Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I'm going to call the Planning Commission meeting open at 6.01. And we'll stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Okay. I'm going to call the roll for the planning commission. Um, Sabelle Guyon.

Present.

Joanne Overfield here. Tom Green.

Here.

Andrew Hardesky.

Here.

Nick Frankton. Frankcevich.

Here.

Layla Church. Here. Harlan Lenoir. Here. Um, and, uh, I am going to call for a motion to approve the consent agenda that you've all had a chance to read that. So may I have a motion from someone? And please state your name when you give the motion.

Motion to approve the consent agenda. This is Carly Lenoir.

May I have a second? Tom Green, second. All in favor, say aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Right. We are having a joint meeting with the Economic Development Commission this evening. And I would then turn this over to Josh.

Thank you, Chair. Jeremy, is this actually an item you'll be leading?

Thank you, Josh. First, I want to extend my apologies to the commissioners. I am not there in person tonight because I didn't think you'd like me sniffling in chambers tonight. But thank you all for being there tonight for this joint conversation. I'm not able to see if there are actually any EDAD members present. Do we have anybody present, Josh? Yes, we have. Wonderful. Thank you. So tonight we wanted to bring both of these bodies together to have a joint discussion about multifamily tax exemptions. We've been talking about this subject for several months now with the Planning Commission talking about design standards and different elements of the program from that perspective. But the EDAB is very interested in it from an economic standpoint, understandably so. I know that there was some information shared with Commissioners before tonight's meeting. I want to thank the EDAB members for their responses and thoughtful questions, concerns. Tonight, I want to just kind of circle everything back to where we are at at the moment. We have some draft materials attached in your packet that would uh sorry dealing with some software technicalities uh as proposed would allow for multi-family tax exemptions on projects that are located in the town center, mixed-use residential or commercial zoning districts with limited distance from transit routes in the mixed-use residential and commercial zoning districts, that they must be a mixed-use development, meaning having multifamily and commercial with at least 12 dwelling units with at least 50% of those being permanent residential occupancy. That the project would not displace any existing residential tenants, if any, that the project would connect to sanitary sewer that it would convert any a budding fronting overhead utilities to underground, if any. That they would provide pedestrian crosswalk and safety improvements if within 100 feet of a transit stop and said improvements don't already exist. that it would comply with all the regulations as of the complete application date for conditional certificate, meaning that it wouldn't necessarily get vested to a prior standard and that it must be complete within three years of a conditional certificate issuance. Action was tabled at last month's meeting pending this joint conversation. Staff had posed a few questions at the last meeting, wondering if there is any interest in requiring a higher non-residential use ratio than what is already required by the zoning code to be eligible for MFTE, whether or not grease interceptors and or commercial kitchen HVAC systems should be required for eligibility. and whether or not a point-based menu of requirements should be implemented based or some minimum number of requirements. So based on some of that initial feedback staff received, we've prepared some ideas for a point-based menu completely up for conversation and Josh and I can tag team on this portion of the program here, but just looking at various incentives, trying to achieve those higher densities, trying to achieve higher non-residential use, occupation on the front edges, really trying to emphasize the desire to activate commercial spaces as a part of this, as opposed to it strictly being an affordable housing tool, but not trying to make it so complicated that it wouldn't be attractive to a developer. So that kind of teed it up. for the conversation. I know that we had received some rather detailed feedback from EDAB member Lewis, which I greatly appreciate that write-up. Happy to bring that up on the screen if we wanna talk about that or however you'd like to proceed, Josh.

The Planning Commission requested this meeting as to work with EDAB on this item. So it depends on the questions that you would just like to start working in and talking with the EDAB members. So, Chair, however, what questions you want to pass on to the other Planning Commissioners first and then letting EDAB respond and then EDABing having additional discussion afterwards would be a good path forward.

Okay. So we'll start down at the end. And so well, do you have any comments that you'd like to? Yeah.

This is Commissioner Nguyen. Nice to meet everybody for the first time. It's I'm glad we get to connect. I'm a brand new commissioner. So this is my second meeting. So this topic is very new to me. The the summary was really helpful for getting an overview of what's happening. Um, the letters received today were very interesting. One from the master builders association pointing out that they are in favor of a tax exemption, except for the added stipulations that I think are being proposed here. Um, and it looks like EDAB has been considering this greatly in depth for a long time and the questions and comments within the, um, staff report were really insightful to me in terms of what some of the bigger concerns are. So excuse me for a minute. I think to step back for a second, for me to understand this, I wanted to understand if the MFTE was specifically to address the larger goal of more affordable housing in Edgewood. When I looked at the housing component within the comprehensive plan, it looked like the MFTE was one I guess, policy recommendation of 16. So I was wondering if there are other initiatives around affordable housing happening. And if so, what are they? If not, why is MFTE being pushed forward? So those are just some general questions I had on your process.

I can respond to the first question. The MFT wasn't something started off by the EDAP board. It was initiated with an initial discussion with city council to look at. The idea isn't just affordable housing. It was a way to also encourage commercial development in a different way that we don't have while also trying to meet our low income band housing growth target. And so that was the initial kind of push of looking into it and bringing it forward to EDAP. EDAP would probably be better at answering questions regarding the commercial element, how much that would be useful for development, and what their views are on those items.

I agree. I don't think MFTE was a good idea. I can elaborate. I think we're kind of throwing out the baby with the bathwater here. We're giving tax exemptions on all kinds of things in order to achieve a little bit of affordable housing. I think there's got to be a better way to target how we achieve our goals. I just don't think this is it. We're struggling as a city as far as tax income and to cut funds to our local police, cut funds to our essentially cut funds to our local schools, fire departments. Um, also the, we can achieve a few units of affordable housing is just not, just not worth it. Uh, if you read what I wrote up, you can, you can see over, uh, over a 12 year period, that's quite an impact, quite an impact on schools. Um, turns out to be, you know, you put in a 300 unit or 330 unit, uh, complex. Um, that's a lot of kids. It's a lot of demands on city services. Um, Just to mention police, we do have a couple of vacant vehicles sitting out in the parking lot, and that's before we add something like this. So I think there's got to be a better solution, and I would suggest we find a more targeted solution, something that accomplishes the desired goal and not, what's that? not throughout the bay with the bathwater, not ruin other things just to accomplish this one goal.

Actually, along those lines, I was trying to understand what the GMA requirements are. I understand there's a timeline of 2044. Is that correct to reach the affordable housing goals?

That is correct.

And then what is that quantity, like in units, number of units?

I can get that number for you. It's in our comprehensive plan. It's by income bracket. And I can look that up while we move on from it.

Great.

I didn't really until she just brought up the quantity needed. My understanding, at least for middle-income housing, that we've already exceeded the bar. How are we with the low-income debts? How are we doing that?

We are currently not meeting targets because it's a 2044 projection.

We believe that won't be an issue for the middle to upper targets. I'm going to be looking up the low-income targets right now, and I can provide a response to that.

Okay, yeah, that's my only question. I mean, we're offering credits to help build affordable, really, and we're doing a lot of it to meet the bar that the state set. If we're already there... I feel like we are bringing ourselves downward to meet a goal above and beyond. I'm looking forward to the discussion board.

Okay, Nick. Any questions or comments?

I do not. Just look forward to the continued conversation.

I'm sorry, Andrew.

That's okay. I also answered it, Nick. It's fine. Just look forward to the conversation and keep this thing going. Okay.

I appreciated the outline that you sent, Joe. And I really don't... I kind of have to absorb that. I think that the state puts... pressure on small towns like us. And it's almost, it's almost not fair. So anyway, I, I look forward to further discussions on this.

Yeah, it's not fair, but I think if we're demonstrating it in, you know, earnest effort to meet the state requirements, I think that, yeah, I'm not sure. I've had some discussion with staff over You know, what if we don't meet? You know, what if 2044 comes around and we're 10% shy on? I think if we're making an earnest effort, I think that that holds up well.

Well, I agree with you there. You know, I mean, we can try our best. And anyway, now I will turn it over to Nick.

Hi, Commissioner Nick. My question was, I guess what exactly is the state forcing us to do? And if we comply with those exact things and it seems like, or I feel like the MFT program would not be a good idea. I guess if we did everything that they asked us to do to implement the growth with low income and it does not happen, Do we still lose our funding and the state revenue share? We did everything exactly that they asked us, but we just couldn't get the builders to come and build all these units here. And we don't reach our goal by 44. Are we still in trouble or lose funding?

I'll respond to that question as well. But I did find the numbers in our housing projections. We need 1,524 units of 80% or lower AMI. So those are the numbers overall. That's why The 80% or lower, the AMI. There are growth management hearing board cases now that are requiring cities to actually implement, provide real incentives to ensure that these units are developed. The cases are new and they haven't been fully fleshed out. I mean that in the court case sense. But there's multiple cases now that they have requested cities or told cities they have to show full implementation of meeting these standards, not just numbers. So the question becomes, what's the consequence of it? Right now our comprehensive plan is in compliance with the Growth Management Act because it was an appeal. There are the Housing Accountability Act, which the state or commerce is reviewing individual cities and counties, housing plans to ensure compliance with the GMA. It's a voluntary item, or if there's not enough voluntary people, they will randomly select. There are a couple of small cities in Pierce County, can't remember what they are now, that were selected and are being reviewed against the new house rules. So we could be eventually selected and reviewed as part of that. or when we do another update in 10 years, that we would have to ensure compliance with that at that time. What that one means basically is that whenever that decision is made and when we need to comply with the implementation requirements that are kind of working out right now, is that we would start losing the variety of grant funding and other funds that are part of the GMA, which was noted in the staff report. So can't say for sure if there would be immediate action because we're not part of any review of our housing element right now. Over next year, we could be. But in those cases, they typically have allowed us a year to basically get into compliance with those requirements. So there's your kind of full rundown of everything. For this discussion, and I don't want to make sure EDAP has enough time, is we would like the joint meeting to be focused mostly on the commercial aspects of the MFT that are being proposed. And if you have any questions regarding those items, so that EDAP can help you decide if those are worth it or not. Any larger picture MFT questions can happen later in the action discussion where Jeremy and I can respond more just to those items specifically and not take up our D-10 members' times. So if you have specific commercial questions that Jeremy laid out in the staff report regarding what would be a good... commercial incentive to meet those goals, maybe. Definitely think EDAB would have a lot more say to that, too.

You're welcome.

Yeah, I'm not sure we were all

Sorry, Joel, if you could turn your mic on, we can't hear you online.

Oh, there you go. So I'm not sure everybody in EDAP was in full agreement that a mixed-use development like this or others would provide enough commercial space to generate the tax income needed. Anybody else want to comment on that?

Yeah, I'd like to. Okay. Yeah. To add on to what Joel has iterated, Andrew Wiesenfeld with EDAB, and thank you for the invite and joining you folks for your meeting here. The purview of the Economic Development Advisory Board is essentially economic development, not so much housing policy. So my comments are really directed towards the economic development mission of EDAP. Obviously, there are implications for housing development, kind of two sides of the same coin. I did share some comments with staff I don't know if those were provided to the commission or not, and I can certainly address them not for your benefit, but for the benefit of the audience as well, because they could certainly be impacted. The chief concern that I noted, and it's actually something that was recommended by the State Department of Commerce for any municipality considering one of these multifamily tax exemption programs is what they call the tax shift. And for the benefit of those folks in the audience here, essentially what that means is if you have one of these tax exempt programs where property developers are exempt from paying the property taxes, it means that those dollars have to be backfilled because there are still commitments that city has, taxpayers have, the fire districts, school districts and so forth. So somehow the money has to be made available because of the commitments that the voters have made. That means that property taxpayers would have to backfill those dollars to cover the loss of the collected property tax dollars from the now exempt properties under a multifamily tax exemption program. Now, there are ways of mitigating that impact. And one of the suggestions that actually the Department of Commerce recommended was that the municipality reach out to the county assessor's office, sit down with the county assessor's office, have a discussion with them to see whether or not they would exempt the value of those taxed properties that are now excluded under the multifamily tax exemption program for being counted towards the levy lid calculation. If that were achievable, then there isn't a tax shift to the other taxpayers, other property taxpayers here in the city of Edgewood. That is discretionary on the part of the assessor's office. So that requires someone from the city to reach out to the assessor's office, sit down, have a conversation with them and explain to them what it is you'd like to do, what the concerns actually are and how that tax shift might possibly be mitigated. And that's probably involving some negotiations. So bottom line is, is you have to have the right people at the table, whoever that would be. That's something I think that if you are inclined to consider one of these multifamily tax exemption programs, that having that discussion with the assessor's office is to your benefit and to the benefit here of everybody in this audience. The second consideration, Let me actually finish this. The second consideration is, and assuming that we've had the discussion with the assessor's office, and let's say that's just a no-go, just doesn't pan out, then you might consider, because if you are going to adopt one of these multifamily tax exemption programs, then you're gonna be looking at other tax resources to fill the hole that you no longer, that you create by not getting those property tax dollars. That means you're gonna have to increase the volume of sales taxes that you're gonna collect. And in order to do that, and it kind of ties into what Josh alluded to, is tying together one of these multifamily tax exemption programs with a commitment from the developer to commit so many square footage space in whatever building they're going to build in town center or somewhere along Meridian. The notion being that X numbers of square feet of retail space will generate X number of sales tax dollars, which will backfill some of the lost funds from the property tax exemption. I don't know what that sort of Goldilocks balance is between the square footage and how many sales tax dollars need to be generated. And if you set the bar too high, then you would discourage developers from wanting to pursue that. And you would basically find yourself in a very difficult situation. So again, that's a kind of a fine balancing act But one, I think if you're inclined to go down the multifamily tax exemption road, that you really need to look at where you think that inflection point is on the curve. Third thing. would be, and there's an example of this actually not too far from here. I don't know if you know where Cedar Flats is. It's between South Hill and Fredrickson. Now, they have developed low-income housing there. There are other state and federal programs that do provide cost offsets to developers. In Cedar Flats, They use low-income housing tax credit equity program, and they combine that with the tax-exempt bond financing. Bottom line is those are ways for investors and developers to essentially save money in their costs in erecting low-income housing. So there are alternatives that developers can pursue, right? and have been pursued and have been successful other than the multifamily tax exemption program. Again, if you're still interested in going down that path, then perhaps what you might consider is kind of a ladder approach, if you will, where they, they, developer, would be eligible to participate in one of these multifamily tax exemption programs. They've demonstrated that they've exhausted all other economic development remedies that are available to them. So essentially, the multifamily tax exemption becomes the means of last resort. And lastly, You know, if the city of Edgewood is willing to sacrifice property tax dollars to try to assist in lowering the cost of housing in Edgewood, then I might suggest that rather than pursuing one of these multifamily tax exemption programs, you might take the value of those dollars And work with an organization like the Mountain View Community Center, who used to have a utility and rent assistance program during COVID. And that was very successful and was quite in demand. And I would certainly suggest that if you want to spend those dollars, keep them here in the community, make those dollars available to MVCC, work with them to provide rent relief and utility relief for the citizens here in Edgewood. Those are my suggestions.

I just want to jump in here really quick. Thank you, Andy, for your comments. I want to remind everyone, both the EDAB and the Planning Commission, that... This is a discussion that may result in a recommendation from the Planning Commission to the City Council. The Planning Commission is not implementing anything. They're not spending any dollars. I just want to make that clear for the members that are here and the public. I also appreciate the conversation on tax shift, but I can assure both Planning Commission and EDAB that the Mayor has expressed his extreme interest in avoiding tax shift. So if a recommendation comes forward to implement a multifamily tax exemption program, staff will be working closely with the assessor's office to avoid that. Thank you.

Okay, Layla. Yes. Go ahead.

You still on, Andy? Can you hear me? Hi, I'm Sean Olson, ADAB member, Edgewood resident. I'm also against, for much the same reasons that Andy and Mr. Lewis here wrote his wonderful paper. But I'd like to move on from that. And it's the same reasons. I just don't think we need to rob Peter to pay Paul on his taxes. We pay enough taxes in this town. I mean, I certainly feel that way. My property taxes are $8,000 a year, and that's a lot of money. But what I really want to talk about was the requirement for commercial development on these buildings. I'd like to point out that commercial development, just this morning, J.P. Morgan released a report on construction in America. The commercial development was down about 70% from five years ago. And if you take out AI, AI was up 100 and whatever, a lot. People aren't building commercial spaces anymore. Bricks and mortar don't work. Amazon has done a good job of putting an awful lot of retailers out of business. So if you have to build a commercial space on the first floor and you have to put a PT slab, post-tension slab on top – by the way, I'm a builder. I know what this stuff costs. You're at least $100 a foot for a PT slab. When you consider the larger columns, the larger piers, probably have to do some piling work, even if they're just pin piles. It adds up to at least $100 a square foot. So that increases the overall cost of your building a lot. And builders, they don't want to build them right now. Commercial spaces are not renting. And you're just not seeing it. So my point being, I mean, when I talk to people in this town, everybody wants a supermarket, everybody wants a small restaurant, and everybody wants lower taxes. And I don't see that MFTE gets us in that direction at all. Thank you.

Sean, I appreciate the comment on the small commercial. We did have a discussion with the Planning Commission about these apartment complexes with commercial spaces. And you're right, they don't get filled. They're very hard to fill and they stay empty for years in these complexes. So I appreciate you bringing that up.

The parking beneath them are terrible. When you have a post-tension slab, especially if you have another vehicle on top with all that load from another car or truck, your columns are so close together, you have to have one of those little mini coopers to park. And I drive a truck. It just doesn't work.

Thank you. Okay. Can I just, I'm just going to make one short comment. I'm a chair member Morgan from EDAB. Um, okay. I'm going to play a hypothetical through in theory, if we could get a commercial developer to come through that wants to build a, um, regional grocery store where local farming goods could be sold, we could all walk and go to on Meridian and, um, They had apartments above and they had restaurant space, you know, bigger than the smaller kind of retail we're used to seeing here in Milton and Edgewood. My understanding of how multifamily tax exemptions work is that any portion of the building, the commercial portion or improvements, would still be subject to property tax. So the tax shift that we're talking about that would be given for the commercial developer building the residential above, they'd still have to pay property tax for the commercial retail portion. So I just wanted to make sure that we're not talking about the whole building when we're saying the exemptions.

Okay, thank you.

Layla? Hi, Commissioner Church here. I wanted to thank EDAP for coming. Thank you so much. We've been really wanting to have more joint meetings with you, so I appreciate your time. And I do appreciate, Dr. Lewis, your letter that came through. I do share, you know, similar concerns about availability of resources that more community members would need and understanding what that demand would look like on all of our city services, such as first responders, knowing that that is a concern too. And I know that we just actually got some of these letters today, your letter, as well as the letter from the county master or the master's building association for the county, who on the other hand, concerned that voice concerns that they thought the guidelines might be unattractive to developers. And I know that Josh, you asked for us to hold these, bigger picture comments till the end, but in case EDAB's not going to be here until the end, I thought it would make sense to just ask you with them present, have you had a chance, has staff had a chance to address some of Dr. Lewis's concerns that he documented as well as the master builders in your findings that you presented to us tonight?

We have not yet reviewed those or had time to provide a response to those yet.

Yeah, I think it would be very interesting to have your analysis of both Dr. Lewis and the Master Builders letters to clarify for us what measurements we're really looking at when we want to make a recommendation to council on something like this um i know that there were some more you know specific commercial items um that maybe staff wanted us to address as far as um you know uh incentivizing restaurant ready infrastructure and the point system and the minimum requirements approach and the combination. But I honestly, in my perspective, I don't know why we would look at those things first before the bigger picture. And so I would appreciate more time for staff to be able to do the analysis so that both EDAP and the Planning Commission have the full picture to make a better recommendation or have a better discussion. Okay, thank you. Carly.

Okay. I'm going to kind of do like a big zoom out approach to this just because I'm kind of looking at it as what do people say about Edgewood and why would anyone want to bring their business to this area, right? What are the options? And what I hear a lot from people since my business deals with a lot of community members nearby and locally is, There's not a lot of nice retail locations to open a new business. And the commercial spaces that are available are booked up solid by people who have been here for a very long time. you either have to accept an older building or you have to have big bucks to build one from the ground up. It's something I considered when I was looking to expand my business and considered, all right, do I put the bill and try and get a commercial property? I don't think it's worth it in a community this small because you don't have anything to really like count on for sure, right? So when I think of what it takes to build something at that skill, at that level. I see that it clearly is needed. I see that, you know, in terms of commercial businesses, there's a demand and a need by the community. We want to encourage our community to shop here, do their business here. But unfortunately, it's not as appealing to shop with these little rundown buildings. I'm just going to be honest. There's a lot of people who probably will drive right past a lot of those really awesome business, excuse me, businesses in the area, just simply because it's just, you know, curb appeal. So with all the thousands of cars that drive down Meridian on a daily basis, we're missing opportunities to grab their attention. And it's not sparkly and shiny in Edgewood, unfortunately. And most of the road going through Meridian, it's run down and older in a lot of areas. And then there's some really pretty places too. And I will say consistently, Most of the pretty new places get the business more often than not. And the other small businesses who are struggling and doing their very best to stay open and pay the taxes, they don't have the funds most of the time to go buy a pretty building. So as a community, I think it's our responsibility to... create these opportunities for businesses to thrive, right? So how do we do that? Now, being on the planning commission, I think it's really awesome that we're meeting because I often tend to think maybe I should have been on that board because it's the way my brain works, right? But I love being a part of this as well because there's just like such, they're actually very similar except that they're not, right? So I will take my little business mind and I will apply it to the things that we're doing on a planning committee. But what you guys are doing, what you've said and everything I've heard has been really valid and very interesting to look at it that way. Because when I'm thinking of forward planning for the city, we're thinking 10, 20 years sometimes down the road. Now, yes, these tax exemptions might create different scenarios for that amount of time that they get that, but they're not building these buildings for 10 to 12 years. They're building them to stand and be there for the next 20, 30, 40 years. Now, if we're really focused on just this short-term tax issue, I don't think we're looking at the big picture the same way like we should be. And being that I sat through every meeting with the comprehensive plan, I have a very thorough understanding of what the goals are And I don't think that by focusing on the tiny details of these tax exemptions short-term really fulfill the goals of the city long-term. So, again, with all due respect, I think that those are really valid points. I just think that they're short-term concerns. And the big picture of building a city that, like, wants to stay local and not really, like... go down to Puyallup, go down to Sumner, go down to all these other locations where they have the funds to, like, really amp up their buildings and, like, make it look nice, we're going to just continue to lose that type of traffic. So I also have to consider, by building more homes and more – apartments. We'll just say apartments. We'll say that word. It's not always everyone's favorite. We don't necessarily, everyone always says, oh, why are they building all these apartments? Well, the truth is We need, we need them. And I love telling that to people when they ask and they complain and I say, Oh, I'm on the planning commission. And someone will say, Oh, why do you guys keep building all these apartments? Right. And I'm like, well, let me explain something to you. And I always have to kind of go back a little bit. And it's my, it's something I feel very proud to explain to people that there is a bigger vision here that we can pretend that there's not a need for housing and we can try to like ignore it for as long as we as we want, I understand that. But the reality is a community that's based right in between these bigger cities, it's ridiculous to pretend that we shouldn't be doing our part to offer more housing to the neighboring towns, to these citizens who are looking for places to live. And if we can offer more affordable housing, And it means we also could potentially get some more businesses in the area. And even if it's the same businesses that have been here locally and they decide to move to a newer building, then yay, right? We're now supporting a local business who now can expand and make their situation bigger, you know, keep their same customer base and expand. That's a great opportunity for some local business owner. But also just, I just think it's like, I think we have to make sure we don't get caught up focusing on the wrong details because I think every step of what we did in the comprehensive plan, we had times where there would be like a super small detail that we would really hyper focus on. And then when you like zoom back out again, you're like, wow, that actually isn't that serious of a detail in the grand scheme, but it was good that we took the time to put our thought into it because with the comprehensive plan, and if anyone hasn't looked at that, it's something you should really take the time to review it's what we as a as a commissioner as these commissioners we took a lot of time to put thought and consideration into it so if you guys are like passionate about the direction of where the city is going that's where you got to really go to you have to understand how that is like our bible essentially when we make decisions does it line up with our goals So if you haven't had a chance to look at that, and I'm looking at the citizens and community, that's something important to consider. So back to my original point, and I apologize for kind of going on for so long, but I just want to say that I think whatever we decide to do going forward, we have to think longer than that incentive period of time. And we have to consider what would this offer our community as a whole long-term, not just for the time that they would have that tax discount or whatever. And everything is negotiable when it comes to the actual terms on what we would agree to. So nothing is final. And I just think that's important to note as well. I'm also very curious, since I do have you here, and that was very long-winded, I apologize, but I am very curious what you guys would suggest in terms of how to get builders to build here, because our biggest issue has been that nobody really truly wants to do the type of project we're looking to have done because it is expensive. And if there's a way to have it happen on a sooner basis, timeline that would be great because if we don't have we i've mentioned this many times through the last couple years i've been on this um how do we incentivize people like how do we encourage them to do this right when we're talking about accessory dwelling units we're talking about other things how do we encourage people to actually want to do this um it is not easy to get permits to do projects and I'm dealing with my own right now. It's really hard. And there's a lot of steps and it costs a lot. Every process, once you get engineers involved and then all this and this and this, right. You think, Oh, I'm just going to do this. Nope. It's never that easy. It's always a lot more steps. So if you've got a commercial like building project, company that's ready to like actually do a project like that at that scale and they can get a little kickback or incentive to make it happen i think that's where we need to be looking as a city and not be worried about the little price point of the short term and that's all i'm going to say and then i would love to hear what you guys have as in terms of incentivizing businesses to build here or inspect

i'll start and then i'll bounce it to you but um i have been volunteering for edab for a little over two years and this that topic is what i believe we talk about the most how do we attract and actually how i view my role in the volunteer capacity how do i attract and advertise the city of edgewood um to be a place for commercial development to come here along meridian And that's something that we're focused on as a board for the next quarter. Our goal is to work with the city and hopefully host a couple potential commercial developers and brokers for a meeting that will double support the city staff or whoever wants to be involved in. you know, pitching Edgewood like an investor pitch. We had a number of external unaffiliated with Edgewood speakers come in last fall. Each month for our board meetings, then, and give us advice on how to do that. Step 1 was fixing our website. So we fix the economic development board website at the beginning of this year. So it's looking better. We're always open to suggestions and advice to make that better. So please do not hesitate to send that our way or to this to the city. There's always room for improvement and. I'll pass it to these guys, but that is what we talk about the most. And we'd love to have you join one of our meetings and give your thoughts on that too, before we actually host an investor pitch meeting. I guess I'll leave one thing. One thing that would be helpful from the planning commission that we cannot go into an investor pitch meeting without is what is the available land where a commercial developer can come in and build a long meridian. That's probably question number one.

I'd like to respond to the, you know, what kind of development would you like to see? I'd like to see a bunch of tiny little shops, but unfortunately that doesn't pay the bill. And so I think we should embrace wholeheartedly the fact that we are on State Highway 161. That can be a source of revenue for us, and that should be something that we should highlight to people that come into the area and want to, you know, settle their business here. I think that's what we should focus on. We don't have enough residents to attract a big box store, a big box grocery store. But splitting some of the numbers here, if we could go back to your big picture, let's back up a little bit and look all the way out to 2044. So we've achieved our goal and 20% of our housing now falls within the affordable range. And so in order to achieve that, we have rezoned over 190 acres of Edgewood to high density housing or 40 units per acre. And we've now built 7,620 apartment units between now and 2044. Is that what you want? Is that what you envision for your community in the future? Um, that's what we're talking about. That's, that's what meets our goal, um, of, of affordable housing. So yeah, I just want to throw those numbers out there so people kind of can grab a hold of something and realize what we're talking about.

Can I just comment on that? And those numbers you're using are based on what just, I want to understand what,

They're based on the numbers that were just quoted just now from city staff.

Okay. So, but again... They're based on the requirements of what we have to meet regardless. Yeah. So it's not really optional. And no, it might not be like ideal for like the vision of what people want right now. But the reality of where we're going, it's.

It's not regardless. It's not regardless. It's not, you know, 2042 comes around. We're not close to meeting our goal. They're not going to send troops in. No, it's not. It's not regardless. We still have options between now and then to demonstrate that we are trying to be a good steward of the city's resources and provide for all of our residents. I think we still have options at this point.

I understand. And I think, you know, the time I've spent on this board, I've listened and read a lot about what was going to be required of us. And the big concern and challenge of how do we make that happen in the reality is that on a lot of the properties where some of these things would. need to be built on they're they're owned by someone who has no interest in building like that so the reality is you're right we probably won't reach those numbers maybe it's in in one way or another but the truth is um it's still the direction we have to go and and it and if someone doesn't sell their land and decide to build a bunch of apartments on it then we won't hit those numbers in but we have to make it a option if someone wants to sell and build on it And that's where I was always torn and confused and frustrated because I was like, gosh, you know, like, no, it doesn't line up with the vision of what I'd want for the city either. But when I understand about, Joan, what was the year that we were incorporated? What was it? So I think 96, so, you know, I wasn't a resident here at that time. And, you know, so decisions were made at that time that have impacted our future. And I'm sure maybe people didn't consider those details when they agreed and accepted that support. And so now here we are and it's kind of the way it goes. That's why even all the decisions we make tonight, I take it really seriously. And yes, I'm a volunteer on a commission, but I take it really seriously because I, I've sat through a lot of meetings and like I've listened to the community and it matters to me. And I ask questions because I, you know, I don't know. I just think it's important that we understand that some of these things we have control over. Some of them we don't. And we're just trying to do the best we can to like form this direction that's still in the best interest of the community. So it's not like we're ever just going like, who cares? Like we have to hit this number. You know, we're really considering all the factors as we go forward. That's all.

Let me throw in a couple more numbers. The MLS, average MLS listing in the city of Edgewood is over $800,000. That's the highest in Pierce County and certainly comparable probably with the upper tier in King County. The average median, or I said the median income for the city of Edgewood, and this is, I think, based upon some old numbers, is over $125,000. Yeah, and that's probably at least two years old. The takeaway from that is this is a community with a lot of money, and I want to throw out a crazy idea, because sometimes you have to throw out crazy ideas to see whether or not there's any merit to them. The crazy idea is this. How about initiating a campaign here in the city of Edgewood to raise money from people in this community? You could probably raise tens of millions of dollars. And let's be our own developers. Let's not rely upon somebody coming from the outside and determining whether or not what we have to offer is good enough. Let's encourage the people in this community to step forward and let's fund what it is we want to build. I think it's doable if we're willing to do it. And again, that may sound kind of crazy, but sometimes you have to throw those ideas out there to see if they have any merit.

I think that's a brilliant idea. And I think that's where I would see taxing, except, um, exceptions or these, these incentives could also be very beneficial because then it could be a local based organization who's building within their community. But it's again, a situation where that could be appropriate. And so maybe we have more stipulations as to how to qualify for it, but I could see why a local organization, if we did like a non nonprofit with local community members investing in their own community could, it would be beneficial to have some tax incentives there. So just something to consider where that's why nothing is final. I think it's just a matter of us moving forward or not.

And you know what? I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is. I'll be the first one to raise $10,000. I'll put $10,000 towards that effort.

Okay, also setting Andy's comments about the campaign aside, those statistics are exactly the statistics that are going to be used to attract commercial development here. The next closest city in the Pierce County area that has the statistics is Gig Harbor, and they have a Met Market. They have all the attractive businesses that we want to bring here. So believe me, those are the top two statistics to attract commercial development.

And a lot of that information is on the city website now so that potential developers can go to the economic development page and see a lot of those numbers.

Okay. So, Josh, where do we want to go from here?

Well, if there's no other questions from the Planning Commission or if EDAB Chair Morgan, if you have anything, last comments, we can end the joint session and that'd be, you're ending the joint session. We have a question.

Is there someone?

Yeah, Commissioner Rancevich, Nick. Another wild idea. It said we'll lose the 4.5 million annual other state revenue and grants from the state. Let's say we don't even try to reach any of these numbers. it's gonna be $26 a month of increase in property taxes on every property and a 4.5 million is covered. So if the city of Edgewood is okay with the $26 a month increase in property tax, and we don't hit that number, our services and everything stays the same. We don't see any loss of funding from the state. Because I'm very much against it. Just a wild idea.

Okay. Appreciate it. Okay. If nobody else has anything to question or comment for EDAB, then I'm going to close the joint session with EDAB at 7 o'clock.

I would recommend a recess, a motion for recess so we can get resituated for the next items.

Okay. A motion for like a eight minute recess. So we'll have a motion.

Motion to have an eight minute recess.

Okay. Second. Second. Okay. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. We'll take an eight minute recess.

How do things go for you back in D.C.? Sort of a convention?

Yeah, in July. I was there for work.

But I was most recently in Alaska working on infrastructure funding for the Port of Alaska. Is that mainly oil money?

And that depends on whether or not Lisa Murkowski supports Donald Trump. Or if Dan Sullivan wins or not. Which Dan Sullivan?

I bet it was there, which was crazy. Okay. I'm looking forward to fall. It'll be good.

And then we're back on the 16th.

I think this is good. I think we should invite the planning commission to ours.

Well, we can talk about that on Wednesday. I mean, that's long. We've actually had joint meetings with them in the past. We did that the month of July when a regular July meeting couldn't be held because the 4th of July. That was a couple of years ago. And we were looking at doing that on a regular basis. So there is precedent for something like this.

Yeah.

All right, Morgan.

One minute remaining. All right, thank you. Everybody recesses over. We need to go ahead and get back to the meeting.

Chair.

Chambers, we need to get back to session. Can all the planning commissioners please return to the diocese? Hey Chair, we are ready for you to bring it back to order. Please state the time.

Okay, so the Planning Commission will continue at 7.09. And Josh or Jeremy?

Thank you, chair. First action item tonight is the West Valley Highway Coverage Plan Zoning Map Amendment, which is 25-001 comp plan. I'm gonna share my screen for a short presentation. Jeremy, can you provide that ability?

Stand by. Zoom has moved everything around once again.

While he's getting that ready, I can just at least start off the conversation. This is an overall review of the annual docket process. Back in February 2026, City Council passed a resolution to review this West Valley rezoned area, which was applied by some applicants, about seven in total, for review by the Planning Commission and City Council. um right now we've had a hearing on it last month and now we are moving forward with um further discussions and action um all right it's taking a second to there we go go The deadline for the City Council to take action on the annual docket process is the end of the year. So we need Planning Commission to either decide to make a recommendation or not to the City Council for their review and discussion and decision. The earlier we can get it to the City Council, they can determine if they would like to hold additional public hearings and additional discussions. Therefore, that was part of the reasons why we move the public comments to later so we can give you enough time to have that discussion and make a determination so that city council can start that public process there are some requests for some additional project history from the planning commission so i want to provide a little bit with that introduction so in 2024 the comprehensive plan identified this area for future land use study In 2025, SCJ Alliance through the city completed the 2025 West Valley Highway Final Land Use Study. It studied four scenarios, resulting into industrial, business park, Similar zoning to adjacent jurisdictions and no actions. Each scenario was analyzed for potential impacts to the transportation network, capital facilities, utilities, parks, and environmental features. Based on the analysis, this report recommended to pursue regional overlay area two, just industrial. in october 2025 the city received comments from the tribe of indians wdfw and ecology regarding some environmental concerns and staff didn't have time to adequately address those before the deadline was due we requested that item to be removed from the docket city council agreed and removed it from the docket and that's why no decision was made in 2025 however applicants have submitted for reconsideration of that so they have paid for that application On your screen here in a moment is the West Valley Highway overlay area. Specifically, you can see the dash line here on the right. This is a new map that was asked by, again, Planning Commission to show applicants that have specifically requested the zoning change to industrial, which are the green. This is near packet materials. And then we did receive a couple of property owners requesting out of it. This wasn't an option provided flat out to all the applicants. Some just requested it. So as such, we just want to make sure you're aware of that information. So my cursor, this property owner doesn't have access wide enough for an industrial project as before they were looking to keep it residential. Same with these two properties to the south. Again, not enough access to provide the required welfare and industrial development. and then um the property owner here that owns the middle red requested just to be out because she lives in the area so those are just requests um still up to the planning commission to make a determination what that means but we wanted to provide you this image so you're fully aware of what's been requested and what for the reason and out of the reason The blue is public-zoned areas that would remain public-zoned areas. So these are city-owned properties, and the little square here is actually a City of Sumner well property that they no longer use. This is just a vicinity map of the area currently, has nearby zoning from the Pierce County, City of Sumner, City of Pacific, showing the nearby industrial uses all along West Valley. just again for context of the overall area. The future land use study did provide these maps, which is the future land use study was part of this packet and the hearing packet. It shows the utility providers, the critical areas and development limitations, basically showing what areas have been developed and can still be developed outside of the critical areas. however there are wetlands and streams they have buffers they would have to meet those development regulations they can't bypass them just because they're industrial they're still subject to our critical area codes so what is being proposed so the applicant's proposal is to just rezone everything that is non-public to industrial As shown on this map, a lot of words here just spreading out the acres of the various zones from residential and commercial that would become industrial. The alternative two, which is one that we have proposed as a way to meet some of the comments is the same as alternative one, but with a new limited industrial overlay. As a reminder, we've gone through this limited industrial array a little bit. It restricts the uses further than what currently is allowed in industrial. Specifically, we're prohibiting heavy manufacturing in gas stations, waste management services, et cetera. This would, though, permit parking lots, which is our way of allowing semi-parking in the area. So because we've had kind of two rounds of comments in this, a 2025 version and a 2026 version, we've had a decent amount of public outreach on this. The general concerns are general noise, light traffic, air quality concerns, reduction in property values. However, we have received from the applicant side that the corridor is really no longer compatible for residential development because it's so close to the industrial and highway. In your comment letters, I think it's in Exhibit K, the Tacoma and Pierce County Health Department has concerns, but did say that alternative two would probably be the best way forward through this. WDFW did say they wouldn't support the rezone. I just want to make that clear because they came after the public hearing document that we had. Staff's general response to these is the Puyallup tribe made comments in 2025. Staff worked with them, considerable amount of time meeting with them, discussing their concerns and come up with options. We discussed to them how they would need to meet the critical areas, how much land is actually developable in the area. And then we also talked about the limited overlay. Since that recommendation of a limited overlay, they haven't provided any additional comments. So make sure if you're reviewing the 25 comments, those are from the 2025, but we believe we have addressed most of those. As part of the general comments that we received from WDFW and the citizens, that's why the alternative two was proposed with an unlimited industrial overlay. And we conducted a super review to determine mitigation measures as required. On your screen are some of those mitigation measures that we identified. 100-foot minimum natural buffer along the west edge of the overlay area. Project-specific noise study. A 25-foot landscape buffer with solid screening required between any proposed industrial uses and existing adjacent residential uses. And then permits would be required. So we would ensure compliance with aesthetics, critical areas, site layout, traffic, et cetera. So on your screen are the Comprehensive Plan Amendments criteria, summarized but largely part word for word. So there's five criteria for Comprehensive Plan Amendment. Whether proposed amendments conform with the GMA, that they're consistent with the 2024 Comprehensive Plan goals and policies, Circumstances in the area has essentially changed since the adoption of the city's comprehensive plan. Comprehensive plan assumptions are no longer valid or new information is available. And the proposed amendments reflect currently wide-held values of the residents of the city. Based on the alternative that we proposed, we've explained this in the staff report, that we believe our Tier 1 and 2 can be answered through those mitigation measures that are being proposed. Criteria three and four we believe are met because this area was identified in the comp plan for future land use study, identifying this as a potential rezone. So it's not necessarily changes since the comprehensive plan. It was identified in the comprehensive plan that this area might be rezoned. So that's why we believe that criteria is also met. the last one is the one we are having the hardest time to respond to because it's difficult for us to say what reflects currently why held values or residents in the city when we can only notice so many people and only so many people provide comments on your screen we did provide the edward vision statement just so you can see it that also doesn't necessarily mean they reflect the currently widely held values but wanted it uh just to be aware that that's the comprehensive the 2024 Comprehensive Plan Vision Statement. Because of this, due to the Comprehensive Plan Amendment Number 5 that we just discussed, staff's unable to take a formal position on the proposed amendment. However, if Planning Commission agrees that the proposed amendment meets the criteria, staff would recommend approval of Action Alternative 2. So to assist this discussion that we need the planning commission to have, I just want to note some items here for you. So planning commission discussion, the chair will call on everyone individually and they can ask questions to staff. They can provide any comments and any statements. Once every commissioner has a chance to speak, they can have another chance to speak. So basically we should speak once per round. Once everyone's done speaking and asking their questions as needed, the chair can open on the floor for a motion. I do have a list of motions, as soon as it wants to trigger over. There we go. View of these motions, because there's different ways that the Planning Commission can view it. So that could be straight approval of the Action Altar 1, approval of Action Altar 2, There's the actual alternative to approval, but with additional boundary restrictions, so we can go through maybe changing that boundary. So it takes some of those properties that requesting out out of the list, or we can just make it limited to just properties for renting West Valley. That's how we can award it. And under that motion. Or we can do the last motion of denial. There's obviously any motion that the city planning commission would like to make and kind of fit with this. But I wanted to provide you some direct language to help your thought process of how this might be on next steps. Because in the end, we do need a, we're trying to get to a recommendation. So city council can review this. We did read that you actually technically don't have to make a recommendation. If it ends up no recommendation tonight, we'll still move it forward as no recommendation from Planning Commission. But we at least want to make sure you have all these options in front of you before that. I also have the, as the last map, property owner's request map that we just discussed, in case we want to have any discussion on where that line should be. So with that, that's it for what I have. Chair, I'll just ask you to just start from your right to left and go from there.

Okay. Sybil? Sybil?

I actually have a ton of comments. So I'm sorry, everyone. I'm going to take up some time here. I honestly don't know where to begin. So one of the questions that keeps coming up for me, so you brought up the critical areas ordinance and that ordinance restricts development that is harmful to the environment or the critical areas. And it's the same no matter what the zoning is. Is that true? Or can you describe the critical areas?

So critical areas are our regulations to protect our critical areas, which are going to be landslide hazard areas, wetlands, streams, aquifer recharge areas. And I'm missing one. Habitat. And we have those regulations in place. They apply to the whole city. So it doesn't matter where you're developing those and what zone you are, those regulations will apply to you, no matter if you're a single family or industrial. Each stream has a 100-foot buffer. And then wetland buffers, so you can't develop within that 100 feet or the stream buffer. There's a little bit of buffer averaging that you can do, but it's very minor. And then wetlands, you can't develop within the wetland or the buffer. And that buffer depends on habitat quality. Again, the critical area ordinance kind of outlines all the different buffers that we could do. And from there... The development has to fit in there. There are terms of reasonable uses. I've never seen a reasonable use for an industrial project. Typically, reasonable use is for a single-family home trying to develop on a fully wetland property. I haven't seen a reasonable use passed for an industrial project because it's an intense use. I hope that answers your question on the critical areas.

That is helpful. The other piece I wasn't understanding is the push for this was because it was identified in the comprehensive 2024 comprehensive plan that this would be in future area of study but where did that come from like was there an application put forward

No, through the planning process, through the planning commission and city council and EDAB, I believe, also had input on it. It was identified through that two-year process that a variety of areas in the city were to be looked at for future study, that we weren't quite ready to make any rezones at that time.

Do you know what the reasons were to...

for potential like um jeremy feel free to speak in since you're more in tune in that discussion or chair overfield i also knew you you were here during that time yeah i did that okay but i'll just say that uh you know the west valley section in particular has had a history of different future land use designations that we uh cleaned up uh in the sometime between 2020 and 2024 because besides that section of the city, our zoning map and our future land use map matched each other one for one. So we went back to the one for one matching with it being residential, but recognizing that may not be the best long term land use for that area because of the adjacent uses in the highway. And so that for West Valley Highway, that's the main reason why that was identified as something that needed to be looked at further.

I will just add that the areas identified for future lands use study are the ones that are along major highways or future highways. So they were thought of potentially being a commercial business park, industrial type of use. We just weren't, the planning commission wasn't ready at the time to make any decision on that yet.

Okay. So when you're talking about like alignment with surrounding areas? I think Sumner is zoned interchange commercial. Is that correct?

They have a couple of different, they have a limited manufacturing nearby as well. There are a couple of different ones.

Can you explain? So the city of Sumner sent an email that said the proposed rezone to industrial is not consistent with the interchange commercial zoning in Sumner. Does that have any relation, I guess, does that have any impact on staff's comment about creating a more cohesive area?

Yes, that is based on how each city designates the land uses differently. So they have their interchange commercial and light manufacturing allows different types of uses than what our industrial use allows outright. We just use a different type of code. That's why we did the light industrial overlay to remove some of those ones that... City of Sumner would consider to be not light manufactured or commercial. For example, heavy manufacturing wouldn't be allowed in our industrial district without it, which would be counter to the neighboring jurisdiction.

So is that my understanding of the overlay is it's essentially creating a new zone. I mean, it's called an overlay, but staff would have to I think in the SCJ report, it mentions that such an overlay would create more work potentially in the future for staff. Trying to find where I read that. It's in a, oh, under zone, the industrial zoning, the scenario, it says an overlay would add additional complexity to land use review and additional burden on developers and city staff. So yeah, how does that impact?

We agree. Well, we had to come up with it, right? The actual overlay. So it takes time and staff and standing, which we just did as part of trying to address some comments. And staff agrees to a point of, yes, it would take us a little bit more time. However, that area is really complicated already based on the critical areas and the issues around that corner that we don't wouldn't see it necessary. because of an industrial project moving in there would be more complicated than a single family per se, because of the critical areas impact, because we would have to analyze them the same way. And so it wouldn't necessarily make it harder for us. What we would actually state, it would make it easier on us to enforce critical area improvement and protection people that are developing than single family homeowners that do it. We've always had a problem where single family homeowners actually do the impact. And then we don't, won't press those single-family homeowners the same way we would press developers because those are people living in there. We don't want to force them out of their house or they've impacted wetlands. On the developer side, we would immediately be able to push more on fines and get things on titles a lot faster through that process. So we would actually think it would be helpful for staff to address complaints in the area regarding critical areas specifically than currently.

And are you only alerted to, I guess, possible infractions by someone complaining, like a citizen complaining? Otherwise, there's no...

Yes, that's exactly right. At least through a permit, we would have them do like a... likely steep slope analysis for any project in the area, so they would have to identify those, and then we would protect those with any wetlands or slopes, or sorry, wetlands or creeks.

Okay, and then I was curious about the application from the applicants themselves. I think in the showbird there was an application that you could read through, and then I didn't find one in this case. Was there an application?

There was a single application form with all the owners doing owner affidavits. The application form just said, see the land use study. So there's nothing saying they had to do more because we did have a study that they are just recommending for. If they were asking for something different than a land use study, we would have told them that we would need it more. But otherwise, we had a study done. There was planning commission to reevaluate if that was enough.

The Puyallup tribe you said you met with in 2025 and then addressed their concerns? What were the things that you addressed? Or I don't remember reading how those concerns were addressed.

but there were probably concerns about impacts to streams. And what that would mean for the fisheries. So we had a conversation with them regarding our critical areas. We showed them the area, the mapping of, they were primarily concerned with large warehouses being developed in the area, which have been impacting the watershed for a while now. And they were really concerned about that. We showed them that we couldn't do that in this area. There's not enough area within the flat areas to do a large warehouse in any of these properties. and that they would still be subject to the critical area code and the steep slopes, fish and wildlife habitat codes, and then We talked to them about the limited industrial overlay. They were concerned about the heavy manufacturing, what that could do with leaks into creeks and stuff like that. So with the limited industrial overlay, that seemed to help. I wouldn't say we fully alleviate their concerns because there's always going to be some concern of some kind of impact potentially. However, we did walk through them and they didn't provide any second round comments to the 2026 edition of the SEPA noticing.

I have a lot of notes. Do you have any more background on the application besides just the Creature Land use map?

I think I mentioned this. It might have been before you joined, but at the initial discussions, this area has been often advertised in by realtors as industrial properties. So typically people have moved in thinking they have the right to utilize a property that way, and then it becomes a code enforcement for us because we're telling them, no, it's actually residential. That's been one of our largest issue, our largest areas of the whole city regarding complaints and code enforcement. Because of these also being cheap properties, it means they also don't have the means typically to fix the issue quickly. But we end up spending years trying to address the issues. So one of the hopes of this overall from the city staff standpoint is that that would alleviate that staff pressure. But from the applicant side, these are property owners that have wanted to do industrial on their property along West Valley.

Trying to wrap my head around. So the applicants bought the properties as residential, but are operating as industrial currently, and are those the issues that you were...

Sometimes I will say that they are marketed as industrial, and they are bought maybe not fully reviewing the documentation of what's actually allowed there, assuming that they can do industrial... business type there, contractor yards. And then when we get a complaint, we go there and tell them, unfortunately, that's not an approved use. So that's how we've seen it go on the West Valley side.

So that is the push toward to zone to industrial so that they can be in compliance then?

I think all the there's other code enforcement issues in the area, but I believe all of them are in compliance with being industrial uses. Some have other things that need to be looked at from just building permits and other things, but we're not land use related though.

But they're not in compliance with being zoned residential?

They are, it's just none of them are being utilized as a commercial or industrial use now. We've gotten some complaints, like we have had some, but we believe all of them are currently meeting our compliance and they're just asking for consideration to be industrial so they can utilize it properly differently now.

With current zoning as residential, can home businesses be run out of, under that zoning?

Yes, we do have home businesses allowances and our home businesses code. However, there are restrictions. Like a contract, a contractor yard would not be allowed. You can't store things on the outside of your property, that type of thing. So contractor yard businesses would be 1 of those type of uses likely in the West Valley area that just wouldn't be permitted as a home business. Um, however, if they did have all their storage indoors and or on another property, potentially could do it that way. And we have some of those in the city. Um. But we do have some home businesses in the area, and that's an option. The limitation is that you can't have any additional employees, and you can't really have visitors.

So in the staff report, it is saying the proposed amendment would increase overall job capacity. Do you have a sense of? How or quantity of jobs?

No, we don't have an exact quantity. We know that overall we are well below our capacity for employment because like we have housing numbers, we actually do have employment numbers as well. We have never made our employment numbers and that has been a really difficult for the city to meet on the capacity level because some of the land stopped being developed. We don't foresee a large employment from the area because of how constrained they are. So we would only anticipate minor employment. And I would say probably well below like under 100 for the whole area type of situation that we wouldn't see a large increase.

And then under the let's see the land use goals that have been listed as goals that are being met. One of them, I felt like I couldn't make the connection as to how the industrial overlay, so it was goal, land use goal number two, promote a land use pattern that strengthens Edgewood's identity and sense of place. So how does the industrial overlay do that?

The area is often not, we have heard people not fully aware that the West Valley properties on the hillside are Edgewood. They always think there's some there. Moving it to industrial would, we believe, would potentially allow... more Edgewood related businesses and focus the residential on top of the hill and move the, that's the kind of the focus move residential, sorry, move the residential higher up on the hill and focus those up on closer together than focusing on the hill or sorry, below on the valley floor. Okay.

There was one, after reading through all the information, I had a similar, came to a similar conclusion that an email from resident Cindy Casey sent, and she said she felt after reading the SCJ report that There was an insufficient consideration of other alternatives. And I kind of felt the same way too, after just reviewing all of the one citizen letters and pushback against the industrial, the alignment with the vision of the comprehensive plan. And then the letters from Gallup Tribe and Fish and Wildlife and Department of Ecology And then even some nursing that it didn't really align with their zoning. I just felt like the proposal for an industrial overlay, if that were to move forward, it would damage a lot of those relationships. And I think the possibility of exploring other alternatives that might meet more of the land use goals and not strain those relationships, to me, makes sense to explore other alternatives.

i'm just like i can respond very quickly on that we had to limit our land use study to a specific area or a specific type to try to focus our efforts and funding so it being identified as the potential industrial we were looking at all the commercial business park industrial type of uses that would kind of fit into that category um look at potentially matching uh nearby um zoning districts that's where we landed in the um limited overlay understood if there's additional analysis that would want to be analyzed. In that case, we, staff would state that that probably needs to be analyzed at the next comprehensive plan. We just are running out of, we've been putting a lot of effort in this over the last two years. And if we're not finding a path forward this way, that we would recommend just moving, waiting onto a later date to make a larger analysis.

I just want to make a comment. So, um, we have studied this area, you know, pretty, pretty comprehensively for a couple of years and, um, things are kind of a mess down there. And as, uh, as Josh was saying, you know, people are doing things they're not supposed to do. It takes city time to go down and try and rectify things. And, um, we look to... match areas to what is already down there. We did that on Valley Avenue with some large pieces of farmland. And because the warehousing was taking up all the area, we finally decided to go with that kind of zoning in that area because of that. And as Josh has pointed out, Sumner has a different way of talking about their zoning, but anything that would occur on West Valley would not interfere or be different than what Sumner has really done down there. But we have spent a lot of time looking at alternatives for that particular area. So I just wanted to let you know that this isn't something that just

popped up yeah okay so tom you have some comments um just a couple i was looking at the different maps and then also looking at our map that we have on the website when did we acquire that public piece on the top i'm just curious

The small square?

The big one, the big two parcel.

Jeremy might be best to answer that question. I believe they were dedicated to the city with the idea that they don't be developed in a specific way, maybe as a park. But Jeremy, do you have any?

Yeah, that was Littowit's property dedication. I want to say it was right around COVID, maybe right before. But currently no plans to do anything with the property at this time and no strings attached to the dedication.

Okay. No, I'm just curious. It's not on the official map on the website. And then the commercial property up at the top, what was the reasoning for trying to pull that into a light industrial or industrial going away from commercial?

Okay. The, and that's right out of Jovita and West Valley. The reason behind that is that the corner property to the north is actually industrial use that has been utilized as industrial for a long time, even though it's been commercially zoned. The property to the south of it has been commercial. The problem, the biggest problem with that area is there is no utility provider. There is no water service at all. They have to be unwell. and sewer services. So again, we were looking at those uses that are lower on those impacts. So it was a use that wouldn't take so much water service or sewer service, because it won't be available for a very long time.

Okay. And so besides pulling properties, if we decide to do that, the two options that are in front of us is basically light industrial or industrial. Um, either or with the 100 foot buffer that was in there on your presentation. I said, I didn't see it in slide.

The 100 foot buffer is the in the mitigation measure that we currently have. So either option would include that because it's it was a mitigation measure for both. Um, but it would be included with the development regulations directly to make it clear that that's a requirement.

Okay, and then I was also looking at the landslide area. I guess I didn't realize how much that actually covers most of the property. So there's going to be a lot of mitigation to try to keep slides from happening. Commercially, I think it's probably more viable than residential to keep that.

any yes any development in the area will require geotech um to protect the slopes even from the bottom even if they're just like because a lot of times at the bottom of the slope you still have a buffer for to protect it and so they will have to identify that as part of their study that's all i got i don't have a question just more of a comment i mean looking at all of the

material that we have to look at, no matter what the zoning is, whether it stays existing, whether it becomes just about anything, it's just about borderline impossible to build anything of any real value to the city there, other than leaving it as what it is. I mean, when you start thinking about limiting the building size to 50,000 square feet, I mean, how big of a, you know, like as an example, what size store, how many square feet do you think Safeway is? It's about 50,000 square feet. And the amount of area that it takes for the parking to go with that is about, you know, five to six acres, you know? So it's, you start thinking about what could actually be built there feasibly. It's very, very difficult. So again, I don't have any questions, just, just some comments on what I've been reading.

okay so um we as i mentioned before we have studied this area pretty extensively i i've been on the planning commission when we had to make the decision on valley avenue for um to you know to go with the warehousing there and um i I live above all of this because my house is right on the edge. And so I think that having the overlay would give us, you know, light manufacturing, but it would also provide us with a, you know, we can have control over things down there. And as you mentioned, there's probably not a lot of, That could happen. But whatever happens, we don't have any control over what goes on there. And there's constantly people doing things they're not supposed to do. So based on that, I think that, you know, with all the warehousing that's right across the street, you know, it makes sense. And control is one of the issues, you know, because Then we have controls over the critical areas of streams and everything else. So that's one thing I like to bring up. The other thing is those properties that want to opt out, we can leave those properties as residential. We do the alternative to overlay.

Yes, we could, we would want to make sure we really look at the map to make sure we're not creating any pocket zoning. We wouldn't really want a residential stuck in between. 2 industrial, it's just 1 residential. Um, so if it was like that case, we would probably ask the planning commission not to recommend that type of. Spot zoning in that sense. Um, so it should be really like that what that boundary would be to include which ones. The ones that are not directly on West Valley are going to probably be easier to do for that reason than the ones that are... Sorry, the ones off of West Valley would be easier to remove than the ones on West Valley because you're going to create some weird pockets.

Right. Because my understanding is that there's residents on a property that does base onto West Valley, but that person, if they continue to have residents there, has control over whatever happens. So we're not impacting them. They can decide whatever they want to do if they want to just continue to live there and not subdivide their property. So anyway, that's... That's my comment.

No comments.

Commissioner church here. I have a lot of comments and questions. And I'm really happy to see our community members here today because they do think that both of these rezoning measures are of similar concern for the same reasons. So In considering what we've heard about the Schober community, I think the same concerns for that development is applicable to the West Valley overlay. And I want to respectfully disagree with some of my planning commissioners and some of their comments because that's what we're here to do is to share a difference of opinion respectfully as community members. So there's a few things here that I first want to make sure I understand, Josh. As far as the applicants, I know that we've come across this before with October, that there's a lot of consensus in that applicants who are not currently in compliance should not be considered. um i do want to understand more of that we don't need to talk about it right now if if it's more appropriate to talk about it later but i do want to understand more about the applicant system and when and how we address applicants who are not currently compliant um i think we should confirm whether they're in compliance or consider their application um I hear now that it was a confusion on the land buyer as far as their parcel being zoned residential and not industrial. They were under the impression it was marketed to them as industrial. I do understand they must be stressed out about that, but it's not also our responsibility for them to know what they're buying. And maybe there is something we can do about how land in our city limits are marketed. And maybe it's something around that function that we can take a better look at to help control that. As far as the benefits of the West Valley overlay, I still personally and as a commissioner and as a natural and resources commissioner, natural and resources liaison for the state of Hawaii in recovery resilience, I am unclear as to what the real benefits to the city of Edgewood is when it comes to this overlay. As far as percentages, statistics, numbers, anything, I just don't feel like I see that. I don't know if that is something that the applicant should be providing or if it's something that staff needs more support to be able to provide us, but I don't clearly see the benefits. And in an interpretation of the overlay meeting the city's goals, that is just what it is, is an interpretation in my mind. So people will have different opinions, but that's not necessarily factual. As far as we as a planning commission, exploring other alternatives for the use of this land. I unfortunately joined the board right after the comprehensive plan was made. So I am unaware of other alternatives that we have explored. The first time I think we really heard of some other alternatives is when our fellow commissioner here, Sybil, presented ideas about park use. which we do see that there is a large partial of land dedicated for parking that has not been discussed. And I'm really excited about seeing what we could do with that land. But I think there's also, like Idaab said and we came up with too, there's a lot of crazy wonderful ideas that maybe we have not had a chance to collectively discuss yet. So I think we should have time to do that. Also, the idea of pulling in adjacent parcels like commercial because of its proximity to this overlay being beneficial and that, well, we should develop industrial by industrial. So when does that end? So if we start moving, moving, moving up industrial around our city limits, what happens to our residential areas? What happens to our preserved natural spaces? Are we just going to continue to be, you know, saying, well, you know, it makes sense, but in what capacity right now or 10 years from now or 20 years from now? I really strongly believe and advocate for, advocate for the fact that we need to be responsible planners staff and citizens when it comes to sustainable planning not just considering our current situation but future generation stability I have I also I understand that there's less utility strain on industrial land, right? Because residential, we use our water, we use our power, we use sewer actively 24 hours a day. But to me, that's not really necessarily a reason to develop land. When I think about landslides actually being more viable I actually don't agree with that because as you can see in other cities and states like Hawaii, which is getting slammed with adverse climate situations and storms and hurricanes and cyclones, the reason why we're having a lot of flooding there is because of our built environment. It's not because of our green environment. It's because when you lay down cement, the water can't go back into your water table. And so it just creates runoff on top of runoff. And this is dangerous for everybody. In our climate action planning that we are actually currently doing, I hope everybody knows about this, that there is a climate action team working very hard on your behalf to develop these policies to support thoughtful, responsible planning when it comes to protecting our green environments, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and doing resilience planning. for our community. We are in the throes of that right now. And we're having an open house in November 4th in the evening, and we will release more information as we get closer. But I encourage you all to come to that because we want to hear your feedback. But we have identified a lot of hazards around greenhouse gases, around developing and what that would mean to increasing the heat how that will have an impact on our air quality. And the biggest support mechanism we have against landslides, erosion, the heat, the air quality is what is our tree. So we are actively too as a city doing some great work there. Thank you staff too. And looking at our tree canopy policy too. and also staff and Josh and Jeremy are working on hazard mitigation plans alongside the climate action planning that we are looking at. And all of these great things, I think the timeline is probably in the next 12 months that we'll have strong recommendations on how to move forward. So why would we rezone this right now? we are working so hard to do all of that analysis work, it would really, really benefit us as boards in general if we just wait a little bit longer so that we can be thoughtful in developing those policies. And I think, you know, some of this is also heard within the reasons why some of the parcels want to opt out. And also the W... letter, the State of Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife does not support this food zone. They do not support it because of all the critical areas, which I'm not sure what the percentage is that makes up that line, but it looks like it's a very large portion of it because of the natural buffers and resources that are in there. It is really these natural areas mechanisms that support the way we live here that we really need to be stewards of because for example we have the luxury of having wonderful water not a lot of places have their own water table underneath that supports their drinking water we do that's just an example so we need to take care of our natural environment and so um i do agree with the wdf position on it that they don't recommend the rezone area because it's mapped as a biodiversity corridor. So I think I've talked enough. I could keep going on, but why should I at this point? I just would urge my fellow commissioners to move to deny this until we get all of our analysis from all these other initiatives that we're doing at the city in place. And we really understand how this is going to affect our environment. Thank you.

I believe there's one thing I can respond to in there at least. Regarding code enforcement. We've reviewed the area is that a lot of times it's kind of an innocent purchaser type of situation where unfortunately something didn't happen where they didn't fully aware of the situation. and that we're not necessarily trying to reward those property owners, but it's been a problem for so long that maybe there is something wrong in the area that we need to address. And that's kind of where we started reviewing the area that needs to be looked at because there's so much code enforcement. There's obviously an idea down here that we might need to revisit. So staff doesn't look at it as trying to benefit any specific one, but understanding that there is something down there that needs to be looked at and so when it comes to any permit that comes in we require full code compliance at time of permit like i mentioned though for single family we do take a light hand to single family ones because it's often time they are living there and we don't want to necessarily be trying to force anyone of housing because of these smaller impacts So that's kind of just want to provide that input on that comment.

I appreciate that. And I totally understand that it's a burden on staff time and resources to address these concerns. But from my understanding, I also understand that this is happening at certain levels of review. So at the initial project permit review, and then if a complaint is made, is that correct?

Typically, there's not even a permit. Someone's just using their property that way because they don't necessarily need a necessary permit to do that. It's just they start using it, their property. They think they have a house there. They want to level it out a little bit so they have a play area. That type of situation where it's like, no, you're actually unfortunately hitting a critical area slope that we need to look at. That type of situation.

I totally agree. I totally respect where you're coming from and your efforts to manage that. But I guess my point is saying that whether it's industrial or residential, we will likely have code enforcement issues. So this doesn't necessarily resolve that for us because it comes down to manpower, a lot of it, and aligning those partnerships that can help us at the county level and with our neighboring jurisdictions, which are all those partnerships that we are trying to work on developing with our climate action teamwork. And we're actively doing that. So yeah, I do appreciate your work on that too. Okay, so I...

heard a lot of things about this and i think just a couple questions um would a reduction in warehouse size be an option for the second option um like i think it says 50 000 or greater would not be allowed i'm curious if we switch that to like 25 000 would that give um some options, you know, obviously I don't know. I always try to think of like the actual scenario, like who's going to use this land. Right. And I want to go to that place because again, it kind of reminds me of what we were talking about earlier with the tax exemption. It makes me think of like who, who will use that, you know, who can build in this situation. And I think to be respectful to the current residents that live in that area, to, to, consider our environment. I think having smaller warehouse sizes would limit the type of businesses that would want to do business there and the activities would likely be much smaller and less harmful. My thought always goes to like electrical companies or like someone who's just literally got vans who are out all day and they need to somewhere to park at night and then they come and they store their equipment there, right? And there's a lot of those types of businesses that would like to call Edgewood their home, but they don't have the right location available, right? Because they fall into light industrial and they're not really manufacturing anything there. They just need a place to call home. And I would love them to call Edgewood home. And if we don't have those scenarios available to them, they're going to find somewhere else and it's not going to be here. So I would like to consider... targeting that type of middle business size and find scenarios where we are allowing this light industrial overlay with consideration for the current residents and boundaries and buffers and all the things that go into it. I think it just needs, I think the discussion would most benefit the current resident residential owners. If we can just really fine tune what those stipulations would be. And I, I do, um, It's really hard. I've actually like put a lot of thought into like where I stand on both the action items this evening. And this one in particular was kind of like I was scratching my head a little more. Go ahead. Did you need to say something?

Yes. Thank you. Just to kind of respond to what you're saying. The code enforcement that we've typically seen in the area is a contractor yard area. basically people wanting to store their landscape materials in their yard. That falls under industrial use, even though for a lot of other jurisdictions, it's not that type of use. It's more of a light industrial type of use. Same with semi-parking and employment parking, basically. Their employment vehicles that they would like to park, or semi-trucks, for example, are two of the biggest ones that we would see in this area, at least from staff's point of view, that we would anticipate. be it good or bad for whatever the vision is for the city, we do believe those are the two main uses in the area. Regarding the industrial, for the limited industrial overlay, we listed it for the 50,000 for a CUP. So anything from zero to 50,000 would require a conditional use permit and a hearing examiner's decision to allow additional potential mitigation measures. uh we could change that threshold that's just our current code actually broke it up so we just left it that way um we can change it that's just if you want to know the cities why we why it's listed at 50 000 it's just currently listed a break between lower than 50 000 and the greater 50 000. so we're open for a different amount um but right now anything from zero to fifty thousand we require a conditional use permit in the hearing examiner's decision with potential additional mitigation measures

And that would be a recommendation I would definitely think should be considered being that this is kind of a delicate situation and we have been talking about it for so long and keeps getting pushed off because we don't quite find a happy medium that would work for everyone. I think... you know, potentially increasing buffers, which would make it even harder to build there. But the thing is, is like when I think about, you know, maybe the current parcel owner who maybe has considered selling and can't because it's not even really like the best land, you know, it could potentially bring more value to the land for them if they could I don't know. I'm thinking of a scenario where they can have some big company come in and just use it for parking for their vehicles. And that's something that's beneficial to both parties and won't have a major impact to the neighboring properties. The other thing I think that we should address is... I think it's understandable to have a little sympathy for a person who buys a property and thinks it's industrial, but I'm sorry. I've bought enough properties in my lifetime that I know it's my responsibility to know the zoning of what I buy. And if you are relying based on the statement of a real estate agent, that's your bad. And if you're doing it for a commercial purpose, that's pretty... well, that's a bad situation for you and you didn't do your job. I would say that we can't be the victim in that situation. I wouldn't have too much sympathy in that situation just because that's definitely the responsibility of the person buying it. You sign a lot of documents when you buy a piece of land. So I don't think that's a very good excuse for why they're operating incorrectly. And then... you know, it does kind of bring to the attention that we have our own zoning codes and, you know, designations like we have discussed in terms of like seminars different than ours. There's no reason we can't determine that a landscaping business storing their vehicles there, why does that have to be light industrial? Why do we have to call that light industrial? And I think that's something we need to seriously consider looking at because there's a lot of really good local business owners who would love to be able to just operate off their land if they can. That wouldn't cause harm to the neighboring properties and wouldn't be noisy except for maybe when the employees come home for that, you know, 20, 30 minutes or whatever, that they're with stipulations. I mean, I operate a business on my property and I'm very respectful of my business hours and the rules that were set in place for me in order to operate on my property, right? There's no reason just because my business falls within the home business parameters that we couldn't also consider adding a few more variables to the home-based business type scenario that doesn't automatically classify it as a light industrial. Because I know scenarios that genuinely I don't know why it doesn't. was excluded and those people have now since found properties in other cities and I wish they could have and they support this community very well. So it's unfortunate that they weren't able to stay. So it's something I think that's obviously another matter, but something to consider that Light industrial might not always cover all situations that are, it's not always appropriately labeled. So that's just another comment. And then I think that was the kind of, I combined my points, but those were the main things I wanted to state. I am, I've heard this subject enough over the time that I've been here. I am ready to move forward. I don't know how everyone else feels. And I do see that obviously there's still questions in the air, but yeah. What I do know is that whatever decision we come to or however we recommend to the city council, it's not our final decision and nothing will be in stone that we couldn't make changes or adjustments to. So I think it's important that we aren't afraid of moving forward with a decision like it's all set in stone and everything's permanent. Everything can be adjusted as needed. So that's where I'm at.

Motion for a 20-minute recess. For me. I'm sorry. Just for me. I apologize.

If you're just asking to be excused for 20 minutes, you could just ask that for the chair.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. So French rich has requested commissioner French for which be excused for 20 minutes. Um, so we still have a quorum and may continue on. So, um, just noting at 8 15, uh, commissioner French rich is stepping away for 20 minutes. Chair, if Jeremy does have some reduced, I guess, rezone area available to be looked at, if only the Planning Commission is willing, wanting to look at something of a reduced scope. If not, we can also move forward to motion as well.

I'm sorry, would you repeat that again? Jeremy has what?

Jeremy has put together a reduced scope of the land use study area for the potential reason removing some of the parcels that were discussed. If the Planning Commission wants to look at that, however, we don't need to if you're ready to move with another motion. So... I guess the chair, if you want to ask if someone's willing.

Sure. I'd like to see what Jeremy is proposing.

Can you just show what you have just as a potential for a feature motion?

So I'm just pulling up Cities GIS and showing the aerial for context as well, because I know there's been a lot of discussion about neighboring uses and what we see on a zoning map isn't necessarily what we see from the sky. So I just wanted to bring that context to the conversation. The orange line you see here is a suggested western boundary, if you will, for the proposed rezone area. where you would just be looking at those parcels that are abutting West Valley Highway. The city owned properties would stay zoned as they are, and the exception to the only those parcels touching West Valley Highway would be this area here. Where we had on Josh's map earlier, this parcel up here in the top. And then this larger parcel here were requested to be removed from consideration. But the same person that owns this larger parcel also owns a couple of these other parcels in here. And from a continuity standpoint to avoid potential spot zoning, staff would recommend maintaining some contiguous connectivity through there. The suggestion here would be to just bump out because this is one owner with these two parcels. But other than that, just following this line clear down to the south limit.

Thank you, Jeremy. Now I will just share my screen myself, take over. So as I stop, there you go.

All right, I'll try to get, oops, go away.

All right. Jerry, you could now also open for a motion if there is no other further discussion.

Okay. So, um, I guess, uh, before we make any kind of motion, I'd like to know if the, um, planning commission is looking at, um, as possible approval of the alternative to with additional boundary restriction. Is that where, um, Is that the one that we're looking at the most as a planning commission?

Commissioner Church, no.

Okay.

With the exception of... And Commissioner Nguyen, also no. No.

Okay.

Commissioner Leung, yes. Okay.

Commissioner Hardesty, no.

Okay. Um... So.

Chair, you might just need to just open for a motion and let the first motion come up and be voted on.

For the first, you mean alternative one?

Just letting any of the planning commissions make a motion and letting it go through that route.

Okay. So does someone want to make a motion for alternative two?

Commissioner Church moves to deny the West Valley overlay of industrial.

Can you provide us the exact criteria one through five? And I can bring on my screen that you believe it doesn't so we can include that with our city council. Top is one, down is five.

I don't believe that it's clear on how it's consistent with our comprehensive plan goals and policies. I am not in understanding of how it is consistent with circumstances in the area of substantially change since the adoption of the city's comprehensive plan. I don't think either one of those have been proven. And I don't know how you've proven comprehensive plan assumptions are no longer valid or new information is available. So I don't, yeah.

Would that include the last one as well?

Yes, and so the last one, the proposed amendments, I'm sorry, it doesn't align with the community. I think that's what it said, community values. Yeah, for those reasons, I am moving to deny the West Valley Highway Amendment and rezone.

Do you mind reading that last line just to make it clear what the motion is?

Oh, I'm sorry. Yep. I move that the City Council deny application 25001, ComPlan, for failing to comply with EMC 18.60.220 evaluation criteria 2 through, did I say 2 through 5? 2-5, sorry.

2 through 5 is correct.

2 through 5, okay, to the City Council.

Okay, so the motion has been put forward. All those in favor.

We need a second, Chair. There needs to be a second.

We need a second for Leila's.

Commissioner Nguyen, I second.

So all those in favor of what is this motion, say aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye. All those who are not in favor, say aye.

Bye. Bye.

Unfortunately, he needed that Commissioner Franchovich had a family emergency and needed to leave. So he is no longer part of the meeting for the rest of the night because it didn't reach a full quorum of a full majority. That motion is denied. Motion fails. Oh, sorry. Motion fails. Sorry. So at the moment, we have no approved motion. So either there could be another motion or that could be the end of conversation.

I'd like to motion that the city council approve of application two five zero zero one comp plan action alternative two with the following changes of the warehouse size going to 25,000 square feet or greater with the findings and conclusions provided in the staff report dated September 14th, 2026.

I have a second for that motion. Second. Okay. All those in favor of the motion, say aye. No.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Okay. Freedom three again. Okay. Okay.

We may not be able to give a recommendation City Council based on our current planning commission size. As such, the planning commission will be put in a packet that how this was broken up and they'll be able to see the discussion that you had. So right now it's basically a split planning commission with no formal recommendation to City Council on comp plan 25-001. Okay.

So we have no recommendation for City Council.

I have a question. Do they still see what was moved as a motion? They'll still see that we...

Yes, be part of the minutes. Okay.

So they would understand that half of us have felt one way or the other about...

They'll be part of the minutes and staff will be mentioning this in their staff report to city council so that they're fully aware that they should, the city council should be listening to the discussion to Provide their own action.

Okay. Thank you. Okay. So. I'm so sorry. There's a point of clarification. When are you giving that staff report to city council? Or when would that meeting place where they. When would that meeting take place that they would review it?

Jeremy, what's the plan for the city council to hear? The current schedule is to introduce the topic to the council on October 6th.

Thank you.

All right.

We're going to move on to the show over comprehensive plan and zoning map.

Yes, I have again another short presentation for that just to cover all the items similar to the last one. Okay, so now we are in the discussion action portion of the 25002 COMP plan, the Schroeder rezone comprehensive plan amendment and rezone. As mentioned previously, this was a docket item from February. We had our hearing on it 2 months ago, and now we're discussing action and recommendation.

Okay, so again, I will start with Sybil.

I got more to go through. Oh, sorry. We had some requests about we received comment letters that were provided to you from the Pendle Heights homeowners association with the request of where that location is based on mapping. We quickly try to find that. We believe that this is the, the white areas, the Pendle Heights homeowners association, while the, the reds, the most rezone properties. So it was just a vicinity map and showing where the homeowners association made comments from. And I can confirm that as accurate.

Okay. Thank you, Jeremy.

So there was also a request for some additional history regarding these two properties. So the applicant purchased the properties in 2023. The zoning map on your right is the zoning map that was active in 2023. I think it was under the impression that both properties were zoned industrial. As you can see on the map, the diamond piece, the smaller one, was industrial by the time they purchased it. The bigger property, the property where access is from, was residential one. In December of 2024, the City rezoned the small diamond property to Mix Residential 1 as part of the Comprehensive Plan and Rezone process. The 2024 Comprehensive Plan update did identify both properties for future land use redesignation or land use study, as we've mentioned. The primary driver of the reclassification was that the main access to the diamond property was through the larger residential zone property. And that's what was the Planning Commission's recommendation of the zoning at the time due to that instance. Just to be clear, though, that when the current applicant bought the property, the idea was to utilize it for commercial uses. And they thought that that industrial property that he could utilize it that way. But in 2024, I would say end of 24. So basically, December 2024, it was rezoned. But beginning 2025, it became residential. So then what is being proposed? The applicant's proposal directly was to rezone it from MR1 to industrial. And as you can see on the image from existing and proposed, the Alternative 2 is the same as Alternative 1 with a new limited industrial overlay. again the limited industrial overlay here is very similar is exactly the same as the uh limited industrial overlay proposed for the west valley uh rezone areas as well so it would permit uh parking lots which would be uh commercial parking areas and require conditional use for light manufacturing which is where the contractor yard or manufacturing would fall into warehouse and storage would require all up to 50 000 prohibited would be gas station heavy manufacturing or worse house storage over 50 000 waste management services etc the full list is provided in the actual proposed development regulations so we received a notice of application comments in key concerns we also had public hearing comments that you've heard two months uh two months ago and there was also additional citizen comments provided last month For the large part, they were very similar comments as the public hearing comments. So largely regarding compatibility with surrounding neighborhoods, reduction in property values and concerns regarding traffic noise, lighting, air quality impacts. Similar to the West Valley land use rezone, staff proposed an alternative to try to address some of these concerns. conducted a SEPA review to provide the determination and the mitigation measures that would be required. Eventually, any project on the properties would conduct a code compliance review at time of permit. So we review any project permit for the property against any active codes at that time. Provided this during the public hearing, but this is just to show some of the SEPA mitigation measures that have been issued and haven't been appealed. So access limit to only the existing access easement, all other access removed. Breacher development requires project specific noise study to ensure compliance with the code. 50 foot landscape buffer with solid screening required a long seminar heights drive. Potential summer hikes drive east improvements from the site access to the City of Edgewood property boundary. That would be dependent on a traffic study. And then design review would be required to ensure compliance with aesthetics, critical areas, site layouts, et cetera. So again, the staff report goes to the five comprehensive plan amendment criteria. addressed whether the proposed amendments conform to the GMA consistent with the comprehensive plans and goals. We listed as proposed with the alternative. We believe that it does those items. Regarding the circumstances in the area and comprehensive plan assumptions, again, because it was identified as a future land use study specifically for redesignation, we believe that this criteria is met because it was identified that it should be looked at for further potential rezone. So it was always identified as a potential for the area. then but the last one is still the the same one issue we had with the other project the proposed amendments reflect currently what are the held values of the residents of the city staff is not able to confirm that based on what how that standard is currently written we provided the edgewood vision statement again here on the right just to show you what the comprehensive plan the vision statement is just one of the items that would need to be considered when you're determining if it reflects currently Y held values of the residents of the city. In addition to just those criterias, because this is a project-specific rezoning application, because it's very much to two properties only, there is additional criteria that they would have to meet, which are on the screen and provided in the staff report. So it does not adversely affect public services and adversely impact transportation network of cities, utilities, parks. That can't be mitigated. Properties physically suitable for the requested designation, including access to utilities and database-threading land uses. The site-specific amendments will not create pressures to change land use destinations of other properties, does not materially affect population growth projections, does not materially affect the adequacy of availability services and consistent with county-wide policies and inter-local agreements. So those were also discussed in the staff report. As mentioned previously, due to comprehensive plan amendment criteria number five, staff are unable to take a formal position on the proposed amendment and reason on it. However, if the planning commission agrees that this proposed amendment meets this criteria, staff would recommend approval action alternative two as the best one to meet all the other criteria. As previously, we want to outline that we want to go ahead and make sure everyone has a chance to ask their questions and discuss making a statement. So chair will call on you individually for any questions to staff, comments, or statements. Once every commissioner has a chance to speak, the chair will allow for additional comments. If there's no additional comments, the chair will open the floor for motion. So chair, it is open for you to start.

Okay, Sybil, we'll start with you. If you have any questions or comments,

Yeah, it's really fun going first. But again, lot to wrap my head around. So similar to West Valley Highway, does the overlay add complexity for staff for future code compliance or monitoring?

I wouldn't say it would add complexity in that way. It would add complexity to the review because this would be only two property specific area that we would have to apply these zone standards, which would make it more complex to look at, yes.

And then again, because I'm newer to this, is there generally a push for more industrial land use in Edgewood?

I wouldn't say necessarily a push for a more industrial. Staff would like to see a push to more employment, but we don't necessarily see these areas as employment drivers necessarily. Industrial can be, but we don't believe this specific area would be a great increase. It would see an increase, but it wouldn't be necessarily sizable.

And then when, let's see, I think when it's laid out which comprehensive plan goals, which goals are ticked off with the overlay, I'd be also curious to see what it, I guess the flip side of that, what land use goals does it not address? Is that something that staff could put together or in a formalized way where it's easy to see what it meets and then what it doesn't?

I understand the overall question here. What we try to do is apply, look at everyone that would apply to the project as proposed. we looked at the industrial zone goals and natural policy goals to see whether to apply i believe out of just straight out if you asked us if there was a goal that didn't directly apply in those two instances we didn't find they would say no we or we would have tried to ruin them that way to say that we were not sure if it meant this goal there could be other goals and other sections regarding the residential neighborhood for their zone that it could be in conflict with. And there could be other ones like parks that could be as well. But we focused it on the proposed uses. So it would be industrial. So we looked at it under all the industrial goals, under economic development, and then any other land use associated goals. So we're not necessarily disagreeing that it could be. We just focused our staff report on those goals.

Thank you. Finally, I know we're supposed to make a recommendation to city council. When that recommendation is passed along, is it possible to include, like quantify the number of resident comments that have come out? Like, does that get translated over to city council in a way that we've seen at like the public hearings?

so the city council will be provided the um the video for each of the the public hearings and the session comments have been provided they will also be mentioned in the staff report regarding the comments Um, as the rec motion has been written, we haven't include that. I guess you could write a motion to include that information if you so choose. Um, but we believe that as the information provided, it will provide the city council with all the comments, including the ones ran verbally provided at the meetings for their review.

Great. Thank you. Okay, Tom.

I don't know if I really have many questions. And I'm seeing that there's a lot more into this than we originally jumped into. Trying to look at it both ways. I see where we are right against the other industrial lands. But I also know that, obviously, we have a large outpouring of public support for this from the people above it. And I understand it's already been a recent. i can't see how much this property actually is of value for anything as far as the slope of it where they want to do the big open area and stuff like that is that considerable hillside right there and it looks to be but i don't have it from

Now let me bring, just so you can see that, I believe it's on one of the first items. You can kind of, let me show my screen.

I'm just wondering if, you know, keeping it residential, what is the possibility of having multiple homes where it's a couple acres?

I'm going to zoom in here.

I'm going to zoom in here.

So these are your contours. So the thicker, darker ones are your busy five-footers. So you can kind of see that there is a drop from the road down. It's decently steep in this area and behind it. So there's really just this area that's in the form of semi-flat, even though it's not really flat.

And then the road, I realize that that is a paved road.

It's a panel road.

Is it a panel road? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Slabs. Okay. That's all the real questions I have. Just trying to understand the property a little bit better. I do understand how the neighbors feel and I read their letters about when they purchased it and I also, like earlier comments, I don't have a lot of love when people buy something. They don't know what they buy. Like saving. Anyways, I'll hear what Andrew Pumps say.

Okay. Andrew?

No comment.

Well, I did... I live on a hillside above a residential area that was actually owned by the city of Sumner. The overfields have been on the ridgeline overlooking the Sumner Valley for like 40 years. Well, more than 40 years, since the early 40s. So there was a residential area right over my bank. I mean, I could throw a golf ball down there and probably hit the roof. And it was zoned residential, but it got rezoned to light industrial. And because of the slope, big trucks really couldn't come in there. So it's two small warehouses. Now, I did look at this property that is in question, and... They can't even put there what's below me. And I drove all the roads where everybody lives. And I understand everybody's concern. But I think that the concern is probably things will probably not be as bad as you maybe think they will.

Point of order, please, for the public that let the planning commissioners have their statements and you'll have your comments at the end.

And the only reason I say that is because I live above this on, on, you know, I live right above something that's more than what can be put there. Um,

Again, unfortunately, point of order, it's the Planning Commission that's just making statements at this time.

I understand there's been some problems with this particular property and that the city would make them come in in a different area. They would not be going on the concrete road if they go in there. But you have to take into consideration what could be built there And the other thing is that, um, sometimes a neighborhood can get together and rectify it by buying the property and keeping it what it is. I mean, the people, it's a, we've done it with conservation futures and see it in, but, um, but at any rate, um, I understand. I understand the concern. And that's all I'll say.

Thank you, Chair. I think we all come to this meeting with good intentions.

So I would like us to do as hard as it can be at times.

Oh, I'm sorry. I said that I think we all come to these meetings with good intentions and as hard as it is to listen sometimes to different opinions and perspectives. This is what makes a community is the difference in people is what makes it a rich community, in my opinion. So with that said, I... I, for one, do not support this industrial overlay for the same reasons that I did not support and do not support the industrial overlay of West Valley due to the environmental concerns, the hazard mitigation concerns and the concerns of our community. I think, as I mentioned before, that the city and staff and our public and private partners are doing a lot of great work as far as putting together the analysis for the policies we need to help guide us in responsibly developing parcels or knowing when not to. So I strongly urge my commissioners to deny the overlay based on, at the very least, timing. We have a lot of concern from our community members. We also have a lot of new information that will be presented and documented in the next year that will help us find the most responsible and sustainable ways to develop our land. So with the tree canopies analysis, it's going to be really important to consider that. With our hazard mitigation plan that's in development, it's definitely going to also concern development like this. And with the climate action plan, planning that we're doing, I don't see why we would rezone anything to industrial at this time when we have all of that good data that's coming in the near future.

Well, I have to say this.

I think we've spent probably a total of about maybe five hours listening to everyone's comments, feedback, and have respectfully listened to everybody. And I know it takes a lot of time to sit through these meetings. And I know your patience has probably come to a very thin point, right? I think what has to be acknowledged is that we are volunteers. We are doing this voluntarily and we have taken the time to consider it. Everyone's comments and their feedback. And I respect the time you've taken to come and show up each time. And I think it's most important to acknowledge the fact that it obviously matters. And I think as a community member, um, who has dealt with a situation myself when I had my business first opening up on my property. And, you know, I had to go through these meetings and I had to sit and I had to listen and I had to like be patient month to month as it kept coming up on the agenda. And it was really frustrating. And that's why I'm here because of that experience. So, I want to reiterate how important it is to voice your opinions on these matters that affect you and to do it respectfully is awesome. I think some of the statements that you guys all made in previous meetings were probably the most impactful on where I stand here. I also think it's, important that we review each situation individually and not group them and i think unfortunately these both came onto our agenda like at the same time and it made it a little bit messy i think we kind of blurred some of the details together and i don't think they're the same situation um and i also I want to acknowledge, because I'm in a similar situation as Chair Overfield, I live above Jovita, and those changes to West Valley potentially would affect me. And I recognize that, and yet I still was supportive because I understand the use of that area is a little different than what you guys are talking about for this area, Sumner Heights. That's what it is, right, Sumner Heights? Or this current one. So what I want to say is that it's really, it's something that matters that you guys took the time to voice that. And I think that it should be the number one reason why we would deny this going forward. Because if that doesn't, if that's not the overall consensus and the actual person who's applying didn't take the time to show up to these meetings and speak in his own defense, which I had to do for myself when I had a situation that I was appealing. And I don't think that's someone I want to consider their letter because that's not taking the time to, you know, explain their reasoning or the benefit to his situation. And if he bought the parcel, you know, I actually know another gentleman who considered buying that parcel and it was marketed as completely an industrial property. And he said to me the other day, oh, I'm glad I didn't fall for that. And so it's unfortunate that they're in this situation. However, it's not our responsibility to rectify it. And I think I've spent more time on this specific decision than I ever thought I would on anything we've decided on in the years I've been on this. So, yeah, I definitely support if I could even make a motion to deny this, I would. I don't know if it's appropriate timing, but if you can pull up the speech of what I have to say, I would do it.

So do you want to pull up the motion?

Yes, I will. If there is no further discussions and no ready to make motions.

I will just say that although I don't think that it will impact the neighborhoods as they think it might, I would still... I still am going to deny the rezone. Mainly because the people of Edgewood are important in what they have to say and they feel it's going to impact them. We have to listen. So anyway, if you want to make a motion.

Yeah, Commissioner Lenoir, I motion that the City Council deny application 25002 comp plan for failing to comply with EMC 18.60.220 evaluation criteria two through five to the City Council.

Second. And I'd like to say you hit it on the head. They didn't show up. These people showed up. Thank you.

So all those in favor of this motion say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Yes. All right.

Can we have the motion? Just as a reminder, this is a recommendation to the City Council. City Council will have its own public periods to provide comment, and the City Council can also determine a second public hearing is required. So any additional public comments can be made to City Council at that time. Okay. We're ready on to move to the next item.

Our next item is... Jeremy, could you share your screen? Yes. Our next item is the landscaping standard code updates.

We had an action item for the MFTE. If there is further discussions that Planning Commission would like on this item, we can have that. We have heard some additional questions about having a City respond to Commissioner Joel Lewis's information and Master Business Builders Association comments. um we can provide that next month so we can table this uh action item until next next month um if there's additional things you would like to hear about though um let's know now so we can include it so is there additional information yes i think we should motion to table it okay so just someone motion to table it please

I think I'll second your vote. I think you motioned it for the most part.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Aye. Anyone opposed? Okay.

Just to be clear, that was motioned at table until next month. Correct. Yes.

Okay.

That will take care of that. Now we can go to the discussion items.

Okay. So the landscaping standard code updates.

Yes. So this is what we couldn't get to last month due to timing. So hopefully you had a chance to review the questions a little bit more. As following the Planning Commission's 2026 work plan is identifying and review the landscaping standards and how they're applied. So we provided the Code sections that we're looking into, specifically the Town Center, Commercial and Mixed Use, Business Park zoning districts, the development standards, and design standards. Part of this process is to consolidate all the landscaping standards under a single section. Right now, they're broken to three sections, which makes it really confusing for developers to understand which code is applying to them. There's also references to utilities level one, which is an outdated reference regarding utilities that we were looking to remove.

Oops, sorry, I jumped.

All right, scrolling issues. With the recent adoption of public work standards, staff recommends removing all public works and non-landscaping elements from the landscaping regulations. Right now, there's a lot of stuff regarding street frontage improvements that's already handled in the public work standards. So we're trying to get rid of that. Yeah. Also, by doing that, it removes who's responsible for it. So once it's in public works, it's an engineering responsibility. If it's not, if it's in the design standards, it's planning responsibility. And there's been conflict about how to approach that because who's responsible in the end about maintenance of that, and it's engineering. Larger landscape buffers and high-density zoning districts like Tensano seem to be in conflict with the overall intent of the desired aesthetic when thinking of long-term redevelopment. Type 1 buffers currently serve multiple purposes and have varying widths depending on location and zoning. Separating out these to different purposes could provide clarity. Um, the type 4 buffer standards require arborvitae and shrubs, both in close proximity, which does not allow for a successful gross establishment. Basically, they're too close. And then we've also looked into potentially including, um. National fire protection association or. Uh, what was the considered wild, uh, urban interface standards into our wildfire? It's going to be part of our. Comprehensive planning general moving or sorry. Climate planning is likely to have these standards required. So since we're looking at them, we're already are looking at landscaping standards. We thought it might be good just to start looking at those standards to see if there's any fire protective landscaping practices we should start adopting as a city. So in here, we provided a couple of different landscaping codes from a variety of different cities that have updated ours. Ours hasn't been updated since I think well before 2015. So I had some initial questions here for the Planning Commission. So I'm going to ask these and get feedback on each one. So subdivision and short plat screening. So the current issue is the current code does not require landscape screening fencing or buffers between new subdivisions and short plats and neighboring residential properties. common neighborhood comments provided during subdivision reviews indicate that small lots do not match existing neighborhoods so requiring a landscape buffer or a solid fence may reduce some of those communities concerns So the question is, is the Planning Commission interested in requiring a small landscape buffer or fencing around perimeter of subdivisions or short plats as a way to screen the existing residential neighborhoods? We don't want to spend too much time on this if Planning Commission didn't want to look into this at all.

So what you're saying is if there's a subdivision, you want them to fence all the way around it?

It just depends. Right now, there's no standard required at all. So, for example, I believe we have one that's a 66 preliminary plat that's been approved in a residential neighborhood, which is a lot more denser than the surrounding neighborhood. Right now, there isn't a buffer requirement if it's the same zone. So what we're asking is, should there be? And we can look at exactly what that means if it's depending on how the lot density is next to what type of use. We can spend more time discussing this. We just didn't want to if the planning commission was like, no, we're okay with how things currently are.

Well, I think it's worth a discussion. You know, I mean, if we require certain things, then, of course, it impacts the cost of everything, the cost of the houses and everything. So I think it's a discussion. I think we need to discuss it.

Okay. Is there any specific thoughts of having an actual landscape buffer versus just a fence requirement?

I think a landscape buffer would probably, I don't know, anyone else want to?

I think the question with the landscape buffer would be how wide is the landscape buffer? That's where we would end up falling with. Yeah, yeah. That would be the real determining factor.

Okay. So staff should look into landscape buffer widths? Yeah. Okay.

I think I would support looking at natural buffers more than fencing buffers. especially as we look at hopefully increasing our tree canopy to meet our GHG offset. So, yeah.

okay so all right next one uh zoning landscape side standard so the current code requires landscape buffer between zoning districts for example the landscape buffer for a town center zone project next to a mixed-use residential zone is 15 feet and the buffer for a mixed-use residential project next to town center zone is also 15 feet as a result there can be a combined 80 foot or sorry 30 foot landscape buffer between the uses of the same intensity It is a staff opinion that the 30 foot landscape scrimping is not required between similar loose uses and is contradictive to those centers. So, is the planning commission instead of seeing a smaller landscape buffer between the, the big 4 for us, the mixed use residential town center, commercial and business park zones. Please note that the code currently does allow the director to increase landscape requirements if the proposed land uses are more intense than the neighboring land use. So right now, for example, let's say a I should probably avoid using Starbucks as an example. Let's just say a fast food restaurant A and fast food restaurant B wanted to establish in a commercial district. Right now, between them, there would need to be a 30-foot landscape buffer, even though it's the exact same use. If one was a commercial and one was in the town center, it would be a 30-foot buffer. We have other standards that would require that suggest that they should be connected uses. So the parking lot should be connected. There should be these, um, allow for walkability and stuff in the 30 foot would eliminate that, um. Possibility so, um, is planning commission on board for staff to look at. Look at these zones for more of a use base or intensity base versus strictly a zone based standard.

Yeah, I think that needs to be looked at because it takes away from what can be put there, you know, requiring...

So like our parking is eight foot. So that was another thing we've hit is two eight foot landscape buffers doesn't seem to make sense if they're both dressing the same thing. So, yep. Great. Next, planting diversity. So our code currently encourages... planting diversity, but doesn't it make any specific requirement? Some codes now are doing 50% have to be, or sorry, for example, specifying that no more than 50% of any proposed landscape tree may be utilized in a project. So right now we don't have a standard. It just says it's encouraged, but we're looking to potentially have a standard. So For example, a project couldn't have more than 50% ash trees. Right now, we wouldn't actually allow any ashes, but that was an example. If you haven't heard from us, the Emerald Ash Borer is officially in Washington now, so we're going to avoid planting any ash trees as a requirement, just to assure that that doesn't get destroyed. destroyed in a few years. But, like, that's an example of why we want diversity, so that if some disease or something comes through, it doesn't wipe out a community. I did live in Ohio during the Admiral Ashborough first arriving, and there were golf courses where hundreds of trees were dead within a year, and they had to chop them all down. All our street trees were having to be removed because they're all dead. So, the...

I think the diversity definitely should be addressed.

Just to add on to that, I was wondering, does the tree canopy study that you're conducting for the city, does that include trees as natural-based solutions for mitigation measures?

The tree studies is just looking at our canopy. So it's looking at mature canopy of conifer and, oh my goodness. Yeah. And that's the only level it's looking at. It's not a site-specific tree or anything else. So the climate planning action team will be looking at that as, is there things that need addition?

Yeah, I would like to consider what kind of native trees we could introduce that would be beneficial to our ecosystem as a hazard mitigation element.

Staff can look into that and we're also open to knowing if there is an additional trees. There's very loose like what's approved trees like Seattle has a huge list of trees that are approved for a variety of locations. we're open to having obviously a more reduced or more specific. So if planning commission has ideas on trees, you can send us a email and we can start working on that as well as part of the diversity standard.

I think the recommendation is just to, you know, look into diversity and also other types of trees that benefit and are cohesive with some of our other planning. Yeah. our climate planning and our hazard mitigation planning.

Okay, so fire-wise landscaping?

Yep, basically the state doesn't currently have any fire-wise landscaping requirements. General fire-wise planning recommendations can conflict with standard tree and shrub placing because you want that basically fire-free zone in front of the houses and other development. So we're spending some time looking at what those standards could be. The WUI, which is the... So while the urban interface, there's a state code requirement that will be coming out. It's likely going to go effect in 2027. So which will potentially impact this tree spacing. So we wanted to start looking into that specifically. There's an idea of maybe requiring a percentage of trees that are definitely fire resistant. I guess there are a number of native trees in Washington that are considered fire resistant. And that could be part of our diversity is requiring that. um is that a standard that thank you mr willing to look at is there any other firewise standards that you're willing that you under okay any other firewise standards that you're aware of that you want us to look at i know but i would be interested in hearing more about the different standards that we could look at for our areas but i mean specifically yeah So our last one is, is there any other landscaping standards that the Planning Commission wants us to look at as we're going through it? Because we're going a complete down through it all. And so we can look at any of those landscaping standards.

This would be in regards into new construction, or is this just in general?

It would be considered for... So it would be applicability, which typically falls under new construction. Large remodels may require some landscaping buffers depending on the intensity. So... not like a code enforcement situation no like not like someone's out of compliance or something no correct it'd be like if they wanted to uh add an addition to whatever their development is and it's more intense than um what currently is there that addition may require additional screening for that purpose right um and we would follow the current screening standards that are in place.

I only asked this because I was considering like, there's some, some streets where I know that if there was some kind of like requirements that it could be, you know, any way they want it, but that like maintenance is done to create a safer, like, visibility for streets you know like that i would be i would be interested in how that you know could be put into this um maybe like it happens when new ownership is you know like if a property is sold and then it would be like something that could be listed not like a No, I don't know. I'm just trying to think of a way to like, as maybe ownership changes over, it would be nice to have that be like listed as something the city would require going forward, you know, with new ownership or something.

Do you mean like street tree placement type of situation?

Like a big turn where it's hard to see and someone's grass is growing so tall and it's just not maintained because it's part of their property they don't use. And it's literally just really hard to see around it. Yeah.

Yeah, we treat those code enforcement-wise. So, basically, if someone submits, they will contact them and ask them to maintain it to make sure it's safe. Okay.

But, and then I do see, like, sorry, I'm off a little subject. I apologize. But, like, I do see situations where, like, the city seems to maintain some of those areas with their... So, then I guess I...

There is a gap between the actual property line and the roadway. That's where we're cleaning out those ditches and mowing out a little bit. Yes, there's that little bit of area. So that falls under the public work standards that we're trying to remove from our landscape standards. So it just falls under general maintenance. Our public works generally doesn't want to plant additional trees in those areas because it's just more maintenance. So what our current street tree requirement is, is when new development is proposed, they provide one for every 50 feet. That would be kept in this as a general standard, but we can look into that further.

Well, there is a certain landscape requirement before you get signed off on a new home. I mean, we have a landscape requirement now.

Yes, it's really loose. It has been misinterpreted a little bit in the past, where it says that the whole lot needs to be landscaped. There has been thoughts about what that actually means between... greenery landscaping versus hardscape um current staff's uh thoughts are that it's up to the property owner to determine what type of landscape they are want if it's a hardscape landscaping like a more of a desert yeah uh type of landscaping more rocks that is a fine landscaping we're just looking for an exposed dirt as a most of like an erosion control issue. So that's something we can look at, but that's how current staff is interpreting that landscaping requirement.

Okay.

Okay. All right.

There you go.

Yeah. Just one ask, I guess. Maybe at the next meeting or a couple meetings when you're ready, staff could prepare like different categories of landscaping requirements standards that we might want to address now or maybe next year as we move along. As also as it concerns some of the other planning initiatives we're working on across the boards. So like I could see parks and recs, I could see, you know, EDAP maybe wanting to have some feedback on certain projects, but definitely in consideration to some of our other work, like the hazard mitigation and climate planning.

Okay, let's move on to the mobile vendors.

Jeremy, if you can bring up the staff report. Before we move on from landscaping, I want to point out that in the staff report, we did not update the tentative schedule. So we will not be scheduling a public hearing for next month. We'll be pulling information together for further discussion next month before going to that next step. Just wanted to say that real quick.

Yep.

All right. All right. So City Council passed a food truck pilot program last year that we've been running this year. It was a recommendation from their work plan to kind of test out food trucks. So right now we have a You see a food truck permanent for 50 dollars a last for a year. Um, it allows a food truck operator to operate any site with the property owner's permission. Or on city property with some additional conditions, you may have seen, um, some additional food trucks at the community park. We've also had additional ones here in front of the barn. Um, overall we've seen, um. We've seen about eight to nine permits, which is more than we've seen in the last 10 years combined by just having this permit. Previously, the restriction has been that we needed an AUP for a food truck, which is $500 per food truck every time they stop by, which is more than what they probably earn in a day. So it was a really restrictive restriction. Element for the food truck to actually operate in the city. So that's why the city council approved their resolution to trust. Uh, food, um, program, um, however, we're finally getting to the end of that 1st year and it has been successful as I mentioned. So we're looking now to make it to codify it to bring it into, um, our code to allow it outright with the, the same kind of, um. Staff's going to recommend the same recommendations we did for the pilot program, but we got the Planning Commission can discuss that if they like those requirements or not. That pilot program has provided, the guidelines are provided in the packet, so you can review those to see how that's going. We would recommend very much the same type of program. In addition to this, The city of Sumner has passed a food truck pod program code, and we've been asked about having a food truck pod as well here in the city of Edgewood. What that is is basically a semi-permanent area for food trucks to gather. Depending on the range of some in city of Puyallup, they probably have noticed there's a cluster of three or four of them that stay together. And that's a site that's open for food trucks to go into. So we've had someone ask about providing that opportunity. We don't see that as an issue. We see it as a temporary use to allow additional commercial uses within the city temporarily while they get established. so um we are we provide you the city of sumner's food truck pod code to review and we're likely going to start working off that and using the same kind of standards from there generally there is not a lot of requirements for them from the city of sumner it's if you have six pods or less Then you just need to have a portable restroom that's screened from the right away with parking. It can be on gravel, no frontage improvements required. They still need all the state requirements of the food truck licensing. They still, if they. The purpose of this is that the food trucks can still leave when they need to empty out their truck at their commissary. However, if the property owner wants to provide sewer service for their providers, they can do that would be another option. We talked to our public works to see what their threshold would be for our traffic. threshold really and they said six seems to be really reasonable so those are all the items that planning commission can consider as we're going through the code as a full you can review the full code and say we agree with this this should be lower this should be higher and we'll go through that um anything above six the city of seminary is going to require a permanent bathroom some actual permanent um placement of uh improvements so that it's because it's more of a long term if there's that many available so um Yeah, we'll see staff next month. We'll actually start bringing back code. But any additional thoughts or anything about it, send us an email. But we believe that this will be a good thing going forward as well. So any questions on the food truck items?

I don't think so. Anyone? One quick one, I apologize. First off, that's a really good one, a good move by the city, and I'm really supportive of it. I've just heard good things in general as being a part of the Edgewood Summerfest planning committee. That really helped out with our food trucks being able to show up. we always battle with trying to get them to sign up because a lot of them are previously committed to other locations on those days, but it was nice to be able to have them and they actually turned a profit because, you know, they also have to pay to be as a part of the event. So anyhow, um, my one question would be, um, can we use our public land down on West Valley for a little pod area? I mean, I know it's not maybe ideal, but there's a lot of warehouses that might really enjoy going somewhere like that to get some food on their breaks. I'm just wondering, can we utilize land like that?

So staff has opened up the community park and the barn for food truck usage with them. open it up for potential uses. So we're okay with those ones primarily because we can manage those and keep those under control of impact and also usage. We don't have any plans of extending it to other properties at this time. And I'm not sure if the city has the funds to develop that type of system yet either and be in charge of it. So we're looking for these pods to be mostly on private property so that they can be managed by the property owner.

And so then they would be able to make the stipulations as to like how often they switch around and get a new rotation kind of thing. Okay. Yes.

Okay. Okay. So we will be reviewing that for the future. So now we come to the part where anyone who's here to, to make a public comment,

I actually have a sign-in sheet that we got this time. So I can go through the list of signings. I think a number of them have left, but we'll go through the sign-in sheet first.

Okay. And when you get up to speak, please give your name and address.

Eric Page, you're first, if you're available. Okay.

Eric Page, 13428 56th Street East, Edgewood. Thank you. I know the work is hard. You've been here for a long time and we've been here with you, but we're just grateful that you've listened. I know we have different approaches to things. We look at things differently, but everything you've been doing is you've been doing as volunteers because you care about the community. That's why people came out and we just want to express our thanks for taking seriously the input of the people. I mean, this is democracy in action and it's just a blessing to be involved in it. And then secondly, we really want to let you know that the community has kind of rallied around this, and we want to take that energy and move it in a positive direction. We really want to try to help continue to build up the city and see if we can kind of build on the capital from the connections that have been made. So we're there for you in that regard. We'd love to partner with you. We've kind of mentioned that to Josh and to Jeremy, and we'll continue to kind of work with you because we're a community. Thank you.

Okay, next is Michael Dreyfus.

So I'm Michael Dreyfus, 12727 32nd Street East in Edgewood. I came to speak about the West Valley Rezone. Since you have already made your, not made a recommendation, the comments don't really apply to your work very much, but I'd like to make public comments to put my concern into the record. It's pretty specific. I'm one of the property owners who is included in the rezone, and I did request to Josh to be excluded. The two parcels I own that are part of it are at the very southern end. They are landlocked. They have no frontage to West Valley, and they're almost completely steep slopes. They're not really suitable for any kind of development. For reference, the parcel numbers end in 4046 and 4047. So... the city council if they decide to move forward with the rezone i would put in my request that they exclude those two parcels from it i'd also i don't speak from my neighbor but my neighbor to the immediate north with the parcel ending in 8008 i would be concerned about that one too and the potential redraw the boundaries that jeremy showed us earlier he excluded that one as well which i think is proper the issue with that parcel is that the actual the most developed part of that is up on top of the hill amidst the residential neighborhood and would be unsuitable for that to be included, at least that part of that parcel to be included in any industrial rezoning surrounded by residential properties. So thank you for the consideration of the issue and thank you very much.

Okay.

Next is the Joss. Joss Ong. No. Okay. I'll go on to the next one. Andrew Burns. Marsha Burns. I'm sorry, I can't read that first name. The last one may be Koran. K-O-R-A-N. Grant Middleton. Brock Felder. Not here. Zach Melton.

Zach Milton, 12924 56th Street Court. Andy was 56th Street. He got my mail. Street Court. Uh, multifamily tax exemption. Uh, I come wearing these, but I will end up talking on this twice now. Uh, everything that was going on was fine. But, uh, specifically my background is I am a journeyman substation electrician for the local utility that I'm not here representing. So I'll leave them out of it. Uh, so, so you may have already considered this, uh, other utility person, but I'm also a senior system protection technician in the field for Pierce County. The expansion and the Growth Management Act are inevitably going to be adding a lot of development down 161, but you're going to have a load capacity problem very, very soon. Right now, with the existing infrastructure, you can look at the substation on 16th and 161. The footprint is very small. To be able to expand that to meet North Hills requirements is going to need... Ultimately, for what it is now, it should need more real estate. So you're not going to be able to provide for that expansion in a very short amount of time. We already have an... Unofficially, I say this as a statement of opinion, not fact. There may be load capacity issues during the very, very hot times and very, very cold times where if there were to be equipment failure, it could hypothetically be supposed that they could not restore customer service because load in the area is already stretched thin and the Growth Management Act is not going to make that any easier. so something to be considered it's really fun to talk about moving the utilities but the actual capacity of the utility system kind of gets left in the lurch by a lot of not just this panel here but a lot of communities and municipalities seem to forget that there's a finite amount of resources and that The first step to providing for your growth is making sure that you have the potential to supply them with those utilities. And so that's a big concern. So if anyone wanted to do Sunday driving to recently built facilities that have the footprint you'd be looking for, there's one in Bonnie Lake that's on Rhodes Lake Road and 198th. That has been recently remodeled. It has a footprint that would match the demands of Edgewood at present and also expand into Edgewood proposed 2044. The gold standard footprint, if you wanted the absolute Cadillac of system reliability, would be at 112th and Highway 165 in Buckley. It's brand new, but that is a huge piece of property. But that's kind of what you're looking for and probably where the conversation about expansion should start before you start promising development and not being able to fulfill on not only available resources, but also contingency for equipment failure. Thank you.

All right, next I believe is Evan Wong. Then last on the list is Andy Weisenfeld. If you're online or in person, feel free to speak after Andy's done.

And every piece of mail that came to my house that really belonged to Zach, I did return it to him. So just to let you know.

Andy, I believe you turned your mic off.

Thank you for that. A disembodied voice. Yeah, so food trucks, it was mentioned that that was part of our work plan for EDAB. What wasn't mentioned was that we're actually looking forward to expanding that via food truck pods, because also on our work plan is to marry the food truck court or food truck pod concept with some kind of farmer's market. So if we have the food truck pod as a kind of the attraction device, you might say, and get people there for the food, then we might be able to have them there for the other vendors as well, the farmer's market people. I don't know where that's all going to take place, and that, of course, is something to be sorted later. But if we get the pieces in place, then we can develop that concept, and that's something that we're really, really looking forward to. And I'm glad you mentioned the Summerfest, because I was thinking of the same thing in terms of food truck pods. It really seemed to work well there, and definitely would like to see that expanded. whether it's on other publicly owned property or try to promote it on land that's privately held. So looking forward to your support on that. Really appreciate it. Thanks.

Okay.

Anyone else in the public can come speak? We've got one to the podium.

All right. So short. Okay, here we go. Good evening. My name is Mariah Goyanichaya and I live with my partner at 5629 Sumner Heights Street Drive East across the proposed rezone. I simply just want to say thank you. For months residents have shown up, submitted evidence, asked difficult questions, and stood together to protect our neighborhood. This process has shown why public participation matters. We may not have attorneys, consultants, or unlimited resources, but we do have our experiences and we do have our voices. Margaret Mead is widely credited for saying, never doubt a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change a world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. Over the past months, I've watched this community prove the spirit of those words. Thank you again for listening to us, taking our concerns seriously, and allowing our voices and our presence to matter.

I just second what Eric and Mariah said. So I'm Karin Coates, 5623 131st Avenue East. And I just wanted to personally say thank you all for taking the time and listening to what the community has to say and taking it into consideration. So thank you.

Last call for any in-person comments. If anyone online would like to make a comment, please raise your hand now. That would be the end of the public comments. For staff updates, We have the planning action team didn't meet last month. Going to avoid providing a big update here. They're actually the climate consultants that we have. Measurement will be providing a presentation at next month's meeting, and we'll give you kind of a rundown of where we're currently at, the reports being done, and next steps. There is a workshop planned here from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on November 4th. And then an open house from 4 to 6, you're free to come if there's if you're planning to come, just let me know. Because if we have more than 3, we just need to make sure it's totally an open meeting. That's not a problem. But if you're going to be here, that'd be great. Another item is November 20th. We're going to have a Pierce county thrive event here, which is a small business event, or basically it's a business event. that we're hosting here. Pierce County has a kind of a consortium of resources and they have this called Thriving Together event that they've held throughout the county. So they've had a Gig Harbor, Graham, Star Center, where they get all these resources for small businesses in one location for the businesses in the area to come out. But as part of the dad and city staff, we have reached out and have them coming out for November 20th between 8 and 11 and all the Pierce County resources will be here. We have a sign up sheet out here and it'll be more reminders. So we're trying to get it out to the community that. We're open for more business and we have a, we're here to support them. Um, other than that, Jeremy, do you have any other updates?

Nothing to add. Just want to thank everybody for all their time here tonight and the last several months.

And very much support that statement. Thank you very much for putting up with the 300 page staff reports that we've been putting together for you.

Okay, so thanks again to the EDAB for joining us. And we've lost our audience, but I appreciate the turnout. And so I'm going to adjourn the meeting at 9.33. And thank you, you guys, for hanging in there.