City Council - Special Meeting

Everybody ready? All right, recording in progress. Good evening. I'll call the special meeting of the Federal Right City Council uh to order on this 21st day of April uh 2026. Would you all please rise for the pledge of allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right. Uh we are here for the purpose of um a discussion uh to initiate a study of potential annexation and outreach to affected areas. Uh we'll have uh Brian Davis, our city administrator. um uh give us an overview on on what is being contemplated and uh then we'll open it up to questions by the council. Brian.

Okay. Thank you, mayor. Uh members of council, nice to see you this evening. So, this is a a presentation that was intended to be given at the retreat in January, but we ran out of time and we've been trying to find a time slot to fit this in. So, today is the day. The the question on the agenda at the time and still is pertinent today is why Annex? Why is the city contemplating or interested in annexing and why is the county uh interested in us annexing the unincorporated areas? We when the a few years ago uh precisely in 2025 when the city annexed the what is now the Pepe property at 320th and I5, the county at the time wanted to get a level of commitment from us that we would look at the larger picture of annexation. And I'll get more into that of what that means in a minute. But that was a commitment that we made at the time when the Pape property was annexed is that the county wanted us to look bigger and look more broadly at the annexation um outlook of the city. Uh secondly, it provides for more efficient provision of governmental services. A lot of these island areas are completely surrounded by an incorporated city. Uh in our case, the the ones are are surrounded by Federalway and Auburn and other cities and are incorporated. And so for the city or excuse me, for the county to uh dispatch services to these sort of satellite locations, uh it's difficult for them and not very efficient. And so as the city becomes the jurisdiction for those areas, the delivery of those services becomes more efficient. The number three is it supports the comprehensive plan. Uh and I'll get into that uh in a minute. Uh not not just the city's comp comprehensive plan, but the counties as well. Uh and then finally, it allows us to uh determine what the growth and zoning

looks like. Um, we've entertained some uh not entertained, but we've been asked for comment on reszones of u lands within these island areas that the county is currently responsible for. And they've asked us for comment. And so it makes it somewhat difficult to say, you know, with with being connected to the city and the traffic patterns that we experience uh throughout the city. and then just to kind of have this spot taken out of the traffic pattern uh makes it difficult to coordinate that in some cases. So, here's a history of of the annexations that the that Federal Way has seen. This map is obviously you can't see the writing, but it's intended to be a color representation of the annexations. This large uh green triangle shape is obviously the original boundary of the city. And then these little colorcoded areas are all of the lands that have been annexed into the city uh since the since the city's original incorporation. The most recent of which is this small orange piece and that is the Pape property that I alluded to earlier. So you can see that all the way from the north uh from the Roondo uh annexation all the way down to the south the Regency Woods neighborhood um and all the annexations in between. Um but again it's this orange piece this PPE annexation uh which was at their request. They wanted to come into the city. They wanted to develop under the city standards um so that they could uh get their their um shop open which they did in May of last year. Many of you went to the grand opening. So uh that was a wonderful event. They've been a great addition to the city. So this map um and this is a little difficult to see but um

the gray area on the map are all of the incorporated city boundaries of the city. The the the light the turquoise and the uh orange areas those are the unincorporated areas of South King County which is under county jurisdiction and which we call the islands. So, the the two that are what the comprehensive plan refers to as potential annexation areas for the city of Federal Way are this north island right here, this large island right here. Uh, this one next next to it is is Kent, but this one right here is is uh our potential annexation area to the north. And then to the south, this large turquoise one is our other potential annexation area. These orange ones are unclaimed. This square one is um Pacific, the city of Pacific's uh potential annexation area. So again, these are and you can see these other islands. Here's some uh in Kent. They're all along here. There's here's some in Auburn. Um off the map, there's one in Enam Claw. So there's all these different islands that the county has at least indicated to us that they are motivated to have cities then take uh jurisdiction so that again the delivery of services can be done uh more effectively. Oops, wrong button. So this represents those two areas that I mentioned uh that the north area uh in yellow and then the the south one also in yellow. Currently the city is 24 square miles. This would add seven square miles or uh 4.4 acres to the city boundary. The existing land uses of the potential annexation areas are largely single family residential. Um there's some um

limited commercialindustrial and multifamily uh with the rest of the majority being uh vacant property. So that's the breakdown of those PAAs of the land uses. Um so I'm just going to read the highlights. This is the county's comprehensive plan under the annexation portion of the plan. Uh it said among other things it says that the county shall encourage annexation of the remaining urban unincorporated areas. Further says that the county shall work with cities and with neighborhood groups, local business organizations, public service providers and other affected parties on annexation related activities to move the remaining urban islands toward annexations by the city most appropriate to serve it. So, and that's how those uh islands that I mentioned earlier were designated as they were determined that which city would be most uh appropriate to serve it. And those those two large ones are um have been determined that the fed that city of Federal Way is most appropriate to serve it. Uh and then finally, given the county's limited taxing authority, promoting annexation of these areas into cities where a higher level of service can be provided will foster more equitable and socially just outcomes for residents in unincorporated urban areas. Again, this is from the county's comprehensive plan. Our own comprehensive plan commits us to working with the county to strategically annex identified potential annexation areas. Uh and so that was uh that's in the plan. That's the council has adopted that. But that's on top of the commitment that we made to the county when the Pape property was annexed in 2020. Okay. So the annexation methods and there's these are the ones that these are the high level methods that apply to to our situation. There's other ones that are that are listed by the are

available per state law, but these are the ones that are most uh applicable to our situation. The uh petition method, this is where people ask to be brought in. This is what PPE did. They said, "Hey, we want to be in your city. Tell us how we do it." And so they uh wanted to do that. We worked with them. We worked with the county and we worked with the boundary commission on moving that boundary so that Pepe or the property that Pape was interested at the time could come into the city. um that's a single property uh interest uh coming into the city. There's other situations where it could be more than one city and a and a majority or or 60% of the property value could then come into the city if they so petition to do so. Um and this is this is the most frequently used because it's basically somebody wants something, we can deliver it to them and so we agree to do it. The second method is uh less common. It's the election method. It's where we take the the voters of that potential annexation area and propose annexation and they vote up or down on the proposal. Um this is has been seen as well even our own city has experienced this. It's it's rather expensive. Um it's cumbersome. It's a little bit awkward because, you know, as a proposed um election, we can't really be in a meeting and say, "Hey, this is a great idea." So, it's kind of this one of these awkward things where we can't use governmental um uh venues to advocate when we're there. We just have to present the information. And so, and then the annexation or excuse me, the election itself is is rather expensive. And then finally, the interlocal agreement method. So in 2021, the legislature um authorized a way in which the city and the county can collaborate for a an annex an area to be annexed into the uh

into the city. And this is by again this is by agreement between the city and the county. They determine the breakdown of of assets, the the taxing um authority and a number of other things. And so by an interlocal agreement that is both passed by the council and by the um county council, it then becomes annexed into the city. There's lots of uh there there's a great deal of analysis that goes into this, a lot of information again that is has to go into this this method. This is at this time this is the most um uh this is going to be the the in our estimation the best path forward uh in in incorporating these islands into the city if the if the council wants to move forward. So if we were to do that in the next steps and the council was on board with this we would begin to collect data in addition to what we've already presented to you tonight which is very high level but we look go a little deeper provided get additional data from the annexation areas we'd meet with the county we'd um develop an outreach plan this is there's significant outreach with this um most of the successful annexations that other cities have done there's tremendous outreach to that and we've not notified the potential annex ation areas of that other than just the general an u announcement about tonight's special meeting. But we there there are going to be outreach or I most cities will have outreach meetings in the annexation areas with the resident concerning residents there talking about the pros and cons of annexation, what it looks like, what their tax situation will look like and what their delivery of what the level of service looks like to them compared to what they experience now. um a number offormational meetings so that they can be uh informed and uh

be a part of this because they they you know in the end if it moves forward they will uh be a you know residents of the of the city. Um there's and again we'll hire a consultant to do financial an analysis. There's a number of things that we don't have information on right now. You'll probably ask some questions of me that I can't answer at this point because it's all preliminary. We're just wanting to get an indication from you that this is a good idea or it's not a good idea. And so, um, a lot of the the questions about what will my taxes look like, uh, we don't have that right now. It's it's it's a it's an in-depth analysis. It's not just a we move you over from column A to column B. There's a number of different steps and, uh, like I said, division of assets and other things from jurisdiction to jurisdiction that that plays into that. Um and we'll obviously schedule work sessions with you to uh as this moves forward. So that is I think that's it. Yes, the next one is not that. So

I'll answer questions of you at this time. Council President, thank you. So um do we know if there's a cost that King County would charge us to take over the area? But in addition to that, will we have to hire more staff, police, parks, um, to maintain the parks if King County were to give the give us those parks that are over there? And how would we manage that?

Yeah, there's a there's a there's a transition period. There's a provision in this option three in which we can potentially receive funding. Uh it's a it's a uh it's a tax that it's credited from the state that we then receive to help with our transition period of the annexation which goes towards your second part of the uh your second question which is hiring the staff that's needed to deliver the services because we can't uh promise an elevated level of service with the with just the existing staff that we have now. It's more people. It's I again there's some estimates of 25,000 people. So, we would obviously need to hire more uh staff, more more police officers, more road crews, more planners, more just everything to to represent them in city government.

So, uh the whoever you're going to ask to look into this, will they study that to see what how much we need to hire, how we're going to pay for it?

Okay. And if we were to do it by uh by um by us just voting on it, whatever way that was, uh how long after we make a decision and King County Council makes a decision, does it become part of federal way? Uh so for the um for the uh the tax the excuse me the the credit that we would would receive there's there's a somewhat of a delay. It's it's the um it's this it's the July of the fiscal year following the action that we take uh when it becomes a becomes part of the city. It's it's it doesn't take that long but when we start to receive funding there's going to be a little bit of a delay.

Okay. If we then get that. Thank you. All right, we're going to go right in order. I think u most people uh most council members have their uh lights on. Council member Sepidosa. Thank you, mayor. Thank you for the presentation, Brian. Um I think one of my questions you asked. Um do you have a map that shows us how federal we would look today if we were to do that by chance? Can you throw it back up, Heather? Okay. Um, this isn't the Let's see if there's a better one.

There is a better one. There was a previous one was Oops. Keep going. That's

So, this doesn't show the west part of the city. U, this is I5. So a good portion of the city is off the map here, but it would include these two yellow areas as part of the city. And right now, so the boundary is uh I believe military right now. And that would include No, I think it's Peasley. So Peasley uh Canyon Road is actually, you can't really see on this map, but it's actually part of the there's a sliver of of potential annexation area that is Peasley Canyon Road. And so that would then become part of the city. So the area between the two yellow is already Federal Way.

Yeah. This is um this is North Lake. So warehouses right here or um yeah, old headquarters building. Okay. So we just close the the gap a little. Okay. Um, so I'm going to talk I want to ask about the housing needs because according to GMA, we need to come up with $11,000 additional housing by 2040 if I'm not mistaken. So what does this annexation do to that requirement? So um Keith might be able to fill in, but my understanding is that when we when we look at housing needs, we look at um do do we look at our potential annotation areas? So they have their own.

Yeah. So it's it's we can't just add them and then it adds to our uh fulfilling our need because that own potential annexationary has a need itself, right? So we can't just take that away and then add to ours then be done. So it it we have to so it's going to be 11,000 plus what whatever their future need is. Yeah. And do we we don't have that number then? I do not we we can get you that information. Okay. Uh we know we can get that number. Okay. So does that mean or would that mean that new number is only going to be within that region or now is it going to be spread out throughout federal way

here? Keith, do you want to come up here or a different mic?

Sorry. So we're 11260 is our growth target in the next 20 years. And if we annex those areas east of I5, they have their own target. Um, and so it would be additive and we would look at the city as a whole. Okay. Um, so we would no longer look at it as two pieces. It would just become one big pot, so to speak.

So we could have some we could have more added to that area if necessary or whatever, however we spread it out. If it so happened that there were some um kind of underutilized properties over there, it could very well be that there's um more potential in that area than maybe in some other parts of the city. Okay. Thank you. All right, Council Moore. Thank you so much. Um Mayor and um Brian, thank you for uh your report. Um um um so you had answered the timeline question but I didn't hear do are we thinking like September? Are we thinking

well it dep it depends on I mean I can't predict going to be what time of year this is going to happen. So um it's I mean it's it's by ordinance. So, it happened shortly thereafter, but the in I think council member Honda or council president Honda also was asking about the potential uh payment that we would receive and that will not occur until the July of the of the following year that we annex. But there's also a deadline. There is. Can you talk about the deadline? So it's 20. Uh so we would need to be we would need to conclude this um within roughly a year's time frame if we're going to move forward with this and and get the the credit

because it's my understanding it's next July is the deadline. Yeah. For the for the funding. Interesting. Okay. So we really Okay. I guess that's to go back and review the ordinance of uh which is what you're telling me would kind of give me some sort of indication but what you're saying is we don't know exactly when and I totally hear that. So exactly when uh this would come into fruition. It's it's an ordinance. So I think it's I mean the the issue is the studying and drafting. It's not the ordinance. The ordinance I think is when the ordinance becomes effective.

It becomes effective. It's subject to referendum. So 30 days after passing. So and then the the new property it's I guess adoption into the city that date is set in the ordinance as well. So if you're talking about the time frame as to when this might happen that turns more on the studying and and developing a plan to implement implement it than it does the ordinance execution. The execution of the ordinance is probably about a a two-month process I would guess. Got it. Okay. With the public hearings and all that. Okay. Um, and I I heard three options. Uh, take it to the vote of the people. I heard um council can take action on it. And forgive me, I'm forgetting the third one is the

the petition. That's right. The majority asked to come in. And oddly enough, I actually remember there being in the past a petition. And I I do recall a vote having taken place in some cases uh when uh Jerry Gand had been uh on whatever effort he was on. Um, so I guess my next question is is when was the last time that the uh city even did this take take over, not take over, but annex into other areas. Heather, can you put that map back?

I remember one time it happened in high school when Ron Gent was presiding over the council. Um, but I'm just kind of curious. Um, and then Brian, my last question is is, and I'm not, again, I'm not sure if this was included in Council President Honda's question or not, but I mean, for a city to do this, I'm kind of curious about the support systems. I mean, what what role does the county play to help with that, you know, in terms of finance? I hear taxes. We're going to get taxes, but that's going to be a year later. Uh but what type of support systems does this city get or what role does the county play when we're

Yeah. So in answer to your first question here on the screen is all of the annexations that the city has done. I think maybe your question was more towards

when was the last time we did a vote to annex uh the these areas in and I I think it was in the uh ' 07 time frame if I'm not mistaken. uh and it was not successful. Um so the most recent one here, this is the on this key, it's called South 320th just because at the time it was not Pape's property, so we couldn't say Pape annexation, but this is the this is the Pape annexation. This was the one that we did in 2020. All the other ones were many years ago, at least 15 years ago. So here's the warehouser ones. Here's the the Regency Woods and Redondos up here.

Got it. And then your second question was what what role does the county play in this and support in support. Yeah. I mean

um so they are they're going to be crucial in this process. And so just the the their staff's involvement with how this plays out, how they can um you know until the residents become annexed into the city, the their representative government is still the county. And so the staff is going to play a role in in making sure that their their residents are are heard if if they don't believe that the city is is doing it correctly or whatever the case is. And so um they will be they'll play that role, but also they'll they'll coordinate closely with us on on getting this process through. And I can tell you so far, like I said, in in 2020, they said, "Please commit to us that we'll we'll hear from you on annexing these islands." and we have been in con communication with them on following up with that. Um that the timing just hasn't been right until this year. You know, we had to work on the comprehensive plan in 2024. So all of our planners or at least the the availability of our planners was tied up with that. It was a huge update. And so we didn't have time to work on something like this, which will also be a big effort. And so now that our our planners have a little bit more time, the timing is now right. And the county has been uh we've communicated that to the county and they've been uh very cooperative in that. They they've actually asked for several updates on like hey remember what we talked about. So um they've been very good about cooperating with us on this.

Yeah. And I'm obviously very curious. Last question. I'm very curious about uh the changes impact uh with Lake Kevin and and uh you know South K. Maybe not much. Uh but inevitably it's going to change something.

Their district boundaries are are a little different than than this. Um there's depending on if there are other areas that we want to explore annexation that may have an impact on South King Fire. But right now the the boundary of these designated potential annexation areas are somewhat independent of the fire district and Lake Haven's boundaries. All right. Thank you, Council Hamilton. Thank you. That was a great lead in. My question is about the Lake Haven district, and I see we have a Lake Haven commissioner here sitting with us. So, they're obviously very interested in this conversation.

Also a unincorporated uh area resident.

Yeah. Yeah. So, I guess my question is you said it's mostly single family homes. Are these homes mostly on sewer or septic? And what's the plan? And how is it going to affect the Lake Haven uh board of commissioners? Uh and actually they might be able to answer better, but if it's anything like the city, there's going to be a combination of both because when the city incorporated uh what is today Federal Way, there was several uh county era developments that were on septic and there's presumably some in the potential annexation areas as well and they would be able to continue that so long as they you know maintain their system in a uh appropriate way. Um, but I there's my bet is the majority of them are on sewer already, but there's bound to be some that are not.

Okay. I would imagine that the residents on septic would want to stay on septic so they don't have to pay sewer bills. Yeah. And and the ones in the city are no different. They want to stay on septic as well. And so there's Okay. And then what would happen to the uh the board at Lake Haven if this was to happen? uh in what in what respect would it affect how their how they represent?

Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, I think um we'll have this analysis kind of break this down, but I I believe that this will not change the uh Lake Haven's district boundary. Um that's that's set right now. Um there's with the fire district, it's a little bit different, but I I'm pretty sure with Lake Haven, it's their district boundary is is uh is independent of somewhat independent of this what we're trying to do. Okay. And then you I just want to confirm you I think I heard you say it would increase our city population by 25,000. Yeah, that that's an estimate. It's between 20 and 25,000. Okay. All right. That's all. Thank you. All right. All right. Uh Council Member Walsh.

Yeah, most of my questions have been answered. Um you know, I'd say that that some of the things that we need to take a look at and well, first off, how long do you think that study would take? Um, it'll it'll probably be uh probably three months. Okay. Minimum. All right. Because it seems like that that some of the things I'm sure would in uh would look at is is what the what our tax revenue from those areas would be as opposed to our our expenses, our outgoes.

And uh you know, and with it mostly being residential, not too much business, I I would suspect that it may put a greater strain on the city budget. I I suspect I don't know whether that's the the case or not. Um and also uh you alluded that that as far as the taxation level for the the residents there that that's kind of unknown whether their taxes would go up, stay the same. What do we have any is it likely it would increase or likely it would stay the same or

it it depends and I I I'm hesitate to to commit to one way or the other at this point which I I know that you'd like to hear, but it just it depends on a lot of things. It's not just a uh it's not a level of service question. It's a you know when we when we divide up assets with with the county and and uh things like that. It's it just there's a lot of unknowns at this point. So So as far as assets, would the county parks become city parks then or or how how does that work? The um that would be our position. Yes. Okay. That would include Five Mile Lake. That Yeah, I mean that that's that's the biggie. I mean that's definitely the biggie is Five Mile Lake. Yeah. uh part um

it it would so there there have been discussions about maybe some parks staying under the county. We we and we can certainly continue to have those discussions but just at a very initial analysis we we find that hard to manage and have a I guess an island a park so to speak when we annex the island itself. Yeah. If the county is wanting to get rid of islands, it seems like it'd be kind of defeating the purpose, right,

of it if they were to to keep the park. You know, it seems like that those for those residents there, I I think that uh you know, I don't know how it is in that northern area where where where Len lives, but I get a lot of comments from the people in this the the southern area that they're not very happy with the with the uh law enforcement protection from the uh sheriff's department down there. And it certainly seems like it would would they would get better service with that. Um I'm thinking about our our overlay program here here in the city. I mean we have a great overlay program. We have great streets. Uh it seems as though we may be uh a little more challenging with uh the annexation area where they have not had that overlay program and it could further create a a challenge to to maintain the same type of roads as what we have here in the city. So something to you know that we should take a look at it. I would imagine things like that. Would that be in the study?

Okay. All right. Yeah. I mean, as as I see it, I mean, hey, we we should definitely be doing the the study. And then, you know, I mean, where I stand on the whole thing right now, I'm kind of up in the air because we don't have all the facts and we need the facts.

And yeah, Council Member Walsh, that's a great point. We're not asking you to vote on an axation right now. It's to just give us a headnot that we should at least study this and if it if we get to a point where we uh believe it's worth doing, then we we start the outreach and and meetings with the council. and and what how would that outreach work with I mean, you know, I mean, I I would be even if it pencils out and the overwhelming number of of citizens out there are not in favor of it, I don't think it would be in our best interest to or anybody's best interest to to annex an area that they overwhelmingly did not want to be annexed. I I think that in past votes, you know, it went that way, but I think that currently with uh especially with law enforcement, I I highly suspect that it would be different this time if it were to come to a vote. But but we need to make sure that they're that at least if not the majority of a very sizable number are on board with it. So anyway, all right.

That's agreed. I mean, we certainly wanted we wouldn't want to take a a large portion in where people are, you know, not amunable. Yeah. And uh that may there may be some vocal folks over there. We we'll figure it out. And what you ask about types of outreach, we would we would personally, you know, not personally, we would send mail to every residents. Uh we would, you know, form of email, you know, every possible kind of outreach, yard signs, uh for public meetings. There'll be some forums and that probably be after the conclusion of the study. Correct.

Yes. Yes. There. Correct. There'd be a robust uh uh um a very very robust uh outreach and um and actually um you know maybe even a way to um I don't know if it's you know polling or I mean you got to be careful about informal polls because they're they're subject to you know not being accurate. Yeah. But I mean I don't want lens neighbors converging on on city hall with pitchforks you know just

that's right that's right I mean you know I think it you know we certainly would want the support of those that we would seek to you know and you know that you're right there is a my mother lived out there uh years ago and um you know the um the services are you know because it's a more remote area both with roads police service the fire department always got there fast uh and thank goodness for my mom. Uh but um uh yeah, I mean we would want to make sure that we had more um uh police service and we would uh you know that's something that we're you know that we we would be ready to um adjust our police force for that purpose. Okay. All right. Thank you.

Okay. Uh Council Member Coach Mark.

Well, uh thank you very much, Mayor. So, um I remember from 20 2000 that's 20 years ago when we discussed this and we had a big discussion with the folks east of the freeway and they were very upset because they wanted to maintain their lifestyle which was more of a suburban lifestyle with the courses and uh not have to pay taxes that they thought we they'd have to pay to an urban area. And I really I think our our initial study at that time was that the taxes would be fairly similar and we did talk about LOS which is level of service and um so it's going to be interesting to see what the study says this time particularly since there are people east of the freeway who have 8 acre parcels of property that wanted to develop and couldn't because there were no stores Mr. England. So that's going to be a big discussion about how to we got sewers to warehouser obviously into North Lake, but that'll be a big discussion about how to extend sewers because some people will be very interested in the new law from the legislature that then makes your single family lot able to develop that into multiple properties. So, um, good good try, Lydia. We could just annex it in and not have to increase our our number of people that we have to accept. So, I thought that was a good try. Um, at any rate, um, but as far as, uh, it's changed. 20 years has changed. They can't continue to live in a suburban area when they're when they're take is the benefits of the urban area. And I would really be

interested in knowing how many uh people live in that area that are houses for people who have been released from prison and are living in that area that were level sex offenders. And I know that there were some. I don't know how many, but I'd really be curious to see that because if I were living over there, I'd be very concerned about that because the sheriff is they have a substation, but they're quite a ways away. One other thing, when I was in the legislature about 2015, I did pass I have a law passed that um you'd have to have a in order to annex in um Lake Haven, although that's the majority of the boundary of Lake Haven. Um you'd have to have vote of the people. I don't know if that still stands under your number three in a local agreement with the county or not. Whether that's any but I don't think we're talking about that anyway. So I don't know Lenny. Uh yeah. So but I think it would be really interesting because we really can't keep people living on septic tanks. Those septic tanks will fail and then that's that's a health concern. Um and how do I know that? I'm on a septic tank and I actually want sewers. So, would you please get busy? It just costs too much.

So, um yeah. So, I'll be really interested in in hearing, but I'll be very much in favor of 20 years. I mean, goodness, we've given them plenty of time to uh something has to change. We did have horses over there. There were horses on the south end of the annexation area over by basically um was that 356 over in that area. But they can't keep doing that. We we need to this is urban area. So thank you mayor. Thank you. All right. Council member Sephawson.

Thank you. I hopefully you didn't misunderstand me. I wasn't trying to say let's not do it or anything. I just was asking a question around how it changes the dynamic of our housing needs. I I was joking with you. Just making sure. Okay. Um, so I'm looking at the existing land use the PA map. First of all, like they use the same color multiple times, so I'm confused, but um, um, so for example, keep going there. Go back

that one. So one of the designations actually is different from from the legend there but what is so you have commercial they have it's not ours yet they have commercial industrial and institutional so what is institutional uh for instance and then there's zero for office so yeah do you know how they institutional is like uh schools oh hospitals okay thank you Um, and so there's no offices there, but yet there's commercial, right? So the commercial is not like stores and Yeah. Okay. shops and stores

and open spaces are open space. Are those county owned right now? I I don't know. Ownership. That's just these are just land use designations. So land uses, excuse me. Yeah. So vacant is different from open space, right? And park is also could be could be the same but okay and then there's also park which could be open space or not. Yeah. So and I need to drill down into this but park is usually accessible recreational type of facility. Open space is more like a wetland uh conservation area okay

type use. And I know they called they see I see senior housing here which is zero but I wonder if senior house and I don't know this it's a question. I wonder if there's senior housing complexes within the multif family designation. Yeah we'd have to okay do some digging. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Council more.

Uh thank you. Um so two questions. Um we um we have seven members of the council in case you didn't know Brian. Uh and this would add roughly an estimate of 25,000 people. Um does and we would be what I've heard learned the fifth largest city in the state. Um would this I suspect because I've not heard of anything yet but I suspect this would not change the makeup of the council. At what point uh do we know we need to grow in terms of the amount of council members versus if that makes any sense. Does that make sense? The question I'm asking.

Yeah. So um first of all I think we I think we'd uh be about sixth or seventh largest. Oh. Um and then the makeup of the council the the the the percentage is you're you're non-district. So it's it's basically however many council members you want representing the city. Okay, pretty straightforward. Um, is the number of council members set by statute? No, it's it's well, we set it by when we incorporated. So, it's set by by ordinance usually, but not by state statute. These are two unrelated issues, I guess, is is the the takeaway. Okay. Council government and annexing cities or areas that have anything to do with each other.

No. And and the reason why I was asking that question is gosh, when we're adding more residents, do we have enough representation to to be make sure that we're representing every everybody? I mean, it's our job to represent everybody. I understand that. Uh but at what point, and I guess I was kind of curious of, you know, how do you know when to add more customers? How do you know how does that number work? You know, I I I would um just based on my own observation working with other cities, it's it's not a it's not like the House of Representatives. It's just a there's cities five times our size that has seven council members. Sure.

Okay. Fair. Easy enough. That's that's good. I was just kind of curious about that. And also you mentioned study a couple times we would be doing a study. Is there a cost to that or imagine what what are we looking at? Uh probably about 75,000. 75,000. What is that? Uh I guess we'll go we'll have that'll be brought up to finance Yeah. committee. Okay. Actually, it's a it's a personal services. Uh, oh, that's true. Yeah, it is personal services. I've already approved it. Yeah. Okay. Okay, great. Thank you. I don't think we've I don'tve I've approved moving forward. I don't think we have a vendor yet. We don't have We We have someone we like, but we won't It's not finalized yet. Yeah, we wanted to do this session first. Yeah. Good. And that includes everything we've been talking about essentially.

Yeah. Cool. Thank you, Council Member Hamilton. Thank you, Mayor. I thought of one more question. So if we if we decided not to annex if Federal A did not annex for whatever reason, what would happen? Would Auburn go after the annexation then or?

Um so there would right now these areas that I've talked about are within our comprehensive plan and within the county's comprehens comprehensive plan as Federal Ways potential annexation area. If we don't want to take action now, we can leave it as is and reserve the right to revisit this in the future and the remain federal annexation areas. For it to move to another jurisdiction when it's already been designated, we there would have to be coordination between jurisdictions agreement and then county uh ratification so to speak.

Okay. So, it wouldn't be impossible though for Auburn to say, well, we want to go for this. I I don't know the exact mechanics, but I think if we were to completely just kind of say we're we don't want this at all and und designate it, so to speak, then another city could potentially take it up. I I don't um yeah, I'll just I don't know why we want to do that, but that's that there's a mechanism to do it.

I think council coach has that. um it would have to go back through the boundary review board, King County boundary review board, and back at the time when we were doing the potential annexation areas and setting the boundaries, um I was really irritated because this council paid $250,000 to do a comp plan uh study and um for the area east of the freeway. And I was really excited to see what this would look like, like how many gas stations, how many grocery stores, how many shopping areas. And you know what they did? They just did an overlay of the county comprehensive plan. That's what they did. And that's it. And so we would really need to do a updated comprehensive plan for that area to see what would work for those folks. Yeah.

Very good. Council President Hyundai. Uh thank you. So from tonight, what's the next step and how do we notify the people who live over there and the businesses over there? Yeah, thanks for the question. So next step, if you're all give me a head nod or thumbs up that we should move forward with the study, we would do that at the conclusion of the study, we would get together again presumably and talk about the the findings of it and then talk about an outreach plan at that point. um because we we need to know if after looking at the numbers you know you've had a lot of questions tonight that this analysis will answer and so when you're informed with that information I think at that point you'll be able to say yeah this is a good idea or not and if it is a good idea then we need to start the the next steps which is the intense outreach

you wouldn't want to do the outreach without all the questions because the qu the outreach would beg they're going to have similar answer questions that you just had that we can't answer without the the study so we need to take care of that first and that would be the basis of the outreach Okay. Thank you. All right. Uh, seeing no further question. Oh. Oh, sorry. I've got two more. Coun Walsh. Uh, just kind of historically looking looking back at at annexations. How Roondo was it originally part of the De Moines's annexation area or or how did I mean Rodondo should be part of Federal Way, part of De Moines, but I'm going to phone a friend and ask the mayor.

Yeah. And actually we should u we should call on council member coachmar because you know you want to give them the lowown. as I can tell you redondo I'm sorry because I was part of the um people planning and uh we had included redondo and um there was this big fight and um there was a big remember well without getting into remember the bubbleator from the world's fair

world yeah it was at a house down in redando a I had it in his front yard and he got into this big fight with our first with Skip Priest and I remember them yelling down there at Redondo. Uh at any rate um uh so then uh the group it it failed the whole um city and city uh incorporation failed because of this big fight. So then they cut off Redondo and then it was just our boundaries as they are. They cut off the east side and they cut off Redondo just so that we could get incorporation through. So that's that's what happened there. So two votes. The second vote was successful.

All right. Thank you. Cessums. Yeah. Um so you mentioned the fact that our population could potentially grow by 25,000. What's the impact on what would the impact be on like our schools? Uh we've got a number of schools in that area. Um

yeah, the the school um again, so they're similar to the other um service districts that we have where they have their own district boundary and that currently accounts for the the areas that we're talking about. So how this would affect them is that if if they become part of the city and they get new zoning and ability to you know densify or whatever the case is then over several years there might be more students as a result of the growth within the potential potential annexation area. But the mere act of annexing doesn't into the city doesn't change the school district's boundary. They currently serve those uh those residents right now.

Okay. Thank you. Okay. All right. Thomas Jefferson, I think, is uh in one of these areas, right? Exactly. Okay. Uh thank you very much, uh Brian. I I don't see any further questions. So, uh we have um executive session. This is item 4A for collective bargaining pursuant to RCW4231404B. Uh time is approximately 10 minutes for that session. Uh we'll be in recess for that purpose and then until the 6:30 meeting.