City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, residents of Ever Washington. Like to call to order the Ever City Council me meeting of April 1st, 2026. For information on council meetings and how to participate, please visit our website at everwah.gov. GV/Cityconsel. For the record, we have Vice President Ryan. She's attending this meeting remotely. Clerk, please take the role. Mayor Franklin, excused. Council member Weir, here. Council member Zerlingo here. Vice President Rank here. Council member Burbano here. Council member Tui excused. Council member Bader here. President Schwab here. At this time, I would like council members Arlingo to lead in the pledges. Pledge Allegiance.

At this time, I'd like to ask Council Member Burbano to read the land acknowledgement. The city council wishes to acknowledge the original inhabitants of this place, the Stovish people and their successors, the Tulip tribes. Since time in memorial, they have hunted, fish, gathered on and taken care of these lands and waters. We respect the sovereigny, their right to self-determination and honor their sacred spiritual connection with the land and water. We will strive to be honest about our past mistakes and bring about a future that includes their people, stories, and voices to form a more just and equitable society.

Thank you. On to old business. Do I hear a motion for the approval of the minutes for March 25th, 2026? Council member Peterson move seconded. Motion and seconds been made. Clerk, please take the role. Council member Weer here. Oh, yes. Sorry. He's here again. I'm here again. Council member Saringo, yes. Vice President Ryan, yes. Council member Berbano, yes. Council member Bader, yes. President Schwe,

yes. Okay, now it's time for public comment, which includes written comment acknowledgement. Under our rules, written comment shall be considered in the same manner as oral comments, persons submitting comments must provide their name and city of residents to make to be part of the council official record. Good evening, Angie. Who do we have here to speak? Uh good evening, President Schwab. We have two individuals in chambers, but we do have some written comments, too. Thank you.

Um so, the following names uh wrote in about the NRM MHC zoning, and that was Linda Bookwalter, Carolyn uh Kurar, Michael Hartman, and Walter and Roxy Jur. And then John Martin wrote in about the outdoor event center and these were provided to council, legal, city clerk and administration to be part of the record. And so we will start with Helen if you could please come to the podium and please hit the button on the base of the mic. Uh no uh right under the mic the the big uh yeah and then state your full name and your city of residence and you have three minutes to speak. because I have accent so I printed out some so if I

Okay, I can take that. Yeah, thank you. I couldn't say. Okay. Okay. So they can hear me better. This is fine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You want to give it to them? I will. Okay. Yep. Hello. Okay. Thank you. May I stop? Yes.

Okay. Dear city council member, I respectfully seek your guidance regarding my current situation. My name is Helen V. I hire a licensed electrician contractor to install lighting and outlet in my garage and I were planning to convert it into a living space. After beginning the work, I learned that the permit were required. When I realized that I applied the permit however the process become complex. So I paused the project and attempt to remove the installation. All that point I were informed that I could not proceed further. I also could not reverse the work without permit. It had left me confusing and about the correction process. I feel similar to being told that I need to a permit to continue driving forward, but I also per have a permit to return back. I am trying to do the right thing, but I'm no longer sure what the proper next step is. I have since apply for demolition permit with a currently in process. In the me meantime, my license contractor have turned off all the circuit related to gar lighting and outlet. He test with the wiring with multimeter and confirm there is no current, no voltage, no safety hazard. At the result, the man remain safe and fully operation. I care deeply about my property and my tenant and I do not take this matter

lightly. If any issue were to arise, I would be my responsibility and I take that responsibility seriously. Despite this effort, cost enforcement have asked me to vacate the tenant which I feel unfair even the step I had to take under the unsure safety and comply. I kindly request your guidance and confirm on whatever the step that I have taken are appropriate and in comply with the city safety requirement. Thank you for listening and your time and consider.

Thank you. Um next if Russell could please come to the podium. Yes, please. Thank you. And please state your full name and city of residence. You have three minutes to speak.

Thank you. Good evening, council members. Uh Russell Joe, Master Builders, uh King and Snowish County, offices located in Belleview. I just would like to make a few brief comments on the work that's been done on the critical area re regulations. And first, thank you to council and all the staff that have put so much work into this project. Um, York Stevens Waja has been uh a pleasure to work with, giving us feedback on our ideas and um having a great conversation about what might work for Everett. And that's one of the uh great things about the regulations that you put together. they are forever and they do show um the ability to adapt to situations forever based on your urban setting and the particulars you have with steep slopes and the waterways that are involved. Um we would ask that you consider um not making any changes to the NP and the NS streams. We agree with nearly all the other proposals that are that are in there and uh um would support them going forward, but the uh NP and NS streams are going from 50 to 100 ft in the standard buffer situation where there's intact vegetation and they're going from 50 to 125 ft. The buffers are increasing when there's unveated areas or sparsely vegetated bank. Um we think that expanding those for the intermittent non-fish bearing streams and in the urban setting um uh doesn't quite fit the um the situation for ever in the sense that you need to focus on infill and potential uh increased densities in your future. Um, another reason to particular to think about this is the the storm water system that you have in place, the infrastructure that you have in place does take uh some of the pollutants out of the out of the stream before it even

gets there, prevents it from even getting there. And so those projects can supplement the natural riparian function involved. Um, we do concede that this impact to the NP and NS streams, expanding the buffers, impacts about 50 acres of land and and about 1% of Ever's developer land. Um, if you decide to uh follow the recommendation of staff and keep those buffers at the expansion levels that are being recommended, we would just ask you consider keeping the flexibility that is in the uh code um that is currently under consideration. It allows for city discretion to uh adapt to the challenges in an urban setting and allows for buffer averaging and other ways that the director can take a look at each situation and make it um suitable for ever along the way. Thank you for your time and consideration. Uh I sent a letter yesterday to you that's uh mirrors my comments. I hope you would read it. If you have any questions, please reach out. Thank you very much.

Thank you. And that concludes our public comments. Okay. Okay, thank you very much. Okay, so we'll go on to council comments and we'll begin with Council Mayor Weir. No comments this evening. Okay, thank you. Council member Zolingo.

Well, thank you. Uh just one item. Last week I represented ever at Snowomish County tomorrow. It's a two-hour monthly meeting to discuss and coordinate issues on a countywide basis. Um I'll talk about just one issue tonight, a report from the county's assistant director of environmental health, Tony Kinus, and our own senior executive director, Dan Templeman. And I think this is an example of uh effective uh administration and council action. And I'll I'll do a quick summary of of this. It relates to the pop-up food stands. Uh with respect first to the county's health department, they're the ones with regulatory authority to safeguard public health, but really limited enforcement authority, especially against any operator who has no permit and at stake and no interest in getting one. And as just one example, they cannot even require identification of those who are operating the food stands. So even the basic civil action that they might have is a possibility that goes nowhere. Uh and it's often after hours when the food stands pop up and frequently when they or others convince the operator uh the health district to shut down the stands just reopen the same night at a different location. Uh in particular, and we've talked about this some before, there's a lack of sanitation, uh inadequate food storage. Uh one photo they had of meat ready for cooking showed it was stored at nearly 54° instead of being properly refrigerated. and a lack of areas to separate raw and cooked food leading to a risk of crosscontamination. So this along with problems with worker protection, waste disposal, and really any accountability at all for sickening our residents was the issue that this council and the administration has taken up. So let me jump then uh to decisive actions. Uh senior executive director uh Templeman described uh for his presentation the wide to the wider county group the actions that Everett's pioneered and taken. um a pair of trained bilingual officers uh were focused on education and outreach, especially for the first couple of weeks. And then to jump to a conclusion for these brief remarks, the actual owners of these stands got the message presumably indirectly. The

number of food stands at the pop-up stands went in ever from six or seven in ever to two and now none. Uh so in terms of efficient and fair law enforcement, if rules are clear and fair and consequences are prompt, the problems decline dramatically and the required law enforcement resources do too. So I think Everett's uh study and actions have served as a really useful example uh for the rest of the county, specifically the other parts of the county that have faced this problem and they'll be considering their own actions in that light. That was the end of the discussion uh of that topic at Snowish County tomorrow. So, I thought I would kind of close on that since we did describe quite a bit what was going on with the pop-up food stands and what we've been trying to do. And I thought I would um I thought I would summarize this to see how that how effective I think both administration and council action have been in that regard. And that's it for me tonight.

Great. Thank you, Council Member Ryan.

Great. Thank you. Good evening, everybody. Uh earlier tonight, I tuned in to the uh community uh health and safety committee meeting and I had a bunch of really great updates about youth safety and the mayoral directive for uh youth safety in the city. I was also uh really pleased to hear about the increase in emphasis patrols that have been going on for the last couple of years or so. there's been an increase in our traffic patrol staff from 1 to three uh which is allowing for more uh emphasis patrols for speed and I uh would share that uh appreciated the uh mention of West Marine View Drive as one of the uh frequent emphasis patrols that they uh patrol for. So glad to hear that. And I was also glad to hear about the goals for continued patrols and would request that some of those upcoming patrols also include uh emphasis patrols for uh modified mufflers and uh vehicles that have uh louder than allowed um engines and uh exhaust systems cuz I know that that's you know a work that the city council's done to uh make that work illegal and also the modified muffler practices illegal as well. So, uh, respectfully request that there would be some increase or that some of the emphasis patrols coming up also include patrols for, uh, noise. I wanted to say thank you to everybody who joined for the charter review commission public hearing last week. Uh, had a good turnout at the South Ever Library and some really great input from community members. I'm really grateful for their engagement. Um, let's see. Uh last week I was uh really honored and proud to join uh local leaders including uh folks uh Mayor Franklin and some other folks from the city and uh Governor Bob Ferguson at our own um housing hope hope works facility over there on Broadway to celebrate the bill signing for some housing related bills that had passed during session and some

bills that the city took a uh took a forefront stance on to help uh usher through the legislative session and it's going to make a big difference for flexibility for citing housing and uh which inevitably leads to more affordable housing for people. So uh really uh proud about that good work that we're doing. I wanted to remind folks that this Friday is the first Friday of the month. Uh so Late Shift Everett has a number of really great events going on in our downtown core. So check out their website when you get a chance uh and come join downtown and have a good time. And last but not least, Angie, I hope you had a wonderful birthday.

Thank you, Council Member Berbano. Um, so last week I received a couple complaints about uh loud cars and cars speeding now on 7th Avenue Southeast, Fifth Avenue West in addition to Holy Drive and 100th Street Southwest. Uh, this is a recurrent chronic problem in South Everet. Um, and hopefully I really hope that this is the year that we can start implementing um, speed calming devices in our communities to make our communities safer and to allow police officers to to focus on other assignments instead of controlling speeds on our roads. Um, I saw on the news that Arlington will have their own pump track. Um the cities of Mulio, Mary'sville, now Arlington, they have their own pump trucks. We don't have it here in Everett. We are falling behind. Um pump trucks are great because they welcome kids of all ages to ride a bicycle. Um a few neighbors show up to to talk about utility tax proposed. Um and their their main concern is how it will be spent. Uh hopefully it will be a good idea for the city to probably um elaborate a little bit on how the money will be used. Um it's going to the general budget so a lot of people have uh really good good ideas on how to use it. Personally, I would like to see a phone track. Personally, I would like to see speed calming devices. I would like to see more parks, community gardens, and things that will improve the quality of life of the people in this city. And that was it. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay, you're out.

Thanks. Okay, just real quick, Council Member Ryan gave a a great summary of most of what we covered, community health and safety uh committee, but I just wanted to add there about we got a legislative update uh in in many ways felt like we were trying to make sure the legislature didn't take away uh tools that we have uh have used in Everett for various things. Uh um and so uh but and we were and mostly successful thanks to Jennifer and other folks who helped us in Olympia. Um but uh obviously always something to be concerned about what uh you know what what other jurisdictions are doing to make make our jobs harder sometimes uh and not just our jobs but also uh the way effort operates and serves it its constituents. So uh anyhow great report Jennifer on that. thanks for uh giving us that info and I'm sure we'll hear more about what the legislature is uh done or not done uh here coming up in the next few weeks as well. Other than that, no reports and no comments. Thanks.

Hey, thank you, Council Bader. Um couple of things. I did attend the um community health and safety council committee. Um just a couple of things that came out of that that haven't talked about. One is um I I want to emphasize our uh decision by this body and by the city is to use revenue that has been generated from our traffic cameras and our red light camera to be put back into public street safety um public safety. So I just want to emphasize that other communities use it for more of their slush fund or their general operating fund. Um, I also want to uh thank the the police department for not just using um concerns from our residents, which of course is a big portion of of our emails, but also data and the patrols are using is really data driven. So, I think um we should need make sure and keep emphasizing at our neighborhoods that um we're using both. We're using concerns of our neighbors and plus using data to to put our emphasis because for my opinion, people are driving fast everywhere, right? Right. I mean, it's So, how do you how do you use your resources um mo most effectively? So, I appreciate that. Couple of cool things in the third district coming up this month. Um hopefully we'll have a bridge reopening, the edge edgewater bridge by April 1st that I mentioned last week. Don't kill the messenger. It's something Mother Nature around here.

May by May 1. Unless you meant April Fool's.

Oh, yeah. That's right. No, May 1st. Thank you. Thanks for You should have just let me bail myself out there, but yeah, May 1st. Um so hopefully we'll have an opening, partial opening by then. Also, the third district as a whole, all the neighborhoods, everyone's invited. Um there'll be a meeting um April 16th um at the View Ridge, our Savior's Lutheran. And then also we're hoping by the end of the month opening for the women and children's um facility on Subs Ducey Road and also we are planning a neighborhood um advisory committee. So we talked a lot about these types of facilities and getting neighbors involved and getting their feedback. Um the the uh process worked really well um in other facilities. So, we're going to just keep honing this in. And so, I'm I'm looking forward to how the neighbors the feedback and it's usually it's pretty positive when we we include our community in some of these types of facilities. It it helps both the the the company that we hire to manage it and then also helps the community too through the communication. Also, uh I wanted to make an announcement here. Um, as a proud um, Washington State University supporter um, and married to a Cougar, I wanted to share some news about this week what happened with um, WSU Chancellor Dr. Paul um, Pitri. He had stepped down as chancellor and uh, he is returning to the facility to teach. He was his employee number for that facility was 001. So he was at ground floor and he worked with Dr. Ellson Floyd and Mayor Ray Stephenson to and actually the entire North Pug Sound region to um create that top tier research university campus here right in

Everett. And because of his works and his effort um and his team, we have we now have a college of medicine that probably would not exist without him. And so um currently um we have nearly 100 third and fourth year medical students right here in Everett and um 50 WSU medical residents. So it's a it's a really neat thing for our community to have that type of program. So hats off to him and his legacy and really appreciate his contribution to our community.

Thank you. So we'll move to um administration. Um, I don't really have a report. I think I just would want to point out um or the record as it were that we appreciate the public commenter who shared their concerns regarding code enforcement and I just want to note that director SAS I think connected and got their info. So, we'll make sure that the appropriate code staff follow up um on that. Um yeah, that's it. Okay. How about our city attorney David Hall? No executive session and no report. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. All right. So, we'll move on to our consent items. We have three. Um, do I hear a motion, a second? Move to approve. Second. Second.

Okay. Motion and second's been made. Um, clerk, please take the role. Council member Weir, yes. Council member Zarlingo, yes. Vice President Ry, yes. Council member Burbano, yes. Council member Bader, yes. President Schwab,

yes. Okay, we'll move on to our action items. Item number four, Council Bill 2603-15. Second readings. Um, it's in red in the record. Third and final reading, April 8, 2026. Are there any questions or comments from council? Okay. Hearing none, we'll go to C item number five, council bill 2603-16. Second reading has been read in the record. Um, third and final reading is April 8, 2026. Also, are there any questions or comments from council? Okay, I'm moving on to item six, council bill 2603-17. It's been read in the record. Um, third and final reading, also April 8, 2026. Are there any questions or comments from council? All right. Um, item number seven, council bill 2603-18, first reading, adopt an ordinance creating a special improvement project entitled North Broadway Pedestrian Bridge 303, program 133, to accumulate all costs for the improvements and repealing the ordinance number 4113-25, third and final reading will be April 15, 2026. It's been read on the record. Are there any questions or comments from council? Okay. All right. We'll move on to action item eight. First reading. Council bill 2603-19. Adopt an attached ordinance enacting updated critical area regulations. Public hearing is and the and the final reading will be the 15th, my understanding. Okay. Um and so we have a briefing Welcome.

Thank you, Council President Schwab. Council members, I'm your Stevens Waja, planning director. Excuse me. And uh with me, we have Teddy Hullberg, our environmental planner and subject matter expert. Uh if we get to the point of needing uh some of those details, we're working on the critical area regulations periodic update right now. uh briefing today, public hearing on April 15th and a second reading a week from today. Um what are critical environmental areas? They are uh streams, they are wetlands, they are priority wildlife habitat areas, they are steep slopes, seismic hazard areas, and flood zones. We don't have any critical aquafer recharge areas, but statewide that's another one of the critical areas that must be uh regulated and protected at the local level. In Everett, we have other than the aquafer recharge areas, we have critical areas throughout the city. You can look those up at a citywide level or at a detailed level using our PDF maps or our interactive map. These show the critical areas that are known to the city. We update these regularly as development happens and a a spec sight specific critical area study is done. Uh updating our knowledge of where a wetland boundary is or something like that. Uh we take that and we update the GIS system. So we have reasonable certainty that what you see there is a critical area. It does not guarantee that if you don't see one, especially if it's an area that has not been studied or uh had development activity in a long time, uh it does not guarantee that there are not critical areas there. We have supplemented what we've learned at the sight specific level with general uh

overviews done at a statewide or even a national wetlands inventory type thing. uh fish and wildlife habitat conservation areas include the Snowomish River, other streams within the city, uh Silver Lake, the marine waters, and uh you can see wetlands in this map as well. Those geologically hazard areas, the maps show the top two erosion hazard areas and landslide hazard areas. The seismic liquefaction hazard and tsunami hazards aren't shown on the map, but you can find those generally where it is uh where the ground is very flat right next to the water or it jiggles when it rains. Special flood hazard areas overlap with the FEMA uh flood zones and flood planes and floodways and uh other flood hazard areas. Uh note that we did not change anything. flood hazard areas are are pretty important uh to uh properties that are on those in those flood planes. None of this ordinance changed any regulations regarding flood hazard. Putting them all together, this is a general overview of where you can find critical areas in the city. Fewer of them around downtown and in North Everett. Uh lots of slopes and streams in South Everett. We protect critical areas for two broad reasons. Um under state law, we must protect the ecological functions and values of critical areas. Uh and that's protection from development and human activities. And then on the flip side, the geologic hazard areas especially is protecting humans life and property from the critical area. uh all of this we operate under a regulatory framework set at the state

level. It's under the growth management act and the Washington administrative code provide the laws and rules for critical area protection. Our requirements include designating and adopting regulations to protect those critical areas. And that was first done in 1990 and 1991 after the uh and I guess I think it extended through to 1994 when the growth management act was first adopted is when we moved into this regulatory framework. we uh are required to uh not net lose to we're required to have no net loss of those ecological functions and values within the city over time from a baseline of roughly now. So if there has been uh degradation of a critical area in the past there is not a requirement that we rectify or restore those critical areas using this framework. We have other frameworks where we do try to restore uh degraded wetlands, streams, buffer areas and those sorts of a thing. But the legal standard under state law for the critical area regulations is that as we develop, as we grow, as we manage our land, that from this baseline, we do not lose those functions and values. Uh functions and values. I've got a slide on that next I believe. And uh those are determined what the function and value is and what net loss is and isn't is determined by term called best available science excuse me which I'll cover in a moment. We must al also give special consideration to preserving and enhancing anadimous fisheries uh which is salmon habitat. We apply the framework um in this general way. If there is development or other activity on properties within a certain distance of known or suspected critical areas, we require a report and sub analysis to confirm and delineate uh

identify the boundaries of those critical areas and to evaluate how the development or activity might impact it. And then there's a framework for avoiding the impact uh minimizing the impact and eventually you can get to mitigation. In some cases, we have to update our critical area regulations, the ones that started in the early 90s, every 10 years. This is actually part of the periodic update that we did and completed uh almost a year ago in June of 2025. We just had one extra year to complete the critical areas portion, but it's part of the same every 10-year review of all of our regulations under the growth management act. the uh I mentioned best available science and that is a loose term. It's kind of what it sounds like. It is the best valid scientific information that we know of uh from credible sources to inform the protection and management of these environmental resources to ensure no net loss. State agencies do collect and synthesize and summarize and provide best available best available science after uh working through pardon me best not amplify that um to to uh so they collect review and summarize the state of the science uh using things like the Washington Academy of Scientists and uh and other sources and they make that available to local jurisdictions to use. Uh jurisdictions may supplement or replace that with other valid scientific information that they may have. That's a very resource inensive process though and not one that the that the city took. So we uh worked closely with the best available science that was provided by state agencies and uh other sources with that focus on an on salmon recovery. We also reviewed

salmon recovery plans for the two major watersheds that were in uh and all told read literally thousands and thousands of pages as part of this project over the last year. We uh Teddy uh synthesized all of that science into a best available science summary report that we published in June of last year and that is uh uh summarizes the inputs into this process and that really kicked off this update. All of the science is available online for anyone to review if you wanted to become an expert or a near expert on stream morphology or nutrient dynamics uh or any of a number of other topics. We also met with state agencies uh during this project several times including before getting started to get the scope right and a few times during the project to review drafts and discuss comments and the city's responses um uh as we as we adjusted the proposal a couple times along the way. We've also met with tribes and uh uh development community and other interested parties along the way. A few quick examples. I mentioned the functions and values that the best available science informs need to be not net lost as part of uh development and operation of the city. Some of those things specifically for streams include the form and shape of the streams. Uh wood in the stream which can provide uh both shading when it's up and uh complexity to the channel when it's down, nutrients, insects, things like that. Um the streams and the wildlife that depends on it and the fish and the salmon need enough water at the right times at the right temperature and clean enough without uh pollutants and a balance of the right nutrients. I have a fish tank at home and that is a challenge. Uh but mother nature helps

with a lot of that. Um, and then at the bottom there, I won't read all of those, but those are the specific uh functions that are tied to uh salmon outcomes that we took a special care to to look at. For us, a lot of it uh for our watersheds, a lot of it comes down to uh water quantity, quality, and cool water at the right times, especially during the hot summer months. In addition to functions, um we are to protect the values of these critical areas. Those are a little bit more nebulous um and can include things like cultural values or what are sometimes called ecosystem services. The direct benefit that uh these critical areas can provide like reducing flood damage and uh providing um harvestable salmon populations. The goals of our project overall were to meet this the regulatory framework of no net loss. Um, we put a heavy emphasis on clarity and efficiency of the chapter and the process to the readers. And we wanted to be very responsive to commenters. You'll see that we uh talk about this in a moment, but responded to every individual comment that we received with some context to make sure that we were giving uh everyone who took the time to give comments uh due consideration and wherever possible, we implemented the comments. Um, as you can see if you go through that document, the documents in your packet, um, we have the ordinance. I wanted to note that because of the way that we restructured the chapter, um, it was difficult to see a real clean striketh through of what changed. We had to repeal the entire chapter 1937 with exhibit A in the ordinance and then adopt a a completely fresh 1937 to follow in more of a striketh through format what that looks like. You can see

exhibit B to the memo. It's the exact same result. It just shows a little bit more of the breadcrumbs of how we got there. The proposed changes, there are many. They're summarized in the memo. Um we took the opportunity to uh overhaul the chapter from an organizational standpoint. Um we have heard repeatedly that uh that the chapter as it stands now has been pretty confusing to navigate for everything from experts to members of the public to even our own staff. So we took the opportunity to restructure it into uh five or six articles that uh one that's kind of general and procedures in the front and then one for each critical area. So if you're dealing with a property that only has a stream, you know exactly you can use the general and then the article on streams and ignore the rest. Current chapter has been a little bit more mixed there. Um even beyond the restructuring many of the changes were about uh in the realm of improving clarity and consistency both internally within the chapter and also between our regulations and the state laws and rules that uh that we operate under. So definitions for example there are definitions in state law or agency rules and um we took the opportunity to m uh to improve the consistency with that. A lot of those changes don't necessarily uh impact development on the ground or how we use land, but all again in the service of improving that clarity and usability. Some of the topics that uh did see some changes or are uh kind of interesting include the long list of exemptions, exceptions, and allowed uses, which are activities that you don't need to go through the main body of the critical areas chapter uh to uh undertake.

uh uh removing invasive species from a buffer around a stream for example shouldn't have to go through a full critical area of report although you do have some conditions to make sure that it is done properly. Uh and there are different levels of completely exempt just go do down to it's allowed. So you can skip uh there's a mitigation sequence that starts with avoiding and if it's allowed you can skip avoid but you still need to pay attention to certain aspects of the chapter. So, a number of changes and and adjustments into those exceptions, exemptions, and allowed uses. Those are in 1937050 and 060. Stream buffers. You heard a public comment earlier today, have been a topic of particular interest for this update. And that's both in Everett and around the state. A lot of that came from some significant updates to science and management recommendations from uh Department of Fish and Wildlife that many local jurisdictions around the state are wrestling with. Um we've had comments both directions about the standard buffer width, one of which you heard today. Um that is increased in this proposal for non-fish bearing streams. I do want to emphasize that the width is only part of it though and um as was mentioned earlier it doesn't impact too much land in the city around a half a percent of the city's land area and less housing and employment capacity for that. Um, equally important, perhaps even more so, are how you manage the buffers. And that includes uh vegetative buffer standards and functionally disconnected buffers, which are um impact both the the need to restore uh altered buffers as part of new development. And the concept of no net loss, which gets at if you already have a house in what is currently a buffer, you do not need to restore and put that

back to nature as part of redevelopment, it is already considered lost in some respects in terms of its contribution to the functions and values of that stream. Complicated topics and I'd be happy to jump into whatever the the council wants. I won't go too deep into that. I promised staff that I wouldn't, but those are uh important topics. Um, we also added a new section 1937070 on general provisions for non-conforming structures and improvements in critical areas and buffers. Um, Everett's an old city with a lot of development before current regulations. Uh, almost all of our streams have development closer to them than our current buffers would require. A lot of this is in the realm of what we consider nonconformities. So, uh, how the many properties that are in that gray area between what was legally developable when it was developed and what could be developed now, uh, uh, we added this non-conforming section as mainly a guide to which other sections to look to and what the standards are for that. I mentioned uh comments and responses and a good way to approach this if you want to get a sense of the debates and what some of our partners has have seen as important uh the subject matter experts outside the city who have reviewed uh several drafts here is this comments and responses document that uh emailed to you today and is also available on the project web page that uh goes through every one of the comments. in the middle column provides what sections were being talked about so that you can see it uh straight from the proposal and then the staff uh responses in the right column. We've kept this up throughout the project um comments received after the planning commission completed its work start on page 47.

We've received comments, really great, very helpful comments from a broad range of uh of of folks from the state agencies to tribes to the master builders to Sound Transit who's going to be working in areas uh with streams and wetland impacts in the near future. Uh Port of Everett inextricably linked with uh shorelines and critical areas as well. Um, and all of those are available in their original form online as well as in the comments and response table. There were a couple of things that you'll see in the responses that um we either we didn't have enough certainty and time to cover now. Uh, but we do intend to keep working on that. uh Fish and Wildlife recommends designating the what is a stream plus its buffer is how we've been regulating it. They recommend calling the whole thing a critical area and that without a buffer and we just didn't understand enough about the implications of that. There are a lot of references to critical areas and buffers throughout state law and our own codes. So, we weren't comfortable uh and and the assumption would be that it would be the same width of a corridor. One of them is a critical area and buffers and the other one is a critical area, both being the same width. We just didn't understand enough what all of the implications could be, but we're uh look forward to working with Fish and Wildlife on that uh going down the f in the future. We definitely acknowledge that the riparian area is important to the health of the stream. Um provisions and incentives to encourage daylighting of pipe streams. We have quite a few pipe streams in the city and we had some good suggestions. We added a provision so that at least you would not be penalized if uh you were able to voluntarily daylight a pipe stream. Back to the functionally disconnected buffers

and no net loss. If in the past we placed a stream in a pipe, that would not be the responsibility of a property owner even during redevelopment to bring that stream back to the surface. Sometimes they may be interested in doing it and we would not want to for example all of a sudden trigger a full buffer width at that point because they're voluntarily improving the condition. So looking for other opportunities um and we've seen some examples around the state on how to encourage th that daylighting uh but still need a little bit more time to work through that. And then there are some debates especially between state federal agencies and tribes about the relative value of on-site mitigation. If you're going to fill part of a wetland, um you generally need to restore an equal value uh area to function as a wetland. And there's some debates about whether that's best done locally, maybe even on the site, which is closest to the impact, but is not as well monitored over time and may not last as long as a more um structured mitigation site that may be farther from the city. So, we're kind of stuck between two uh opposing uh viewpoints on that and need some more time to figure that out. Critical area regulations will not take effect immediately for shorelines. uh we need to go through a process with the department of ecology for where these critical area regulations intersect with the shoreline uh jurisdiction which is within 200 ft of uh of marine shorelines and the Snomish River. This is the schedule that we've been on so far and as I said the last three are the first three Wednesdays in April and looking for public hearing and consideration of action on April 15th. Uh for folks who are interested in commenting we have a project web page and an email address and uh those are the best ways to get in touch with us.

Uh there's the project web page which we keep up to date with new um new information and resources. Thank you. Any questions of council? Council member Zarlingo.

Well, um director, one of the things that you had mentioned was it's an old city and there's been a lot of development, a lot of compromise of some of these areas. I think in many of the areas where people seek to develop or improve, there's clearly been the sins of the past there. Um, and I'm thinking with respect to our comprehensive plans and the state regulations and the density that we're trying to achieve while still balancing this. Um, so I can imagine in a lot of cases, I don't have a specific one in mind, but I can imagine in a lot of cases, maybe most cases, um, where people are near these areas, uh, are seeking to implement some density, but hopefully improve things along the way. And where there are these sins of the past, is it is it in your sense that do these regulations implement something that the that the person who wants to do this development can can fairly readily figure out what to do or work with planning and permitting to to choose what to do to find a way to do this without um in a practical way because I'm afraid that if it's too difficult either it doesn't happen or it happens under the radar and we don't get the chance to improve these areas. So can you speak to what that process might look like? Is it, you know, is it practical? Is it accessible?

I think so. Yeah. I mentioned how we tried to make the written word more accessible to folks although no matter what uh it's complicated and it is sight specific and not everything can be uh understood just by reading the chapter and looking at your property. Uh Teddy, our environmental planner, uh is a fantastic resource and spends her the bulk of her days uh working on just these types of things. So if anybody was interested in better understanding what the potential of their property is, even well before they're looking at doing something, we can set up a counter visit. We'd be happy to walk them through it. Usually, if there's real critical areas involved, it's going to take some consultant support to do a that delineation and and review and everything, but uh um but we're there to help early in the process. We did as much as we could with the written word, but we're there to help. So, a discussion with Teddy, for example, would would give somebody a pretty good idea of what they would need in terms of likely a consulting biologist or expert like that, the scale of that so that they could make a choice about what kinds of things were practical and and not.

Absolutely. Thanks. Um, I had a question about daylighting. I know in South Everett we have a lot of potential properties that if somebody wanted to daylight the front of their the easement. Is that something you going to look at for the future? Yeah, we did a little bit with this update which was um allowing for reduction in the standard buffer if you are voluntarily daylighting a stream so that you wouldn't automatically be brought into the the full framework. What we're looking at is is there anything else that we can do to uh to incentivize it.

Thank you, Council Ber. Thanks, thanks uh for this. I must admit I haven't suffered from insomnia the last week or so, so I haven't gotten into this um in a big way. Um but um so I this coming to this point, I I felt we had a pretty robust uh protection for critical areas. Um a anything you can point to that tells me with with any degree of specificity you're um examples of how the current buffers are not up to for critical areas are not up to doing what we hope they would do.

Yeah. A lot of the conversation this round was about streams. Um the the streams are managed in the state by Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and they released two volumes of their read of best available science which synthesized hundreds or even thousands of individual studies and individual studies are someone went out and looked at 20 streams uh in in Washington and how much phosphorus was entering the stream and how much forest there was between them and the nearest lawn. And they would plot those and they would study all the characteristics and they would come up with a with a a plot that shows that in general we see that uh phosphorus is removed 100% at this distance maybe 80% at this distance and 50% at this distance. um they synthesized and reanalyzed hundreds of reports and and provided that. I think our ongoing focus on salmon recovery leads to a lot of research into stream behavior. And um the result of all of that was was uh a read of the science and a recommendation from Fish and Wildlife that throughout the state if you wanted to protect the full functions of riparian areas that you should uh establish full forested buffers within the distance that the tallest tree could grow in 200 years. for us that's mostly a Douglas fur which is well over 200 feet and so the DFW's request and it's in the comment letters uh echoed by Tulleip tribes was uh and they also saw very little need to differentiate between a a stream that has fish in it or one that doesn't because they all lead downstream to uh larger streams or

the sound or fish habitat so that everything um is interconnected. So their recommendation was over 200 ft buffer uh on every stream whether it had fish in it or not. We had to take that into account and balance it with a whole lot of other things including our read of the science and uh there are definitely diminishing returns the the larger you get. Some of the reasons for that is um wood is one of the most important functions in a stream because it can slow the stream. It gives complexity, shade, and all of that. And so if you want every piece of wood that can potentially fall into a stream to do so, you need the height of a stream, height of a tree on either side. Part of the reason that we did not go that far, and I think we struck I really do think we struck the appropriate balance here between many uh we do have an obligation to uh accommodate growth. We have private property rights and everything, but for Everett being such a developed city, very little of our stream mileage has anywhere near 200 ft even possible because we've got homes, yards, other development as little as 15 feet or one foot away from a stream in many cases. You know, there's a stream and then there's the house right there. Um, so we're dealing with a really complex landscape. We also have wetlands around many of our streams. Uh for the most part, our streams are either in South Everett surrounded by wetlands where it's flatter or in the ravines going towards the sound where there are steep slopes. Both of those extend the buffers already uh beyond what the stream buffer by itself would be. If you have a steep slope, the buffer carries all the way up the slope and then 15 ft beyond. That is usually well beyond 100 feet or 200 feet

or even more. So no matter where you set the buffer, it doesn't change. That's a lot of our stream miles. Wetlands. Similarly, it depends on the quality of the wetland, but those have buffers between 100 ft to 300 ft. So if you have a stream and a wetland fringing it, which is pretty common in Everett, the wetland buffer is usually bigger than the stream buffer because wetlands are more sensitive. So again, changing the buffer doesn't change it very much. That leaves us with a small number of properties that would have been significantly impacted at uh at at a light benefit for the ecology. Some of the things that uh that went through in our um in our evaluation of all of that. Did that get anywhere near

No, it did. Very very helpful. Uh so then kind of taking it from there, obviously you mentioned that this you felt this would impact what one one and a half% of what does that look like in terms of uh likely um h uh housing units or whatever would be the right thing to quantify.

So here was our estimate. We took non-fish bearing streams and we currently have a 50 foot buffer. If you increase that to 100 ft, that was uh I want to say maybe 100 acres. About half of that is in parks or other protected areas. Anyways, um that 100 acres subtracted where the steep slopes overran the the buffer as well. Um so we were at 50 acres uh after subtracting the parks and everything. Most of these we also subtracted functionally disconnected buffers which is if you have a house and then anything that's beyond the house is also not contributing to the stream. So even if the buffer is past that you kind of have your paved areas your roads and then everything that's farther from the stream than that. That cuts it down even further. Most of these streams are in our lowest density zones, neighborhood residential, neighborhood residential constrained, which already requires that you leave 40% at least of it open. So that may as well be on the stream side. So there you've not even lost any developable capacity.

Um, we also have through the update, we have lots of flexibility for how you build and so you could meet those units in a more space efficient way. So instead of a larger houses spread out apart, you could meet it through town houses or something on those sites to get back the density. And then uh I think those were all of the factors. All told, it whittleled down to uh our best estimate of a tenth of a percent of our residential development capacity would be impacted by that spec well by by this update. Cool. I may have a couple other questions to connect with you, but I'll connect directly. Thanks. Great. Thank you, Council President Lingo.

Well, one of the short one, maybe this also is better for a future discussion, but I know you were talking about the the 40% and the disconnected wetlands, but I do know a friend who implemented a rain garden on the on the non-critical area side of a house. And that turned out to have been very successful. I guess it's been good for aquaer recharge, too, because the overflow has apparently never gone out of that rain garden. So what strikes me about that I'm thinking back to your comment or to the guiding principle of no net loss um is there flexibility so that if someone wants to do something and so that the perfect is not the enemy of the good if the no net loss is that a is that a rule with some real traction so that if people can seek with guidance I suppose to um to improve overall that there's flexibility to so that we don't forgo that improvement just because uh because of the specific Then

I think yes. I think yes. At at its root the whole chapter is trying to get to that no net loss and so if the project we may need to evaluate it more if for instance the rain garden is on the stream side uh to make sure that it is providing a net benefit. Um, that also makes me think that there are other things beyond these regulations that go into the no net loss because we do do restoration projects separate from the critical area regulations and that's all tossed into the mix. So there there may be some impacts related to development because of there's diminishing returns, but there is still some value past where we've got the buffers, but we've got storm water projects, we've got other restoration projects that go into that general budget, too. Thanks.

Okay. Thank you very much. And we'll have two more meetings too for more questions, more research. So, thank you very much for the presentation. Okay, we'll move on to um Oh, I guess uh let me Okay, we Okay, so we'll move on to action item nine, council bill 2603-14, third and final reading. adopt an ordinance creating a special improvement project entitled PGSF WMVD Storm and Combined Sewer Improvements Fund 336 Program 037 and repealing ordinance number 3967-23. Are there any questions from council? We have a motion. Move to approve. Second.

Second. Okay. Clerk, please take the role. Council member Weir, yes. Council member Zarlingo, yes. Vice President Ryan, yes. Council member Berbano, yes. Council member Bader, yes. President Schwab, yes. Okay. Uh, moving on to item number 10. Authorize the mayor. Authorize the mayor to sign a license agreement with the Port of Everett for for city use of the Port of Everett Norton terminal facility for PGSF construction access. Are there any questions or comments from council? Okay. Um, we have a motion then. Council Bader Samoose. Second.

Okay. Uh, motion second's been made. Um, clerk, please take the role. Council member Weir, yes. Council member Zarlingo, yes. Vice President Ryan, yes. Council member Pbano, yes. Council member Bader, yes. President Schwab, yes. Okay, moving on to item number 11. and approve the resolution concerning 2026 annual action plan and authorize the mayor to execute the 2026 grant agreement with HUD and associate supporting subreient agreements. Jennifer, do we have a presentation?

We do. We have a great presentation from Keer Landry who's just joined me up here. So, go for it.

It's not yet. Good evening, council. Um, I admit it's been a minute since I've been in front of you, but I'm happy to be here now. Uh, my name is Kimberly Landry. I am our community development manager, and um, I'm here tonight to provide a brief briefing um, on the funding resolution that is before you, which is proposed to, uh, you're proposed to take action on next week at your April 8th meeting. Uh so for over 50 years uh the city of Everett has received a direct annual allocation of federal funding from the US Department of Housing and urban development or HUD's community development block grant or CDBG program and that is to support community development housing and human service activities within the city. In addition to those funds, uh the city also is a party to an interlocal agreement with Snomish County to allocate additional HUD home program and municipal funds for affordable housing and shelter activities. Tonight, I am presenting the 2026 funding allocations and activities that will utilize those funds. And the 2026 program year, which runs on July 1st, 2026 to June 30th, 2027, will support the second year of funding allocations under the 2025 to 2029 consolidated plan that council adopted last year. Uh, agencies awarded under this resolution uh can look at utilizing funds as early as July 1st, that program year start date. So, prior to bringing this item to council, I just want to let you know that the city's community development advisory committee uh held a hearing on funding allocations on February 3rd. And once council adopts the resolution, the annual action plan will be submitted in conjunction with Snomish counties and the city of Mary'sville uh action annual action plans as a standard under our consortium agreement. And that is all that I have for you

tonight. Any questions from council? Okay. Thank you. Anything else, Jennifer? No, you'll have a vote on that next week. Okay. Well, at this time, no further business. We are now adjourned.