on a lot of factors but a mixture of neighboring industrial uses and the law of those properties being advertised as industrial properties or commercial properties. So we get a lot of CODEM complaints down there and violations. So we did a... Proposed comprehensive plan update last year when we did a West Valley highway land use study, which is attachment D here, which came to the planning commission and reviewed it. They recommended approval to the city council. However, we got a lot of comments from fish and wildlife ecology and the tribe. We didn't think we had time to address all those. But we pulled it from the docket. And we weren't sure we're going to be able to address it this year. So I believe up to either seven or eight property owners in the West Valley applied for the comprehensive plan rezone again. So that's why we're bringing it back is because those property owners did apply for it. And so now we are looking at it again. So same thing. This was the council approved for the final docket went to the city council in February. And so we're in the middle of reviewing it with the introduction. We are not due to potential public comments for both of these. We are going to be separating the public hearings in two different months to make sure that we have plenty of time to address these as needed. So this public hearing is scheduled for August. Again, I listed the process and criteria. So the criteria that you should be reviewing and determining if you're going to be recommending approval or not to city council. So on this, the applicant's proposal is to redesignate the comprehensive plan feature land use map and current zoning map designations within the West Valley Highway overlay area from residential and commercial to industrial as recommended by the 2025 West Highway Final Land Use Study done by SCJ Alliance. The city's proposal alternative would be modified the applicant's request by adding an industrial reduction overlay to the future land use map redesignation and rezone proposal. This overlay would further restrict the industrial land uses and incorporate required SEPA mitigation measures. This relays back to the Schroeder rezone where we're talking about the same type of overlay. have a little bit additional background on overlay. That's what we came from after further discussions with the tribe. They were primarily concerned about large warehouses in the area. And so restricting those type of large warehouses, which we don't believe could actually be there anyways, is a good compromise for it. So that was gonna be the city staff's alternative to their proposal. So again, we got some public agency, public comment. Most of the public comments came from residents on top of the hill. Just for purpose here, let me show the map. So the black outline area is the West Valley study area. This is basically the hill going down into the valley. All the residential here up top is basically at the top of the hill. Again, they were concerned about noise, light, traffic, and air quality concerns, impact to existing property values, incompatibility with their neighborhoods on the western neighborhood specifically, and the corridor. But we did receive a comment that the existing corridor, West Valley, is not compatible with residential development. But what they were saying is basically there shouldn't be residential development here because it's not compatible anymore with the surrounding industrial uses. public comments were included the attachments including the agency comments so as part of that we were also doing seba environmental review and discussing what we what we could do from a seba mitigation measure staff is looking at having a 100-foot natural buffer along the western edge of the overlay area required to preserve the natural vegetation residential views while also providing a natural noise and air quality buffer so requiring a 100 foot buffer we believe that's adequate mostly because it's all steep hills there so they won't be able to develop it anyways this will just make it clear that for whatever reason if they want clearing it can't happen Required type for 25 foot solid barrier landscaping required between proposed land uses and any existing or adjacent residential uses. So there are some residential uses within West Valley. There's little small neighborhoods. So if there's any type of industrial use that 25 foot solid barrier buffer would be required. And like the Schroeder, we would be doing a future industrial development within 500 feet. We're required to do a noise impact assessment and then required to go through design review to ensure compatibility. Another question that Steph has at the moment. is after reviewing the initial comprehensive plan amendment and rezone submittal documents uh west valley over overlay land use study noticeable application comments previous comments from other agencies staff believe in overlay restricting the types of additional land uses may resolve a lot of the agency and public comments so does the planning commission have any initial concerns regarding an additional restriction overlay and should this utilize the industrial land uses proposed in the schrober application as a starting point So in the sense we would like a staff for the ease, it'd be one overlay applied to both or one, or we just don't want two separate overlays to have to apply one or none.

So is everyone on the same page that an overlay would be a good thing for that area also? If you have any questions, bring them up now.

Yes. Thank you, Chair. Thanks, staff, for that presentation. And I just want to loop us back to the West Valley Highway final land use study in our packet from September of last year. And the items that I heard staff explain, SEPA mitigation, for example, these are items that were recommended in that land use study. So it sounds... that your proposal has been informed by the studies that we've already reviewed. And one of the items in the recommendation is coordinating because displacement of existing residents is a consequence potentially of this change in overlay. And I want to acknowledge that what I've seen staff do here at our public meetings when residents do come in is engaged with them both during and after the meeting. So I just want to give kudos to you for that and encourage you to continue all of the touch points with residents when they call, when they come in, when they write letters to continue discussions with them so that they understand, you know, how this change may or may not to, to just address their concerns. So thank you.

Okay. Thanks, Carly. Yeah, the open dialogue is always good to make people, you know, understand what's going on. Also, you know, talking about the light thing, I think that through the years I've noticed that we can mitigate the light from these buildings pretty well. A number of years ago, there were a lot of problems, but I do notice that that that we can mitigate that because light pollution is definitely an issue. So anyway, I just thought I'd bring that up. So everyone is on the same page. And so I think we can just go ahead then, Josh.

I just recommend that planning committee spend some time for new ones. Look at the land use study. We did do a lot of analysis in there. So we'll walk through a lot of the points that you might have concerns about.

Okay. So are we ready to do concurrency? Okay.

Sorry, I'm working through all the comments.

By the way, there were some on the first chart that you sent us of all the land use things, there were some spelling errors.

Okay.

Yeah, on the word residential and let's see, and the word agriculture were spelled wrong in that first chart.

So we'll look at that again.

Well, when I was reading it at home, I was looking. It was the chart before the one that you showed us. There was a chart earlier. Anyway. Okay.

Okay. So last month, the community development director, Jeremy, brought up concurrency code updates. Okay. As part of their years annual review, staff asked the on-call transportation consultant transfer group to review the code and provide a recommendation for updates. It hasn't been updated since 2017. They looked at trip thresholds, multi-level of service, and annual report frequency. specifically with the multimodal, making it clear that to avoid any conflict and confusion, we are recommending that any references to level of service be specific to vehicles rather than using the current term road facilities. And so the staff has reviewed the code and sections reference above and offer the attached draft code revisions for consideration following tonight's conversation with the planning commission that recommends to holding a public hearing on this item in July and to allow adequate time for review and consideration for any public comments received a formal recommendation by planning commission to city council may be considered at a later meeting. Any comments or questions on the proposed amendment?

No, and part of this was also that you didn't want to have to do it, that you wouldn't do it quite as frequently as it's been done before.

Yes.

Which seemed reasonable.

Which is, yeah, the cost of that effort. Let me try. Sorry. Okay. Right now it requires annual reporting and monitoring, but there's not significant changes every year to that. So updating it to allow less frequency, such as biannual instead.

Yeah, that seemed reasonable. So anyone have any comments on this? If not, we'll just let it move forward towards our public hearing. Okay. Okay now to the multi-family tax exemptions.

Yes last month we introduced multi-family tax exemptions. In the staff report we kind of provide the background information that we the state code allows us to do an 8-year, 12-year, 20-year property tax exemptions. based on exactly the number or percentage of affordable units in that development. However, while those are the minimums for those, so like the 12-year has a minimum of 20%, the city can actually do a higher percentage of it. So it chooses... And then, so some of the requirements is that it must be, MFTs must be located in an urban center. So what we're thinking right now is town center, mixed use residential and commercial zones, must lack sufficient affordable housing. It will require public hearing and must adopt implement standards and guidelines to be utilized in consideration of applications and making determinations under the code. We provide some resources. We've looked at Sumner, Peel, Tacoma and Department of Commerce has a model code as well. So those links have been provided. We have a tentative schedule of having a hearing in July. And so some items to discuss. So the draft amendment provided in tonight's agenda was based off some nurse code. So using that as a jumping point, we updated it to be City of Edgewood, but now we would like to kind of have some additional questions to see if any additional changes are needed. So eligible sites are limited to those that are, sorry, I should, the attached code, eligible sites are limited to those that are within the town center zoning district and served by sanitary sewers and excuse residential zoning district within 750 feet of an active public transit line, which is basically Meridian for us. And commercial zoning district within 750 feet of an active public transportation line, again, Meridian. The proposed language would allow for an 8-year and 12-year exemptions with the following restrictions. 10-unit minimum, 50% permanent residential occupancy, and tenant displacement is prohibited.

Crosswalk safety improvements when existing or proposed public transit stops are within 100 feet of the project.

So if a development was within 100 feet, they would have to provide those improvements. We're relocating existing overhead utilities to underground except for high voltage lines. This is one of the reasons why staff is recommending this. It's the cost of undergrounding are the utilities La Meridian has skyrocketed. And to kind of offset that, this might be a way to help offset those costs. The 12-year exemption requires at least 20% as affordable units to either low-income or moderate-income households. So those are kind of what the existing code or the proposed code says now. But some things that we can talk about a little bit further and consider are additional design elements for the 12-year MFTE eligibility, structured parking underneath, beneath, or other occupied building spaces that would drive up costs. development more developing more than the minimum residential density allowing for additional building height to achieve maximum density also have received comments that the city should still consider a 20-year MFT we're still reviewing those comments though so we also have sent these our draft code amendment to commerce for review And they have looked at it and they're providing comments to us as well. So at the next meeting, we'll have their comments as well. So is there any comments or questions regarding the draft MFT code that was provided in the packet? Is there any questions about?

Carly. Thank you, Chair. I just have a quick question. On page 258 of the packet, There's restrictions, a bullet point of restrictions listed, and one says the 50% occupancy and tenant displacement is prohibited. Could you talk a little bit more about that? Does that mean folks who live on site before the project is built?

Yeah, so this could technically apply to apartments that do additional development, and they can't just displace everyone in there that are currently living there to... These other units can be affordable. Now these are being more expensive units, stuff like that. We haven't necessarily looked at it as if there was an existing house and the probably usually someone's buying that property out right versus displacement of renter. But it's for our understanding, it's more of the existing apartments that are doing additional or applying for it after the back type of item.

Just a comment. The additional building height, that one would need a lot of discussion to possibly want to do that. I would not be for that in the city, but that's, you know, it would be a discussion point. Anyone else have anything to add or attractor.

I do like the idea, like we talked about I think at the last meeting as well, about doing our best to have some of the developer stuff paid towards paying down that undergrounding of the electric infrastructure. As you know, like I said, the prices have skyrocketed for that stuff, so it's kind of a standard thing that they do in other municipalities for doing some of those, you know, multifamily units and things like that. So it's not like it's a, you know, an outlying thing that we're trying to do that's new. It's definitely kind of the expectation. So I think that's a good idea. Okay.

Nobody else has anything else to say about that. We'll just, you know, continue on with.

I guess I'll just ask some more pointed questions to see and make sure we have a good direction for the hearing. For the 12-year, is there any interest on the, anything about maximum density? Right now we have a minimum density for a lot of these zones and a maximum density. Is there any questions about level of density thresholds?

Carly, do you have any thoughts on that? Because you probably dealt with that.

Thanks, Chair. I don't know. I was trying to rack my brain. What is my experience with that? Uncertain at this point. I'd have to think about that some more. Although I, in speaking to the increased height, I have seen that as an incentive to the program allowing additional height, you know, and it's capped, maybe it's 10 feet, but there are some allowances.

Okay.

Okay. All right. So I guess we don't have any input on that right at this time. The 50 percent with 12 years.

So there are probably little to no changes to the those amendments that are proposed here. So make sure you just give them another review and we'll discuss it in the discussion portion after the hearing next.

OK. OK. We're good. So is there any other staff updates? When is the windmill going to be moved?

Great question. We did have a volunteer that was going to do the forming for the concrete, but they backed out. It was too much for them. So the city is pursuing now a contractor to do that. I believe they... They have posted it. I believe they will be selecting one soon. Don't correct me if I'm wrong. I'll have a better update next month for you. But the aim is still later this summer to have it moved.

So is it being moved by a volunteer group?

No, it will be paid. So after the concrete gets cured, the foundation, then at that time they'll put it out for bid and use the state funds that we received to pay for that. I actually do have another update. As you may be aware, the City Council approved a budget for a July 3rd fireworks event at the Community Edgewood Park. So the City will be actually doing a fireworks show, a one-time only type of deal at the Edgewood Community Park with food trucks. and their entertainment in the kind of front, more on the Meridian side, the fireworks will be on the backside towards. If you have any interest in volunteering for that event, please contact the mayor. We're in the middle of trying to get everything ready for that. Yeah.

Okay.

Okay. Go Carly.

Yeah. A question about that. Nearby neighbors, are y'all sending letters to them?

Yes, that was a recent discussion that we'll be sending out. Letters, and the mayor may even visit them to kind of talk to them a little bit about it.

There might be some people that are glad that it's going to happen there because they have these things in their neighborhoods that they get, you know. So maybe having this will mitigate some of that. Maybe not.

We're still working on parking ideas and traffic, but yeah. If you have any interest from the public or missionaries want to volunteer, please reach out to the mayor.

I have to volunteer to, not in Edgewood, but I have to be in charge of our fireworks show to make sure that nobody blows a hand off or something. I don't want to, I just want to tell you a little bit about the windmill, for those of you who are not familiar. It stood at the north end of Edgewood in the Nyholm estate, which was on a hill. And one of the things that sort of capped it off for me to become a city was The county allowed them to take that whole hill down. I mean, it was a lot of dirt. Just level it and put a car, an auto shop there on the corner. And then there was some lots that were not developed. But a group got together to move the windmill. And then the fire department, you know, gave the land to put it on. But that was all done by volunteers. And the Nyholm estate got moved back, I think. But when they allowed that to happen, I thought, you know, it stayed in my head forever.

It's just like, you know, it was not right that they should have moved that much dirt.

Anyway, but luckily we got the windmill, so. Okay, that's enough history. All right, so we'll just adjourn at 718. Thank you, everyone.

Thank you.

Thank you.