Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening, and good evening, everyone in chambers. We'd like to call this meeting of the Planning Policy Commission to order the March 12th meeting, and it currently is 641. Whoa, we're running a little bit behind, so apologies, but 641 PM. Today's meeting is a hybrid meeting. The Planning Policy Commission is in person, but staff or members of the public may be attending virtually or in person. Staff, do we have a quorum? this evening?

Yes, we do.

Okay. Thank you, Amanda. And just a note, um, commissioner Millinder Irwin will be joining us virtually this evening. And we also have two excused absences.

Correct. Commissioners Olin and Zach Roth. Correct.

Great. Thank you. Okay. We're going to begin as we always do with the approval of minutes. so hopefully all of you guys were looking through your packet you'll notice that there was a quite a big packet of minutes so this was for the february 26 ppc meeting any questions concerns or comments from our commissioners okay great and i don't see commissioner millinder erwin is she oh there she is she's on the left okay hi leslie um Any concerns, Commissioner Millinder-Irwin? I didn't catch you down there on my screen.

I just unmuted myself. No chair voice. The minutes look great. Thank you.

Wonderful. Thank you, commissioners. So those meeting minutes are approved. And now we want to move on to our public comment. So again, at every meeting, we hold general public comment at this time. And this is for general topics for the good of the Planning Policy Commission. Staff, has anyone signed up in the room or online to make general public comments?

No, Chair, there has no one signed up today.

Okay, thank you, Amanda. Would anyone in the room like to make general public comments? All right. Moving along, we are going to begin with tonight's regular business and Our first and only item on the agenda is Title 18, Clarifying Amendments, Site Development Permit Process, Plat and Construction Permit Sequencing, and Temporary Use Requirements for Donation Bins. So we're going to begin by continuing to have that discussion on these clarifying amendments that we started two weeks ago. And Kate Kaney, our principal planner, Emily Medina, our senior planner, and Kristin Javier, Javier, our assistant planner, will be presenting this evening. So Kate, Emily, and Kristin, please go ahead when you're ready.

Hit the right button here, and there we go. Get the presentation up properly, and is it on? Great, it's on screen, thank you. Thank you, Chair. And my name is Kate Caney. I'm principal planner here. And we have Emily Medina and Kristen Javier, who will be taking on the more technical part of the review. Tonight, we will be continuing the commission's review of what we've been calling the clarifying code amendments. There are those annual amendments that we do, often call them housekeeping amendments, more on the minor side, but important and very helpful in clarifying literally clarifying code tonight just the background consideration as always is our effort to help you understand what the code says now understand why the amendment is proposed and on your side of the dais understand whether their proposed changes are clear or if additional changes are needed especially in terms of their clarity so whoops Sorry about that. In terms of where we are in moving through the clarifying amendments, at the last meeting, you reviewed some of the sign code provisions that we're looking at amending. Tonight, more on the procedural side, site development permits, review process there, clarifying the sequencing of permitting in terms of final plat recording and construction permit issuance. These are a little dense in terms of the topic matter, but really important for applicants who are trying to get things on the ground. So we'll hear from Emily on those. Also, temporary uses. Where are donation bins around? You see them popping up, and Kristen will share information on that. So the last review of new content for these amendments is going to be on March 26th. But at this point, we will go ahead and I will hand off to Emily Medina.

Good evening, Commission. Again, I'm Emily Medina. I'm the senior planner with the city. So I have two amendments to discuss tonight. And the first is site development permits. So my two amendments are heavily procedural based. So in the nitty gritty of what we do every day on the current planning side. So when it comes to site development permits, there's kind of three changes that we're proposing to make. The first is to clarify the language in what goes, what moves forward with a site development permit. So currently the language is for development and the proposal is to change it for the word structure. And this is to clarify what was always the intent of the code to just have structures go through site development permits and to have projects where there's only site improvements not have to go through an extra permitting process. The second part is to create a minimum square footage. So kind of a minimum threshold of what puts a project through a site development permit. Right now the minimum threshold is zero square feet of expansion. So just wanting to create a minimum so we don't have these very small projects having to go through an additional permitting process. And then the third is revising it so that only square footage determines the SDP review level instead of, right now it has square footage and number of units and that can create some conflict if a project falls into the square footage, say a level two, but the number of units for level four, So just having one threshold determination is just making it simpler for both applicants and developers as well as staff to determine what review level a project should go through. So just a little background, since I'm in this every day, but I realize everybody else is not. What is a site development permit? So a site development permit is our most common land use permit, and it is used to evaluate consistency with Title 18, our land use code. It's required for multifamily and commercial projects, but it is not required for any detached single family or middle housing projects. So we see this for some examples recently like Milano and the Parkland Heights subdivision up by the Sammamish border. Those are, that was a bad example. Parkland Heights went through a preliminary plot. Milano and Front Street townhomes next to Derrygold. Those both had to go through site development processes.

Emily, what is Milano and what is Parkland Heights?

Sorry, I'm the development commission. Milano is our 65-unit apartment complex and Front Street Townhomes is next to Derrygold and it is 32 townhomes and two retail spots. So these are larger developments that have design aspects, architectural aspects that should be reviewed.

Thank you.

so there's three levels for site development permits and some of these code amendments are to help clarify what level a project should go through level one simplest level is just administrative review staff reviews it staff approves it level two staff reviews and approves it but it gets public notice so they put a notice board up on site that you may see around town we have to mail it to surrounding properties it gets published in the paper online all that stuff and then level four two projects I was talking about, they go in front of the development commission. So staff reviews, it makes a recommendation to the development commission development commission holds a hearing and then issues a decision on the project. So as you can see with each of these levels, more intensive project, more time or more intensive process, more time, more money spent by the developer to go through these. So some recent examples of kind of what triggered us the need to bring these amendments before the commission. So this project came in with a proposal to convert an office building to residential, interior improvements only, no changes to the building, no changes to the architecture of the building, just interior when it comes to the structure. However, lots of parking associated with office buildings, and they were proposing to convert over 10,000 square feet of asphalt parking into community amenity space. So they're planning to bring in asphalt turf and create dog runs and landscaping. So this is an example of the proposed amendment I was talking about changing development structure. There's no architectural or design elements associated with this proposal, which is what development commission reviews for. So as it was, as it is under current code, it would have to go to level four development commission review, have a public hearing just because it's having 10,000 square feet of development. And we define development as any, man made impacts to land. So super broad. Under the proposed code, this would not have to go to level four because there's no structures involved. So there wouldn't be an STP. The second example is about creating the minimum threshold. So this is in Issaquah Commons. They're doing a lot of facade updates in Issaquah Commons right now. And this one was including their popping out the front entrance about 100 square feet just to create just a little more entrance, I guess. So it was about 100 square feet. So they had to go through a level one SDP process, which means they had to go through the land use process, get their land use approval. The appeal period had to lapse on the land use approval before they could get their building permit. So this is adding typically about a month if there's revision, sometimes up to three months to the timeline review for a business that wanted to just update their facade. So as proposed or as existing, they've already gone through the STP process. They had to do it, but under the proposed code amendments, they would not have to get a land use permit. They could just go straight to building permit. So the key questions about the site development permit amendments tonight is, first, is it appropriate to create a minimum expansion threshold where the level one SDP reviews are required? And does 100 square feet make sense as the minimum? And any additional questions you may have for me. So our intent was to present on each amendment and then pause for any questions, any feedback for staff, and then I'll move on to the next one and then go from there.

All right.

That sounds wonderful. Uh, vice chair Patterson. Sorry with a softball question is how did the staff arrive at a hundred square feet?

That's a great question. I personally arrived at 100 square feet was my recommendation based on recent applications that I've received. So in the last, I would say, six months, I've had about four SDP level ones that have come through that have been under 100 square feet that when myself and the other planners, our assistant planner, Kristen Javier, had one recently as well.

it seemed excessive to put them through a land use process for what was a very simple small expansion that we comfortably could have reviewed as part of the building permit uh commissioner adair um would 120 maybe be a little better i didn't i know this is weird but just when i was doing construction growing up i felt like always like we did six foot intervals but otherwise i think all good

That's a great point. Um, another, just to add on to that, another thought is, um, like building permits for detached accessory buildings don't need a building permit up until 200 square feet. So that's another idea of the threshold. That threshold was kind of the main thing I was looking for feedback on tonight. So 120 is also a great idea.

Yeah. Great. Yes. Uh, commissioner crafts.

Uh, I will not ask why there's no level three for that. Um, But I do have a question. First of all, that all makes sense to simplify it. Is there any, what is the potential downside, do you think, of this? Using the, I'll go back to the one where they were converting commercial to residential, taking away parking. Is there any downside, because you're still doing something significant to the overall lot, or will that be handled in some other type of review through the city, whether to make sure they have the right level of parking or other things like that?

Yeah, that's a great question. So two-part answer. First part is if they are doing just site improvements, no structure, and it's one acre in size or greater, they still have to go through the site development permit process. So very large sites that are still only getting site development, that are still only doing uh, groundwork kind of thing. Um, still have to get a site development as far as one like that where it's say 10,000 square feet. Um, we would review it as part of the construction permitting. So it would still be reviewed to make sure it meets all the standards.

Any other questions? Sure. Please. Vice chair Patterson.

Thank you chair. Kind of piggybacking off of that would be a little bit more specifically, are there any design or code compliance concerns that could slip through on some of the examples where the SDP review is bypassed in favor of the building permit? And a couple of thoughts in my head were either cover overlay zones or ADA accessibility stuff.

yeah um so our overlay zones which is old town and central primarily their um overlay design standards are i would put out a rough estimate 98 related to the structure um so that's part of the reason that also this amendment is before you is because these items don't fall within that so um In that case, no, they're 98% structured. There is in our design standards, we have site design standards, which do specify things on the site. So one of them I'm thinking of is we have provisions about when special paving materials are needed. So like if there's a... pedestrian crossing through a parking lot, we like to see a different kind of paving material, but those would be reviewed for as part of the building permit or the site work permit. And that is when there would be a land use planning review on the construction permit to review for those items.

Commissioner Matthews.

You may have already answered this question, but does this impact both residential and commercial?

It impacts multifamily residential and commercial.

Okay. Thank you.

Yeah.

Mr. Patterson. All right, one more. This one's a little edge casey, I think. But is there a potential loophole with, like, repeated small expansions over time? So, meaning, like, if they did 100 square feet this year and then another 100 square feet next year and so on and so forth, like, is that, I don't know, could that be exploited, I guess?

It could. I don't think we actually have a closed loop for that in the code. I know there's code we can take from our nonconforming code specifically addresses that, that you can't it's over the course of, I think five years that we evaluate it for. So that is code that we could take and plug into this to make sure those repeated expansions don't happen. If that's something that commission would like to see, that's a great point.

Oh, fantastic. Yes. Commissioner Matthews.

Sorry, I just have one more question about setbacks. So say that they want to do 120 or 100 square feet addition, but it butts up against a setback or it might intrude. I guess that's caught during the building permit process?

Yep, absolutely. OK, all right.

Thank you.

All right. Ultimately, like, I really like the idea of making things easier. You know, I'm always in favor of that. And I think the 100 square feet is probably a good starting off point. I don't know if we need to, like, build it into the code per se, and city staff's already great at this, but maybe this is an opportunity to revisit in a year or two after this goes into effect. Like, if we need to bump the 100 square feet, you know, if we land there, like, if we need to adjust it at any point, just kind of check on that for in a year or two or however long we need to reassess.

I definitely agree and would like to do that.

Love to come back and reassess things. So again, I appreciate all the comments. I think they're all great. I think the only thing I would pass back to you, Emily, is maybe talk amongst yourselves and the bunk staff. What maybe whether it's 120 or 200, if there's any benefit to it. And then when you guys do come back or put it in our packet, whether that's a conversation with it, whether to have again, But I think that's my only thing, is again, I think the number's fine. And if you've already seen four examples of everything coming in at under 100, but I think Commissioner Adair brings up a good point and then you brought up 200. So I think maybe just having a little bit more conversation with your partners and see if that is the number you truly want to land on.

Absolutely.

But I personally like this too, kind of like Vice Chair Patterson said, I'm all for it to make it easier for the developer as well as for staff.

Thank you. All right, should I move on to the next one?

Please.

Okay, the next one is even more nitty gritty. So the next one is about plat and construction permit sequencing. So this, two main parts of this amendment. The first is to clarify that site infrastructure, so that is things like roads and utilities, must be constructed or in very minor cases bonded for prior to final approval of PLATS. And PLATS is the subdivision of the land, so splitting a lot into multiple lots. And then secondarily, it adds language to prevent building permits from being issued before that final PLAT or subdivision is recorded. So essentially, it We're closing two loopholes that we've seen try to be exploited so that we have our site infrastructure in place before subdivisions are approved. And we are not issuing or being asked to issue building permits for lots that technically do not exist yet. So the sequence that we would like to follow that is city best practice that we try to follow when it comes to platting and construction is the preliminary subdivision permit, sometimes called a preliminary plat or preliminary short plat. That's when we review against the land use standards and make sure everything's in compliance. Site work permit, which is all the clearing and grading and groundwork for the subdivision. So that's the infrastructure improvements. And then bonding for very small items, which is when they give the city cash and say, hold on to this. And if we don't complete this, then you can use the cash to do it for us. and then recording the plat, which is when the actual document of the subdivision is taken to King County, they record it, it gets put on all the maps and the lots become official and then building permit issuance. So general question on this one would be, does the commission agree with these proposed code clarifications to cement our permit sequencing in code?

Commissioner Matthews.

I just had a question about when the site development permit is issued, is it still open at the same time that the building permits are issued or do they have to close that out first? It's just that if you have a whole bunch of permits and you're trying to keep track of what is closed and open, it could be confusing. So I just want to know if there is a sequence for closing things out before you go on to the next step.

I have a clarifying question for you. Do you mean a site work permit or a site development permit?

I'm sorry, I meant a site work permit. Thank you very much.

Yes, no, it's okay. So the, okay, will you repeat your question now that I know which one you're talking about? Yeah.

Is a site work permit closed out and inspected before they go on and get a building permit as well? Just, you know, nothing.

So the site work permit is issued and closed out before we will issue the final plat or that's what the code amendment is helping to clarify, but they can submit for a building permit at the same time that they can, that they submit for site work permits. And then the second code amendment is so that we, um, so that it's clear we will not issue the building permit for them to actually do any work until the final plat is recorded and complete. Does that make sense? Okay.

Commissioner Krause. I'm still stuck on level three. I can tell you why. Do you want to know why? This all makes total sense. Quick question. First is, how different is this from what we're doing now? does this add more time or is this just the same amount of time, but just we're being clearer about what we're.

The second one, it is exactly what we want to see happen now. It just wasn't, uh, specifically stated enough in code.

Okay. People were probably doing this already, but it wasn't written down. Yes.

It was like an internal policy, um, that wasn't clarified in code.

Okay. And applicants would push back, but it doesn't work for us to do what they wanted to do. So they would push back, and now I can actually say, no, it's in our code. This is the way it works.

Any other questions? And Commissioner Millinder-Irwin, just let me know if you've got any. There's that little hand. That's what I'm looking for in case you'd like to speak as well. Commissioner Crass kind of stole my question, which was just to add any time. It definitely makes sense for you guys to do it this way as far as just the rolling way. So any other comments? All right.

Wonderful. Thank you for your input. I will pass it over to Kristen now.

Wonderful. Thank you. Donation bits.

Hi, good evening. I'm Kristin Javier assistant planner. Um, this evening I'll be presenting our proposal for temporary use requirements for donation bins. So this is meant to clarify where and how we allow donation bins on private property. Um, so, uh, the reason we're bringing this up as we had a business, uh, reach out requesting some information on what our permitting process is for something like a really large furniture donation bin. And while our current temporary use code allows donation bins, it's not specific into what the standards for that would be. So thinking about what these standards should be, we did some research to see what other cities are doing, but we honestly couldn't find a whole lot that was super specific to donation bins. So a lot of this comes from our current code, what we allow for things like other temporary uses like food trucks, and then some conversation between us and our code enforcement officer. So the first of those standards could be parking requirements. So in this first image at the top, that was sent to us by one of those businesses that was interested, and that takes up about two spots, but they said sometimes they can take up to six spots. So we would just want to make sure that the minimum parking requirements are still being provided for whichever property this would be on. And we would want the normal business operations to remain unimpacted, so things like garbage collection, dry vials remaining clear, fire lanes remaining clear. We would also want to make sure that trash accumulation around the receptacle is prohibited or any other kind of unaccepted items. There would need to be permission from the property owner to have this here and the responsibility for maintaining this would need to be a formal agreement between the property owner and the owner of the donation bin. Uh, and finally we would want the contact information, um, whoever's responsible for maintaining the area to be clearly marked so that, um, if issues do pop up, they're quickly resolved. These images at the bottom were sent to our code enforcement officer by a resident. Um, and they were able to contact that number and this was cleared up within 24 hours. So it sounds like, uh, these issues don't pop up often, but when they do, they're able to be pretty quickly resolved. And my question for you is we are thinking about having a 365 day time limit for this use because that's what we currently allow for our food trucks, which is a common temporary use. So we wanted to know if you thought this was something that made sense or if you had any other suggestions and if you had any other questions about this in general.

Perfect. Thank you, Kristen. All right. And I know some conditions have comments or questions about this. Come on. Oh, that's okay. Mr. Crass, we know you'd like to go first. Commissioner Adair, I think she beat you to it. Can I go? Yeah, absolutely.

Have we discussed, so obviously you have a limit of how much parking it can take up, but do you have a max size for the dumpster, the bin overall that we've thought about yet?

That's a good question and something that we should discuss, yes.

Commissioner Crass. So just a quick question. Question on background. Does the property owners do this as a, they charge the drop-offs? Why do property owners want to have this on their property? Is there an economic reason why they're doing this?

I'm actually not sure as to why property owner would be interested.

Because understanding that may understand motives, too, of what they're going to ask for and want. And then the other one is 365 days doesn't seem like temporary. It seems like it's permanent then. So I'm curious, is this really temporary when you say it's for a full year? Is it renewed every year?

I believe you would have to renew it every year, yes. That's what we do for our food trucks currently.

Okay. Is there a downside of this having... Essentially, it's permanent then.

It would be temporary.

Well, it's a year. It's a long time. I just wonder whether that seems like a long time for these things. Because then they're there all the time.

I'll play devil's advocate. I think part of it is these people need to know where it's located. That's fair.

If it's moving on wheels every couple months, it might be harder to find. But understanding the dynamics of why will also help you understand what the asks are going to be of... if this is a profit type thing or if it's just goodwill, no pun intended type thing.

Can I ask a question? If 365 days seems too long, do you have an idea of what could work better?

I'm not against that. I was just curious when we called it temporary, it just seems like a year is a long time for temporary and then... Jason had a good point of having people know where things are is super useful, especially I have a bag of clothes in the trunk of our car now, which I need to take. It reminds me. So I think that's just some of the background questions.

Vice Chair Patterson. I'll bite on your question. I don't think necessarily 365 days is bad, but I do think like because of the food truck comparison, since that's our typical temporary use permit. I think it's kind of an odd comparison, only because a food truck is an operating business that there's a lot of movement there. Like I'm thinking about the food trucks we have in town here. They're open different hours, like there's people there, they're coming and going. Whereas this is almost more of like a sign in a way. Like it's a stationary, it's not an open business so to speak, it's just kind of a receptacle. So in my mind, I would kind of like the idea of a shorter timeframe, maybe 180 days. And the reason being that it gives the city the opportunity to check on a shorter timeframe, like a check-in period almost, where it's like, all right, it's been half a year. How's it going? Like, have we had 12 code compliance complaints of people dumping garbage outside of it? And then we can kind of shut it down at that point, or at least not renew or whatever. It just kind of lends an opportunity to that. I guess one consideration there would be the volume of it. Are we getting dozens of these, or is it a handful? If it's manageable and it's a handful, where if they continue to renew at a shorter time frame, maybe it's not that big of a deal. But if then we're doing this at ministry, the burden of there's 50 of them and we're renewing them every six months, that might be a different story. But I think 180 days is kind of what I might propose as a potential alternative.

Commissioner Adair?

Yeah, I agree with 180 days for exactly the same reason. And I also would like some more context, as Crass kind of mentioned, of who's asking for it. Because sometimes you think about Kid Vantage, which is over and they're over by Nix Magnificent and that kind of warehouse district. And I would be supportive of them having a donation bin out. for example, but you maybe don't want something in like the parking lot of the Dollar General. So if we could kind of look at the regions and the areas where people want to put them, that would also be a factor. Okay, that's a good point.

Commissioner Cross. So one other, made me think, does the city, if someone's violating the use of this, can the city revoke it even before the end of that term?

I believe so. Okay.

So then I feel more comfortable in different timeframes as long as the city, if code compliance finds, Hey, this is not working, you can pull the permit.

Right. I think it would be a code compliance thing in there. You know, they get a letter, then they get another letter and then they are given a certain amount of time to correct their issues. And then if not, yes, then I think it could be revoked.

I think those are my two concerns is, you know, inevitably I do think, you know these one commissioner adair's point i mean if you have a bin like picture number one that's sitting at the dollar general so is there something like square footage of the property i don't know if there's some type of tie-in um again it's one thing if it's in the parking lot of home depot it's one thing if it's in the parking lot of the dollar store i mean and again you have two large bins so i don't know if there's some type of scale there And then I do think the other thing too is that first picture, when you're taking into consideration how many parking lots it's using, are we also looking at, we're expecting people to park one to two parking spots to actually put their items in the bin. Is that being taken into account? Just seeing that one picture, they had little A-frame signs out there. It says two spots, but if you're actually thinking about it with people coming and going, you're actually talking about more like four spots. So I don't know that those would be my concerns. And then I did like a vice chair Patterson's just checking in with code compliance. I feel like what Kristen just said seems a little, that seems like it could be very long drawn out process, a letter, a letter, and then a timeline of like a month to get, you know, fix it. I mean, if I'm your neighbor, I'm bumming, I'm bumming hard. So that would be my concerns. So again, kind of the size of the structure in relation to the building, I do think inevitably, These things do attract. I mean, people will be lazy. They're not going to put the furniture in the bin. They'll just drop it literally right there. I mean, that's just going to happen. Trash, I'd like to think that most Izaquans are a little bit better than that. I don't know. But I think when it comes to furniture and certain donations, it's going to happen. So I'm interested to hear what you guys have to think about forcing compliance and things like that.

Yeah, you guys can have as many questions as you want. How many of these in the city are there now?

I'm actually not sure.

Is this like a handful, or is this like we have 100 of these things that are going to be?

For the giant bins specifically?

Just donation bins.

Yeah, that's something I would need to research.

Yeah, we don't require permits for them right now, so I don't know.

Right now it's like the Wild West.

Yeah, it would be interesting to see what the current state is on this. And so the ones that don't have permits, they just stuck them there, are they going to have to then get a permit? The ones that are already existing, or are they grandfathered? How does that work?

That's a good question. We'll have to look into that. Yeah.

I don't know. I mean, what happens? I mean, even with, would City Hall Northwest have to get a permit for their bin?

Does it have City Hall Northwest?

Well, yeah, the election, the voter bin.

Oh, you mean City Hall?

Yeah, City Hall.

Oh.

City Hall. So do they have to get a permit? Or are they exempt?

I think they're exempt.

Okay. Is there a fee for the permit for this?

I believe so.

It would have to at least be like a filing fee.

I'm just curious. Because especially if you go back and the ones that are, that's why I asked the question, how many are there now? And if you have to go back to all of those things, all of those, are they going to stay or disappear once they have to have a permanent, right? I don't know.

Could you repeat that?

They'd probably get grandfathered in. I don't know.

That depends on the recommendation of what they want to do.

There'd be like a date certain where either remove it or you get a permit.

That should be part of the discussion. Yeah.

Um, currently right now they have to get a business license, but not a permit. So when their business license was due up again, their business license would get submitted to the city. And at that point we would have them get a permit.

Oh yes. Commissioner Matthews.

I just have one suggestion is that, um, you basically tell them certain areas that they cannot put them. So like at an entrance or near the store. So they have to be certain locations on the property that it will be allowed just so they don't cause a backup. Not that there's a big run on those bins, but you never know. Somebody could have a big truck and be blocking up an entrance.

Yeah, that's a great point.

Yeah, no, that is a great point. Would anything like to add anything for Kristen? Did you get everything you needed?

I believe so.

OK. So some suggestions, but yeah, it's kind of hard to believe they're not permitted out there in the wild west.

Thank you.

OK. Well, thank you, Kristen. Thank you, Emily. And it looks like Kate's coming back up.

Got it on the right slide. A little bit of musical chairs. One thing I would like to add is it has been really a great partnership because my main focus is on long-range strategic planning and we have development review staff who are having these conversations with applicants. And it's like both sides of the brain come together as we're moving through these code amendments and throughout the rest of this year. And I think the end product is much stronger. Anyway, so what are the next steps for our clarifying code amendments? You've seen this scheduled before. We do have the one other batch of amendments to present to you next week for your input, and then a chance at your first meeting in April to go through everything. We'll come back with some of the information that you've asked for tonight and at other meetings, and then we will move through into the public hearing and your recommendation council review process, as I said in Q2, the state reviews, SEPA, state environmental review, as well as Department of Commerce that you require sometimes a 60-day review for kind of intensive code amendments. We may ask them for an expedited review in this case with council action aimed at June. That's the process. One last chance in case you all had any other questions you wanted us to take back, take a look at.

No, I think again, I appreciate all of you guys coming up and speaking again. It makes sense. I mean you guys hear from the developers as Emily pointed out every day and obviously the idea is to make it easier for all of us to work through these codes and they can be quite technical and quite in the weeds. So the more we can do to help everybody, I think is appropriate. Anything else? All right.

Okay. Well, that's all we had. And thank you so much for your input. It's really been helpful tonight.

All right. Well, thank you, Kate. Again, thank you, Emily. And thank you, Kristen. That was the only bit of business we had. So it's not going to be a late one tonight. Reports. I think I'm looking at Kristen Leeson.

council reports i do want to note that uh poor um commissioner millinder erwin it appears that the audio went out so um i asked her to i just sent her a message i just found out so i just sent her a message saying if she has any other comments or questions to send those to me and we can uh we'll bring those back to the next meeting yeah i apologize uh yeah i apologize yeah there's a simpson button i think she has right a what a simpson hand that's what i usually look for is the little simpson hand I think so yes but yes so I yeah so two reports I have a few things one you recall the traffic impact fee waiver that went to council two Mondays ago Monday after I saw you City Council did pass it they passed it to allow both an eighty percent and a hundred percent fee waiver and we have an applicant already taking us up on that so we are working through that process second On Monday night, we had a council committee, the whole meeting, our special council meeting on Monday night. And we were talking about the work plan that I've been talking to you all about for so long. It was a very long, deep discussion. And anyway, we now have a new work plan with 17 items. 14 will be coming to you all. And they start to get rather hefty. I'm going to bring two of the easier ones to you all next week as a part of this. But we will have amendments coming to you all every three months to get approved by council every three months for the next five quarters. So lots going on. And there will be a presentation next week. And we'll go into more depth. We'll essentially give the same presentation to you all that we gave to council. And we'll talk about those upcoming amendments Lastly for Council update is that former Council President Barb DeMichel has had an illness and is going to take her, has had some health issues, and it's going to take her longer to heal than she thought, so she has resigned from the Council. New Council President is Tola Martz. Deputy Vice, whatever, the Vice, Deputy Council President, that's what it is, Deputy Council President, is, who is it? Oh, it's Council Member Zhang, is the Deputy, whatever. and they will be filling that role. They will be appointing a new council member. The applications open on Monday, this coming Monday, and that role will be to fill council member DeMichelle's role and it will run through November of 2028. So if you know anyone who's interested, doing it again. Okay, that's all I have for council.

A lot of recent appointments. But we also definitely want to send our best wishes to Barbara D. Michelle and hope she recovers a speedy recovery, a full recovery. So, again, best to Barbara. And thank you for all her service and hard work. Okay. That takes care of council reports. Any other business or announcements?

Yes. Commissioner Mulborough is resigning from PPC. So we are currently going through the interview process anyway. And so we will be interviewing to find someone to fill that position as well.

And that's all I have. OK. And likewise, we also want to thank Ellen for her service this past year and wish her well. All right. I believe that's other business and announcements. Any calendar items we should be aware of other than just a lot of work coming our way?

Nope. That's it.

OK.

No, I was thinking that some might be canceled because of cultural things. But no, we're on schedule for a while. All right.

OK, great. Anything from the commissioners as far as good of the order? All right. Please, Vice Chair Patterson.

Any light rail updates?

No, there you go. No light rail updates. No, just keep getting your voice out there. Yes.

Keep sending those letters. And, again, the handwritten letters or your own voice, that actually works a lot better. So, yes, keep sending them in. Okay, well, again, thank you, everybody.

Oh, but I do have one that just reminded me. I apologize.

Almost adjourned, but it didn't occur. I know.

I'm sorry. It was so close. Thomas Valdrez. I don't know if I announced that he's leaving. No, I don't think you did. Yes, he is. Light Rail brought that up. Yes, he is leaving tomorrow. It's his last day. Stephen Padua took him. He's going to Kirkland. Yeah. Yeah. so um so anyway that um that is my other piece of news so we will be looking for someone else there too yeah i'm starting to feel like that city is like the the voldemort right we just don't say that city's name we did a trade about about seven years ago we took about seven people from kirkland so it's just they're getting back at us yeah yeah like i said it's been painful but uh we wish thomas the best and uh are you guys looking to fill that position i would imagine I would assume so, but I have not heard anything yet.

Okay.

Okay. Well, again, if there's no other announcements, we are going to adjourn this meeting of the Planning Policy Commission at 7.26 p.m. Good night.