Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening, Planning Policy and guests and staff. We'd like to call this meeting of the Planning Policy to order this May 28th at 6.30 p.m. 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, and I believe Commissioner Zakharoff is going to join us online. All right. Hello, Katya. Our first item of business is to approve the minutes of the May 14th PPC meeting. All of you received it in your agenda packet. Are there any questions or concerns with those meeting minutes? Okay. And I don't see Katya, but my guess is she probably doesn't either.

She is there in addition. Additionally, Commissioner Millinder Irwin is also online tonight.

Oh, hi, Commissioner Millinder Irwin. Okay, so we have two of our commissioners joining us online. Doesn't look like they have any questions or concerns as well, so we'll go ahead and approve those minutes. And now we've set aside some time for public comment. This is a general public comment for the good of the commission. Staff, has anyone signed up to make public comments?

Yes, Chair, they have.

Okay. Okay. So we'll read some boilerplate very quickly. We ask that all participants speak clearly and pause frequently. State your name before you speak. If you are attending virtually by computer or by phone and would like to speak during public comments, we also ask that you mute your microphone when you're not speaking. And if you're having any technical issues, try joining the meeting using a different device such as a smartphone or tablet. You can also use the call information in the meeting invite to call in into the meeting. This is an important part of the public process. We take them seriously. They are factored into the decisions that we make. They can be general or related to the topics we are discussing this evening. We do ask that you keep your comments to five minutes or less. Okay, we are ready.

Taylor Haynes.

Okay, all good? Okay. Hi, everyone. I'm Taylor Haynes. I'm here representing a group of developers, property managers, and investors focused on multifamily residential development in and around Issaquah. We submitted a comment letter earlier today. It sounds like most of you already had a chance to read that. Rather than restate what we wrote, I thought I'd just add some color to some of the points we made. So first, I just want to thank you all, both the PPC and staff, for all your work through the PPI program. I've been following it closely, tune into a lot of your meetings. So I really appreciate your conversations. They're really meaningful and it's really helpful to be able to engage with you and know that you all are taking our feedbacks pretty seriously. So first we want to urge the PPC to take staff's recommendations that they put forth in the meeting packet for tonight on the code amendments. So what our letter doesn't fully capture is the scale of the issue with the requirements for developing on or near natural context areas, given the prevalence of the critical area, the amount of critical areas in ISQA. These requirements are triggered on virtually every new multifamily project. The existing development standards have a lot of prescriptive requirements that can or be or already are addressed elsewhere in the code. On the transparency requirements, a lot of the existing requirements we feel are impractical and not the most effective means to achieve the policies that they're trying to remedy and mitigate. So we support repealing the requirement for 50% transparency minimum for facades facing natural context areas in central Issaquah. Just as an example of how this requirement is impractical for developers, They're often spending sometimes months and a significant amount of cost in design dollars for engineering around these standards. We also support reducing the required transparency for multifamily buildings to 15% for the ground floor, which is consistent with other jurisdictions and still ensures that the building facades contribute to an engaging pedestrian environment. On mid-rise buildings, these additional structural design elements to accommodate both the energy code and Issaquah's standards can translate to hundreds of thousands of dollars in added costs. We also want to reiterate that the existing code does have provisions that cover a lot of the concerns like the prohibition on blank walls. Finally, we'd like to urge the PPC to reduce the transparency requirements citywide. This would ensure that the housing development isn't stymied with overly burdensome regulations. Again, we request that you advance these reforms as recommended by staff as further outlined in our letter. And we thank you for, again, your willingness to engage with us and for all of your collaboration and work on the PBI to date. Thank you. This process.

Great. Thank you, Taylor. Okay. Do we have anybody virtually who would like to speak, seeing as Taylor's the only one in the room? Representing a lot of people, though.

No, Chair, we do not.

Okay. And I would ask that both of our commissioners, and it looks like Katia is online in a car, we ask that Commissioner Millinder-Irwin also turn on her camera as well for the duration of the meeting. Okay. That takes care of public comment. So we will move right into regular business this evening. And our first item is to continue discussion on code amendments related to the Promoting Building Investment Initiative. Tonight, we'll discuss amendments focused on transparency and natural context areas. Yeyi Chen, our associate planner, and Kristen Leeson, our planning manager, will be presenting this evening. So Yeyi and Kristen, please go ahead when you're ready.

Yeah. Okay. All right now. Good evening commissioners. Uh, my name is Yi Chen and I'm an associate planner with community planning and development. So tonight's presentation will be on transparency and natural context area requirements. And the purpose of this presentation will be to present and receive feedback on the options regarding planning and building requirements for transparency and natural context areas. All right, so this is a part of the PBI effort as approved by council for the 2026 to 2027 work plan. Please note that this is intended to be an informational briefing, but feel free to ask questions as I present. And here is just a little snapshot of where we are at in the work plan currently. So first up, our proposed amendment is transparency. So the purpose of transparency is the use of windows and doors with glass to break up any building facades and prevent blank wall treatments. Standards for transparency are intended to activate ground floor uses, engage the pedestrian through visible uses, support walkability, and promote an interesting and pedestrian-friendly environment. So we have standards that exist citywide, but they also exist at the neighborhood level. And this is specific to Old Town, which is concerning CBD and multifamily zones, in addition to Central Issaquah, specifically natural context areas. So some of the issues that we are observing with transparency currently is that projects and multifamily developments in particular are facing challenges in achieving the required minimum transparency standards. Commonly cited constraints include cost, privacy issues, inconsistency between co-sections, just like as stated, there are multiple transparency requirements, and then a conflict between land use, building, and energy code. So some of the pros for transparency is it promotes a pedestrian environment to be more welcoming and inviting and it enhances the pedestrian streetscape to be, you know, just no blank walls and transparency within ground floors of buildings frames human activity both internally and externally. So think of like a giant picture frame and eyes on the street. This is commonly in co-sections for safety purposes and street activation. some of the cons of transparency. So transparency largely affects energy efficiency. Within our specific residential building codes, glazing does require a larger size heating system, for instance, to make up for the energy efficiency that windows sometimes present. And glazing and incorporating large amounts of glass for windows and doors is costly structurally. cost of materials from structural reinforcement because you're making up for the amount of glazing and transparency that a building has to have. And it can impact privacy for residential and commercial uses when we're trying to make development desirable for the market. And so here is our comprehensive goals. To summarize, our goals aim to have unique visual interests and aspects while following best practices in design and development regulations. And then a little lengthier is our Central Issaquah Plan. And the policies are aimed to achieve pedestrian-oriented developments in addition to memorable streetscapes that are inviting, visually connected, and visually interesting. And here is an overview of our code's current intent. And it strives to activate streetscape for an enhanced pedestrian environment by increasing visual and physical interactions. So for current Issaquah regulations, for citywide, we currently have multifamily and commercial at 40% minimum transparency requirement. And then for retail, it is 70%. And both of these pertain to the ground floor. In Old Town, multifamily is at 15% for the entire facade and CBD is at 45 or 25 for the ground floor. And this is dependent on the street that the development is situated on. And then within Central Issaquah, it's specific to natural context areas. And when that is, you know, considered, it is 50% of the entire facade. And you might have questions on how it's measured currently. Based on regulations for citywide, multifamily directly adjacent to sidewalk is six feet and higher above the exterior ground level. And commercial and retail is five feet from the finished floor of the first floor. In Old Town, multifamily is the entire facade that's measured, and Weaned Wild CBD is the ground floor. And Central Issaquah is any walls that are facing the natural context area needs to have the facade measured. And we also do have good visuals within our co-section to kind of explain how we measure that. And we do allow deviations. So for multifamily, it can be adjusted by 10% when one of two requirements are met. The first one is when additional design features are proposed beyond what is required. And the second is when housing makes up for at least 50% of the ground floor. And then for non-residential, it can be adjusted by 5%. And that is when additional design features are proposed beyond what is required. And getting into the nitty gritty a little bit, we are looking at other cities' regulations. So please note that Redmond is one of the only cities that we've researched that also have a citywide transparency minimum. And it kind of starts, and everything else is sub-area based. And what that means is the transparency and having that minimum is focused on usually high pedestrian, high rise, mixed use, just think about a place where a lot of people wanna go. and where you want density to kind of focus. And so for Redmond, the facade transparency starts at as high as 80% in the urban core, but it drops down to as low as 30% because it's based on frontages. So if you're across the street, it's landscape, yard, neighborhood, street frontages. They only require as low as like 30% minimum. And then next up is Kirkland. This is one of the only cities that also have a residential minimum that is equal or higher to 40%. They're at 50% for residential and then 75% for retail and active use for facade transparency requirements. But please note, this is also sub-area based, so it is not citywide. It is, again, in more of their concentrated population, high density areas and with higher uses. intensities.

And then for Bellevue, they're a little bit interesting.

They're not use-based. Instead, they are oriented to based off of pedestrian streetscape levels. So it starts at levels A through C, requires 75%, and that's where they want most of their street activity to be happening. They're anticipating the sidewalks to be fully utilized. And then it drops down to 25% when you're at pedestrian levels D through E, which is some of their smaller sidewalks not utilized as much. And so they're not expecting that much of a promenade to be happening. And then next we have Mercer Island where retail office and lobby use transparency requirement is at 75% and then ground floor non-residential uses do drop down to 50%. And then next up, we have Bothell. They have some specific uses that they do outline in the code, such as personal service use, eating and drinking establishments, just a lot of uses that have a lot of in and out of pedestrian movement. And for that, they do call for a 70% transparency requirement. They do allow compensation of 40% or reduction to 40% when additional design standards are implemented into the development process. And residential use transparency requirement, it's not outright stated, but they do have provisions for no blank walls. Lastly, we have Sammamish, which properties adjacent to pedestrian-oriented streets and corridors are required to have 75% transparency, but when properties are proposed to be residential use, it does drop to 15%, and then for non-residential uses, it is 50%. So our current recommendations after all this research and looking through code is to repeal requirements for 50% transparency minimum for natural context areas within central Issaquah. The second is to reduce the required transparency for multifamily to 15% for the ground floor. And third is to reinforce code sections that clearly state no blank walls with additional design, material transparency, color contrast requirements. And this is because we already have provisions within our code sections that no, you know, it's written here that Facades should not exclude 30 feet and have blank walls. It has to be adorned by either windows, doors, trellis, artwork, or material changes. So there is something for us to reinforce if that's the path that we want to go. And then considerations for you guys tonight is, does the commission want to, one, revise the transparency minimum as recommended by staff? Additionally, should it remain citywide or would the preference be sub-area based like other codes, other city codes? And then two is consider aligning the level of transparency requirements with streets planned for high activation with higher levels than others, such as if we're looking at Central Issaquah, do we want to focus on the streets that we want more pedestrian access, make it more inviting and just, you know, incorporate that into our streetscape. That concludes the transparency part of the presentation. Does anyone have any questions so far?

And do you all want to talk about this now or do you want to wait until the end?

Yeah, I think before we move on to the natural context. So, yeah. Thank you, Yigi. I saw hands all over. Commissioner Adair has her microphone on. Please go ahead.

Hi. Just for the Sammamish non-residential one, so that's a specific sub-area, right? Yes. Could you explain a little more about what kind of sub-area it is?

Yeah, so most of the sub-areas that we looked at, it's more downtown because PBI is focused on central Issaquah where we're kind of looking to be our downtown core. So I looked for sub-areas that are very similar in intensity and uses. And for Sammamish, it was their old town center. Yeah, so it's also similar to what you would call like a downtown.

hopefully there will not be a test on all those numbers that you put up there can you go back to the slide before and I think there's there's two different pieces there's the what do you do around natural areas which is different very different than having a walkable, pedestrian-friendly areas. I think those are distinct. So my questions are going to be more about the pedestrian aspect of it, not the natural one. You have, bringing it down to 15%, what is it currently right now on the ground floor?

For multifamily and commercial uses, it's at 40%.

Okay. So I think one of the things we also need to make sure we consider is all of these buildings are gonna be there for at least 75 years. So the difference of something costing a little bit more, a little trade-offs at the beginning, has to be weighed for something that is gonna either make something livable or not livable for past all of our lifetimes. And I've just came back from one of the most populated cities in the world. And I do think having something that allows that interaction for the pedestrians is something I'd be very cautious of making it so low that we kind of cut off our nose to spite our face. So I'm curious of... what is not getting done today with our current levels, and do we have any specific examples of things that are not getting built because we think that the, you said 40%? It has been too high, and I think that's an important element because I'm trying to think, you know, decades long and things are gonna get more efficient of how, you know, all these services are, you know, HVACs and all of that. Plus it's the ground floor, which is gonna be more efficient than the upper floors. So any more data around how you got to these numbers would be super helpful.

Yeah, so in the memo that was provided, we did provide some examples of multifamily residential developments that did have some trouble reaching the 40% minimum. But we are happy to look into providing more examples because we are coming back for a second presentation.

Did they not get built? I mean, those are the ones I'm

They did, but part of the example demonstrates how transparency and the consideration of it during the design process, sometimes you have to look at Developers get very creative in terms of what they're proposing, right? One of the examples is to provide balconies and have that meet transparency. And so part of it is kind of stepping back and looking at what is the intent and how is that being met and how that is actually feasible and applicable to the projects that we're seeing currently. So I don't think I have too good of an answer for you, but I can look into it a little bit more and we can circle back to this.

Trailhead was a project. The Trailhead multifamily development, they weren't going to be able to meet the 40%, so we lowered that requirement for them. Trailhead, it's the one that's... Oh.

I think it was around 15%.

I'm curious what that will look like.

I can double check.

And these are on the sides that are in the first, that's for the first floor that's facing walking areas.

Yes, yeah, that's just for the first floor.

I didn't bring a printout. My memory's not that good.

It's in the packet. There's a picture of it. I looked through it.

If you have it to be able to pull up while we're here, that would be a good reference. Slides as well.

Okay, we can come back to that. Commissioner Olander? Yeah, just a few observations. First of all, context. So as we've been discussing, there are streets where we encourage pedestrians, and we also encourage buildings to be built very close to those pedestrian walkways. So there are issues of security and safety and privacy associated with that. So on the one hand, I can see lowering the requirement. But in general, I have issues with prescriptive regulations when it comes to specific percentages without providing some context. Where is it? What are the other options? Um, I also, uh, just as an observation question the whole, you know, it costs so much more to build windows than walls having been a developer. Um, and, and when we talk about, um, you know, uh, five over one in terms of multifamily, that one typically is a concrete frame. And so nothing is within that frame on the exterior walls. None of that is structural. It's all stick built typically. And so I question the sort of the dire predictions about what can and cannot be built based on whether it's 40% or 20% or 15% because it all depends on context. It depends on construction. and there are so many other reasons why things do or do not get built that I would hate for us to focus on a specific percentage and think that we've somehow solved a buildability problem. I think the other issue related to percentage of transparency is how rentable are units where you have 15% of the facade that's transparent but 85% is not. would you rent a unit with that kind of ratio? So I think I'm just, I'm obviously not being conclusive here, but I'm just saying I think that there are inherent issues that some of which are being overstated, some of which may not be adequately addressed. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Oller. Looking to see if our online commissioners have anything to add. Want to go around the room, make sure everyone gets an opportunity to speak. Commissioner Matthews?

No comments from me.

Thank you, Commissioner Millinder-Irwin. Commissioner Holstrom, Commissioner Matthews?

I actually did have one question. So it's based on an example. The new townhouses that are going up next to this, or went up by the self-storage, So their garage has these huge windows. So I wondered, was that to make up for that 40%? Is that why they have the garages with the giant pane glass windows?

I think they did.

Sorry, we weren't the reviewers on that project. I'm sorry, I should have sent an email. We'll have to look it up and find out. We weren't the reviewers. My guess would be yes. And I know that they had a difficult time, and they also had to put their porches right up against the street. And I know that they had noted that that was difficult for them to meet.

Because that's where I was wondering, again, when you have just a hard, fast 40%, but the way they designed based on the site, like they may have a garage that does back up against the street, and it doesn't make sense to put a window there. But in general, I would say if it's a living space, I totally am for the 40%. But I think maybe there needs to be some thought about what you consider part of that 40%. If it's a garage, it doesn't make sense.

But would you really? Just little ones?

Or... But I guess that's where I'm coming from. Living space should have 40%. Because again, I wouldn't want to live in an apartment that had 15% windows. But if it's in my garage, do I really want 40% so everybody could see all the stuff I have stored in there? Maybe not. So I guess that's where I'm going is maybe it shouldn't be 40% ground floor where it doesn't make sense. Like if you have a garage, maybe there is another deviation for that purpose.

Yeah, it seems like currently our deviations don't allow that, and the 40% is just unilateral across the facade on the ground floor. So we see the pros and cons of having a minimum, but then how do you ensure that transparency is still part of the design, right? So, yeah.

Commissioner Holstrom, you'd like to add anything? Yeah, I personally, as a small developer builder, 40% seems like a big number to me. I mean, you could fit a lot of windows and still be under that. And I'm also wondering to the staff, as far as the current Washington State energy codes, are you hearing issues with those as far as developers trying to meet these current codes with this percentage of windows? And I know those... those are only going to get more strict. So this is going to become more difficult for developers as time goes on.

Yeah. So during the research process, I did reach out to one of our building plans examiners and he did voice how there is conflict between land use, what he's seeing in projects versus what is allowed in building an energy code because of how stringent they've gotten. And so sometimes it, might make a project not feasible if you can't meet everything. And so, yeah. It seems like, I'm not sure if it's too huge of a problem currently as of yet, but definitely noted by our other departments.

Thanks.

Mr. Patterson.

Thank you, Chair. I'll do some of my thinking out loud here. So yeah, I guess when I read through the packet, the couple things that stood out to me kind of from the developer standpoint was the strongest argument, in my opinion, in reading it was kind of the energy and structural code. That seemed like the most, I guess, impactful argument for making some adjustments to this versus say, you know, as Commissioner Oehlner was pointing out, the cost savings probably isn't enough to sink a project. Whereas with the community argument, obviously it has a lot to do with the pedestrian experience, the blank walls, and to some extent privacy. So I think some aspects to consider would be to reduce the max blank wall run to kind of help combat this. I think it's currently 30 feet. maybe it makes sense to drop that down to, I don't know, 20, 15, something to try and break that up so that, like the example you were showing, there's not this big run of blank wall there. The other thing we could do, it sounds like there was some openness to shoring up some of the blank wall language to, even the developers were open to that, so maybe we do some material variation, two distinct materials for that blank wall, some articulation or modulation, and then, it's kind of listed in there, but some more architectural features, so landscaping, art, murals, a green wall. So that might be some options for the blank wall piece. In terms of the transparency piece, though, it reminds me of Step Backs because we're kind of in that thing where there's no magic number, but given what we have and what our kind of sister cities have here where it's everything from, it seems like, zero to 80% and, like, every number in between. So I don't know that there's, you know, a magic number, a silver bullet of a number here. I kind of agree. with Brett, that 40% seems a little bit on the higher side. But then again, I say 15% seems a little bit too far on the lower side. So I guess personally, I'm kind of looking for maybe more of a Goldilocks, you know, happy medium, just right for Issaquah number. But I think Commissioner Ulner brought up some good points that I don't know if it's a percentage as much as it is the context of a project maybe. And so I don't know if there's an alternative tool, whether it be variances or deviations, what have you, that would help address a project specifically versus addressing a blanket percentage. So that's kind of my thinking out loud. Thank you.

That's great. OK, I'll get to you in one second. I want to say something too. OK. I'll just do the first part very easily. Yes, I think we need to reinforce the code sections, the clearly straight no-blank walls, consolidate all that, get all that clarified. That's an easy one. I did notice in the four examples that you sent, builders were able to get creative. They were able to get their designs pushed through. Each one used a deviation, one used this. I mean, again, and if you look at the Trailhead project, that doesn't look like what we really wanted. So again, I appreciate those examples because yeah, they clearly kind of show, I mean the park place, I mean, that's all garage doors downstairs. That's I don't think what anybody wanted either. So I think to all of the commissioner's point, I don't know if there's necessarily a magic number, but I think generally, and tell me if I'm wrong, Yigi, when I looked at those numbers and I went back and forth on these three pages for like a half hour, Issaquah seems to be generally middle of the road. Our numbers aren't extremely high. I don't see any of our numbers that are higher than anywhere else. Now, I know these are all sub-areas and different things like that, but I didn't see anything that struck me as, wow, this is a cause way out of line. In fact, Bellevue was the only one that kind of looked as the outlier. Is that fair to say generally?

In terms of how they tie the transparency minimums to the streetscape rather than the use, yes, they would be an outlier.

Right. Yeah. And again, so I just saw our numbers being closer to 40, 70% retail for citywide, Old Town 45, 25, natural areas 50. And again, I look at this and I see Redmond 80, Bellevue 75, Bothell 70. And again, I know these are you know, different plans, different areas are addressing, but again, I didn't see any of our numbers get, with the exception of citywide retail. That was the only one that got 70%. Everything else was closer to 40s, and again, 50, 25. Again, I don't know what the right number is, but I do remember what triggered the moratorium was when developers got their way and came in and built some things on Gilman Street that outraged the entire city. And then we didn't have building, which was a city-wide thing, because the city shut it down, for two years to update our standards and designs. I know, and again, I love developers, I work with developers, but if you gave them everything they wanted, I mean, they'd build cinder blocks. That's all they would build because it's, you know, they obviously want people to move into these, but they would build them as inexpensively as they can. We have certain design standards because we didn't want to repeat what happened in the mid-2000s, 2010s. I think that's important to note. I think, like I said, you can see where builders got creative on the four projects that you listed.

Mm-hmm.

there's clearly workarounds that the city offers and provides. I don't know what the magic number is, but I'm always hesitant to go back on the work of people for so many years to get these where these were. And I know we have a new push from a new younger council, and I know we have new state codes, but to toss out everything that people worked on for three to four years seems a little crazy. And to Commissioner Oehler's point, I don't necessarily think the transparency issue, it might be one of many things, but it's not what's sinking projects. We just met with a bunch of developers for the last two months. And maybe it was because they saw this coming up, but that was never addressed. And I think we could keep going with these amendments for the next two years, and they will slowly chip away at our design standards and aesthetics. That's my feelings.

Well, thank you for your input.

Commissioner Adair.

Oh, wow. No, that was a great bookend. So now I feel bad because I'm going to echo a lot of what you said, right? And overall, I agree with a lot of what Voice said, so I don't want to repeat it. What I will add to support that is today and yesterday, I went down a rabbit hole of city codes, just picking cities at random that I thought were kind of the vibe we like across the nation and looking at what their transparency standards were. And what I did see was that 30% for residentials and business districts was pretty standard. And so I don't think we're so far off. I did not see, I think Sammamish is really the outlier with the 15%. And it seems like it's similar vibes to Old Town, which our Old Town is 15%. So, I'm not opposed to lowering from 40% or discussing variances or maybe simplifying, but I think 15% is very low. And I did do some fun little drawings that you can look at. And I think you'll see, it looks, It looks really kind of sad when you lay it out. 15% does and we have to live here and we have to ask people to engage. So we're trying to comply with this goal of having community spaces where pedestrians feel happy and welcome. I think we need to find the Goldilocks number that you know, maybe 40% can seem like a lot, so maybe that's high, but I think 15% is far too low. And I also want to point out that, wow, Redmond's codes are complicated.

Okay, that's it. Commissioner Matthews.

Like Commissioner Adair, I was also in the rabbit hole, so I did zero in on an area in Hillsboro. There's a town called Amber Glen that has an unusual uh, way to calculate their transparency. And it is, their requirement is 60% of the length by 35% of the area. And it comes in a little under 40%, but I love equations. So I thought I'd pop that one up and I meant to email you with it, but they have a really cool, um, transportation hub called Aranco station there. That's a planned community. And it looks like the kind of vibe that we're going for where it's very dense. It has a lot of multi-use housing and all different sizes, apartments. And so I meant to send you the link, but I was like, I'm too late. So I'll do it later this evening, send it to you so we can kind of take a look. But I did think that maybe an equation would make more sense than just plain 40%.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Not to put too fine a point on this, whole question, but when we look at critical areas, I think I read in part of the code that we're encouraging pedestrian paths and bike paths in the space between the multifamily residential units and the critical area. And so, you know, it's not that different in terms of privacy and security from a regular street. You know, there are going to be people passing by. So that's kind of you know, arguing in favor of reducing the percentage of transparency. On the other hand, we're trying to encourage people to enjoy those views, and so we want to increase the amount of transparency. I just think inherently, it's almost impossible to balance those things on a citywide basis. I think it's, you know, allowing for deviations I think has to somehow still be part of what we do when we review projects. Right, right, right. And lastly, when we did have presentations by some of the developers, they were citing some of the cities whose transparency requirements are significantly higher than ours. And yet they were saying it's easier to build in those municipalities than it is here. Why is that? It's clearly not the transparency issue. Again, I think it's WISE FOR US TO NOT OVERSTATE THE IMPORTANCE OF THIS PARTICULAR QUESTION.

YEAH, NO, THANK YOU, COMMISSIONER OLLINER. YEAH, AND I HOPE I DIDN'T COME OUT TOO HARSH TO DEVELOPERS. THAT WASN'T MY INTENTION. I KNOW THEY WOULD BUILD BEAUTIFUL BUILDINGS, BUT THE REASON WE HAVE THESE DESIGN STANDARDS IS TO GIVE THEM GUIDANCE. I'M SURE DEVELOPERS WOULD LOVE TO BE ABLE TO BUILD THE BUILDINGS THEY WANT, NOT NECESSARILY WHAT THE CITIES ARE REQUIRING. SO THAT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. I'll just, again, to add to the commissioners, again, the transparency thing, Issaquah has unique topography. We have a unique situation where we are living in the foothills of Cascades. I know we're going to get into the natural context areas, so I'll leave that. But to encourage the pedestrian-friendly area, I think there were lots of reasons why these came up. It was for a more friendly area. It was for safety and security. We all know what happens with big blank walls in big cities. They end up being covered in graffiti, places where people are eliminating. I mean, it's not good. I mean, that's why you have some of these big windows. And it is just more of a livable space and you can see the outdoors. Again, I'm not saying 40% is the right answer, but to Commissioner Matthews' point, Commissioner Dare, 15 seems extremely low. and kind of gets away from the whole idea of what was such a focus, which was to take advantage of Issaquah's unique surroundings. So I will leave. And one other thing, and yes, I'm glad Commissioner Ohlender brought it up because it reminded me, I don't think you could do citywide. Issaquah has too many eclectic neighborhoods. And just looking at the different cities that are a little bit more homogenous in terms of their neighborhoods, they don't even do it. They still have sub-area plans and different layovers. So I don't think that's possible. I mean, you have everything from Highlands to Tallis to Old Town to South Cove. We don't call it South Cove anymore. I forget what it's called, but I think you get the point. So yes, there's too many eclectic neighborhoods that all have their different vibe and character. I just don't see how you could do a city-wide standard. Maybe you could have a city-wide standard, but you still have the basic, classic sub-area plans.

Mr. Holster? I think if we could find a moderate number, it would be helpful. And obviously, I think there's always a place for deviations and variations. But I don't feel like that should be something we lean too heavily on, because that just adds time and costs and more difficulty for everybody, I would imagine. The more it could be streamlined so somebody could have a good idea of what they can and can't do ahead of time versus going into an unknown DEVIATION, VARIATION, REVIEW PERIOD, THE MORE CLARITY WE COULD GIVE TO THE REGULATIONS IN THE CODE I THINK WOULD BE HELPFUL FOR THE CITY AND DEVELOPERS.

I SECOND THAT. Would anyone else like to speak before we move on to the natural context areas piece? Kristen would like to speak, I'm sorry.

So I have a few clarifying questions. So this isn't intended tonight that we come back to you with absolute solid. These are our recommendations. This is intended for us to narrow our recommendations for you all to discuss further without the, because we do it too. We sit in the office and we go, well, here's this city and here's this city and here's this situation. So we do it too. We go all over the place.

But now it's your turn.

but now we need to narrow it down just a little bit. So I have a couple of things. First of all, Chair Boyce is right. This won't touch Old Town, Issaquah Highlands, or Tallis. It will really be focused on central Issaquah, maybe a few commercial buildings outside of it, but there's not much else outside of it. So just a little bit. So that is where the focus will be.

I can't see my own writing.

I have a few questions for you all. One came up, Commissioner Ulner mentioned that natural context areas, we're trying to get consistency here. It would be easier for planners, it would be easier for developers, but that natural context areas are a different sort of animal. So would you like to see either more deviations or more options for those properties that are next to natural context areas and keep those separate, or would you like to just Mix that in with the rest of it. Whatever we do along public streets, we're going to do along natural context areas.

All right. She poses the question. Yes, Commissioner Trask.

I think they're very different, and they have different goals. So I think you answered that question yourself. Walkability in a pedestrian area is different than an occasional person who walks down a trail. And to be honest, I think if you're building... something that's on a trail, you're going to want to have windows for the people inside to be able to enjoy that. So I think there should be two separate ways of looking at it, as opposed to try to munch it into one thing, because there are different goals. Great, thank you.

Commissioner Adair?

So I guess my question off of Kristin's is, is this in reference to kind of the overall idea of designing for natural presentation, like when it says orienting towards natural context areas, are you saying let's ditch that section, or are you saying just in regards to transparency?

Just in regards to transparency.

Okay. So just in regards to transparency. I'm neutral, right? I know that's sad, but I, I feel like it could be probably treated as a pedestrian, similar as pedestrian right of way.

Yeah, no, that's great. Um, anyone else?

Mr Holster, I feel like there should be a difference. I mean, I look at, can I use your, I mean like the 40% now is essentially a wall of windows. And if that was the same on a natural area, I think like as a, if I was an architect, like where am I putting the elevator banks and the garbage room in the mechanical room and all these places that don't typically have windows. Now I got to go solid windows. The rest of that, if I try and place those on the, on the natural side of the building, cause I can't place them on the front really with these window requirements. So I'm just wondering where these important parts of a building that aren't glamorous, where are they supposed to go? If we have too many windows, if we have a huge window requirement on a natural side of the building and the front side of the building, it just seems very difficult if I was an architect on where I put these rooms that are necessary to build and design. So I would lean towards having a different requirement on the natural side, personally.

Anybody else? Anybody online? Oh, I see Commissioner Millinder-Irwin.

yes she's got a hand up yes thank you chair voice um i'm challenged with the transparency code relative to the multi-family and the commercial requirements being the same at 40 um i've seen some of the new development here in issaquah and one of the things that i was a bit taken aback by is that in communal living spaces in most people's homes, which is a kitchen area, the openness of those areas relative to people walking and being able to look directly into homes. And I understand what the intention is in terms of the transparency, walkability, the openness, not having these blank tall walls. But I think And again, I agree with everyone. There is not a magic number, but I think it's really a kind of a balancing of intention where I believe people deserve to have a level of privacy within their homes and also still have that balance of openness and uphold what the city's current code is. So I think there was a balance there. I think 40%. for multifamily and commercial, having that same level of transparency through multifamily homes, I'm challenged by that.

Thank you, Leslie. I would agree. And I actually, maybe there's a carve out for multifamily, you know, just in terms of all of it, because there's gotta be some privacy.

Well, that brings me to one of my questions.

Okay. But before we get there, I guess what I was going to say about the natural context area is to Commissioner Holstrom's point and Commissioner Kras's point and Commissioner Adair's point is, yeah, it probably should be different as far as the natural context areas. You know, and to prove that I love developers, all of them, you know, yes, it would be hard because we do have a lot of natural context. We've got everything from critical... hillsides to lakes to streams to rivers. We have it all. I mean, like you said, that was kind of the intention was so people could see that and appreciate it. We don't want to make it so difficult. Maybe 40% is too high. Just to your graph, Genevieve, the 15 look pretty sad. So, again, you know, but I would assume people would want view lots when you're looking at a natural area. You know, I would assume they'd pay more. The only question I have is If these are already being situated to look at those natural context areas, to me that would be pretty odd to have a front door with very little transparency through the building. Wouldn't it? I mean, if you're situating the whole thing towards the natural context area, you know, to take advantage of the view and the natural surroundings, it'd be pretty strange not to have a number on that, right? Okay. I guess I'm talking out loud, too. That's my feeling about that. It seems like that would just kind of be naturally. Again, if we're already asking them to situate their entire lot and the way the lot's designed to those areas, it seems like that would just kind of go hand in hand, I would think.

and that'll be a good part of the next discussion that we have in a few minutes. So, okay. So then my next question then was, do you want to have, do you imagine that you want to have different percentages or different requirements for resident multifamily residential versus commercial?

I think that's fair. Yeah.

Okay. All right. Um, and I would assume too, that we are focusing on just the ground floor, the first floor ground floor depends on where you are in the country. Um, versus the entire facade. But I could be wrong.

I think for the pedestrian view, yeah, you're looking for the ground. We're kind of talking about ground floor, right?

Mm-hmm. Okay.

That makes sense. Or first floor, whatever you call it.

4-0, yeah.

Oh, we have another commissioner who would like to speak, Commissioner Zacharoff.

Thank you. Well, what I wanted to say is I think we shouldn't forget maybe that 15% that we're talking about is a required minimum, but at the very same time, I still believe that developers would like to build something that is livable and sellable for them. And I don't think that they will be simply building some kind of like some building, some rooms that have a very small windows because I mean it's not market valuable. So basically they need 15% maybe to put some of those not very fancy rooms like elevator or whatever is there like let's say My building, building where I live, our garage wall has some windows that lead nowhere that we actually don't have them even on the outside, but on the inside, but on the outside there are windows. So the wall is not just a blank wall. There's also trying to meet some sort of requirements 20 years ago. But yeah, so to me it's 15% as a minimum, but I don't think the developers will be building living spaces, housing spaces, like rooms, bedrooms, with 15% transparency, 15% of windows. So I think we can kind of like trust there. That's my position. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Zakharov. Living with the scars of what happened a few years ago with our baby blue building, I'll leave it at that. But I don't know if I necessarily trust. I don't think that would be the word. Commissioner Oehler.

Just one final comment on context. And it's more or less anecdotal. So I live up in a neighborhood where there are a lot of custom homes. And everybody wants the Western views. And they build their homes with enormous glass expanses, and then they always pull the shades down, both because of privacy and also because of heat gain from the western sun. And so, you know, you have this cross purposes issue that developers and homeowners will inevitably face.

I think it's fair that, like you said, multifamily probably needs a little bit more flexibility with that number. they can have the privacy they can have it um you know to hide some of the things commissioner holstrom mentioned i think with retail and commercial you're going to find that they're going to have lobbies and things where that stuff's kind of buried behind it right so i think those numbers can be a little bit higher but again we want to be flexible that is the idea so yeah i think multi-family like we mentioned probably gets a little bit different treatment but Any more questions for us?

No, that was all I had. But it was very helpful. Thank you.

Excellent. So, yeah, my question back to Yi Yi and Kristen. Do you have any more, all the information that you guys need tonight? As far as that, we still have the natural context to talk about, correct?

Yes.

Okay. That was just part one. Excellent.

Okay. All right. So we will continue on now. Thank you so much for your valuable questions. We do recognize 15 was just a starting point based off of what we were observing. So this conversation was much needed.

Thank you.

So moving on to proposed amendment natural context area. Natural context areas are generally included regulated streams, regulated wetlands, city parks, city open space, private open space, and natural storm ponds. And the goal within city plans and policies and code is to have development prioritize resource management and integration of Issaquah's natural features while ensuring they remain accessible to the public. Now you guys don't have to guess what I'm talking about. Okay, so some of the issues of natural context areas. Multifamily projects in general on sites with natural context areas have challenges in meeting the natural context area regulations due to its restrictiveness, which conflicts with provisions of our policies to allow flexibility. And within our comprehensive plan, it is a big element to integrate our natural features within our site design. Another long one for Central Issaquah. To sum up for you guys, basically it's just to include any green corridors, buffers, wetlands, and other natural features into a site design and ensuring that we are protecting our environmental resources along the way during the development process. And it is interesting because we do allow flexibility in building design. So that's kind of where we conflict with the code a little bit. So for central Isoqua requirements, currently when sites have natural context areas, buildings must orient and face the natural context areas. In addition, they need to use natural materials and finish. Only native plants can be installed on site, and buildings need to be designed with balconies, stoops, porches, and upper floor terraces on the facades that face the natural context area. In addition to public walkways need to be provided between the natural area and the building for connectivity. And then, so for other city regulations, this one is a little bit shorter just because natural context areas and how it's applied in the East side, there are a couple of cities that are a little bit more stringent. Sammamish, has provisions for integration of natural features and vegetation is just to make sure that you kind of preserve the pristine conditions of it. And then for Redmond, they do also regulate development standards towards natural areas. And this includes certain trails and certain waterways that they have listed in their code. I have just summarized as natural areas. just as an example, and it's to, they need to orient the use for its natural areas, they need to provide pedestrian connectivity from the public realm to the natural area, as well as incorporation of architectural features on the facades to ensure no blank walls, and some of it includes transparency, art, and wayfinding, as well as signage. And then for Bellevue, they probably have the most robust development standards for natural environment. They do ask for their site to be oriented towards the natural environment as well and integrating it into their site design. Additionally, they do ask for an activation of connection between pedestrian public realm with the natural area and having clear and direct public access to the open amenities and open space needs to be integrated wherever feasible. And so our recommendation for tonight would be to simplify development standards for natural context areas. And the consideration we would like the Commission to consider is to streamline the specific standards for developments with natural context areas to strike a balance between preservation and integration versus promoting development. And that about sums it up for natural context areas. Any questions?

All right. Thank you, Yi. That streamline is a loaded word, right?

Commissioner Olin. Just a wordsmithing suggestion. Two slides back. Oh, there you go. The first bullet point must be oriented towards and face the natural context area. I'm not sure whether... must face is what we're really trying to say, because in most situations, your front door is going to be facing the street and the garage, and those things typically are not facing the natural context area. So I think oriented towards probably captures it adequately. Thanks.

Thank you. Great.

Thank you, Commissioner Oehler.

Yeah, for streamlining, for one idea, one thing that when I was looking at this code jumped out at me as kind of complicated was there's an element that says things between the buildings and the natural context area must serve two purposes, e.g., if you have a planter, it must also be a bench. If you have this thing, it could also be this. I thought that was one thing that jumped out at me that I didn't see in other codes that was a little unusual so that maybe instead of saying we must do this, it could be kind of like, hey, this is a suggestion of a way to incorporate things you might already have like planters and make it more of an open community space. And yeah.

Great, thank you. Vice Chair Patterson.

Thank you, Chair. When I look at this list of requirements, obviously open to the feedback we've received from developers and considering what kind of changes I think as a community we might be willing to make. I think there's a couple of non-negotiables in my opinion. I think native plants, I think orientation toward the natural features are all things that are highly desired. I would even list the public access to waterways on there because I think that that's something that's a high value non-negotiable. I think in terms of trying to find some flexibility, I think the last one here, the water oriented feature is probably one that personally I think we could let go. And then I know we've kind of talked about it tonight a little bit, but the transparency reduction. Again, I don't know the magic number. I think we talked about natural context being different than non-natural context. So I don't know if there's that sliding scale where we go from 50 and 40 down to, I don't know, 25, 35. I don't want to be the one that names the number, but... But I do think maybe there's that happy medium where if 40 is too high, can we bring it down without going too far in that direction while still having natural context be a little bit higher? Excellent. Thank you.

Anybody?

Commissioner Holstrom?

Line in the middle there that says, no uses that close the building off, like storage and parking areas. I think that kind of goes to what I mentioned before. I think we need a little flexibility to allow some maybe non-window or not. On the main floor, somewhere in the building, there's got to be room for these spaces that aren't living spaces. They've got to go somewhere. So I feel like to say that's not an option on the natural side seems pretty harsh to me.

Yeah. I see Commissioner Adair. Does anyone want to speak before we go around again? Commissioner Kress, you're awfully quiet.

You like that, don't you? So you said this is streamlined. I'm curious what it was before and what we cut. Because is there certain things that we've taken out that are worth discussing? Or is this...

Everything that is here is outside of step-backs and transparency. Otherwise, this is what the code provision originally is.

So we're just like looking at what it is now, not, okay, I was just reacting to what, when you said streamline, I thought we cut some things back. I was just curious what those things were.

Yeah, you've cut back the, like she said, you've cut back the step-backs, so those aren't included anymore. And then the transparency can go in or out. It's, you know, it's open.

And I agree with Vice Chair. Not everything's created equal. And I think having kind of prize zero, or you said non-negotiable, I think there's some. And then I think there's some that you may have more flexibility on. I'm not sure if code works that way, but I think it's clarifying. And then people will discuss only a couple things as opposed to negotiating, trying to negotiate everything.

Code works any way you write it, right? I'LL JUST MENTION BRIEFLY, I AGREE WITH VICE CHAIR PATTERSON AND COMMISSIONER KRAS, AS WELL AS COMMISSIONER HOLSTROM. I THINK THERE'S A FEW NON-NEGOTIABLES, RIGHT? ONLY NATIVE PLANT MATERIAL. THAT SEEMS PRETTY STRAIGHTFORWARD IN ONE OF THESE AREAS. USING NATURAL MATERIALS AND FINISHES, ARE WE JUST TALKING ABOUT THE BUILDING ITSELF? LIKE, YOU WOULDN'T USE STUCCO. YOU'D USE, LIKE, WOOD SHINGLES, THINGS LIKE THAT.

THAT SEEMS PRETTY...

you know, for a Pacific Northwest type building in that type of area seems pretty... You could, yeah, and still to me be kind of, you wouldn't put a Mediterranean building next to a stream in Issaquah, that would look out of place, I would think.

I mean, somebody might, but anyway, again, like you said, not all things are created equal. I think to Commissioner Holstrom's point, maybe, you know, we want the public walkways to be, we want people to utilize these areas when they can, Obviously, the building being oriented towards the front or towards the natural context area, that's been part of our vision for a long time. I think that stays. I think where you can have more flexibility is, to Commissioner Holstrom's point, where they put storage I think is less concerning than the parking. The uses and activities and the setback, again. and then possibly the buildings that shall be designed with balconies, stoops, porches. Again, how they put those, I think, whatever we came up with the last two weeks ago, a month ago, when we were talking about balconies. I mean, do you want to see 30% of their entire backside full of balconies and then the rest of it has nothing? I think that's where you could probably get more flexibility with the builders so they can kind of design it that way as long as they still get that 30% of terraces or balconies. Because then, obviously, it would look pretty strange to have a building with all of it on one side. Yeah, please.

So Mediterranean was not my thought on that one. But it was like hardy plank, which is a material. It's not a natural material. But a lot of buildings are using that. So if I read that verbatim, that would not be allowed. So I was just wondering how we discuss natural finishes. And that's why I kind of put that below the line.

That's a good point. Commissioner Adair.

Yeah, just to Commissioner Holmstrom's point and your point, allowing flexibility on something like storage or HVAC systems. I'd point out like Redmond zoning code, I was looking it up. They have the idea that you can have that stuff as long as you create a screening of planters. And I think that would be a kind of reasonable thing. Yeah, you can have that stuff if you landscape around it so it doesn't look ugly.

Agreed. I think that is in our code, right? Type of exterior.

I think you're right. I think it is.

Yes, I know we've talked about air conditioners and all that stuff before. But yes, that's a great point. Right. But yeah, screen properly. Do not have a big eyesore out there. Commissioner Holzer?

Going with what Commissioner Kras was talking about, to Steph, is cement board, is that allowed? I mean, is metal allowed? Or is it truly like you have to put cedar...

We don't have it defined. We'll have to look into that one.

That was a good point. Cedars mostly comes from Canada these days. It's highly tariffed. You've got to re-stain it every couple. It's an expensive... I love cedar, but to have a little variety there, I think, would certainly help.

We want material to be broken up, I think, to your point, right? Right, and again, I don't know.

Something that appears natural might serve the same purpose.

Yeah, I mean, there's gorgeous modern buildings. Like you said, maybe that's where some of the flexibility is. You don't want every single building to have the Pacific Northwest Lodge look, just because it's on a stream. I wouldn't, so again. Commissioner Matthews.

I guess my question in this whole broad thing, what was the intent of narrowing down the materials to look a certain way? Nobody knows. So I guess if you have an intent so that it matches the environment or blends in, then your materials broaden more and maybe your color palette is more muted.

I think that was the intent. I know, but it's also... I think that was the intent. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that was probably what the intent was.

But also I think it's how much role do we want to take in regulating design? And I think that's, you've heard me talk about that before. I think that may not be the intent, but it could come off as that way.

No, that's a valid point too. I mean, again, we don't want the same building. And I know Commissioner Kras has spoken about that many times. Yeah, we don't want to get into the regulating business too much, you know. And again, this is probably where builders would appreciate that type of flexibility. I think you just kind of pick the few things on there that are near and dear to our heart. Obviously, the native plants. I think that's pretty important. Some examples. Anybody else? Do you have questions for us, Yi?

No. Other than maybe a pop quiz at the end for all the numbers that I throw out for transparency.

Okay. I believe that's it for the natural context areas. So, Kristen, do you have any questions for us?

No, I don't.

Okay. Well, thank you, Yi Yi. Thank you, Kristen. We're going to move on to our next item of regular business. I did not miss our two commissioners online, did I? Okay, thank you. Our second item of regular business is a discussion on the comprehensive plan amendment number three, related to Central Issaquah's designated regional growth center. Kate Caney, our principal planner, will be presenting this topic. So Kate, when you are set up, please go ahead.

Stand by.

Wow. Sorry about that. Got to work on my technology. Um, thank you chair. And, uh, my name is Kate Caney. I am principal planner here and am back to continue the discussion on comprehensive plan amendments proposed as part of the 2026 docket. And you have reviewed, uh, two, uh, proposed amendments. And tonight is, uh, amendment number three, uh, dealing with the regional growth center and some policy updates. So the purpose is informational tonight. Want to share background, do a little bit of a deep dive, bring you up to date on the history of Issaquah's RGC and why we are proposing these updates specifically to growth targets and policies related to growth and alignment with the regional framework for regional growth centers. So as always, we want to hear from you, interested in your input and guidance and questions, of course. So as I mentioned, we've been working on comprehensive plan amendments. Here's a little overview and calendar of your review process and just a little more on the specifics of amendment number three. The goal is to ensure that the city meets the new Puget Sound Regional Council or PSRC requirements for designated regional growth centers. Again, specifically, we'll be looking at updating the targets for housing and job growth in align with the new time horizon that goes through 2044 versus the older time horizon of 2035 that occurred before the last periodic update of comprehensive plans. Also, we've talked about how important consistency is up and down from the Growth Management Act, the regional requirement to cities' comprehensive plans, and that's what we're looking at doing is trying to increase consistency. Also want to mention that amendments four and five have to do with Park Department staff bringing information on the park system plan update to you, and also Issaquah Climate Action Plan update. I don't know if you've been keeping up with ICAP. I know the sustainability manager has been here with updates. They've been going to council. They've been going to the environmental board. So they will be, or Stacy will be back with more information about potential updates if there are any to policies. So that'll all happen later this summer. We'll also be bringing you language, specific policy language changes based on all the work we've been doing together throughout the summer. So let's do that deep dive into some background on the Regional Growth Center. So I know people are familiar with the Central Issaquah Plan and this map I think you've seen many times. It shows the boundary of Central Issaquah and then the green part is the designated Urban Core Regional Growth Center. This area is on both sides of I-90 and If you are familiar with the Central Issaquah plan, you might know that there are two neighborhoods to the south of I-90 known as Gilman to the north Pickering. So there are visions for how both of those areas are generally going to develop. And that information was brought to the notice of Puget Sound Regional Council when the city was seeking designation as a regional growth center. That happened in 2015. And along with that designation, there's also a requirement that there is a sub-area plan. A sub-area plan is part of the comprehensive plan. We have two sub-area plans in Issaquah, the Central Issaquah Plan and the Old Town Plan. There are six functional plans, however, like the ICAP, like the Mobility Action Plan. Those really implement the policies in the comp plan and our two sub-area plans. I should get out of the weeds, because I like talking about that stuff way too much. I don't think most people do. But the central ISQA plan was certified as our regional growth center sub-area plan. So there are sections in that plan that meet requirements that were identified through Puget Sound Regional Council in previous years. So I wanted to kind of recap what Puget Sound Regional Council's regional center strategy was all about. These regional growth centers have been designated all the way going back to the 1990s. I remember going to meetings actually when they were talking about growing transit communities, thinking about sound transit is coming. How are we going to best prepare the region and take advantage of those things? Let's cluster growth, walkable growth, get people out of the car so that they can go on light rail. Let's get compact. higher density, walkable, transit-oriented neighborhoods. And let's figure out how to encourage that. So at this point, there are 30 designated RGCs in the Puget Sound region. So that's that four-county region that PSRC plans for. And the RGCs are divided into the very high-intensity metro centers, like downtown Seattle, Tacoma, Bellevue. Those areas are supposed to take most of the growth in the region, They are planning for the highest densities and highest level of amenities to serve those populations. Urban regional growth centers include Issaquah, parts of Redmond, Kirkland, other cities, and those cities are also recognized for their regional importance as job centers, as housing centers, and also eligible for transit, high capacity transit investments. So as it says to the right of the slide, the regional growth centers are intended to absorb most of the region's expected housing and job growth. That is their job. They're of regional importance. They've agreed that we're going to take more growth than other places. And also that that growth will be focused in dense, walkable, transit connected communities. That's part of the deal if you are designated. Additionally, Designated regional growth centers are prioritized for high capacity transit investments in order to reduce that single occupancy vehicle travel and to maximize our investments in bus rapid transit and sound transits, link light rail. I think you guys are all pretty aware of what's going on in Issaquah. But having an RGC in Issaquah bolsters this, is the rationale for why Issaquah was even on the list to get light rail. So that's part of the benefit of the designation. Additionally, RGCs are prioritized for PSRC's federal transportation and infrastructure funds. PSRC is recognized as one of those regional transportation authorities that receives the federal funds and provides it out to the region. You are prioritized if you have an RGC. So that's a little bit of background the regional center strategy. So let's then take a look. Okay, so we have this RGC. We got designated in 2015 in the middle of Central Issaquah. We are agreeing we're gonna take a lot of growth. We're gonna plan for light rail. What is our vision for that area? What is it gonna look like? Some illustrations from I think maybe 2012 maybe or 2015. From the Central Issaquah plan or related documents, a lot of really cool hand drawings, I think, actually. You know, the vision is really the end goal. You know, this kind of gives a sense of what it could look like with that infill development. It's, you know, mid-rise buildings close together, activated street fronts, the sidewalks, the places for bike infrastructure, trees, parks, you know, but a la Issaquah. So what's the vision? Won't read the whole thing, but the idea is to bring about urban density development. You guys have just been spending time talking about, well, what are the buildings going to look like? How are the buildings going to be dense, but also be attractive? And what's transparency? What's natural context areas? This is the end game, though. What's the RGC going to look like? So creating a thriving area, it's mixed use. It has pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, multimodal. This area will attract high capacity transit because it will be dense. Strong local economy and ensures the conception of the green necklace is what it used to be called now. The park system plan updated that name to the Creeks to Peaks Park System. So just a reminder, and while you're thinking through things, if you're not familiar with this idea, it's use the natural areas in Central Issaquah, the parks and the sidewalk network, knit it together into this kind of ribbon of green that people can use for recreation or respite from living in a dense place. We will be coming back to that concept with the park system plan and also in some updates that I'll talk about in a little bit. In addition to that cool kind of creeks to peaks system, there will be preservation of the natural environment. So that bottom part just talks about how these two parts of the RGC are gonna grow with Pickering to the north and Gilman to the south. And the idea is vibrant, higher density place, a place, right? Just wanted to give you the flavor of, you know, this is the end game for the Regional Growth Center. It's supposed to be the highest density place in the city. So that has been the plan since 2015. A lot of work in terms of code amendments, in terms of capital investments, studying things has been done by the city. And as part of the plan, process for updating our comprehensive plans way back in the day. There was that requirement in 2024 across the region. We all need to have, you know, new comprehensive plans. Well, Puget Sound Regional Council was looking ahead and figuring out what the forecasts are. We have regional growth centers. We have new regional growth centers. A lot of cities want to have regional growth centers to get that prioritization of funding to get on the list for future light rail. So in 2018, actually, Puget Sound Regional Council updated their criteria for regional growth centers, and some of the criteria is different from the criteria that Issaquah had to meet, and many cities had to meet, so we'll talk about some of those differences shortly. So not only was that 2018 new criteria developed, but a lot of that was integrated into PSRC's Vision 2050 multi-county growth strategies or regional growth strategies. So those were adopted in 2020. And then PSRC said to cities, hey, when you're updating your comprehensive plans, you're getting your new growth target citywide, think about how you're going to update your regional growth center plans to meet this new criteria, the vision 2050 things and everything else. So like many cities, it was a scramble to get the 2024 major updates to our citywide policies done. And so we are now coming back to look at how our current standards for the RGC meet these PSRC standards. We're doing that really because PSRC is coming to all the cities and saying, hello, we've updated this stuff. Are you meeting our new standards? You guys are done or finishing your major updates to your comprehensive plans. So we're gonna look at how have you grown? Do you meet this new 2018 criteria for RGCs, for housing growth, job growth for connectivity and other stuff. Also, do you really meet the RGC specific policies in Vision 2050? So they came out and did a monitoring of all 30 RGCs. And frankly, it's a little tough for the many cities that were certified previous to this process because we had different criteria. My previous city of SeaTac, we had different criteria to meet and things have changed. One thing that changed was PSRC saw the success of the multiple sound transit levies. They saw that transit was really capturing more growth in many of the RGCs and other locations where there were stations. And so they went through a process to say, as we're updating our Vision 2050 multi-county policies, You know, should we add more growth in your stations in RGC or should we do a different thing? And they chose the transit-focused growth strategies for regional growth centers. They're really doubling down on that. Put your new density next to stations and make sure it's super walkable and lots of new percentages for things and things that we're all trying to, in the region, figure out. PSRC staff went out, did monitoring. This was in the packet, this summary statistics kind of, oh, how are you doing? Oh, your land area for your RGC, 464 acres. Well, that's good. That's kind of in the middle of how big you're supposed to be. Some cities have really huge RGCs, and they talk about the shape of it. And there are all these new criteria. check the box there, that's fine. And additionally, how are you doing on your housing growth and your employment growth? Well, as you can see in this box, they say we've had zero housing units in the RGC. They are not taking into account the pending units coming from Trailhead and coming from potentially other development. I mean, the city's been working on the Trailhead transit-oriented development next to the transit station for since 2017, so efforts have been made, not only in Issaquah, but in a lot of other cities that were also monitored. Anyway, so we got our results, and it was a two-step process. First, they did this monitoring, PSRC said, okay, should we redesignate you as a regional growth center? Do you meet the criteria? They took a look and they said, well, you haven't had the housing growth that we want, and we have this new criteria, and you're going to have to show us that you're really meeting this. So we're going to conditionally redesignate you, your urban core RGC, as a growth center. I have to say, many cities and many older RGCs were conditionally redesignated. So this isn't just something that's happening for Issaquah. Additionally, as I mentioned, the Central Issaquah plan is our sub area plan for our RGC. And they went through a process and they went back and they looked at the, here's your plan, we've done some updates, but there are some key things that we want you to update as not only part of the redesignation, but also in the future for recertification of your plan. Again, we did get recertified and this happens often because PSRC also certifies our comprehensive plans. Most cities get kind of a list saying, well, you did a pretty good job, but next time you're doing updates, try to pick this up and definitely try to do it before the next major update of the comprehensive plan. So we're, we're kind of used, used to those things, but this issue of the redesignation, this is new for us because the whole RGC concept is kind of new and there were some significant changes. So what were those? I know you guys already seen this in your packet, but, um, I've highlighted the four areas that were identified as conditions. First, PSRC wants us to demonstrate progress toward meeting the housing goals for the center. They want us to demonstrate actions that have been taken to remove barriers to housing to facilitate market interest.

Sounds kind of familiar, doesn't it?

They also want us to update our growth targets to meet regional criteria, and they're talking about the major comp plan updates in 2024. We'll talk about that more. They also wanted us to review the regional center boundary to ensure that pedestrian connectivity is provided throughout the center and to potential station locations. That issue of the boundary and connectivity across I-90 was specifically what PSRC staff talked to us about. They not only talked to us about crossing highways, but they talked to many of the older RGC cities because many cities have highways that cut through these big growth centers. It's just, you know, Northgate Urban Center or Regional Growth Center goes across I-5. SeaTac has Highway 99. Totem Light goes over 405. So again, you know, they changed the criteria a bit and now they're asking us to really work harder to cross things. Now in Issaquah, as you may recall, there was a big study very recently looking at how can we get over I-90. And that was part of the city's response to this issue of let's maintain our RGC status because we want light rail, we want to be prioritized for this funding. So again, the city has been trying to work on a lot of, or all of these conditions. So in terms of the housing, I just, you know, on the right side, I wanted to share that, you know, demonstrate progress toward meeting housing goals. Well, Trailhead again, started in 2017, the city initiated, and really that should be breaking ground sometime in the near-ish future, right? And we are hearing, because sometimes when you get actual housing in the ground, you hear rumbling of that can be that catalyst project that all the cities are looking for. And we are kind of hearing from other locations in the RGC that this might happen. It might take a while, housing might happen. So we are continuing to work on that. Demonstrate actions to remove barriers to housing to facilitate market interest. Well, that has been integrated into the promoting building investment initiative that we're working on the transparency all the step backs all of those things are not only ways to get more housing supply here to meet our own goals but also to demonstrate in this area in the RGC that we are we're taking away barriers we're really trying to focus on on housing the adopt the updated growth targets that is comp plan proposal number three that's what I'm here to you know focus on tonight after kind of going through this list and we will take care of that requirement. Lastly, the reviewing the regional center boundary and ensuring pedestrian connectivity issue. We shared this with PSRC staff. We have been waiting, you know, and I think today was the board meeting, wasn't it, for Sound Transit announcing what's gonna happen to our stations. We understood, you know, there was value engineering going on at Sound Transit, I think a lot of cities were waiting to figure out, well, what are we really gonna do in our RGC if we, I mean, I live in Ballard. We were just designated as an RGC by, or we were just proposed to be an RGC by City of Seattle. Is that still happening? So anyway, lots of questions coming, but PSRC understood that we were waiting for the Sound Transit Board's decision, like where is the station gonna be? And we, understand from PSRC that they're coming back in 2028 to check on our progress on all of these things. Now, we have a good relationship with PSRC staff. We can email them when they know us. We can get in touch with them before then to kind of work on these things. Are we doing the right thing? Are we getting to the right, you know, outcome for this stuff? And we will be doing that. And I will say that being in our GC is very competitive. If they find that cities are like, forget you, we're not going to, so you conditionally redesignated us. So what? We're not going to do anything. the staff of PSRC has shared that, well, if you don't fit into the criteria, you're not trying to get there, you may be better off designated as a countywide center rather than a regional growth center. Countywide centers were developed recently. It's part of the King County planning policies. And some cities, like Bellevue, has their regional growth center, but they're also trying to get countywide status for some other centers. So All of these designations have some meanings, and they're really all about clustering people in certain areas, getting certain infrastructure, getting recognized for certain funding, and it's important for us to stay aware of this as we move forward with our policy updates and what our goals are as a city, be aware of what the regional goals are, and oftentimes there's a lot of overlap, a lot of leveraging. More to come, we will keep you apprised of the status. And now let's just go ahead and turn to this specific issue of what we're proposing in this Comprehensive Plan Amendment 3, dealing with the growth targets. So I was telling Kristen math is not my strong suit, but I was doing some serious math. I was looking at all sorts of environmental work and densities and all sorts of stuff to understand what the growth targets are that we have now, what was the analysis that showed our projected growth. And as you saw in the materials in your packet, we developed some proposals. I went through some steps, just going to highlight a few. So step one, you know, okay, now we've got to figure out how to deal with updating our growth target in our regional growth center. Well, what are these targets? Well, so as I've been mentioning, in the comprehensive plan, every major periodic update, every 10 years, you know, we get growth forecasts that are updated from Office of Financial Management, Puget Sound Regional Council, King County, and there's a huge process to figure out, well, how much growth is coming in the region, and how much growth is reasonable for a city like Issaquah, we're called a core city, you know, how much growth can we take in terms of housing and jobs, all around population, and you want it to be based on what's your capacity, your zone capacity, you know, we have the ability in our zoning already to take growth, and you know, Issaquah's targets have really changed from the last time there was a major update to this time. And I think it's because there's been a lot of development that some of the capacity has been taken up. We had big, huge targets because maybe Issaquah Highlands was coming, maybe Tallis was coming. There's just been a lot of growth. So there are some adjustments that you will see in the numbers. So anyway, so as a requirement of the comprehensive plan, major update in 2024. the city adopted new housing and job targets to reflect that new forecast and the new time horizon, moving from 2015 to 2035 to 2019 to 2044 time horizon. So if you look at the chart, the citywide targets are on the far right, and for housing units, by 2044, the city's supposed to be planning to gain 3,500 units. So that's on the books since 2024. Actually, even previously, in 2019, we've been planning for that, moving through that. In terms of jobs, the goal is to increase by 7,950 again by 2044. So we have time, and we are already chipping away at this. And I'm actually working on a housing dashboard to update where we are on the housing data. We'll bring that to you as soon as we get it. Um, but the question that we have is, okay, of that amount for citywide, how much is reasonable for the RGC to take? So, um, previously in 2015 the regional growth center was supposed to take 2,500 housing units by 2035 and 14,555 jobs. There is a lot of capacity in the zoning for our regional growth center to take commercial development. I think that was, like many east side cities, the idea was that we are going to get a ton of office, and that's going to drive our economies. COVID hit, and now we kind of have a different picture. So now, in red, well, 2019 to 2044, our task is to see, you know, how should we allocate targets to the regional growth center? What should we be looking at? So first step, well, let's review our guidance on regional growth centers. Is there guidance on growth targets or how much should we grow? So that update I was mentioning with the new criteria in Vision 2050 for the region, this is the biggie. They put percentages on how much housing and how much jobs or what percentage. should be taken by regional growth centers throughout the region. So 65% of the population, 75% of job growth should be in these big centers to, again, stimulate the amount of people that can really be supported by light rail, get people out of cars, and all of that. So there's also activity units or kind of density units. We don't have to get into that at this point, but there are just additional requirements that we'll share with you as we go through this process. But tonight we're really talking about those growth targets. PSRC says 65% of population, 75% of job growth in the region. Many cities are saying, OK, that's what we'll take as a city, 65% of the population and 75% of the jobs for our city we will put in our RGC. So that's one of the kind of more simplified ways that people are interpreting that. So what does our comp plan say? It says focus and promote growth in the urban core regional growth center. and to other areas designated for compact mixed-use development, served by a full range of transportation options. So it says, yeah, take a lot of growth. It also says, not only in the RGC, but elsewhere. It's a little squishier language, and that's one thing I think we want to take care of to really refocus. Like, we are aligned. If we want to be aligned with PSRC, we will change that to really focus the majority of growth in the RGC and additionally grow in these other places or something like that. We'll come back to it. OK, so Isco Central Plan, what does it say? It also calls for the majority of planned growth in the city to be accommodated in the urban core. So we are mostly consistent, but have a little room to grow in our updating our policies. But the guidance is clear. The majority of growth we need to plan for in the RGC. Another step, okay, well, let's just make sure we have the capacity in the RGC. So this slide is, I think, a little bit older. I think the RGC land use designations are accurate. I don't know if you guys can read that, but we've talked about land use designations. So if you can see in the black box, that is the RGC, and most of that area is that dark red mixed use. As you can recall, we're changing it to mixed use high designation and that is urban core zoning mostly, our highest intensity land use designation and zones. What's interesting in this picture is if you can see to the east, the orange sections that are urban village, those are the areas that are under DAs right now, development agreements. Those development agreements were set before certainly 2018 and the updated criteria. We have to be careful when we're planning for new growth in our RGC to make sure we realize or that we recognize how to both try to catalyze growth in those DA area development, the urban village designation areas as well in the unconstrained areas. There is a lot of capacity there. Just want to mention at the bottom of your screen, you kind of see SR 900 and you see to the right that little green box, that's actually the transit center. But green is our community facilities color there. And right by that transit center, that's going to be Trailhead right there. So that little core area is starting to see some action. It's pretty exciting, I think. Anyway, so we have capacity to grow is the short story to that slide. So next, OK, we're trying to get to our growth targets. And we're trying to be consistent with the guidance, because we know we need to be consistent to align with GMA and all that other stuff. So I threw out two options in the packet. And the first option was, you know like those other cities that are just going with what PSRC is saying? Let's align our targets with that 65% of future population, 75% of future jobs. So I did some math, which is always scary. If you look at the right side and under the green 2019 to 2044, what does that look like? Well, the citywide target again is listed for the housing units at 3,500 new units. The jobs are, you know, 7,950 units. Well, if we just look at the percentage, I know it's population, but we use that 65% for housing just to make it simple. We landed at 2,275 new housing units in the RGC, 5,963 jobs. Well, we have the capacity. We're getting a lot of units in Trailhead. Maybe we could get there. But as Kristen and I were talking, we were like, well, it's not a requirement that you hit the 65%, 75% PSRC goal. It's guidance. This is what we're trying to get regionally, region-wide. And also, these percentages are just based on these numbers, and they don't take the ISQA context into consideration. So we started with this option one, and then we looked at, okay, option two, let's see if we can find data. Let's see if I can, there we go. From Issaquah, and there is a lot of data because as part of the major update of comprehensive plan in 2024, and as part of the refining our policies to meet our new targets that were assigned to us by King County, right, citywide, we had to really look at, well, how are our neighborhoods going to grow? Because there's a lot of stuff under those numbers. What infrastructure do we need to support that? We have requirements for concurrent infrastructure to be provided in some cases, right? So looking back at the environmental impact statement for the 2024 comp plan, we looked at, well, what are the forecasted growth numbers total for these different neighborhoods? and went back and looked at Central Issaquah Plan 2 to look at, well, what percentage was our original idea of growth in Central Issaquah? How much were we gonna take out of the whole city? How does that align with 2024? And how much of the RGC, how much growth is the RGC taking out of the entire Central Issaquah, like what percentage? So we used that set of assumptions, did some math, and came up with new housing and job totals. And they're a little different. Fewer houses, 2,170 housing units, so 62% rather than 65% of the city total of housing. And instead of 75% jobs, 72% in the RGC. So that made more sense to us. You know, we're using more recent data, forecasted data. We're also using the guidance from PSRC as well. So this was our staff recommendation, basically says that on this next slide in the highlighted yellow. Because again, we find this is more specific to Issaquah and also because this helps us get close to what the region wants, PSRC wants, we thought this was a good number. Now, what are these targets? We don't have to reach these. Most cities don't, or some cities blow past them. It just depends on the market. But we are supposed to plan for and accommodate the housing units and be more proactive in planning for all of this. And back in the day, certification from PSRC wasn't as, I don't know, firm a process as it is now. There's more flexibility. Now they're saying, If you don't show us progress in getting towards your targets, then maybe you don't need to be an RGC, right? So anyway, we're trying to be consistent, use their guidance, get some numbers that aren't too far out that we can try to use to make progress towards. Again, that's where we landed. We're also looking at picking up other updates to growth policies. I don't know if you read the certification reports and other things, and they were saying, oh, there's some older data in your plan, and let's try to pick those up. Additionally, at the very top it says potential updates to the comprehensive plan, and it has that land use goal about focusing growth in the RGC and in other areas. We think it's a really good idea to refine that to be consistent and say, okay, we're all in on the RGC. We're all in on trying to get us primed for light rail. So some tweaks to that policy and maybe some others is what we will show you next time we come. And also updates related to just bringing the plan up to date, changing the name of Green Necklace to Creeks to Peaks and just other stuff is what you'll see next.

So I haven't taken a breath in a while, and I know I just said a lot, so any questions?

Is that a finger or a hand?

It's a hand, it's a finger, Commissioner Krause.

Thank you. You can take a breath for a moment. So I first have a meta point, and then I have some specifics. So the meta point is we have goals to, this is like a chicken and the egg thing, to get to somewhere by 2044, which is now six years at best before any transit would be here. So how do you actually build a center when you don't have a center? And that's kind of an unrealistic thing. And it feels like they're holding this over with this unknown. And no one's going to, I mean, that's a very hard thing to accomplish. So that's my first question, which is kind of the biggest one, because now you could just say you're going to do it, but then if they're going to track it, it's not very realistic. The other one, when you, I'll give you the easier question now. So when we have a 30, I'll just use housing, 3,500 unit target that was in 2019. Some of those have already been built and are booked. So then you have to add another column of what's either, what's built, what's booked, and what's left. So roughly out of the 3,500, what's already taken care of, and then where is it? Because that'll also have impact on where you think you're gonna get to your percentages.

So start with the easier one.

Solve this. You know, building a center before there's...

I just want to point that out. I can do both. I'll do both.

Of the ones that have been built so far, it goes back to 2019, about half of them have been built or are in the pipeline. I'd say even more than half. I'd say two-thirds. If you include the pipeline, we're about two-thirds of the way there because you have all of that stuff on Newport Way. Yep. Anthology, Reva, Revel. Those weren't actually finished until 2019, 2020.

Rough math. So let's say 3,500, 2,000 are either built or booked. So there's only 1,500 more by 2044.

Right, that was 800 units. We've got about another currently 1,000 units in the pipeline.

So then how many of those are in the center?

Of the pipeline projects... About 1,200.

Okay, so I'm just trying to help you get to the what's a realistic percentage. It sounds like you're already doing that. So that number doesn't sound, the overall citywide number seems realistic. Where it's going to be is harder, and it's going to be harder because it goes back to the meta question. So what do we do about that? And what's realistic from the overlords who are now managing you very closely? Because it's not very realistic if they can't commit to something.

Right. And just to add on, so I can't remember if we talked about this with PSRC in my last jurisdiction or this jurisdiction, but most of these RGCs are in already urban areas or areas where you can have support with urban infrastructure. That was one of the old criteria. And a lot of it means infill development. A lot of these areas are already making money for the property owners What is it going to take to get them to become mixed-use multifamily or whatever it is? Over time, the market with a light rail station and these things we're thinking will tilt us over to that way. Plus, more growth is coming. We don't want more cars on the road. So it makes sense for us, for our environmental goals, for our transportation goals anyway as a city. We have shared, other cities have shared this too with PSRC, so there is infill and there is greenfield development, and we have some in Issaquah where we know it's going to be easier to put in housing. But are we showing, giving our best effort in terms of having the highest land use designations, the highest level of zoning, looking at our regulations, taking barriers away from housing? improving incentives to try to get housing, using our capital budget to also try to stimulate development. So Issaquah's really been trying to do that. But if we heard from the building community, there are some things about being in Issaquah with critical areas, topography, streams, all this stuff that's a little different, but it's also unique and wonderful here. It's going to be different. And to give PSRC staff credit, they understand that. They do. And 2044 is still out there a ways. We'll see where the development comes. After those last green fields are developed, I think this economic cycle is going to be interesting. I think we heard from some of the developers that we're kind of in a waiting period until maybe the next development cycle where we can really pop. So getting our house in a row is something to do. So I don't know if that's helpful, but another thing in terms of light rail, all RGCs are not by light rail. Some just have transit centers. The two pictures here, Buriantown Center is on the top. They are adjacent to a transit center, Bus Rapid Transit. They are not getting light rail. The lower picture is downtown Kirkland, also adjacent to a transit center. Also not part of the ski link, as far as I understand, right? So, you know, our RGC has our transit center. We do not have rapid ride currently. What I have heard from Metro when I've gone to staff meetings with them is chicken and the egg. We need more density before we're going to give you buses. And we are saying, well, people aren't going to live here until you give us bus transit, right? So it is a difficult thing that as we're kind of pushing gradually. I mean, 1,200 units in central Issaquah, most in the RGC. That is so exciting for this city, I think. We will see how that lands. And we'll keep planning for light rail. Will we get density enough to get bus rapid transit at some point? I don't know, but those are the end goals, right? So hopefully that's helpful.

I have a little bit more because you emailed us about this a while ago. And not too long ago saying, hey, considering the latest decision, then we won't get it until 2050. So as Mayor Mullet had said, keeping light rail was step one. moving that timeline up a step two. So he's working on that now.

How realistic is anything ever moved up in your lifetime? Seriously, I mean, that's a hope. I think keeping it at 2050 is a win. And I think having something that people will want to live around, whether it's even a transit center, where they can't commit to that, I think it's kind of hard for... It makes the job much harder.

But no matter when it comes, we're still on the list. And we have to start planning. We're already planning for a transit center. We're going to know long before that gets here. We work with Sound Transit. We're going to know. We're going to have a pretty good idea where that's going to be. We were talking to Redmond about their transit planning 15 years before it actually started running. So they were already amending their codes for transit areas. So we will know before 2044 where it's going to go and where we have to increase density if we need to.

I think we're all doing the right things. It's just hard having other people pull the strings. Even if you do all the right things, you're still not going to get it.

That's what's frustrating. It's been hard for all cities to do that.

Thank you, Commissioner Kress. Commissioner Ollinger, did I say anything?

No, I was actually going to use the same chicken and egg analogy about light rail. And it just makes it difficult to be judged in terms of what targets you set when there's this huge unknown out there. Absolutely.

Good point. I assume there's going to be another update between this update and 2044 with new numbers anyway. I mean, that's what they do.

Every 10 years.

Every 10 years. So even if we hit our targets, because Issaquah hit their targets previously, they just gave us new numbers. It wasn't like we got to rest on our laurels because we had already achieved them when we had our big explosion of growth in the mid-2000s to about 2015. They just gave us new numbers. What is interesting, Reed, though, I appreciated looking at the original packet. They had very kind remarks for city staff. I mean, they even mentioned, I think, one of the things was, we got nothing left. Everybody did great. So I hope they take that into consideration, too.

I will say we were the first city to ever actually submit a plan and an EIS along with our application.

Really?

All the other cities applied and then had to do their plans. So we were the first city to have done that.

Yeah, no, the comments are glowing, so hopefully this time around it'll be the same.

Vice Chair Patterson. I think one of the kind of questions in our packet was option one or option two. Yes. And kind of just feedback on that. Personally, I like the option two approach because it's Issaquah specific. I guess my question to that is how open are PSRC to receiving that modification? Is this something that is a reasonable pushback, if you will, for us to make?

I think they're pretty reasonable. When I worked for CDC TAC, we altered our numbers a bit because there's a big airport right next to us with all of our jobs, not all of them, like a huge number of our jobs. So we said that our job growth is coming there. That's our main engine. And they acknowledge that, okay, that's outside the boundary. They wouldn't let us put part of the airport in the boundary, but there's some flexibility there.

gotcha and so similarly like given that the board sound transit board voted today we'll probably hear in the near future what the revised plan is um i assume they'll be somewhat open to taking that into consideration as well in terms of the impact to our light rail i think so okay thank you vice chair patterson any other comments yeah i

For me, I think I would lean on you guys if, to Vice Chair Patterson's point, Issaquah specific based on our own analysis, on our numbers, seems like the right way to go. Glad to hear that you guys have a great relationship with the PSRC. I think you run with option two.

I just want to forward the slides a little bit, because I did have just next steps, which we know about. And the considerations, should other targets be considered? You guys are kind of answering it. And are there other growth policies staff should review and consider for consistency updates, kind of through some ideas that you, if you're open to us kind of saying, oh, hey, we think we have time to take care of these, that's the approach we'd love to take. Great. Thank you very much.

All right. Well, thank you, Kate. Did you get everything you needed?

I did. Thank you so much.

Okay. Well, thank you for the presentation. We're going to move on to the final piece of this evening, which is reports. We'll start with City Council updates. Kristen.

I only have one. Minnie and I went to the, I kept saying it was gonna be the Committee of the Whole, but it was the Planning Development Environment Committee where we went. But we had a discussion about, as I told you all, we were gonna do goals, issues, goals, outcomes. We didn't get a whole lot of change on that. There were a few things. We're going back to them on Tuesday with the changes. I didn't bring it up tonight because we were talking about natural. Context areas and transparency requirements were the only thing that was added. So here we have our goal was to provide flexibility and transparency requirements along natural context areas and along street frontage. And the outcome was to eliminate or reduce transparency requirements along natural context areas and add flexibility for transparency along street frontage. So we kind of had it covered anyway. But I will try and provide these to you more in the future once it's solidified, and it wasn't going to make a huge difference in this conversation tonight, so I didn't bring it forward. But anyway, we go back on Tuesday, and we'll have something then, and then I'll share it with you. Unless you really want to watch the meeting on Tuesday at 6.30.

I'll be gone. I'll be gone thousands of miles away. I don't want to watch that. Okay, well thank you.

Sorry, one more thing. Also on Tuesday, we are taking the clarifying amendments and we're taking the amenity space and step back amendments to PDE for recommendation to full council.

Great, okay. Any other updates? You guys get any inside baseball about what happened today at the board meeting? No? Okay. I figured I'd try it.

anything anything that leaked from the board meeting well thank you Commissioner there okay any other business or announcements nothing

Okay, any other comments, business or announcements from our commissioners? Please.

I thought the packet was very great this time around, very detailed. Appreciate the examples. Thanks for taking our feedback.

Yeah.

Second that. Okay, well, there being no further comments, we'll adjourn this evening's Planning Policy Commission at 8.32 p.m. Thanks, everybody.