Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

business. Okay. All right. Good evening. Welcome to the May 20th, 2025 meeting of the Ever Planning Commission. Uh Ayanna, would you please call the role? Chair Chatters here. Commissioner Sullivan here. Commissioner Shelby here. Commissioner Rutled Ridge here. Commissioner Welch here. Thank you. Thank you. Uh I will now read the land acknowledgement. We acknowledge the original inhabitants of this place, the people and their successors, the Tleup tribes. Since time immemorial, they have hunted, fished, gathered on, and taken care of these lands and waters. We respect their sovereignty, 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. Uh commissioners, we now have an opportunity for reports. Uh any reports today? Not today. Okay, then we will hand it over to staff. Good evening, planning commission. York Stevens Waja planning director. With me is Alisan Wetszel, long range planning manager. Um, is the meeting agenda on the screen? Great. Staff comments. I will just give an update on the progress of Everett 2044 as we head into the home stretch of the home stretch, the uh tray tables up and all that. Um, we are here on May 20th on the third of three uh workshops on development regulations. uh working through each of the chapters and we've gotten through uh half of 1908. So, we'll keep going numerically up the up

the list from there. Tomorrow we have a uh city council briefing and uh I don't think we advertised it as a public hearing, but we accept public comment at all meetings. Uh so, it may as well be a public hearing, but we're going to give a full update to the city council. And I think the main focus of this is going to be the public comment themes that we've heard and some of the changes that we're working on to the April 7 draft to get them up to speed with that. Then we'll see what questions, comments, and final direction the council has as we put the final touches on uh what will be the final draft and set of ordinances that are provided to the city council for their June 4, 11, and 18 standard 1st, 2nd, and third readings and proposed action. Uh before the city council does their final uh legislative work on ever 2044 periodic update, the planning commission will have uh its formal public hearing. This has been noticed uh in the Herald and all of the legal formal channels. Um so this is the last great opportunity for the public to um uh come speak to this to the planning commission. comments in writing up until noon of that day will be made available to the commission and then of course we'll have an opportunity for verbal comment at that May 21st meeting as well uh excuse me the June 3rd uh planning commission public hearing and then we'll be asking the planning commission for a recommendation on the complete package putting a bow on uh I think we're up to almost 40 meetings worth of work on this and a couple hours each a lot of hard work has gone into this so I'd like to think a little bit as we're working through the development regulations and turning through those last chapters um for you to keep in your minds what sorts of uh content you would like to go into that recommendation. Traditionally for legislation and for other uh actions like this where we need

a planning commission recommendation on it, staff would prepare a proposed resolution with recitalles that explain the process uh describe some of the the purpose and goals behind the uh the the piece of legislation. And then ultimately uh I imagine that we will recommend a due approve uh to you and then you'll have the opportunity to consider that make amendments to the resolution. Uh that can be uh anything from big to small uh topics that you think should have further study and uh further work after the update. amendments that you think should be made to what we've provided to you and where we land in the final draft that will be distributed prior to that June 3rd meeting um or any other topics that the commission feels would be worth communicating to the council and to the public at large. The next day we will go into the first reading of the ordinance with the city council and then we'll have a public hearing on June 11th. So, uh, for the public listening, the last two major public hearings are June 3rd with the planning commission and June 11th with the city council, but public comment is accepted at all meetings. And then June 18th is when we'll be asking the council for their consideration of the Ever 2044 ordinances and a resolution declaring the state required periodic update to be complete. Any questions about process and timeline? Quick question. So, is the is the council having one a public hearing tomorrow? Is that it says on the slide public hearing? It is not um advertised as such, but they accept comments at all meetings. I just want to double check I was hearing that right. The different uh some bodies do not accept public comment at all meetings and in those cases a public hearing is an important piece of

it. Public hearing does have specific legal notice requirements. Herald 15 days, all those sorts of things. We didn't do all that for June 3rd or for May 21st, but if folks want to give their comments to the council, they're welcome to. And then if the council approves this on the 18th, if that becomes their final action day, when does like everything we've done become effective? Effective like the zoning maps and the all the different changes that we made, when does that become final by the city? I think I think it's 15 calendar days after the mayor's signature. We are racing a June 30th deadline to adopt a lot of this and um so we'll ask the mayor for her signature that night, I think, and she'll probably be able to give it. And so that would put the effective date one or two days after the 4th of July holiday, middle of that week. So, we will turn our attention during that 15 days to getting the permit uh crew ready and uh they've already been working with these regulations and are ready to start communicating with applicants and we've been sharing that there is this process going on with folks who have projects in the pipeline as well. Do you expect an increase in permit requests like quickly? I do. I I have heard of quite a few projects that are holding on and waiting for this uh either because it's more uh they wouldn't be able to build the project until the zoning is in or there's some other advantage to it. Um and so I I think there's a a set that are waiting that would have otherwise applied this month, last month or even a couple months ago and then slowly I think interest will pick up after that. Um but yeah, I I think we would expect a little bit of a bump right after this. Okay, I think that is it for um public comments. We will be sharing we are preparing a public comment report that

lists all of the outreach and public events and everything that we've done over the three year three years of this project. We've collected all of the written comments and we've transcribed some of the verbal ones at open houses and everything. We have a full database. I think we're in the three or 400 comments uh currently delineated in that database. We're going to share the raw output of those comments with the planning commission and the council and we'll put it online as well at everwah.gov/2044 uh so that you have an opportunity to start reading through it or uh it's in PDF format so it's easy to word search a topic of interest or something that you've been working on. And then with this complete package around the last day of May, we will have uh the full comment report which will summarize some of the major themes. Um and again, we'll be talking about this tomorrow as well. So look for an an email and then a posting to the web page of this uh output from the comments that we've heard so far. Staff have read every single one of them so far. Uh you've seen a lot of them throughout the throughout the course. Um I think that's the only other thing I wanted to mention. If no questions on that or anything else, then we're ready. Okay. Thank you. Uh we have a brief opportunity for public comment. I didn't receive any forms in person. Do we have anyone online who wishes to provide comment? Would Kie with phone number ending in 8024 like to make a comment? caller with number ending in 8024. Oh, sure. Okay. Would caller with number ending in 6531 like to make a public

comment? Oh, they're gone. Would They're all gone. All right. Thank you. Uh, okay then. I It sounds like we're ready to move on with our presentation. Do we have uh I didn't receive any form just Stephen? Is this Helter? Heltony. Okay. Thank you for uh helping me pronounce your name. Um if you wouldn't mind stepping to the mic and and state your name and and your city of residence. and we we'd be happy to hear from you. Please uh confine your comments to three minutes. Perfect. Thank you. My name is Steven Hney. Um I'm a resident of both Washington, but I have projects going with developers, real estate investors, and such in Everett Shoreline and Seattle. Um so yeah, I appreciate this uh community's feedback and everything. Um I know parking's a big uh point of interest for this meeting. um looking at some parking regulations and trying to find a way to make it easy um to develop the projects with keeping uh parking in mind. Um I know one of the ways that the that was presented is having uh parking stalls and then a shared yard. Um I don't think that I think there is a place for that, but I think the majority of people are going to want garage parking. Uh garage parking involves driveways and um I'm working on a project right now that has two driveways that we've been uh getting a lot of push back from the planning department on um the going out onto the main road and then the spacing between the two driveways. So anything we can do the community said they wanted more parking. Um I think in order for these to be more feasible for the end user that's going to be having them, they want parking uh which would include

driveway and garage parking. So just finding a way to make those easier to develop instead of putting more regulations against it. Um I think that would be a great thing for the community and um make these projects more uh feel like home. Um a couple things from the other development standpoints that we've talked about. Um keeping the DADU plan in mind. Um that's a great business model. It's a great model to bring homes quickly to the community. uh developers are going to love them because they're getting a discount on some of their fees. Um it's, you know, the smaller plans when you're paying cost per square foot, they're going to be easier to build. So that's a good way to get houses into the community quickly. Um and I think we don't want to completely abandon that idea. Um instead try to work with some of the benefits of that program and uh try to get a lot of those in the community as much as possible. Um there there's some great plans. So just, you know, not abandoning that alto together and just really trying to enrich the gains that you guys have already made off of those, I think would be a great idea. Um, and I know Dave Gardner was here and he put presented some feedback and email. Um, there's some bullet points that he wanted to kind of go over those, but um, I think they're a great program that, uh, we would love to see still exist. So, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hney. Did we have any other forms that I missed, Ayanna? Okay. Okay. With that, I think we're ready to proceed with uh our next agenda item, uh development regulations. Okay, here we go. So, uh on everw.gov/2044, all of the materials are available there. We're working from the April 7 complete review draft and a book two that was issued on May 10th. uh so far and I I want to stress that the planning commission has worked through virtually all of these issues once earlier in this process in a more general sense. So we are returning to these. We're going to go quickly through

a couple of these chapters uh because there's a lot to get through and we're running short on time. Um so far on April 15th and May 6th of this year, we worked through uh the chapters on the screen there, zoning districts definitions, uses, lot setbacks, and residential densities. And then we started the neighborhood residential development standards 1908 which has been renamed from uh something else. We'll pick up right where we left off with 1908 and these are the middle housing standards and then keep on going through the rest of the uh chapters that are part of Everett 2044 development regulations. That includes a couple of new chapters that were part of that May 10th book two. uh parking being the most significant of them, which was a major update based on some changes to state law uh regulating what cities can regulate for parking. More uh modest changes to the other chapters in the new set. And then on the right side of your screen, you see uh two columns worth of chapters that are just code and zone reference updates. If something referred to uh R1, R2 zones, now it should refer to the NR zones. There are small differences in what was one and what is the other, but they're on the edges. And for the most part, we just did a straight um mapping from the most equivalent zone. Worth taking a look at make sure we did it right, but there was no intention of having a substantive change to things in those chapters. Okay, so picking up on 1908 neighborhood residential development standards. Um, a reminder because this was one of the questions that came up at the end of the uh at the end of the meeting last couple of weeks ago. Where did this come from? Middle housing required by the state that we allow devel uh forms of development in single family zones that have not been allowed for the most part since 1956. So, we had

to build a whole new set of regulations for how these uh modestly more intense forms of residential development could fit within our existing single family character. as is the goal of the law and uh the subject of many comments that we've received. We used the state model uh a traditional neighborhood design middle housing toolkit of objective development and design standards which was prepared under the direction of the department of commerce with consultants opticos who were the ones who kind of uh played a part in the resurgence of middle housing recently. So a lot of these uh things especially around shared yards and building orientation came out of this work and that's all available on the department of commerce's website. Applicability of this chapter this is development standards in the neighborhood residential and neighborhood residential constrained zones. So all development in those zones and then also in other zones development of detached one and two unit dwellings and town houses up to three stories in height any number of them. Uh that is also roughly what is um uh captured under the international residential code for the building codes. So this is a change. Currently 1908 is only for the single family zones regardless of development type. And then 1909 is standards for the bigger zones, multif family and mixeduse zones regardless of type. So if you're building a townhouse in the MU zone, you would use 1909 instead of 1908. Currently, um, we have had a lot of, uh, difficulties with trying to match the building style and all of the regulations are oriented more towards apartment buildings and mixeduse buildings and so they're not a great fit for town houses. So, we are uh, revising the applicability so that all town houses and um, detached houses and

accessory dwelling units and those types of things will be handled under 1908. Orientation and yards. This is where we left off the conversation last week. Uh, currently in the April 7 draft, we have the top two here, not the third, but this is one that we are adding and have penciled into the final draft based on comments that we've received. But so far for the first two dwellings must either face the street which includes a street facing facade with the residential private frontage type which are different types of porches or entryways or face a shared yard which uh is must be 15 feet in any direction uh like the image uh up on the screen there. Uh we had some comments that uh that alleys would make a good fronting direction as well and so we have added that uh provisionally for the final draft that you should either face the street shared yard public alley. Why regulate orientation and yards? we turn back to the design and development goals and policies that we worked through earlier this year and those include some uh suggestions on both sides of of this. We want clear and predictable development regulations and in fact are required. So keep in mind throughout all of this that all of our development standards for housing need to be clear and objective and we cannot rely on administrative design review or any other sort of design review to say is this good or not. Either it is five or it is not. It is not uh be similar, be quality, be consistent, any of those sorts of things needs to be clear and predictable. We want a variety of welcoming and inclusive public and private spaces. We want to enhance human and environmental health and equity. And then I think the top policy on here is probably the number one

um uh I I guess underpinning policy for some of the orientation and street fronting work that we have in this document here. So I will read just that one. Maintain a continuous consistent walkable and human-caled pedestrian environment at the interface of buildings in the public realm. promote interaction between indoor and outdoor activities to create an inclusive and vibrant public realm. In a nutshell, I think that is the purpose of requiring buildings to face street, shared yard, alley um and include those sorts of frontage types. Uh a reminder again where this comes from on the commerce guidance and this is uh an image that they put together on kind of the expected progression of middle housing as the buildings in color are added to a um a neighborhood that was otherwise uh single family. Couple of images from around uh mostly Snomish County. These are some I think these are all town houses pretty much street engaged orientation and I I use that to mean that the front door is facing the street. Town houses are made to sit side by side. So they all have a pretty consistent uh front and back is where much of the visibility is because your sides often will be a shared wall and so you design them with the stairwells and things that don't have as much visibility and permeability. I have a quick question on this before you move on. So the middle image on the bottom. Yes. When I look at that and I see the more like I it's a private road or private driveway and that's considered street and that right cuz they're facing I'm sure the ones on the main street are facing out but what about the unit in the back? It's not a shared yard, right?

Yep. So I think that's an example of a development. Um, and I think uh to to the spoiler alert when we get to the options uh staff will suggest that we ease up on the shared yard bit to facilitate uh different development patterns but maybe keep the buildings on the street facing the street. So this is would be an example of that. So the if you're walking the sidewalk, you see images like what you see around it, but then you're not prohibiting, precluding, or limiting the the buildings that are on the interior of the lot. I think that was the design I was concerned about because I see the more stacked building design more often, but that solution is good enough for me. I mean, that was what I was worried about is like how do you make that back unit make sense? But if we kind of are incorporating the shared driveway, making shared, then that works for me. I cannot remember what jurisdiction this is. I am frequently surprised at how um hard it is to get Malt Lake Terrace, I think. Yeah, frequently surprised at how hard it is to get up there in lot coverage. This looks to be higher than the lot coverage in the neighborhood residential zone. And again, that's one of the frameworks for this is if you're going to leave 40% of the land open, that's one of the main characteristics of single family neighborhood. If you're not counting doorork knobs or families, it is yards and some open space as part of it. Um there's another one. So again, you can see how the side units frequently have less uh visibility, although certainly there are uh options of design that can have um more three-sided uh openness. Here's kind of the Broadway broadside

driveway orientation that we're concerned a little bit about the street um street presence and the openness or I guess a cold shoulder to the public street. Um fewer windows, no visible entry. Um usually they will be facing maybe it's a longer culde-sac that acts like a road. every corner lot is going to have one side to a public street and one side to a uh or one front to a public street and one side to a public street. Um but for some of these that is not the case and it is more just a driveway and we've got an example of that next. Somebody I think mentioned this at the last meeting on Fifth Avenue West. So I don't know if this was the exact development um but this is in fact the exact development. Okay. I I figured as much after uh looking around the area. So here's one where there is a door facing the street. So we need to think about again these are uh we set the rules and then um and then uh do not have the discretion. So if you were to say include a door on the street and that's about it, you might get this. And I think we do have these regulations around uh having an entry close to and with a porch on the corner kind of a thing. Um, but otherwise this would be an example of the kind of a broadside orientation. Hold on. This is what we're saying you need to do. This is what the current regulations would prohibit because none of these buildings face the street or anything. Okay. Yeah. I just want to make sure I'm following because this is not this image is not something that I would recommend. Right. Right. This one is kind of a mixed orientation and you can see also there are so many different ways to design and uh even little differences in paint and texture and those sorts of things which we're

not able to regulate. So we will take what we can get. But these do have more of a of a real I think door on the street while generally otherwise facing the driveway. You can see how that kind of modulation, if that's the right term, um, helps break up the mass of the building and everything. And you can see what it looks like from above on the side there. Can I ask a clarifying question on this one? So, under the current draft, this would also not be allowed. Is that correct? Correct. The current draft with the shared yards and everything would be almost impossible to have two rows facing a driveway. It would be more like you'd have a row and then a road up the side and then you'd have a cluster around a shared yard or front to back, front to back, those types of things. And then we've got a case study in Everett and um this is a property uh that has a lot of the characteristics that we're kind of thinking about. So, it seemed like a helpful one to uh to just bring through some of the pros and cons of different development types. So, there's one house set very far back on the lot and there is a private access drive uh going to rear developments from a short plat. There's another private access drive directly adjacent to it. Uh property owners were not able to share a driveway or create a public street or anything. So, uh, those the driveways aren't always touching like that, but it's not uncommon in Everett. This is what it looks like on our GIS system. The yellow are the couple of shared uh, or uh, private access drives and access easements and some utility easements as well. You can see where the where the house here is positioned. Zooming in a little bit, um you can see

the property, the setback in the neighborhood residential zone. We've got 10 in the front, um five on the sides, and I think staff is going to move forward with a 5ft rear setback so that we can call it 10 ft if you're on a street and 5T if you're not. Actually picked that one up from Lynwood, who is uh moving that direction right now as well. And then you can see the access easement uh taking a I think it was a 10 or 15 feet uh strip out of the property. So, here is a proposed concept for this property that would have uh three sideways town houses uh on the street with garages in each one and then uh there's one bedroom and a bathroom on the back side and then stairs up to the rest of the living area up above. So this would be an example where uh it does not face the street, does not face the alley, does not face the shared yard. So we would have to uh reject that application under the current draft. So here's a rendering of uh three kind of options here. On the left would be door number one. And that is the uh the the the proposal that would if you were free from street, shared yard or otherwise orientation. If you were to turn the units to face the street, you cannot fit all three of them. And so you would have a penalty of 33% of the housing on this project. Most likely that third unit is the you start to get into economies of scale and probably costs less definitely costs less than the first two units. So you're probably pushing the price up for the other ones. Um overall not what we're looking for. Although this one

would probably have a good street presence and would leave some open space uh for the existing or for all of the units or however it's it's arranged. and then also has at some point the house in the back will probably come down and then that leaves a little bit more space in the back for future development. Uh but no denying that it is a cost to housing, housing affordability and a lot of indicators that we're seeking right now. On the right side is perhaps uh and this is just sketching and trying to illustrate uh some of the some of the things here. If we were to require the units close to the street within some distance, 30 ft, 40 ft, something like that to front on the street and then everything else does not have to, then perhaps you could get to something like on the right. Um, there's surely better ways to arrange this than these kind of sketches, but I note a couple of things. Um, no garages. I guess in the middle version, you could probably come around the back and have garages in the back and then front front door on the front, which the objective design standards from commerce and and everything is really keen on because that separates the pedestrian from the vehicle uh access paths and uh each kind of have their own entry. Um on the right, uh I don't see how that would be possible. Um, I guess you could, yeah, you would have the front door and a garage maybe on that middle unit, but the ones on the street would have to have uh surface parking that. So, comparing the one on the left to the one on the right, I would say by separating one of the units, you're probably increasing construction cost a little bit because you're not having it all be one building. Complexity of the design, foundations, and all of that. Um, how

much more expensive or difficult? Um, I don't know, but maybe in public comment in the next few weeks, we can get some feedback on things like that. Um, yeah. So, that's kind of uh I guess staff is uh is open to door number three and door number two. Um, I I don't think and we need to think also about the wide variety of uh parcel types. Um, a note about this street. It's a dead end just down the street. Not expecting a whole lot of people walking by. Uh, but on the other hand, it is an opportunity for a cohesive neighborhood feel around that one street. Kind of like a bigger version of a culde-sac. [Music] Um, and then this is in a part of the city that does have a lot of deep lots, flag lots, and this is going to be probably a repeated thing here. Other parts of the city have, you know, North Everett has more the 50 by uh 50 by 100 smaller lots, less deep and alleys. So, put up a couple of options for your consideration. We don't need to decide here, but since we were talking about this a lot last week and there we heard some pretty strong um opinions from the planning commission. And so we we we went right back to the the drawing board to think of how to take a big step towards more flexible um option to front on the alley was one that we already had going into last week. Uh that second one to only require street facing for dwellings close to the street is a um uh something that staff would be comfortable with. Then what do you do with the yards? Do we still have a shared yard, but it's just you don't have to front on it anymore? That surely makes the site design more flexible and more likely to

get our housing production and everything while still having a shared yard. Should that shared yard be in the corner, on the side, in the middle, those sorts of things? Um, uh, going to be long and linear, that sort of thing. Or is it just open space that there's a certain percent in any configuration, whether it's landscaping or not, or none of the above. Those are some love to hear any feedback that you have now, and we'll Yeah. Can we can we noodle on this for a second and chitchat about it? Um, okay. I'm I'm trying to do a procon list on some of this quickly to figure out what is what are we trying to prevent? Not what are we trying to allow. What are we trying to prevent? What are we trying to prevent? I would say a cold shoulder to the public street, which is non-frontfacing. just like you're looking at the side. Lack of lack of eyes on the street. Yeah. Lack of eyes on the street has huge social conflicts down the road. I mean, if you don't feel safe walking down Oh, sorry. If you don't feel safe walking down the street, you don't walk down the street. We're trying to create an active walkable community. So, those are just some of the things. And we are also trying to create a healthy community where people walk. And if you don't feel safe walking, you're not going to walk. And those things do build up. And when homes don't face a street, that is indicative of lack of safety during walking. It can be. Yes, it is been proven that way. Yes. So, a little bit of a compromise is making the closest unit to the street street facing while allowing. And street facing is just a front door like front door, porch, windows, windows. Yeah, we would define it I I think as

it's defined in here is that you include one of those seven or so porch types. So that would be your indicator. Okay. So if you go back to the slide that showed the multitude of windows on both sides that gives you the opportunity to see where you are going or people around. It also provides indirect lighting which is another aspect of it. So you are not providing you're lighting the area too. Okay. The only the only thing that uh causes me to shift my perspective at all is if there is actual empirical data around a health impact on this issue. Other than that, I stand fully by everything I said last time we had this discussion. Um I I I I because I don't know the social science data around it. So if there is some I obviously I would like to to know more about it. Um but I don't see a problem with that version number one. Um because I I it does increase the utility of the lot. It provides more housing. Um I don't necessarily agree that aesthetically it's a problem. Um but if there is data around an impact to health and safety and the welfare of the community um based on how this could be designed then I think that is very relevant and that would shift my perspective. I just say I I I I don't see why we're trying to limit I mean I really don't care if it

fronts the street. It's just a personal choice, but I I feel like we're just limiting what can be what can be built by forcing the front to the main street all the time. I also want to talk about the parking implications of this. I think that our commenter made a good point about the garage parking. I think that is a huge asset to um things that are built these days and I think a lot of buyers are looking for that in our market. So just looking at the visuals that you presented and thank you for presenting those those are really helpful. Also just thinking about the parking options like you mentioned um I think that first option if we're not going to allow that it's making garage parking really difficult on those lots as well. It does rain. Okay. Any other thoughts on this? You can figure out a way to make everybody happy. That'd be great. We're trying trying to get to a a good a good balance here. Yeah. Yeah. And I I think that this is all market solvable, right? like the orientation of the house, the yard size. These are things that the buyer is going to dictate as to what they want in the unit and they'll get built or they won't get built and somebody will build it and experiment be like, "Oh, those didn't sell." Okay. Like this this doesn't seem like a problem that's going to exist very long. Like if you build a bunch of stuff and it faces and it doesn't sell, nobody's going to build them, right? Like that doesn't seem to me like that's going to be a thing that repeats time and time again. as a poor investment from a development perspective, but that's just me. There's a neighborhood near me. It's

technically in the county. I believe both sides of the street are in the county, but I could be wrong. Um, one neighborhood is probably built maybe 20 years ago, and it's like a you drive in, right? It's this U-shaped. Um, but there's also like an alleyway. And so that row of houses that's on that backs faces the main road, face the main road. Then you have a development on the opposite side of the street which was probably built in the last 10 years does not have that requirement. So it might be city and county. Um and all of these houses face towards each other. It looks odd when you drive through it. Nobody uses their front door because the sidewalks around it don't exist. So you just have like maybe two blocks that face a street with sidewalks and nothing else connects to it. So as much as I understand a lot of this probably looks more like you can see it more in North Everett and places that have a lot of walkability currently. It doesn't really match up quite yet with more of like a South Ever or places that don't have um a squared grid. So, I understand that we're trying to build walkability sidewalks, but that's not going to come as fast as the units need to be built. So, I think that's where I struggle is I'm coming at it from a lens of more my neighborhood where it just doesn't always work the way it probably does in North Everett. So, again, if you can find a way to make everybody happy, that'd be great. Yeah. Okay. I'm thinking to Commissioner Shelby's comment about whether something sells or not and I would say in public policy we are almost exclusively in the business of addressing community impacts and externalities and there are a lot of

cases and most of them involve cars where what is uh rational and good for you isn't good for all of us and if we all did it, we wouldn't be happy. So, that sort of a thing and I think this plays into that as well. Um, you'll probably find a buyer for a lot. Um, but will it in general erode the livability of a street? Will it make uh it uncomfortable for anybody to walk places? Will it make it difficult for you to know your neighbors and to be part of a community and all of the pretty fuzzy but real um public good that comes from that of a complete community and all of that. Um but heard yeah I think that's going to be the challenge is you know where's the median where you know how do we meet all these different goals at the same time there's going to be some give and take here absolutely very conscious of the overriding overriding priority of housing. Uh the other last kind of thought on this is whatever we're coming up with and this is brand new rules covering like 3/4 of the city is not going to be perfect. And so we're to some extent deciding which side to start on. start more flexible and then see if we get some negative results that we want to fix and adjust that direction or start more restrictive and then see if that was too restrictive and we're not getting uh the kind of production or there are too many barriers and then loosen it up from there. I can see arguments on both sides of that. I thought I thought that's what we did with the last comp plan. We were more considered loosened up. Yeah, because we did not get we're we're not on we were not on track to meet our targets based

on our last comp plan and this time around it's even more dire. Yeah. Yeah. I I think if you if you legislate from the outset it's again we're going to end up in a place where we maybe not want to be. If we start and be like hey this is pretty permissive. We can see all these well not all of them. we can see majority of the edge cases, right? And then we can work to kind of ratchet those things down that don't necessarily work as well in in our community. But I think if you start from no, um getting to yes is very very hard. Very good. Okay, we've got a lot. So I'll keep moving here. This is all about shared yards, but I think this is pretty dependent on the earlier slides, so I don't know that we need to go in detail into this. And then private yards as well. I guess taking the temperature on open space and yards in general. Uh require any sorts of dimensions. Let's say they're all private yards. Uh or what to do with the remaining uh 40 to 50 to 60% of the lot that is not covered by buildings. Are you saying like open space andor driveway parking? Is that kind of the open space? So right now we require a private yard at least 8 ft in any direction and 80 square ft. So about 8 by 10. Um we have a table in our planning conference room that is exactly that. So we use it for dimensions a lot to kind of visualize. Actually 5t by 8t is the minimum because we only have 5 foot setbacks. Uh well, we've got 8 ft in any direction and 80 square feet. So, it need to be about 8t by 10 for each unit as in this draft is currently written. So, front or back. Front or back or anywhere that it has

direct access. Um I think including or on the roof Yep. And then we had the shared if you don't have a private yard then you have a shared yard that's 15 by 15. No the setback these would be more internal to the internal to the lot. So I'll go back to like so like you could have your second story overhang. So the setbacks are the external like this but where the yards would be would be somewhere in the middle. It could be the setback. That makes sense. Um, no, but it's fine. And it there are very Yes, but no, there are many ways to arrange that. Um, I guess we can simplify it to have regulations that require yards in any sort of dimension or uh or any open space in general. kind of like in the bigger buildings, we require 75 to 100 square feet of open space that can be all consolidated into a play area or basketball hoop or whatever indoor. Some can be on on the roof and everything. Right now with the middle housing uh we've got uh that you either have a private yard 8t by 10 ft about or you have access to a shared yard 15 by 15. Get a little bit more efficiency out of the shared yard. But um if you did not have any yard requirement um I would expect a lot of uh basically you've got house driveway and some landscaping but not not much in the way. That's where uh that's where buyers I guess will either demand it or

prioritize something else over it. I'm I'm pro a little bit of shared space, whether it's private or what you have up there. I do think that's important, especially if we want to have people create community. They're going to need a place to see each other. Mhm. I'm supportive of that. I have a question. Something's been bothering me. I live in North Everett and I've seen a lot of lot splitting of some sort where the front house faces the main street and people are building a detached dwelling that faces the alley and the lot is being essentially split in two. Mhm. Um in that case, would both of those lots now need to have that 8x10 private yard or how does that work when a lot gets split into two? It's a good question. probably. But uh I don't know. I'm just wondering if that's prohibitive because of space. It feels like a lot of the back lots that are on the alley don't have a lot of extra space besides the dwelling itself and maybe a parking pad of some sort. So, I was just curious how that might work in that scenario. Yeah, those are the tough ones to interpret. uh when you're adding and changing everything. I I think I think you would probably require each one, but I could see a situation where you would only require it for the new development and exempt the existing development. 5,000 square foot lot, you are limited to uh 3,000 of it covered by building. So, the 2,000 square ft under this has to be something that's not covered by building. So, I think might as well be yard. Yeah, I think that's where my question is. I wasn't necessarily thinking we'd change anything on the front existing lot, but on that back lot, would we be requiring that private yard? Well, they would already be built. If you split it, can you even stop it from being split? Like,

it could be in the subdivision standards. Um, but I I yeah, you would decide where to split it at least 8 ft behind the the the main house where that's possible. The the state recommended um middle housing standards had a 30x30 shared yard. So why we dropped from 30 by 30 to 15 by 15 is exactly north ever because there were many houses that were set farther back and we didn't want to preclude those rear units. 15 seemed to do it. Um which happens to be close to 8 + 8. Okay. So some interest in uh yards of some sort. Okay. last time we discussed this because I we did discuss this before I think and there was discussion around um whether or not it it's more beneficial to protect public green space and create walkable pathways to utilize the public green space rather than requiring individual lots to have their own many green spaces. Um, and I I don't think we we settled how we felt about that entirely as a commission. Um, but I'm kind of reminded of this conversation now. And I I think it really just depends on on the neighborhood. Um, that's why it's difficult to make this apply across the whole city because a lot of the neighborhoods are so different. Do do you remember that conversation, Nathan? I'm pretty sure you were here for that. Mackenzie, you as well. Do you do you recall that? I think so because I think I think I remember us deciding that 30 by 30 was a lot or at least coming to us with 30 by 30 was a little too much for us. Yeah,

we were also talking this might be like a year ago on the bigger zones. So, that's the one that requires the 75. And this actually goes back to the park impact fee discussion and when to potentially exempt open space or reduce open space requirements if you're approximate to a public park. Where where I sit on that is, and we've been debating this in the planning department and other places this entire time, and uh there are a lot of there's no clear answer on it. Um, I think in the bigger zones, uh, I am very comfortable having the public park system carry the recreation weight for that because I'm not seeing very good output from, uh, you know, the little sad playground that's in the corner next to the road uh, is not doing providing the value that could have been used for building space and then uh, a good park system. I do feel the opposite for the neighborhood residential zone that what what else is that threequarters of the city if it is not defined by uh more open space but that's al also something that we can think about as potential exemptions for certain locations or something. Yeah. because there are some locations even even in the neighborhood residential where they are in close proximity to excellent parks, but then there are other locations where you cannot safely walk to a park. Uh and so I think that something like this is more important in those spaces. And I I don't know if there's a way to make everybody happy. To make everybody happy. Yes, the magic wand. That's what we would like on this one. Thank you. Note that magic wand. Magic wand. Okay, these are all the porch types. Um, let's please not get into the details to open space for one second. And I mean, even when people are in

close proximity to a park, I mean, if you are a parent with young kids, you still potentially want someplace for them to be safe in close proximity to your own residence that you can kick them out for five or 10 minutes or even be sitting outside having a cup of coffee. You're not having to transport and do that. So, I mean, I think in the neighborhood residential, that's still a valuable asset to have. I mean, I know not everybody wants it, but at the same time, it's sort of why people are moving into neighborhood residential areas. So, fun fact, when I was a kid, I lived in a place called Union Bay, which was near the UDub because my parents were students, and we actually had a swing set inside the house because there was no there was no there was a park that we could walk to, but that that was the issue, Aliceanne. So, I I can certainly empathize with that as well. Okay. Okay, I thought we were done with 1908, but I remember there was a a section on garage requirements that isn't too far from the discussion we've been having. This is existing language, although it is uh more applicable in a middle housing world than it used to be when you just couldn't very much build these types of buildings. So, everything and this is 1908060. Everything that is in black is uh existing language that we did not change except to clarify that semi-ubteran garages are allowed to project above the adjacent finish grade by up to 4 ft. Um not exactly sure how that works, but that's from the state's model uh guidance. Uh all of these requirements for garages and the limiting to about 50% of the length of the street facing dwelling unit facade used to only apply

to uh middle housing in the single family zones where allowed, but not for houses unless they were on a small lot of 4500 ft or less or got a front or side street setback exception. Um, just cuz this is related to kind of orientation, driveways, access, uh, garages. Uh, we've had some comments from townhouse development community on this that, um, town houses obviously aren't very wide. Typically 16 to 24 ft was probably the main range there. So, this would effectively preclude um, town houses on top of garages. In many circumstances, you could have it rear loaded with the garage in the back and uh uh rooms in the front. I think we had a site plan at some point. Showed a site plan that had a room in the back and stairs going up in the front. Um you could flip that and still make this work, but that reduces the flexibility of those developments. So I will any thoughts on what are you what are you asking just I am picking up from the uh you mentioned garages we've mentioned driveways we mentioned flexibility this is an existing regulation and not one that we had proposed changing other than necessarily expanding its applicability uh through to the middle housing Um, so it's kind of we didn't do it, but it's kind of And you're saying if we keep it as is, it's restrictive. Yes. Which doesn't seem to be the theme of this particular commission. Just going to point that out to you. Exactly. So that's why I wanted to put it up there.

We've had some comments on that from uh from folks who who build town houses that uh they would prefer some more flexibility with uh kind of your front door garage. Um, and same spiel from us on uh sociability and warm warm embrace of the public street uh versus more blank walls kind of thing. Does this also lead to, you know, a maximization of height necessarily, right? Like when you put a garage underneath two stories, you're probably going to hit 35 ft plus whatever real quick. Yeah. Um and you get a stair for just about every which is good for health and physical activity. Do we have any loose data on the demographic of people who buy town houses now? I don't, but we could see if any folks know that. I'm just curious. Yeah, cuz I have a feeling it's either first-time home buyers or just younger people in general. I don't think uh aging population loves a lot of stairs. So maybe we should think about them and how they want their houses a little bit more if we're not already. Right. Right. Okay. I'm going to keep us moving. I flexibility and I I will continue to read into that and we are continuing to turn on this among staff and we'll hear uh maybe some from the council and from uh the public on this topic as well and specific residential uses just so you know why half of the chapter is read and crossed out. It just got moved to 1913. All right, the big buildings 1909 urban residential development standards. Uh this combines and consolidates chapters 9 and 12 in our existing code. Chapter 91 1909 is residential buildings

and chapter 12 is other buildings all of which are only in the mixed use and commercial zones not the single family zones and the multif family zones. Um so this is just the opposite of what 1908 applies to. uh all development in the bigger zones as well as town houses in those bigger zones and detached units and everything. 1909 used to cross reference 1912 back and forth and confuse the heck out of everybody, which is why we're combining those two chapters. And in fact, there's a whole table in here that is duplicated in chapter 34 that I missed a piece of. Um uh this chapter 9 is also where the inclusionary housing requirement uh sits for two areas of displacement risk in South Everett. Was not going to spend a lot of time on that because I think we discussed it in in earlier pieces, but if you'd like to, we could. Well, just a quick question on on that. We did hear from a lot of folks in the community that would be in those areas that are at risk for displacement. And so the recommendations that were brought to us through that process, that community engagement process, is there any part of those recommendations that we are not choosing to incorporate? One iteration had a suggestion of of affordable housing uh charge for commercial development. It couldn't be inclusionary, but you could have a essentially an impact fee on commercial development. I don't think the very last communications had that in there, but I know that was one that was one area. The other one was Oh, there was one other uh density bonus for faith based organizations or religious land, which is mirrored in uh state law, requires some density bonus, whatever it is. We've always looked at that and said, "What? Well, what what can we give? We don't regulate density.

We don't limit density. So, everybody gets a density bonus. Um although it is regulated and limited by building height and lot coverage and aha building height. How about that? So, we have penciled in for the final draft a onef floor uh bonus for development on religious um owned and controlled property. Uh that would be one if you have any other suggestions. But we had met with kind of the the group there multiple times trying to were totally open to incentivizing just couldn't think of one. Okay. Is it owned and controlled or just owned? Because control is different because that's it's already built. Owned or controlled and that could include land that is leased by long-term lease would be what controlled but not owned would be. Yeah. Uh, I think those were the two main ones, but then otherwise we got the other the other ones. And my apologies to the community if I was missing something. We will be rereading through all of that in this final couple weeks. Okay. Building modulation, more flexibility, excuse me. Existing regulations, we have upper floor stepback requirements that have been driving architects crazy ever since I've come to Everett. And um you can see some images of what that looks like. These are uh 140 ftx 200 ft lot if you were to build all the way out to except for the last 3 ft of your property. And then on the left side is seven stories on the right side is 25 stories. So UR7 or MU25 would be some examples of how that would look. And you require a step back at 10 ft at floor four or five and then another 10 ft at a higher floor. Um, lots of downsides to that. Water intrusion problems. You want to have all

of your units stacked so that the plumbing goes up in a straight line and all kinds of things. Um, yes, it brings some architectural interest and can provide some balconies and everything, but overwhelming negative response from um, architects and not a whole lot of value that we see. We are in no danger of canyon streets uh, with the width of our streets and everything. So, we had proposed pulling that back uh fairly substantially and instead just requiring and again with eyes on the street some sort of a balcony or outdoor area 8 ft deep on 50% of the horizontal distance somewhere at floor 2, three or four. We were trying to hit the uh break point between concrete and wood so that you didn't have the water intrusion and stacking issues and then uh you required outdoor amenity space or or that sort of thing anyways. may as well have that overlooking the street where again you can have some uh some kind of eyes on the street. Um have had a couple negative responses on that from the architects again like no that is that's not no get rid of them all. Um and I I would staff are okay uh pulling back on this one. Yes. Yep. I we have scratched our heads a little bit. It was a came out of Metro Ever. It came out of some other things. It's tough because we don't know who really wants this. Uh so if they're out there, come forward. You've got five weeks otherwise this is gone. Sounds good. Okay. We als we removed a couple others that have been frequent and a lot of these standards are modifiable and so you can request a deviation from it and we have been granting those deviations finding that it meets the criteria. Um we require that residential building facads look like a series of buildings no wider than 50 ft each. Proposing to remove

that. Uh removing a requirement for some balconies and balrods to be opaque. I think this was so that you can't see like a a neighborhood residential zone next to you. Um but it didn't seem to really serve that purpose well. Um and actually can be negative in that sense. Uh in our air quality uh work and reviewing the plan against uh in the environmental review process and looking at kind of pollution burden and things like that. Um a lot of research I think we talked about this in the planning commission but okay. So, a lot of research on very close to hight traffic roadway is very bad, especially for kids. Um, we did not get to any sorts of restrictions on child care on Evergreen Way, which is something that still kind of bothers me a little bit um because the research is pretty strong on the negative effects, but at least the um playgrounds or that open space that is required for a building should be on the other side of the building from like an evergreen way. We reduced the dimensions for the private open space required just to better fit the uh balcony a reasonable common economical and everything balcony size. Um so it doesn't have to be 6 ft deep. It can be 4 ft deep and then I think that was 4x8 or something was uh balcony size there. We removed the restriction on groundf flooror residential on to streets, Pacific, Ever Station, a lot of other places. Um, we definitely want to see active uses. Are you sensing a theme here? On the street, healthy city, vibrant streets, eyes on the street. Um, but simply prohibiting residential does not seem like the right way to do it. You're more likely to get blank walls

and not all not everything can fit. uh commercial. So, we did not add any new requirements to fill that space, but we did remove the prohibition on ground floor residential. That's actually in 1905, but it really impacts these types of buildings. Is there any prohibition? I mean, it seems weird to me in my brain, but I'm saying it. Uh that like if if you have a longer, you know, uh street first floor that you've got some of your building is residential, some of it's commercial. No prohibition against mixing those two ground floor uses at all. Right. Like right building code might make that difficult in some way, but nothing out of the land use code and maybe not even the commercial code at that point anyway. That number of buildings here in the commercial code. Great. Okay. The table that you see on the bottom is uh existing language that requires minimum building depth on the ground floor and that would be building available to any use. Then there is this table 123 uh a lot of standards for facades and don't know how to summarize this other than to put it up on the screen. Um, I note that the business zone being collapsed in the mixed urban zone means that some parts of Evergreen Way and Everett Mall way uh earned themselves some articulation requirements and blank wall standards. Otherwise, uh, no change to the MU zones or the UR zones. Is this where um uh sorry the window requirement for large buildings transparency? Yes, thank you. Um is that in this section or is

that a different area? That is in this section. Did we reduce that 90% number? I don't think we did. I think yeah that's something that we have heard frequently that especially the 90% is is high. Uh that is that table that I mentioned that I just found the duplicate of. So it's in 1909 and was in 1912 and is also in 1934. The street designations. Um so there is a chance that it says one thing in one and a different thing in the other. There was already some discrepancies between those two that we needed to clean up. So we'll be deleting one of the tables and consolidating into one. Weather protection and transparency are the two we get more concern about transparency just because of the cost and the energy code. Um I don't think we just got to that and haven't heard a lot of comments as part of this process but definitely in development review we had should I read into that a interest in uh providing and that's that is modifiable so if someone has a good reason that's one that we've been granting so it's not a hard and fast you have to hit 90% it's just you have to talk your way out of it but if we always say yes then yeah if we're then that should be reduced I don't know if there's a Goldilocks number or if it's just I was say can you review the permits where you've you've made that particular alteration come up with like a they all had 50% or something 60 let's start there isish Yep. So 90% is on to designated streets, 60% on pedestrian designated streets. Pedestrian is the far more common and is most of our arterial corridors. And then 45% for connector and residential mixed use and no standard for undesated streets. Um a note that we have not modified the street designations anywhere in the city

as part of this process. It is something that we had been kind of meaning to look at. Um, I don't know that any problems have jumped out, but know that we are expanding multi- multi-unit building and and taller structures into streets that maybe didn't need to have a street designation and maybe so that I think we'll pick that up if not in the waning weeks of this process as part of the sub area planning. Um, but just keep that in your mind that a lot of these things that connect to street designations, there may be some streets that now allow bigger buildings but don't have a street designation and could see uh completely blank walls, for example. If if it makes sense to simplify that chart and have them be more the same. I mean, that's what I'm urging you to do. Okay. I know the city is doing a like a street safety report where the designations may become somewhere from that or not. They're mostly within the curbs. Um so intersections and all of that, but uh yeah. So the so the the minimum for a non TOD to is at 90 but the minimum is 45 for connector or residential mixed use. Is there any reason why everything can't uh be 45 at the minimum? Well, the minimum is undesated streets, which is C blank walls, you know. Well, you're well, yes. Exempting that category, which is which is the vast majority of the city is undesated streets. I cannot remember what blank walls is, but it's something like if you have a 100 ft of of concrete or stone that you need some architectural treatments to it, I think it's got transparency, right? So, you would not require any

transparency. So you could have a block length uh stamped concrete wall. All I hear there is great graffiti art. Honestly like our huge graffiti artist came in great opportunity for them to come back canvas. That's what I was thinking like but I get it. You don't want it to be too ugly. Yeah. Yeah, I like our Okay, we'll work in some more flexibility on transparency. Um, we also had the request on weather protection. Um, is that just like having a bit of an overhang? Yeah. Sun, rain, wind, snow. Um, you should do that day like today. I think I had to wipe my glasses off cuz not that you could make it across the street anyways. But do you get a lot of push back from developers on that? Currently some mostly um it is pinch points. It's I I don't think a huge cost uh in most of the building but if they uh got to a place where where does it occur? Topography can be complicated. Do they have a way out if they need to? Yeah, it's modifiable. All right. Well, then I'm good with what it is. Pretty much everything that we're talking about here is modifiable. And the standards are does it result in equal or superior development? Does it not impact the neighbors? And does it meet the intent of the standard? Um, a common one is if a building is set back, usually they want to bring it to the sidewalk, maximize space. Sometimes it's set back 10 feet and the weather protection is not going to help over the landscaping if that's what they have. In

those cases, it's an obvious choice. We say yes, you can not do it. Uh structured parking. Um these are existing. They uh only regulate the front building facade and we're proposing to make that both uh front and side streets. The front is always the narrowest uh narrowest side. Um you will see there's a couple developments. One of them is being built right now on Pacific and there's a couple others that are in the pipeline that are along parts of the block. All of these standards that had applied only to the front building facade only applied to the Pacific side, but not at all to the uh Rockefeller, Lombard, and all the rest. Um seemed like like a big miss for what the goals were for these. So, we just crossed out front, but that will bring in the side street applicability only affects corner properties and specifically the ones that are long and skinny uh full block ones. Okay, that was 1909. Anything we wanted to go back to? I think we're doing pretty okay on time. I did have one question. I know that there's been some public comment about again focused on North Everett, uh, like the 19th corridor that we were talking about and that turning into UR4 and how that interaction might look with the rest of the neighborhood residential, like what the transition between those two zones might look like. I know we've talked a little bit about transitions and heights and things like that, but just as we're talking about 1909 versus 1908. Yep. Just wanted to talk through that.

Yes, the sorry that was louder than I thought. Um the transition is uh I don't think we have a it's on a future slide so we'll see if there's a height reduction for adjacent but they're so similar. I think um 45 feet maybe even 40 40T 40T in UR4 35 NR so very and then there's the 100% lock coverage um was just working this out earlier today UR4 has a no front setback but five on the side side and rear if it were a 5,000 square foot lot that already drops you to 75% % if the math was right, lock coverage just because you can't be in the setbacks. So now you're talking a difference of potentially 60% to 75% 35 ft to 40 ft and then it's hard to get up to the 75% with driveways and parking areas and everything already set or the 100%. So I don't see those two. In fact, the UR4 is kind of designed to be the middle ground between the taller zones that do have some compatibility concerns and the and the neighborhood residential. I don't think there are many special treatments, but that would be one to look at the landscaping chapter 4. Okay. specific use standards mostly just received the uh specific residential uses from 1908. Uh we have some drive-thru service requirements for a new drive-thru. So not an existing one, but a new one would require walkup service as well. We talked about this like a year ago. Haven't changed it since then. Um, and then they would be prohibited in centers except that you could reestablish an existing drive-thru

as long as it was part of a development that meets the minimum height standard, which is two, three, or four floors. So, it could be part of a bigger building or larger development. I think that's that. Keep cruising. Airport Port Navy compatibility we've talked a lot about, so I think we could probably breeze through this one, but I have very exciting news, which is that the Rucker Hill neighborhood and the Port of Everett have come to agreement on terms between the two sides. So, that will be folded into the final draft and uh that will discharge that specific amendment request. I I feel like there should be like a a confetti burst or something. We'll ask um Well, yeah, we'll ask him to blow a fog horn or something. The raid compatibility overlay. Um we've talked about this. This was the port specific amendment request. I cannot believe that um I staff had been not compelled by the need for a freight compatibility overlay, although not also seeing any real downside to it. I wrote out what it would look like just to have it in the back pocket and then it's in the draft now. So, I guess one last touch on that if there's a strong opinion from the planning commission on whether if it wasn't there, I wouldn't suggest adding it. If it is there, I don't know that I would go all the way to removing it. So, I self-created hardship here, but is there any strong opinions from the planning commission? Otherwise, I we may just let it ride and see how it goes. I don't have like the strongest opinion, but for whatever reason, my gut's like, maybe not. Mhm. It is just not just a reminder of what it is. It's notification to the developer and

everything um and to the port. And again, I I see it as harmless. Um, I I think that was a specific ask of Commissioner Ballard to to define something um so the public could have some assurance that there was a defined something that they would receive if if I recall the conversation correctly. Am I recalling that correctly? Notice. Yeah. Just just something to reassure the public that that when we considered this, we considered what a what a a reasonable lay person would need in order to be reasonably informed. And so I I think it is good to have a standard in there. Okay. Great. Hold on. Does that mean we are suggesting that there be an over a freight? There is one in the April 7 draft. I was uh in in this in this room a couple weeks ago. I was explaining how it's not there and then I looked and it was there. We're working fast. Yes. Oh, I mean Okay. Well, I just don't really want an a compatibility. Afraid compatibility. I just on the record for I don't really want one. Yeah. Okay. These will be in the last sets of issues that we'll continue to have conversations and if there's commenters out there um comment periods open till May 26. Okay. Heights. Again, we eliminated the building height map. Um we have an intended number of floors and a maximum in feet. The intended number of floors doesn't really do anything now, but it puts on paper what the what the intent was. Um, one example is, um, we're learning about modular construction has taller needs. Um, I think it was more like 12 ft instead of 10 ft. So that

means that if you're building modular, you cannot quite get seven stories in the 75 ft I think that we have in the UR7 zone. Um, I don't know that we want to make changes to the maximum height at this late stage, but by putting the intended number of floors, that can be a guide to smooth the path later down the line or maybe with administrative deviation requests or that sort of a thing. The formula we used for converting the number of floors, UR7, seven floors, that type of thing, is 10 ft per floor and then 5T on the ground uh for residential zones or 10 ft for mixeduse zones for a taller commercial ground floor plate. Light and heavy industrial zones were set to a flat 100 ft um not often reaching for the sky, although they do have cranes and smoke stacks and things like that that do fall under this. the light standards in the Norton terminal at the port uh needed a variance from the hearing examiner I think or no maybe it was just the industrial waterfront height incentive. Um either way just light poles count as well not just buildings for the the height the in like a UR7 um is that adjustable by just a request? No. No. So it would be like a planned development overlay or something similar that the developer would have to go through variance with the hearing examiner which is a pretty tough I feel like we're being pretty ambitious with our height adjustments at this point and I'm not inclined to go back and revisit that one. Maybe not in in like NRC or NR or UR4, but it's like 7.5 like a 12 foot four height would not bother me in the slightest. Yeah. So, what has tripped us up with trying to

figure that modular thing out or taller floor plates is that if you were to say so MU7 allows 80 feet. is uh whatever 7 * 12 is is more than 80 I believe 84. So let's say you can't get seven full floors of modular. So what's the solution? Instead of 80 ft, you make it 85 ft. Now all of a sudden with stickuilt construction, you can get an eighth floor on there. Do we want an eighth floor on there? Is that a problem? Which one are we trying to regulate? The total interior floor area or the external bulk of the building? little bit of both. Uh and that's where we decided or didn't decide but uh didn't suggest a change. The the the discussions I've had in the community have been more around defined height rather than number of floors because you can have wild variations if you just base it on the floor. So I think it is important to give a defined height limit and I mean obviously as construction evolves there may need to be processes but it sounds like there's a process in place for someone to come to the city and have a discussion about a you know a modular type of development project where they may have a specific ask but in general I think we're I think we're doing really great work as far as expanding um what we can do with the heights that we have already kind of settled on I don't have a problem leaving the height numbers. I do want to make sure that there is an avenue for somebody to come and say, "Hey, we really want this because we want to do modular home. We want to do modular housing." So, as long as there's an avenue that makes me feel comfortable, find a church, I suppose, get another floor. We should to that end, what I mean, what would be a long-term lease, right? Like, could a developer come in, church, you know, say, "Hey, I'm going to donate the money. Church buys the property. We lease it for a year. Congratulations, we build. we get our

hype bonus. Yeah, maybe, maybe. I don't know. That seems like a really not churchy thing to do in my view of how a church should work, but you know, they supported housing. Yeah, this is language straight from the state. So, um I I I'll I'll try to figure that out a little bit more. um a little bit cheeky in saying go find a church, but I mean it is true that um that it's an issue and this is again with when we're ready for a recommendation at the next meeting that that one of the things that you can communicate to staff at any time, but this would be a good time for it is where you think more work is needed even if we acknowledge that it's difficult to do in the last couple days. So, light and heavy industrial zones, 100 ft. Uh, for the most part, these are not going to be objectionable to anybody, but we have, uh, waterfront industrial zones all around. Um, and in our current building height map, those have lower heights. Um, existing is about 45 to 75 ft and then the additional 20 ft for certain uses with a view analysis. That's what the port used for the light standards at Norton Terminal. we were proposing to replace we needed to come up with since we're dropping the height map you need a height limit for the light industrial or the heavy industrial zone. So we went with the higher end, but in the waterfront recognizing the view implications and uh and the shoreline implications were suggesting a some trigonometry or geometry or something where you start at uh the street at the top of the bluff 10 ft below the center line and then you go 40 ft above the ordinary high water mark and that's your plane of uh height. So taller, closer to the bluff where you're less likely to interrupt the views, shorter, closer to the water. Uh the port is one of the

probably most sensitive to this because of their need for cranes and other tall things. Um I think this wound up with a slight decrease in their height right at the shoreline that we need to take a look at. Um we're working with them on that. That could in that could involve the additional 20 ft for certain uses with view analysis. Those certain uses are water dependent uses and the view analysis makes sure that you're not going to block a substantial number of Olympic mountain views. That's the light standards, right? Light stand and we did Yeah, we have a view analysis from several streets and everything. Here are the height reductions. So from the development site zone, this is the one that UR4 is not in. But if it was a UR7 and there are not many because we have mostly the wedding cake style, but where you have a UR7 development site and the neighbor is NR zone for 50 ft into the UR7 zone, you would be limited to the 35 ft of the NR zone. So that you would limit the very tall buildings next to very short buildings. Uh this is pretty similar to what we have now just with the new zone names. Uh from height reductions to height incentives, we removed the entire height development height incentives program. Uh we want people to build taller buildings more efficient. They are more expensive. It seems a little bit backwards to require them to pay for what we're looking for. So all of the height limits are now by right. Uh if we want the things so one of the height incentives was affordable housing. You can trade it for your height incentive. Now instead you could say that we require that affordable housing where we need it instead of only requiring the tallest buildings to pay for it. We've got these two questions that I mentioned um that we're going to suggest

adding the one-story bonus height for religious organizations and then adding back the industrial waterfront height increase for the port. Okay. Uh street designation we have talked this is the other chapter that the same table is in from 1909. So, I think we've talked through this already. Um, I'm rushing a little bit to try to get to parking because that is brand new. We've talked about most of this before. Uh, landscaping. Um, we turned up the dial a little bit on trees instead of 30 feet apart, 25 ft apart in type 3 landscaping areas. Some new street tree requirements in neighborhood residential zones where currently for the most part you need to do a land division to trigger that. And since we don't do all development via land division anymore, that was missing a whole lot of trees in a whole lot of the city. We do not have tree retention requirements as part of this. Um, so turning up the dial on the trees and landscaping seem to be an important mitigating measure. Okay. Frontage improvements. um more development on streets without sidewalks and without full uh full streets built to standards. Um started with a uh writing this in as all residential development would require frontage improvements. Um, we have still since in response to comments, um, exempted one or two, excuse me, accessory dwelling units on a lot with the principal unit to remain from the requirement from frontage improvements. That is now then uh, a little bit of a turning up of

frontage improvements. that used to require you needed uh when you development resulted in three or more dwellings. But the sidewalk improvement area, you can see the blue there is a big big chunk of the city and in there um all development of one or more residential dwelling units excluding accessory dwelling units. So in the blue area I think this does not represent an increase but in the not blue area it does represent an increase. one meter per dwelling unit. I don't deal with utilities very often, so I'm not sure how often this they have discretionary review, so I think it kind of varies currently, but maybe this is a new standard. And if this is a problem, we would love to hear that billboards um are allowed in certain zones and none of those zones exist anymore and haven't for a decade. So, we have already effectively prohibited billboards and there's an ordinance that says that we want to and so we just finish the job by finishing the job here. Parking and I think we can linger on this one a little bit longer because this is the last uh pretty substantive one. All of this uh comes from Olympia. Okay. uh 2024 Senate Bill 615 uh had some required dimensions and surfacing and all of that. 2023 accessory dwelling units prohibits cities from requiring parking within a half mile walking distance of a major transit stop. And then also a max of one per unit on lots smaller than 6,000 square ft and two on larger. There's a table in your memo at

the end that puts this all into one place. Major transit stop, rail, swift, BRT. ADUs have a different This was dizzying, literally dizzying. uh ADUs only have a different definition of major transit stop which is frequent transit which is 15-minute service 5 hours per weekday which is different than for other housing major transit stop is rail and BRT that is where major transit stops are. So in these areas, we may not require parking of accessory dwelling units. And then uh middle housing, no parking required within a half mile of major transit stop. That's the other definition of major transit stop, which is rail and bus rapid transit. The lighter uh circles are where planned BRT routes will be but are not in place currently. And then uh approximate to frequent transit or vary and extremely low income housing and seniors and disabled housing have these parking uh limitations on what the city can require for parking as well. Note that all of these are circles roughly a half mile. its actual walking distance, which is usually more like a diamond shape in a uh in a grid system or or a funny shape. Elsewhere, in almost all cases, it's going no, in every case, it's going to be smaller than the circle contained within it. This one was since superseded by this year's Senate Bill 5184. Um, but it is still effective for 18 months, I think it is.

5184 uh is the most stringent of all of these. Just passed the legislature. It is due for the city in January of 2027 and it caps parking requirements at one space per single family dwelling unit, half a space for multif family dwelling unit. Uh interesting that middle housing was not included given that the legislature itself just created middle housing by uh by legislation. And then no parking at all may be required for dwellings under 1,200 square f feet which includes all accessory dwelling units. Also for affordable housing, senior housing, small commercial child care, change of use and ground level non-residential space and mixeduse building. This is a big one and we h wrestled with how close to come to compliance with it. We have 18 months. This is brand new to us. We did most of the housing and just a little bit of the commercial side keeping with our overall focus on housing but wanting to maybe use that year to better understand the commercial implications. I got a I got a quick question. When we talk about middle housing and multifamily, what what what separates that designation there? That's a I don't think is a very wide spectrum of ideas that Yeah. Middle housing is uh that is defined in state law as um duplex, triplex, townhouse, cottage housing, accessory dwelling units, sometimes detached housing houses. Yes. Or we're going to Florida, whatever. So, how does that Yeah, it's not a great fit with the state's definitions for this parking regulations. So with our system of dwellings or dwellings, what is multif family and what is single family and what is all the stuff in between and could we have five spaces per duplex as

does that fit this some questions and commerce will be and then is distance from transit is that as a girl flies or as a public sidewalk? Yeah, public sidewalk. Okay. So high level you're saying let's circle back um in detail like you're you want more time to digest this is what on the commercial side no we have included on the residential side but we're suggesting for now that's fine I did one quick question though um it had child care listed as no parking required but then I see in a later slide we talk about that we talk about that we do I wasn't sure if they were in conflict I just didn't know why I didn't understand. We can wait till we get to that slide. Sure. Yeah. I think we we eliminated I proposed because we're also in a child care crisis of some sort now. So, we proposed eliminating the requirement for just basic parking spaces, but loading spaces were included. I think that sounds great. Yeah. Yes. Yes. So when it comes to parking, we we talk about the ADUs and the no parking of required, but under current city code, if you remove parking from the main house or you have to have house parking for the main house, right? Cuz like if let's say you have a garage on an alley and you want to destroy the garage, put ADUs up. You destroy a two-car garage. Right? Now, by code, you have to supply two parking spots from the alley, correct? From the main house. Correct. Even though the accessory dwelling unit might be exempt for its own parking, but you would have to replace the principal's units, principal units parking. That's correct. That would still be required. That we uh where we're at is one space as a baseline per dwelling. So in that case, if you uh demolish the

garage, you would well, it depends where it is in the city, transit adjacent and all of that. I mean, if you're close to transit, then uh I I have to look at it. Hold that thought. A couple down. I'm not even sure if I have this in the slide. One more piece of legislation. We have a little bit longer for this 2030 within a/4 mile of BRT or a half mile of rail, no parking required at all. And that are within these circles. Okay, here's what we have proposed. So, a baseline of oops, a baseline of one space per dwelling. If you're within a quarter mile of frequent transit, that is down to three quarters of a space per dwelling. No parking required for middle housing within a half mile of major transit. So I think that captures that North Everett if it's close enough to Broadway that no parking would be required. Let's say it's not within a half mile of major transit. You would require one space per dwelling, which would be the house, but the ADU would be exempt because it's under 1,200 square ft. If it is an ADU, if it is under whatever it is, if it's under 1,200 ft. So in that case, if you took down the garage and built a unit on it, you would need one space for the combined if it was under 1,200 ft². If you took down the garage and it was 1,500 ft, you would need two spaces. And that goes down from there if you're close to transit. Okay.

That's to the transit stop or to the transit stop, walking distance. Yeah. Okay, I did all this like a week ago and it's amazing what can all fill your brain in a week. Um, no change proposed to all of these things commercial. I think these are no here we ones that are highlighted are will need to be reduced within 18 months. So these are the ones where we said um and that's why daycare center is highlighted fill out the proposed column there. I um we will have to look to 1922 in book two which I don't have in front of me to see what uh was written in for daycare center. I believe it is deleting the greater of one per 10 children and all of that but it does still require one loading space per 20 children. I believe we did not change food, beverage, athletic facility, office, and retail trade, but recognize that we will need to. That's it. Are these updates zone references? So, are these parking requirements going to if you have to reduce them so much in a transit area? So, I'm looking at downtown here. Are we going to does this affect the idea that we're going to have limited parking for any of the big living structures in it go up? So, is everybody going to be parked on the street then? Is that going to limit

people shopping? Yeah, they cannot park on the street. Um, for the most part, it's time limited parking and everything. Um, I would recommend that uh apartment building downtown build parking. Um, because it's going to be, you know, many people and and we'll do just fine without it, but not everybody. And it is a long walk to the nearest parking space that you can leave a car overnight. We will not have maximums or anything to prohibit or discourage parking. It will be flexible, market-based. Commissioner Shelby and I are both going to talk about how the market will Oh, yeah. Yeah. The market the market's going to decide this. The market will decide I buy parking personally that I will not spend if it doesn't include the parking situation that I like. And I think that is what we are relying on the market to produce is for people to choose what works for them and for developers to find it to be not viable if they're not meeting the needs of the market. That's what I was want to make sure that flexibility was there to have the parking. That's what I wanted to make sure. Yeah. Yeah. And if and if we're not going to, you know, I think we're not going to go to zero like a number of other communities have. Um just rip the band-aid off. Like let's do the changes we need to do now in residential. Take everybody down to 0.5. Don't deal with the ramp. We can deal with commercial next year or you know what have you, but take everybody down to 0.5. You have one standard for everything in residential, just deal with it. Oh, send them my way. Like I go for it. I Yes. If you want to pay for parking, pay for parking. If not, don't worry about it. You don't have to mandate the way people build buildings. So I think in the table that's in the packet there are some little green arrows and there are two that we went earlier than we needed and most of them

were just so we we went did not go all the way. Um so I hear one suggestion to go a little bit further on the residential side. So that's actually good to let the public know that that we there is further that we could go but we are listening and we are trying to balance the asks of the community. Um because as Commissioner Shelby said, I we we could go further with this, but we really are trying to balance the needs. We will be bound, you know, we will be bound by the state. It's it's a slow decline to get there, but if we're doing all this work now and we're preparing for all these changes, having portions of the city like, well, you got a little bit more parking over here, a little bit, you know, like no, just if you want a uniform appearance, this is how you do it. You go build this way. If you're going to say build this way, just do it. I can feel the torches being lit, the pitchforks being sharpened as we speak. I The thing that always comes to my mind with parking is that you can only care if there's less parking on the street if you didn't have your own parking space, which is certainly the case if you either have a large family or are having a party or something. Um, but for the most part, yeah, it's going to be up to folks to There's also a market out there. There's some website where you can rent somebody else's parking space. So, there will be as parking gets tighter, which I would expect it to. You add 35,000 housing units and everything. Um, that if somebody has an unused driveway space, they can lease it to you or garage spaces or whatever. So, okay. Is that the end of the presentation? That's the end of everything. Back to the next steps. And um I guess just and if if we have any

energy left to think about how we what we do for next week. So, we plan to publish the final draft and ordinances. We'll take all of this feedback into account there as well as all the public feedback that we're getting. So that's next Friday. You can expect to see the next and final iteration of the whole thing plan regulations. Um we'll get that comment report out so you can uh see summaries and details of what people have been saying. You'll have a planning a public hearing and then make a recommendation. So, I don't know if there's anything that you want to discuss among yourselves about how that goes or we can just see you in a couple of weeks. Just go. Will will there be an opportunity for us to have to maybe swing by and pick up a completed printed one just to to review? Um, and again, I won't be here at that June 3, but I want to at least be able to read through it in it it in its entirety to make sure there's nothing that comes up. I feel like we have we have discussed and discussed and discussed. Um, so I am looking forward to us finally having an opportunity to recommend. Yeah. Yes. We'll get you. Does anybody else want um I think it's on Friday and we mail it. Um, I could maybe get there. We definitely have a cup. We're We're in temporary offices uh right now because they rebuild the eighth floor and uh should I say the name of the company? No, I won't. I will give them a break. But they missed five pickups to move our copier printer. So, we don't have printer. Pick up the phone and call us. Sorry. But then I in pretty soon and I'm not sure ex I think it's after next week. Um the whole building is closing for a couple of weeks so they can finish and we're almost to a

completely rejuvenated Everett Municipal Building and staff will be so excited. So before I promise printing, there are some complications there, but I will be in touch via email on what we're able to do. Sounds great. We do have one last opportunity for public comment. Ayanna, do we have anyone online who wishes to comment? Does caller ending in 1238 like to make a public comment? Caller with number ending in 1238. No comments from callers. Thank you. If you could uh state your name and then afterwards if you wouldn't mind just filling out the form so we can have it for the record. Absolutely. Thank you so much. My name is OJ Marston. Um I am a real estate agent so I can uh bring up a few um things about what you guys discussed today especially I uh when you guys were talking about the placement of um the two or three houses or row houses that could could um be done and I know you guys were talking about it's all about the walkability and the beautifification and I I can just tell you like I've been doing this 32 years and um people want garages They I know you want it to be beautified, but we also have to think about when people don't have a place to store their stuff, the houses become junky and people have stuff all over and we have to take that in consideration. I think that's a really important thing to think about. So, as much as I'm not a huge fan of going up in the row stuff, it's what we got and that's going to be our first-time home buyers, you know, home. Um, so I think that's a really important thing to think about is um and and a lot of the next thing it would be is space as far as personal space. A lot of people they want their own space, not

a community yard. Community yards in my opinion rarely work initially. The HOA handles it. It looks great. We have a play structure. Blah blah blah. Guess what happens? Go back to the all those places in 10 or 15 years. The HOA is no longer happening anymore. I've sold a house right next to one of these big huge play areas and all the people have moved away in 15 years and now the people I sold to, they're thrilled because no one comes to that area. It's their big yard now. But guess what? The play structure is gone because most of them will get rid of them because the liability for insurance. So they go by the wayside and then next what happens? people stop taking care of them and it gets overgrown and nobody uses it and everybody's pointing fingers. So, I think those are things to think about when we're like, "Oh, we want this beautifification." I I agree, but most people take care of their own, not the community because we are just all struggling just to deal with their own stuff. So, I mean, rooftop decks, when I've sold the the row houses with the rooftop deck, that has become a beautiful sanctuary for people. People really really enjoy that. They feel like if I can't have a big garden or a yard, I can do whatever I want upstairs and entertain people. So, I think that's something to really think about because these joint areas never work out. And if we could get people like number one, more housing. I'm like, give us three over two all day long. I need that for my firsttime buyers. Um, but I also think it's really important to think about it's a place to store stuff till we don't got a junky community cuz that's what's going to happen. So anyway, thank you very much. Thank you. Are do we allow rooftop decks? Okay, great. Um, you asked about epidemiology and I've been googling over here. I have been paying attention, but I've also been googling. So, the

urbanist had an article in February, Valentine's Day. walkability isn't just good planning, it's a public health intervention. And it then refers to an article in the Journal of Epidemiology. So, there's one um Jane Jacobs, the probably queen of urban planning, her whole philosophy was eyes on the street and that's where she based it on basically and continuing to move forward. What was the name again? Jane Jane Jacobs. She wrote the life and death of the American city. It's like the book that every planner had to read in planning 101. I mean, I can remember we xerox the pages because there wasn't enough copies in the library and it's out of print, but it you can still find it in the libraries. Um, so I've been putting these on different pages as Euro was speaking, so I apologize. Um Reed Ewing, a professor at the University of Utah, has several articles on, and forgive me, um do better urban design qualities lead to more walking in and this one is primarily in Salt Lake City and so yes, and do urban design qualities add to property values? Again, the same type of thing. And it's about the eyes on the street. And if you think about walking along, I mean, think about streets where the entire subdivision has turned its back on the street and you just have this long stretch and somebody gets in trouble there. Who are they going to or how are they going to get help? And you know, just that kind of thing. You might not be able to do use your cell phone or whatever. So, it's just that kind of thing. and the walkability scores have made a huge difference. And so, um, I

can send you the link to the urbanist article and I will put these together. Most of them are behind firewalls. Unfortunately, you can only read the, um, abstracts, but I can give them to you. So, the answer is yes. Thank you. Appreciate that. Okay. Okay. Well, that being said, um I think the uh point about the shared yard and personal space was a good point. So, it's uh it's true. Now that I think about it, I look at I used to live in a neighborhood that had one and it was just an empty field that one person was nice enough to mow from time to time. And I want a rooftop deck. Yeah, for sure. Um, commissioners, did you have any other uh questions, comments, or or any additional thoughts uh on what we've discussed today? Uh, hey, no. No. Um, I would just ask you, Eric, could you break out your lovely table for parking it into its own PDF and put that on the 2044 website because it's I think it's an exhibit in Yes. today's thing. But I think that would be helpful rather than going through this whole deck and the rest of it to really call that out. Certainly. I it might already be on there, but if if it's not already, I'll put it up there tomorrow. That was a great table. Yeah. Yeah. Lot of fun doing that. Commissioner Welch, I saw you uh reaching towards your button. I I just wanted to make sure you said you weren't going to be here on the third. That is correct. So, I don't know if it's inappropriate or not. if you had any suggestions once the entire package is put together if you want to send him pray to vice chair a sorry before he if he's going to be here yeah he's I've already checked with him he is going to present your side and if there's amendments or something you want to have changed yeah if there's anything that that piques my curiosity or that draws my attention I will email

it uh so you will have it yeah I just want to make sure because you've been through this whole entire process I want to make sure that your final thoughts for there and for any other commissioner that can't make it. So kind of you to want my final thoughts. Appreciate that. Jerry, you've worked hard on this as all of you have. Um so yeah, you deserve that word. We'll make sure that the changes from the April 7 and May 10th version are highlighted. So I think we'll have one clean version and then one that highlights in yellow so you don't have to go searching for any changes. Okay. Okay. Last call, commissioners. Okay. Motion to adjurnn. I I think there's