Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Thanks, everybody. This is the Planning Commission meeting for July 16th. As we are short both our chair and our vice chair once again, much like the last meeting we had, we need to take nominations for an interim, what was supposed to be one time only, but maybe a couple times only. chair for tonight's meeting. So with that, do we have any planning commissioners willing to nominate anybody as chair for this evening's festivities?

I nominate Jim to be the chair.

I'll second that nomination.

Any other nominations? Does anyone want to call the question?

All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Congratulations.

Thank you. All right, let's go ahead and call the roll.

Kim Anderson.

Katie Cornell.

Jim Henderson. Brent Wozniak.

And Rosie Jo.

Okay, next. Can I get a motion for approval of the minutes from the May 21st meeting?

Yes, I motion to approve the minutes from the May 21st meeting.

Second. Any discussion? Okay. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

All right, then the motion carries. And now the public comment portion of the evening. Are we ready?

Yep. So anybody here, anyone in the room, please raise your hand and you can go to the podium. When you do go to the podium, make sure that you do indicate your name, where you live in town, if you live in town, and you have three minutes. Thank you.

So as you look at this diagram, you'll see a typical log that are going to be 120 feet by 50 feet. The shaded area is part of the improvements that are either required by the city code or necessary as the blocks do not have . So starting at the property, the city required a welcoming front porch, The designated walkway, it connects to the public sidewalk. Those are important design elements that help create the local historic character in Ohio. Because there's no alley, the only way to reach the required garage is through the drive-in. Seats near the full length of the park. At the end of the driveway, turning the apron is necessary so vehicles can see the future of the park. When these requirements are added together, the porch, the long bed, the dry bed, and garage, they total approximately 1,964 square feet of surface. The important point is that these aren't optional features. These are either required by the city's development standard or necessary for property ownership. And the current 40% of the surface element, those required improvements will be only done through a very modest amount of equipment. The challenge isn't that we're trying to build something larger than the neighborhood in the lab. The challenge is that the code unintentionally puts two important community goals in common. One, on one hand, the city requires homes with front porches and garages that have the same connection and development theory that secures normal service. On the other hand, the impervious surface makes it extremely difficult for these typical lots to accommodate those very different tasks. We're simply asking for those two goals to work together. Our president was targeting them, we're taking the commission to consider increasing their LALs and purveys to a business of 60% for lots of LALs. This would still require some time, but still a lot of regulations, and every third bill, we simply recognize that we've lost any physical restraint that LALs are probably given up. We have 30 seconds. Okay. Our hope is that the major property owners of these kind of lots won't have to choose between the city's vision and building a functional home. We believe we should build a college home. Thank you for your time.

Right at the pin, too. That's impressive. Anyone else in the room who would like to speak? Anyone online who would like to speak? If you do, please raise your virtual hand. I don't see any remaining folks who wish to testify at this time. Oh, wait. We have... Nope, we're good. So with that, would you like me to commence?

Yes. Close the public comment and... Move on to the Housing Basics presentation.

Thank you very much. For our record, my name is Eric Baker. I'm the Community Development Director for City of Gig Harbor. This is a follow-on presentation to our last, which was related to Housing Code Basics. Since we last met, Council has a... interest in moving the housing discussions forward faster than previously expected. If you remember, our past draft had us going through the entirety of phase two between now and December. Currently, the council is considering the multifamily tax exemption program, which applies to multifamily housing. They are concerned that the breadth of Phase 2, certain elements may slow down other elements, and they feel that being able to break out a piece of what was previously Phase 2 would be valuable to be able to get it on the books and people using it and not caught in discussions potentially of transitional or permanent supportive housing. the height conversation, as well as components of the design manual. Thus, council has directed staff to bifurcate. It's not quite split in half, but it's a piece taken out of phase two and move it on a more accelerated version. I apologize I did not have the draft documents you see before you available prior to tonight. But we do expect that we'll be presenting these tonight and then continuing discussions moving into the remainder of the summer. What you'll note here on the slide is that we're now broken into phases 2A and 2B. Phase 2A, instead of having a close of business December 2026, now has a Halloween deadline. Those are intended to be focused largely on the site design elements. We spent a lot of time talking about last Planning Commission meeting. Those largely are setbacks, hardscape limitations that was just testified about, as well as lot dimensions. Height would not be changed in this phase. THAT LEAVES THE REMAINDER OF PHASE 2B TO INCLUDE THE ALLOWED LOCATIONS OF CHILDCARE CENTERS, THE SHELTERS, TRANSITIONAL EMERGENCY AND PERMANENT SUPPORT OF HOUSING CONVERSATION, BUILDING HEIGHTS, UNIT LOT SUBDIVISION, PARKING AND THE DESIGN MANUAL. That is still a good, meaty amount of content that would be continuing to move forward, but we would be asking for Planning Commission's feedback on the first part first and the second part second. Let me pause there for any questions about the revised structure of Phase 2 code development.

Eric, did you mention there's a slide?

Are the slides not showing? All of this means nothing to you.

And then can you just wrap, bring me back around to where MFTE fits in? Because when I heard one and two, I didn't hear MFTE really being a factor of those types of housing.

The multifamily tax exemption is not required to go before the planning commission. It is a incentive program. So it won't be before you, but it will be before council. What council will like to do is they would like to line up a portion of phase two code development with that conversation so that they could be had together. So you'll be focusing on the code changes, but again, just so that you know, the multifamily tax exemption process will also be moving along in tandem, also hopefully with an October 31st conclusion date. Again, that's all going to be dependent on public comment and ensuring that we have a thoughtful discussion, not adhering solely to a particular date. Sorry about not showing these slides. That is awkward. Am I not sharing my screen?

Oh, yeah.

This all slows us down even further. Okay. Nope. It's all me. It's an operator error problem. Not quite. Come here. I'm just going to. My Zoom died. Nope. No, I'm good. I just need to bring it back from the grave. Thank you for your patience, and I apologize.

Recording in progress.

I'm back. Yay, we're live. Thank you again for your patience. Can everybody now see the slides that happen to be now appearing on the big screen?

Yes.

Excellent. So again, we talked through how this phased conversation is intended to go. All right. This is going to be one of those days.

My question would be is I think originally when we talked about going into this phase, it was kind of contingent on like, okay, one change kind of impacts the next change and the next change. It's kind of all worked together like a puzzle.

Yes.

So with breaking them up the way that we are, how is that going to directly impact that? Because particularly we talked about the height being very important for some of the multifamily housing and to be able to have commercial and all those other things. So I don't know, it just seems like, is it wise to break it up like that?

There are pros and cons. You are correct. Obviously, the more comprehensively you take on a code update, the less chance that there's going to be any disconnects. The unfortunate part is when you take a code update, which is already extremely technical and actually really is where the rubber hits the road for development and you make it too large. you end up delaying the adoption of particular components because certain portions just need more time. And I think from our conversations with the community thus far, things such as the shelter transitory, the step housing conversation is likely gonna take more time. We have folks not just in the room, but we also have folks in the community who are looking at doing accessory dwelling units and other things. We would like to be able to move those forward. The reason height has been delayed is because that height is particularly concerning to folks who happen to be adjacent to these new developments. So we need to make sure that we have time to discuss the design manual elements, which have to go along with it. Those two are also thorny issues that can slow down some of these other pieces. So the short answer is yes, you are correct. The right now we are trying to be able to move certain things through. We have bifurcated this in a manner which should not create any disconnects. But again, it does create the possibility as we move forward that we're gonna have to pay closer attention to what else is touched by these changes. Especially as you're going to note that the document that you have before you and the one that I'm gonna show on the screen here in a moment, um, are all, um, uh, this is the, a T a brand new table. Um, when you take a look at the, the dimensions, uh, for, uh, lots and setbacks, they all live in individual zone sections. They aren't located in one table. So you can't see our one without going to the R one chapter. You can't see our two without going to the R two chapter and you can't compare anything. So we are attempting to compare them all, all in one document. And, uh, uh commissioner online um are you able to get to a document that's located on the planning commission page that does uh include the table we're going to discuss here in a moment rosie Are you able to... We have a document that's on the Planning Commission page. Are you able to open that? I will be attempting to display it on the screen.

I'm going to try to do it while you're talking.

Okay. It may just ultimately be easier. Other questions about the phasing?

I guess my only question would be is that if... for some reason we get into phase two B and we recognize hypothetically that, okay, this, this, and this needs, maybe we need to go back and change the, I don't know, lot dimensions again to accomplish it all. Is that possible to go back and make changes? Yes. I mean, if we had to.

Yes. Phase two B will build off of phase two A, just like phase two A builds off of the current code and so on and so on. Um, so the purpose of this, I've kind of gone over, um, we want to make sure that we're able to move some of these forward. Um, we are getting commentary from the department of commerce, um, that they are looking for jurisdictions to make progress sooner rather than later on this. And again, as I had mentioned previously, there is the auspice of a commerce review for jurisdictions that is now. Okay. Anybody? It is that day. I'm going to treat this like World Cup. I'm not taking credit for any of these gaps on how long I talk. All right, so... Yeah, so we want to move phase two forward to be able to assist people who can actually start moving forward, especially phase two will help us assist ADUs on existing properties. When we talk about new density, everyone thinks that we're just going to bulldoze everything and build something new. There's multiple ways that we're looking to address density, like we discussed at the last meeting. If you're in the centers of local importance, like Uptown, like Gig Harbor North, we are really going to be concentrating growth. We are looking for redevelopment But when you're talking about areas like the R1 or R2 zones that are scattered along Burnham Drive, located down closer to the city limits on the south, we are looking at other opportunities for people to be able to get additional dwelling units on the property. without having to change their property layout. Some of those have been hindered by hardscape and other requirements. We would like to be able to provide greater opportunity for ADUs, which the Planning Commissioner recommended approval of code changes last year or the year before that. There are, again, some limitations similar to what you heard in public testimony on exactly whether that is possible. We're looking to kind of move that forward as quickly as possible, getting something on the books this year to not only make that provision available to the public, but also to show progress with the state in a way that is meaningful. This also allows us to progress towards housing goals as Phase 2B can handle some of the more controversial topics. So this is an incredibly tiny font I'm now noting. Largely what I wanted to focus on is that what you see in this table is a series of delightful planner speak zoning districts. We use words like R1, R2, RB1, just kind of going through what you see on this table. The R1 zone is pretty much our lowest density zone. That is the one that's located in the downtown area of the city. It's also located in scattered developments to the west of Highway 16 and then also located up along Burnham Drive. That is the area that you are noting that we are proposing the fewest number of changes due to the fact that the density on that zone is relatively low. Thus, we are largely focused on accessory dwelling units. Then when we move into the residential medium, you're now looking at the RB1 and R2 zones. Those are higher density residential. Now you're talking about detached and duplex housing, as well as townhomes. The RB1 zone differs as it allows a certain amount of businesses also in that zone. So that is intended to be kind of a mix of residential and business. as you continue down the table you get to rb2 and r3 r3 is a higher density residential zone rb2 is again a higher density business and residential zone now instead of capping out at 12 dwelling units an acre you're now looking at 32 dwelling units an acre thus multi multi-family housing garden apartments condominiums are definitely considered in those I won't cover the PEI or the ED zones. Moving to the other side of the table, you see commercial business. Now you're talking about our highest intensity zones. These are C1, B1, and B2, commercial one, business one, business two. This is where the densities are the highest. And then you have downtown business and your waterfront zones beneath that. Downtown business zone is only in one area of the city. That is the Judson area around the Peninsula Shopping Center. There is a sub-area planning process proposed for that. And then the waterfront zones, those are the ones that directly abut the waterfront along our harbor. I have a map here that kind of shows that somewhat. Again, it likely will also be unfortunately small. This is really just to kind of show exactly what we mean by those. As we indicated, R1 has a lighter touch when we're talking about making adjustments. Some of that is due to historic district concerns. But once you get above the R1 zone, we are talking about some pretty substantial changes to setbacks, to hardscape, to impervious surface. and to lot dimensions to be able to allow for a greater housing diversity besides what we currently have on the books. This is the map that you see here. Everything you see in pale yellow is that R1 zone. I'll call it the light touch zone where we are looking at limiting some of the changes that we're making in those areas. The red is the commercial zone. So now you're talking about the C1s, B1s, B2s. That's where we're looking at 38 dwelling units an acre, looking at mixed use development, looking at higher density multifamily. And then when you get to the, I guess, standard yellow color located along Burnham Drive, also located in scattered other areas, including the area on the west side of the highway on the other side of Borgen Boulevard. These are those R2 zones. The R2 zone is the one that allows 6 to 12 dwelling units an acre. which again, now we are looking at townhome-type development. There is substantially greater changes in those areas to, again, allow greater opportunities for development. Any questions on those extremely tiny background slides?

I just wanted to clarify something. This effort is just to... change the zoning codes of each zone. We're not looking at rezoning different blocks to change the zone of that block.

No, at this point, certain things are staying the way they were when we completed phase one code development last year. That would be the zoning map is intended to stay the same. So boundaries will not change. Additionally, we are not looking at increasing the maximum densities of any zone. So again, 32, 38, those are ingrained in our capital facilities plan, which means if we make any adjustments to those, we have to then assess, okay, what does that do to our roads, our sewer, our water, and other utilities? All right, fingers crossed. This is a technical... Okay, well, just to stop sharing that, I'm going to have to start sharing something else. Okay, what I'm about to share is what everybody in the audience should have a copy of, and everybody at the podium should have a copy of. And Rosie, are you able to access this, or can you at least see what I'm showing on my screen?

I can access it, and I do have it kind of on the side as well.

Okay, thank you. So what this table shows, I'm going to kind of give just a little primer on exactly what this table is. Again, this is the culmination of all the zones that are in our zoning codes. All put into one table. So when we talk about density and dimensions, we say go to this table, don't go to a million different places, which has been confusing apparently for a number of years, far beyond the amount of time that I've been with the city. So looking here, what you have is we have a series of columns. I'll go through those columns in a moment. But the important part to look at here is you have text that is both in black and text that is in blue. The text that is in black is the current code. The text that is in blue is the proposed revisions. And we do that zone by zone on our way down. Moving from left to right on the columns, the first column, of course, is the zone. Those are the ones I just went over a moment ago. Then we have minimum lot area. That's how small in square footage a lot can be when subdivided. So if you're looking to subdivide under current code utilizing R1, you're looking at 7,200 or 7,500 square feet. What you would see proposed here is 6,000 square feet. So again, a reduction, but not a gargantuan reduction in the size of square footage for minimum lot area. As we continue to move along, minimum lot width, that is how wide a lot can be. Currently, we're operating on some very generous 70-foot lot widths in the R1 zone. That is being proposed to go down to 50. I won't go into any more of those details. I just want to describe what each one of the columns are. um then we have our set of setbacks we have our front yard setback that is generally where your property takes access from we have the side yard setbacks those are the ones that are located on either side of the structure and then your rear yard setbacks which is usually and i'll use the word usually the opposite side of your front yard setback there are some other nuances such as the next one which shows street side corner lot which are specific terms of art that are only enumerated in other parts of code. Those are not being proposed to be changed. Maximum heights, as I mentioned, are not currently proposed to be changed. They are sitting at 35 feet at this point. There is an opportunity to go higher with existing code, but in doing so, you have to provide certain site amenities. Then there is the delightful nuance of maximum impervious surface and maximum hardscape. Those are two different things. I think I tried to explain this at the last meeting. I'm gonna take another shot at it now. Maximum impervious surface is what is coined by the Department of Ecology as truly impervious. Water does not work, does not go through it. You're talking about concrete, you're talking about pavement, all the various things that cause surface water runoff. And then you have maximum hardscape, which is all of your impervious surface, plus any kind of pervious pavers, permeable asphalt, low impact development standards that look just like impervious surface, but are intended to be permeable. Like we talked about at the last meeting, low impact development standards are really hard to employ with our current soils. So we have to be careful when those are being utilized. And then lastly is the density. Like I mentioned, we are not looking to adjust the maximum density in any way in this process, though in certain instances, we may be establishing a minimum density indicated so that some of these zones do what we expect them to do. And we don't find people looking to develop one dwelling unit an acre, which some of these would be able to do if you don't have a minimum density, which again, one dwelling unit an acre was basically Very, very common in the rural areas back in the 1990s and 1970s and 80s. Currently not allowed in Pierce County for the most part, as well as definitely not allowed within cities. Any questions about what each of these columns mean as I painstakingly run through each of these rows here in a moment? All right. So again, the purpose of a lot of this is to be able to allow for subdivisions of lots that are smaller and for more of that land to be utilized for structures. Looking at the R1 zone right now, let's just look at setbacks, starting with the front yard setback. In the R1 zone, front yard setbacks, the garage has to be 26 feet back from the roadway. porch 12, house 20. We are proposing at reducing that to 20. So the garage is now allowed to be closer to the front property line, allowing more area on the property. Side yard setbacks are being proposed to be reduced from eight to five. Rear yard setbacks going from 30 to 15. Please ignore the four foot note. That one was not stricken. It was intended to be. That is on me. And then to kind of create some greater clarity, street side corner lots are now 10. Those in many cases can be up to 26 feet under the current code. Again, I'll show some pictures of what this looks like in a moment. As we continue to move across, again, maximum height has not changed, but maximum impervious surface now is set at 55%. Maximum hard surface would be set at 60%. So those would both be increases. Density minimum and maximum remains at 4%. Any questions about the R1 zone? You are rightful to ask where these numbers come from, Eric. These numbers are utilized by taking a look at other jurisdictions that are looking at handling housing diversity, as well as looking at a number of permutations of potential development using our existing development pattern. I have some conceptual images of those that I'll show here in a minute on how making some of these changes makes certain things like accessory dwelling units possible, as well as helping with other development ideas, such as making triplexes a possibility in zones where we are encouraging triplexes.

One question we've got in the R1, just for example, currently a minimum one max four. I don't see a minimum in the proposed.

The minimum in the proposed is would be set at four. So you don't have a, the minimum and the maximum are the same.

So if you currently have a property that is in the R one zone, and you have one home on that property, just a hypothetical, yeah. And those individuals want to say at a garage, and they come for permitting, they're not, we're not going to enforce that there now be a compliance on that lot of four units.

Only if they wanted to subdivide. If they had the one lot and they wanted to come forward with a future subdivision and they would have to meet the four dwelling units in acre only at that time.

They couldn't split it in two and add an ADU, say, for their children. They'd have to go to four.

No, you could add an ADU. An ADU doesn't count towards density. You could add a garage. You would have to make sure you're meeting your hardscape requirements. You need to make sure you're meeting all your setbacks in this, but it would not affect density. Density is only for dwelling units.

So if you're subdividing that property to deed. Yeah. that to a separate entity, then it would be required to be four. But if it's an ADU and you're just inviting other people to stay on your, okay.

So let's say somebody has one acre property. Yeah. They wouldn't be able to cut it in half into two half acre properties. They would have to do it into four. Okay.

Well, a question on that. What if they aren't able to put it into four? because maybe where the house is located currently on it. And so now we lose the potential of that being two because it's all or nothing. Like sometimes you just can't do that or they're not willing to. They don't want to have three neighbors. Is there a possibility to maybe make the minimum two? Because otherwise then we're losing the potential of housing options right there.

Four dwelling units an acre is the bare minimum for urban zones, and by bare minimum, it's even not allowed in certain other jurisdictions. Going lower than that is considered urban sprawl. Four dwelling units an acre existed in the current code. Other jurisdictions, again, stop at five. But at this point, we are looking at staying at four dwelling units an acre. So again, much like you said previously, you are correct that sometimes a bird in hand is better than the opposite. But the reality is we aren't allowed per growth management hearings board rulings to allow subdivision in our urban areas that is less than four dwelling units an acre. And even that is challengeable.

I just point out to Katie that the minimum lot area being 6,000 square feet, that's like seven ish lots per acre would be the minimum. So not every lot would have to be the minimum lot size to meet that for units per acre requirement. So there is some flexibility there and yeah, good point. You could squeeze in more if on one part of the acre versus the other, and it still reached that amount.

Eric, under the current code and then also the proposed code in the R1, just looking at the hard surface, is it even possible to get an ADU on a lot that already has an existing dwelling? When you, like, it seems logical, you would exceed the hard surface percentage by doing that.

By exceeding, by the 40%, yes. By the 60%, it is doable, and I actually have a visual that I can skip back to. Again, the hard part on this was how I was going to bounce between the matrix and show it to the people in the audience and be able to show the visuals. Does everybody feel comfortable that they have a copy of this document that they can keep open if I stop sharing? Anyone not? In which case, I will stop sharing this, and we can follow along on the table on the hard copies, and we will share the PowerPoint again. How hard can this be? Moving on. OK. So we tried to do, again, just some conceptual images here. This here, again, this shows the R1 zone, which is in the dimensional standards. Roughly, this is a relatively common lot. It's about 100 feet wide. It's going to be about 120 deep. What you see here is, again, one of the standard Gig Harbor size homes. You're looking at about 2,800 square feet. What you see here is you see this alone all by itself is able to meet the setbacks of 8, 8, 20, 30. But what you're noting here on the side is the hard surface calculation. Most of these types of homes that if you were to take a look at existing development here in Gig Harbor right now, most R1 properties would not meet the 40% hard surface cap today. The illustration you see here is roughly 47%. Again, this is entirely for illustration purposes only. This does not exist anywhere. Don't anybody drive down Rosedale looking for this lot. This lot doesn't exist. So again, kind of getting to the point that the 40% is very, very restrictive, even on some very large lots. So in making changes to go up to 55 or 60%, in this instance, with the use of pervious pavers for your patio or something to that nature, you would be able not only to get the home, your garage, but you'd also be able to fit in some relatively small accessory dwelling units. and still be under the 57 or be under the 60% that is now currently being proposed. Purpose being is that that now allows greater flexibility, both in setbacks. You'll note that the setbacks are now 20 fives and 15, which then will also allow additional space for your accessory dwelling units. These accessory dwelling units are only 600 feet in size. Obviously, we do allow 1200 square feet. um per edu um so you could easily take those two and make them one and you get the same general illustration does that help in any way or did that just make it more confusing it's very helpful other than i thought the side side setbacks have to equal at least 15 total

So they can't be five each, correct?

I don't. Let me take a look. I don't believe that's how it is meant to be. Five minutes, 15 feet combined. 10 feet total for an 8,000 square foot lot or less.

That was because this lot is under 8,000 square feet. Therefore, it only has to be 10 total.

Is that how that would be? That actually would be the case, but likely this five feet here, can you see where I'm? No. If you look, that should not show as five. That should show as ten. So basically, you're pretty much right up against the ADU. You can still fit it in. You'd have five on one side, ten on the other.

And then does this diagram assume any permeable surfaces or are these all hardscapes?

This would, either A, depending on the overall amount of hardscape would be 57.5 if you made everything impervious. So obviously, if you wanted to utilize permeable pavers for the breadth of the patio, et cetera, that number would be able to be up to the full 60%. So you would be looking at an additional 5%, in which case this entire development would fall under that 60%. Again, we don't want to force people to LAD, but LAD was adopted for a reason. That was to be an encouragement for people to attempt. And we want to kind of do that balance.

Eric, I was just, so if this is, I'm assuming this is already like a current existing law as an example, correct?

Nope, this is entirely illustrative.

Well, I know it's a make-believe, but I'm saying it's a make-believe of an already existing house adding an ADU, or is it not a new build, correct?

It can be both. Okay. Yeah, again, it shows proposed on here. Very likely it can also be an existing home and an existing garage that previously would not be able to build any accessory dwelling units, and very likely at that point would be over the 40%. So they are pretty much capped at their development.

Yes. Okay. Because I'm just trying to make sure I follow this here on the R1 is the minimum lot is 6,000 square feet. If you were to subdivide it, you have to subdivide it into four. So I kind of did the math on what an acre is. An acre is 43,000 square feet. So if you divide it by four, which is the minimum, I guess, yeah, you can't do less than that. Then the maximum lot size in an acre is only 10,890 square feet. And so then when I look at like this and it's 100 by 120, then that square footage is actually higher than the max allowed on this.

This is not intended to be an illustration of a subdivision. This is intended to be an illustration of an existing lot that was created previously. Much like the 40% impervious surface cap, we have a lot of lots in Gig Harbor that don't necessarily adhere to the current code. The current code is intended to be for people who want to subdivide further. This one here is intended to illustrate somebody who may already have an existing home on an existing lot who currently cannot do anything.

Yeah.

But now with the changed code would have the opportunity to potentially put in an accessory dwelling unit, which is consistent with our goals and policies.

So basically, if they've already have the lot, they're not going to be required to subdivide down. No. Yeah. Yeah.

I guess I was just trying to make sure that these same requirements would work. I understand that they're helping retro to people already have lots, but if there's like a new build, will these measurements that we're putting down here actually be allowed to do what you're saying? That's what I'm trying to, if that makes sense.

If you're, if you're looking to, okay, now you're going to make a liberal arts major do math in his head on TV. Um, Oh, yeah. I think when it comes to, there are going to be lots that can't be easily subdivided or would not necessarily be subdivided. So what you got, let's say what we got here is we got a 12,000 square foot, 12,000 square foot lot. It's going to be harder than I thought. So if you were looking to subdivide that, that 12,000 square foot lot is roughly, what, not a quarter acre, but what? a little over a quarter acre in size, arguably you wouldn't be able to subdivide this period. This lot is what it is.

No, I'm sorry. I'm not trying to, I'm not making myself clear. My concern is, is that not that you would subdivide this, but meaning if you have an acre, because basically I guess my understanding would be is that no one's really, you said no one's going to be able to buy an acre anymore and build one house. That's no longer going to be allowed. So if they buy an acre, they're going to have to build four houses.

No. If you buy an existing acre, you can build one house. But if you buy an existing acre and want to subdivide it, you have to subdivide it into four pieces.

Okay. You can get more.

Those pieces don't have to be size. But they have to be a minimum amount of size. Eric, I'm curious. I mean, let's say the lot is not a hundred feet wide let's say it's less yes i mean one of the things that i think that that we we want is we want density but maybe we don't want density in all areas of the city correct and therefore so then because i could see if you had a you didn't have a hundred feet of wet you couldn't do that what was there you would have to do a lot less

If you're looking at a proposed lot, yeah, again, we're talking about 2,800 square foot of home, but it's one of our standard ramblers. So it is a pretty substantial size rambler. Yes, you may not be able to do 2,800 square feet, but also we aren't looking to make single family development harder, though we definitely are not looking to make it easier. And it is the 2,800 square foot home stock that we have today that is what is currently unaffordable. Most of these efforts are intended to try to get people to think differently. Either A, if that home wasn't there today, people would go and they would build something smaller. Something smaller, in theory, location, location, location, would cost less. Or they would subdivide properties where they can, and you would have more than one unit on the site. Um, you're correct to that. Yeah. If you don't have this amount of space, you can't get this amount on the property, but basically you would be walking through this exercise with each size lot. That again, if you get down to 60% of your, um, of your lot can be covered in per in some form of impervious or pervious surface, um, that should allow a substantially greater amount of development in an area where the code currently is drafted in a manner to maintain Gig Harbor's quality of life. Nope. Talking amongst themselves is perfectly fine. I told you this was going to be hard.

We're actually just doing math over here.

Great. Math is the best.

Is there a minimum...

width or yes minimum width is currently 70 feet we'll be reducing it in the r1 zone to 50 feet okay can i just clarify one thing the adus do not go into that four unit no they do they do not count in any way toward completely ignore how adus fit into it other than

According to state statute, ADUs do not count towards density.

The only thing they do count towards is that hard surface maximum area calculation. Correct. And then do they have their own independent parking requirement for those?

The current code is substantially more flexible on that. It used to be that the homes had to be located in a particular place. They had to have their own entrance and exit. I can go back and send you a copy of our current ADU code, which removes a lot of those, what used to be old accessory dwelling unit requirements. And again, if any of these are attached to the home, any accessory dwelling is attached to the home, it's even easier.

So I think where we're getting hung up a little bit is that this is a 12,000 square foot example. If we were to subdivide an acre, you'd be looking at 10,750 square feet where this model would not be possible because you don't have as much square footage to start with.

Yeah, that's what he's saying. You wouldn't be able to build a 3,000 square foot house. Right, the house would have to be smaller.

You'd have to have a...

Or no garage or 180U.

2,000 square, or yeah, or 2,000 square foot footprint versus 2,800 square foot footprint. So, and again, we're not trying to make.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

I told you this was not going to be fun. And I appreciate you folks doing the math and getting this all square. Because when we start going down to illustrations, things get easier and harder at the same time. Because now what it starts to do is it starts to take the entirety of your code and focuses on one hypothetical versus all the other permutations.

I think the other challenge is just trying to balance what people want versus what you could build. And I want to be careful that we're not creating code that, that, that really tells you, you have to build, like we're giving you like limited option because we've limited the, these parameters only really allow you to build one certain type of thing. And that's not necessarily what people want.

There should not be anything in here that makes people less or makes it harder to build a single family unit. What it will do is it will give a property owner options to build something other than that. Right now, pretty much you have only an option of building a single family home in most areas. You can't fit more than one unit on most of these sites with these setbacks, hardscape requirements and everything. That's just it. But if you folks are seeing ways that we are making it harder for someone to build a single family home, I definitely want to discuss those here. Because if I'm not thinking about this right, this is a great place to find that out, not a month and a half from now.

Yeah, I'm not commenting on whether or not this makes it harder to build, but I think this makes it harder to build what you want. Because if you want 2,800 square feet, and I don't think that that's unrealistic of what But if you want that and you don't want something that's smaller because of the amount of space that you want, that's what's going to be harder is being able to get what you want where you want it. Therefore, I suppose the answer is you then have to look, you have to go to a different zoned area within the city to get that larger footprint because certain zones are only going to accommodate a smaller footprint. Yeah.

I would say that the changes we're making here are very likely are going to open up opportunities that didn't exist before and not close them off. Obviously, subdivisions, again, these are minimum numbers, like you were indicating, that you could go down to 6,000 square feet. You don't have to go down to 6,000 square feet for a lot. You can stay at the 10,000 number. But what we want to do is we spend so much time talking about what the community wants, what the developers want. What we want is to give the property owners all the options that right now say, I can build a single family home on this lot. That's about it. And we want to make sure that folks can say, no, I can put a triplex on here if I wanted to.

Eric, can I throw another hypothetical out to you? Please. Just so that my brain can grasp this. Would there be anything stopping... a homeowner from buying two lots, putting a home with no garage on one, a garage with an apartment on top on the other one, and using two lots?

You could go about utilizing two lots if you aggregated them. So you can buy two lots. You just have to own the fact that it is now all going to be one lot. So if you want to utilize the one lot, great but you would have to do away with the the middle line uh to be able to make that happen yeah yeah and that scenario would the side setback requirement goes away side setback would now move all the way to the other edge of the second lot thank you for this again this is this is very helpful we do this all day inside the building i need to be doing it with other people

So just for me, what's the easiest explanation for the reason why we have maximums on hard surfaces?

The reason we have maximums on hard surfaces, one is for stormwater management, two is for the community and the quality of life is built on green. The more impervious surface you have, the less green you have, even if it perks, even if it is going down. So there is a desire in the community to maintain the green of Gig Harbor. This is an attempt to provide greater development potential while still maintaining that more subjective what makes Gig Harbor a Gig Harbor.

Which that brings up a point too I thought about earlier. You were talking about the capital infrastructure plan, something like that, and how we're going to go back and we calculate that based on increasing...

something maximum density.

Yeah, maximum density. However, how does if we increase the hardscape capability by like 20% everywhere, how do you are you going to go back and recalculate the stormwater capacity for everything?

The good news about stormwater capacity is most of that has to be handled on an individual property basis. So there's more flexibility than that. A sewer and water system, that's in the road. You don't control that. We will very likely, depending on how much we change this, we will have to run it through the State Environmental Policy Act. We will have to do what we call SEPA review on this. And if that SEPA review triggers some additional stormwater review, we would do so. That being said, our stormwater manual actually allows for a lot more than our zoning ordinance does.

Has the city actually done... An exercise to say okay just again focusing back on our one by increasing going from the existing to the proposed. we're going to steal something great is going to happen, I mean. This actually gets us somewhere that we want to be and not just.

It gets us the opportunity for housing diversity. Again, I am not building anything, nor am I in these code amendments telling people they have to build duplexes, triplexes, et cetera. What we're looking to do is we're looking to, again, create those options for them. Our comprehensive plan and the countywide planning policies drive us to needing housing types we don't have today and have not built over the last four years. Single-family homes like... conceptually, the lot you see there, we needed 212 of them between 2020 and 2044. We built 500 between 2020 and 2024. So we more than doubled what the state indicated we needed in single family homes of, say, that ilk. We have a lot of other numbers and a lot of other sections that require multifamily housing and require townhomes. And currently, our code is too restrictive to make those pencil. And honestly, if I were a property owner, I would not look at any other options based solely upon the fact that it would be just too expensive to think about something else. So again, it's about expanding options, raising the ceiling, not raising the floor of development.

It just, we know that, or, you know, the city has done the math to know that, that these increases then give you those options that in those other categories.

Well, yeah, what we have right now is we ran density calculations again, 32 dwelling units, an acre, 12 dwelling units, an acre, all of that. If you run that through our current code, there are a lot of obstacles that make those densities unattainable on large chunks of the property. So I think where we stand today creates an idea that we are promoting capacity that really does not exist because of setbacks, because of hardscape, because of all these other things. This is actually intended to improve that, make our code more consistent with our capital facilities analysis.

I do have one question on the document. Yes. From the waterfront. Okay. VR zone.

Yes.

We've got max impervious proposed at 65, but max hard surface at 60. Is that a typo?

That's a typo.

Okay. Are they supposed to be the other way?

It's supposed to be 55 and 60.

55 and 60.

Thank you. Thank you very much. is great to know and embarrassing at the exact same time. What? My bum left hand should not have caused me to create that kind of typo. But boy, you don't want to see me type. It does look like a dog. It looks like a dog meme. It's not pretty. So again, walking through some of these other ones. Again, the R1 zone is a big chunk of our city. But as you start to get a lot of these other things, let's just look at the R2 zone. We don't need to go through each one of these. That would get repetitive. As we move to R2, again, we are allowing even smaller lots than R1, 4,000. We are reducing the lot width from 50 to 40. That's the minimum. That's not what you have to build. That's the minimum amount that you have to have. You can go to 15 instead of 20, just straight up 5. So it's not 5 and 10 anymore. Now it's an aggregate of 15. Rare yards now is 15 once again. Street size is 10. And now you're looking at 60 and 75% impervious surface. Why is that? That is because now we're trying to incentivize townhomes. There will ultimately be a consideration that we're going to have to take into account when it comes to the R2 zone and higher, which is are we going to allow all of these changes to apply to all types of housing? Obviously, if you take a look at that drawing that we had before, the idea is that we aren't looking to make it easier for people to build larger homes. What you're noting here from the proposed dimensional standards, there's a lot more space to build home on this if you're just building a single family home. That is actually the opposite of what we're looking for. We're not looking for people who could only fit 3,200 square feet on a lot now can build a 5,000 square foot home. For people who feel that Gig Harbor is a rich community, we don't want to see what a wealthy community looks like, which is now everybody tears down their 5,000 square foot home to put in the 7,000 square foot home that they want, and you have mega yachts. So we have to be careful of the other side of the equation. So there will be a consideration we're going to have to take into account is if we're going to make these changes, do we leave the code in place for single-family construction and then provide the flexibility for everything duplex and higher? So ADUs, duplexes... triplexes, fourplexes, apartments on the way up. So again, providing the flexibility for people to do more with their land if they are thinking about housing types that again, the Growth Management Act indicates that Gig Harbor needs to be achieving more of.

Are you suggesting that there would be a different line item for a single family home?

It all kind of comes down to exactly how confusing you want to make the whole thing. You can make it compact, kill fewer trees, and make it more confusing. Or B, you create two tables that look like this. One table basically says it's for a single family construction. The other table is for duplex or better. Not better. Better makes it sound better. Duplex or higher. I'm talking poker. That's a consideration that we'll be asking the Planning Commission to consider before we get to that point. As again, the last thing we want to do is to create an opportunity where a 3,200 square foot home can be bulldozed and a 5,000 square foot put in its place. In theory, that would be more expensive. Are there other questions regarding this table? I guess we can go down. Obviously, we spent some time on the residential zone. Let's touch on one of the commercial zones. Let's look at one of the B zones since it's all on one page. Let's look at page two. So now we're talking about business zones. This is also intended to help assist development that is mixed use in nature. So yes, the business zone is largely intended to be commercial, but we do allow multifamily in those zones. Hey, look, another footnote that doesn't exist. Great, great for me. So what you're noting here is that we are dramatically, just like everywhere else, changing the densities in there if you are looking at doing residential development. It's also intended if we do remember that we did take away a certain amount of development potential with the critical areas ordinance. There are certain lots that now have greater stream buffers, they have greater wetland buffers. I'm not saying that land's not developable, but I'm saying it's going to be harder to develop at a higher price point. So while we are doing this, we are also looking not just at housing, but we're also looking at commercial and industrial to ensure that they can still utilize a portion of their property that now may not be developable due to a wetland buffer instead of being 50 feet is now 100 feet. So this is the beginning of that conversation we talked about a month and a half ago where we need to make sure that we are using as much of what we have left after we met the best available science criteria of the critical areas ordinance.

So Eric, again, just so I understand, if somebody was going to be building in say zone C1, we have a markedly different impervious and hard surface allowance.

Yes.

So if you were going to build a single family dwelling there, Would you get the same benefit of the impervious surface that's already in the commercial zone, or would you be required to comply with the residential standard?

Let's see. Let's see. One crosses pages here.

So our one, for example, that we were talking about earlier, we're proposing 55 and 60% on impervious and hard surface. But if you're going to build that same home in a C1 zone, it's 70 and 85.

You would be able to utilize the numbers that appear in the C1 zone. So you'd be able to do more impervious surface, though likely that 38 is, if you take a look at the other side of the page, now has a minimum density on it of 18 dwelling units an acre. That is very, very dense townhomes or garden apartments.

Sure, but as I understood the discussion earlier, if you already own a lot in that commercial area and you're not subdividing, you would not be required to comply with the 18-unit minimum, correct? Correct.

Correct.

Thank you.

Yes. That would be a very, very expensive property to basically be staring at a bunch of other development that's going to be a lot bigger and more intense staring over the top of you. But yes, you are. You are correct. Noted.

Have you seen that little house in Port Orchard where they built the apartments rounded off a mile hill?

Oh, yeah. Yep. I remember the family that owned it. And yeah, I know they weren't selling out for anything. So again, kind of walking through this, again, the purpose of this is to commence having a discussion about how to provide opportunities for different types of housing. um obviously the steps that we always go through with the planning commissions is we have individual conversations at work sessions such as this we then have a public hearing in which we allow the public the public to come in and testify as to their opinions similar to what you've seen here today but on a bigger scale With the interest in bringing this forward in October, I think it would probably benefit staff to get an idea as to what additional information does the planning commission feel would be valuable for us to bring to you to hopefully remove any additional questions or at least not add a whole bunch of additional ones.

I think it would be helpful for a lot of people if you had a sample plot right here for a multifamily complex and one of these other more dense zones. I think everybody can kind of wrap their head around what a single family house looks like, but not necessarily, yeah, like town homes and like a commercial district and how those dimensions are going to change.

That's an excellent idea. Obviously, this was a version that we had together here that basically showed the R2 zone. And again, what you would normally previously only be able to fit, if you could either A, choose to do your 2,800 square foot home, or B, you'd be able to operate off of a triplex, which again would be an option, not a requirement. But yes, I think that's an excellent idea for us to show what apartment complexes look like, especially once we get to phase 2B where we're talking about height.

This may be a silly question, but is there any thought around with homeownership, with these more dense things, are we assuming or is there an incentive factor for it to be for sale versus for rent. So we offer more home ownership options than just rentals with increasing density.

There are no incentive programs in state statute for home ownership. Obviously, we are looking to encourage that where possible. Honestly, at this point, we are really focused on housing type. Even with our current housing setup, we have about 40% of our city that rents right now, and that includes single-family homes. So I think it's a bigger question than what we have right here. And going back to the what people want... A lot of folks in this community are going to be looking to downsize over time. That downsizing may not be buying something new. That may be selling or giving to their relatives the home and then moving into some kind of an apartment type structure. So I know that there is a certain concern that floats around with rentals, not just because of lack of home ownership. But I think we do have a pretty large group of the community that may be interested in rentals versus having to purchase.

The townhouses over by the Davenport, out of curiosity, are those rentals or are they townhouses people buy?

I believe those are townhouses that are purchased. Is that their rentals? Yeah. We will follow up and get you the answer.

Okay, just curious.

No, I admit. This is the part where I need to know what you need to know before we can move forward. So any questions that you might have, I'm writing down right here and I'll make sure I get them to you prior to the next meeting, hopefully early next week.

I recall at a council meeting, perhaps it was last year that there was a citizen that stepped forward with some concerns about trying to put an ADU on their property. and that the permitting process was onerous and they were having a difficult time getting past some of the rules. Do you feel, Eric, that those types of challenges were contemplated as you were making these adjustments? Like, did we do any kind of retro look back, if you will, to see if it would have alleviated that stress?

I believe actually that was during the ADU code changes. And he was reflecting on how hard it was prior. In my follow-up conversation with him, he looked at the code that was actually being adopted. He felt that that addressed a vast number of his concerns. The hardscape is the issue. The hardscape really makes it hard for anybody to add additional impervious surface in the form of homes. so that in particular is the biggest boon to accessory dwelling units because accessory dwelling units currently don't need to follow setbacks they can be up to five feet from the from the property lines as it reads right now however they are not exempt from hardscape or impervious surface requirements so making this change will increase the possibilities especially when you get into the r2 zone thank you that makes sense

On a similar note, I think it's Kitsap County, which you probably are familiar with. They have that like pre-approved ADU type construction. Yep. Does Pierce County or Gig Harbor moving towards that way where there'll be some sort of pre-approved ADU designs?

Yes. We are contemplating that Pierce County is contemplating bringing together the Fellowship of the Ring and all the cities and the county and trying to come up with a set of plans. Kitsap County was helpful because it only had the county and then four cities. Pierce County is a little more challenging. And then ultimately we're gonna have to wrap our minds around what the design manual looks like in regards to a pre-approved design. Um, as we have some other, uh, architectural standards, but you are a hundred percent correct that really expedites accessory dwelling units so that, you know, that that is going to be able to be approved. Though I will indicate in Gig Harbor, building permits, which is oftentimes the thing that hangs them up, go out in less than 30 days. So the hangups in regards that the pre-approved plans would help doesn't help quite as much here as it does for the places where building permits are 60, 90 days out.

Do you know if there's anything in the works or if there's any... difference with tenant laws around ADUs than there are with anything else?

ADUs, if they're considered rentals, are considered rentals. So they are pursuant to the landlord-tenant law, just like everybody else. However, a new accessory dwelling unit code does allow accessory dwelling units to be condominiumized. So if, let's go, there we go. We have one of these. Someone could go and basically do a condominium subdivision of this lot that chops off one or more of those two ADUs leaving the home by itself and they can sell those off. So again, going back to the home ownership, ADUs aren't just rentals. ADUs are future potential land value.

I knew that to be true in Tacoma. That's also true here in Duke Harbor.

It is a state statute. So all jurisdictions have to follow, have to go down that road. Interesting. What we're currently working on also is what's called a unit lot subdivision code, which basically stipulates how that condominium code can be done easily. So that will be coming as part of Phase 2B. There's a joke there. I don't know what that one called.

Do you know if there's any thoughts or considerations? I know this would probably be a state issue, but with creating a different tenant law for EDUs that are on your own property, I just couldn't foresee that that's from the feedback I'm hearing from landlords right now is that it's really hard to evict people for for behavior or any type of situation. So I'm just kind of curious how that will actually affect us reaching our goals if people have that concern.

Yeah, the Landlord Tenant Act is fully driven by the state. I will say that the state, as it comes to renters' rights, the tide is going the opposite direction. There's a lot more conversation about rent control at the state level. I don't believe that there... There's likely always a bill, but there's not a bill with a lot of headway that actually has really focused on the owner's rights on these types of things. So, yes, the legislature is definitely concerned about landlords. And you, again, are entirely correct that. it is kind of a bucket of cold water over trying to get people into the rental industry. When now you have caps on what you can, how much you could raise rent by how you can evict people. If I'm a large landowner with like nine or 10 rentals, sure. Probably not as big a deal. I can amortize those impacts, but if I am just one person looking to rent one building and my entire, uh, revenue or expenditure is based on that one building, um, that would make me, I would have pause becoming a landlord in that environment. Entirely unsolicited opinion, I don't even think you asked. So with this, if the Planning Commission can kind of, if you have additional pieces of information that you think would be valuable after you further digest the changes that are in this document, Or stepping back to the concept that we are breaking up phase two into two pieces. Things you're saying, hey, isn't there something else that's attached to this that not doing could be a problem? I believe we spent a lot of time thinking about that, so I don't believe there are any. But again, I'm looking for bigger brains than mine. If you see those as well, please send them to the clerk. of the Planning Commission and she will get them to staff and staff will start assessing what those end up looking like. Additionally, that goes for any additional informational items. What I'm taking from here right now is again, some additional drawings that kind of conceptualize multifamily development and potentially some larger, we'll also try to do some subdivision um on this is again these were intended to illustrate development on existing parcels but you folks have raised some good questions about what this means to someone who is looking to subdivide say a five acre piece of property both of them in the city and we can provide some more information on that with that other questions in the room or online uh commissioner

I just wanted to say, I echo a lot of what was said. I would love to see more examples. Like I think the one that you presented, yes, it did have a lot of questions that came out of it and we started doing math, but that really kind of helps frame the discussion and it would be good to have maybe not just one example, but like a couple examples that we can kind of go over.

I do have a few others here, though they were all starting to feel a little redundant based upon the questions. But from what I'm taking here, we will be developing additional illustrations to kind of help, again, I'll call it war game what some of these are. It's like, hey, what does that mean? What does that mean? Okay. And then we kind of come to some kind of conclusions based upon that. So thank you very much. That's a good piece of feedback, and we'll make sure that we add more illustrations on this.

I think an example that I would love to see would be the, see what the R1 zoning would look like at four lots and like a couple, just like examples of what that could actually look like if it was a quadplex and or if it was four, you know, I don't know, four single family homes, like how it would actually look would be really cool. I think for people, because my mind kind of started looking at it all and if I could just see it, that would be really helpful.

Yeah. Do we have additional public comment at the end of this, or is it, or do we only, I can't remember if we only do it at the beginning. I think there are some other questions that may come up after this discussion that people in the audience may want to ask. So if that's something the commission can contemplate once we get through this agenda item.

I know it can be quite complicated because there's a lot of variables here, but if, if we could see a comparison to like we did with some of the other buffers and setbacks to some of our sister communities, that would possibly be helpful as well.

Great. Yes, you'll see a lot of commonality as a lot of folks are having this exact same conversation. Any other questions at this time? Again, this is not a speak now or forever hold your peace. This is, so yes, as you get other epiphanies, thoughts or data requests, please send them to Michelle and she will get them to us and we will see what we can do.

Can you give us just like a quick overview of how things will progress in the next one to two months?

Very likely the next time we meet with you, we'll be having these additional conversations. Again, hopefully we'll be able to generate some additional illustrations. Once we get past that, I do believe we will be looking to go to public hearing. So there will be a lot of emphasis put on the next month. From there, you would be doing deliberations probably in late August, early September, either side of Labor Day. And then from there, it would be going to council again with hopes of getting this adopted by the end of October.

I guess, so as city council set like a target date for us that we have to have these finalized for a certain time, just kind of like a general goal.

Not at this time. At this time, October 31st is the date that they kind of put out there. Again, we want this to be a thoughtful process. We are looking to move with a certain level of urgency due to the fact that we really do want to show progress towards adjusting our codes. That being said, progress that's bad is not progress. Are there any other questions of the commission at this time?

No other questions, but there is a point of business that we have to correct from earlier this evening. So earlier I called for approval of the May 21st minutes, and I should have said June 18. So I'm not sure if we want to read. We do. Okay. All right, thank you.

I'm OK with that correction.

Any objection to reopening up the public comment?

Yeah, you can close out. Just close out the discussion and then open public comment.

So I think no other questions. OK, we'll go ahead and close out this section portion of comments. move to reopen public comment.

I'll second that motion.

Aye. All those in favor? Aye.

Okay. Go on up.

The only thing I was going to ask was with the set front, set back, they had the hours at 1 a.m. I believe the way it's constructed at this point is it would pretty much indicate that both are currently sitting at 20 feet. Actually, before you go, can you give your name and address? I apologize. I think you did. Thank you, sir.

All right, any other public comment? All right, seeing none, nobody online? All right, seeing none, we'll go ahead and close the public comment. Okay, just a reminder, our next meeting is August 6th. Is there any other business, any other announcements? New business? You went online. Okay.

Motion to close.

All right. Second.

I'll second.

All those in favor.

Aye.

Aye. All right. Thank you. And adjourns our meeting.