Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

What time is it? What's that?

Hey, everybody.

Hello, hello.

Hello, hello.

We are going to get started.

We might have. Hello?

All right.

All right, well, good evening, everyone. Welcome to this evening's Planning Policy Commission. I want to say thank you for everybody showing up. It's not often our audience outnumbers the commission. And I want to thank all of our commissioners here. We have a few excused absences. We did ask them to do some heavy lifting. They were here two weeks ago during the US men's team. Today is 80 degrees. I get it. I get it. We're going to begin this meeting at 6.31 PM. Today's meeting is a hybrid meeting. The Planning Policy Commission is in person, but staff or members of the public may be attending virtually or in person this evening. Kate, do we have a quorum this evening? Or Amanda?

Yes, we do.

Excellent. Okay, we'll begin with the approval of minutes. Our first item of business is to take action to approve the minutes for the June 25th PPC meeting. Are there any corrections or concerns in the minutes that were provided in your packet? Seeing none, those minutes are approved. We're going to move on to public comment. For this meeting, we're holding a general public comment at this time for all general topics discussed by the commission. There is no public hearing this evening, so we will skip that stuff. But has anyone signed up, first and foremost?

Yes, Chair, they have.

Okay. So we do have a few boilerplate items to go through before we invite our speakers up. We do ask that all speakers speak clearly, pause frequently. Please state your name before you speak. And if you are attending virtually by computer or by phone and would like to speak during public comments, in addition to the above, please mute your microphone when not speaking. And if you're having any technical issues, please try joining the meeting using a different device such as a smartphone or tablet. You can also use the call-in information in the meeting invite to call into the meeting. Public comments are an important part of the public process. We take them seriously and they are factored into the decisions that we make. Comments may be general at this time or related to the regular business items in the agenda. Please note that we ask that comments are limited to five minutes or less. Okay, who's first up?

Taylor Haynes.

Okay.

Krita, thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Krita, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association, formerly known as NAOP. We just want to take the time here tonight to thank Mayor Mullet, city staff, and you, the commission, for the work that you're undertaking. Communities across the region are facing growing challenges around housing affordability, economic competitiveness, infrastructure needs, and accommodating growth. We appreciate your willingness to think strategically about how to remain a great place to live, work, and invest, while continuing to create opportunities for current and future residents and businesses. The development community has a strong interest in being a partner in that effort. The people we work with and represent want to invest in Issaquah. We want to build housing, create jobs, and contribute to the long-term success of this community. We appreciate the leadership being shown by the mayor, by you, the commission, and staff, and we really look forward to continuing to be part of that discussion. Thank you.

I don't show anyone else for comment.

Would anyone else like to speak? Okay. Well, we do have someone else in the audience tonight who would like to speak. And we're going to ask Mayor Mullet to come on up. And Mayor Mullet's going to be discussing the promoting building investments in Issaquah Project. So, Mr. Mayor, when you are ready, please go ahead. All right.

Thank you very much, Commission. And I will... I think we're going to try to... I'll make some comments. And then I want to turn it over to kind of have you guys be able to ask any questions you want. And we'll go from there. But I'd say that... My first opening remark is thank you. I think if you look at the boards and commissions and their workload they have in the year ahead, I think you guys have more than everybody else. That's a simple mathematical fact. And there are some boards and commissions that on average end up meeting once every two or three months. You guys meet twice a month. So just the sheer frequency of volume you're getting through shows you know, how important it is that people who are willing to volunteer their time to make Issaquah a better place to live. And you guys have all signed up to do that. And I sincerely appreciate those efforts. And I would like to kind of go next into sort of, you guys might feel, for some who've been on this commission for a while, could feel a little kind of whipsawed in the sense that, you know, three or four years ago, we did a lot of, changes around the title 18 process and then all of a sudden a new mayor comes in and all of a sudden it's like hey we're supposed to do all these changes all over again and so i think my goal tonight was kind of just explain i guess my background of where i'm coming from and some of the proposals that are coming forward from this administration and i would say going back to my 12 years in the state senate my primary role in the senate was i did chair our state construction budget uh And I vividly remember in December of 2022, going into that 23 legislative session, I actually sent an op-ed that was in the New York Times to every member of the Senate Democratic Caucus. It was called A Liberalism That Builds. It was written by Ezra Klein. And the theme of that op-ed was kind of blue states need to be aware that when they make it really difficult to build, people can't afford to live in those states anymore. And it was kind of this analysis by Ezra Klein of, the things that blue states say they want, which was more housing, more clean energy infrastructure, all these things. And then it literally went down and said all of the things that the blue states say they want is actually being built in red states solely because the permit process in those states is easier and more reliable to navigate. And so I sent that to my colleagues, and we actually, I felt, made a lot of progress in the 23 legislative session on things like the middle housing bill and a lot of other things around permits and SEPA and all these other things that I think with a simple goal of trying to make it easier to build. So that was sort of my mentality of where I had arrived as the chair of our state construction budget of trying to find ways that we can make sure that if we're driving up the cost of building something that we're really thoughtful about that thing being really important to us if we've actually put it in the code as something that we know is gonna drive up the cost of building. I think you then fast forward to last year in 2025 AS I WAS KIND OF DOORBELLING THIS COMMUNITY AND THE MAYOR'S RACE, OUR OLDEST TWO KIDS ACTUALLY GRADUATED FROM COLLEGE. SO, ISABEL GRADUATED FROM WESTERN AND DAVIS GRADUATED FROM MONTANA STATE. AND SO, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN OUR LIVES, MY WIFE AND I WERE GOING THROUGH THE PROCESS OF OUR TWO OLDEST KIDS ACTUALLY LOOKING FOR HOUSING IN ISAQUAH, WHICH, YOU KNOW, I BUILT THE HOUSE WE LIVE IN 20 YEARS AGO. SO, THAT WAS A PARCEL IN THE HIGHLANDS I PURCHASED you know, way back in 2006 and have been there ever since and will probably be carted out of there at some point, hopefully more than 30 years from now. We'll see. I'm 53. But so it was a wake-up call as our kids graduated from college that they were coming back to me saying, Dad, we can't afford to live in the town that you love more than any other place in the state. And so it really made me once again kind of go back to the same themes I dealt with in the Senate and kind of say, OK, well, if this election works out, I would love to kind of go through to look at the things we have in our code and try to go through and say which ones of these are essential that we have to keep, which ones may be unnecessarily driving up costs that we may want to revisit discussions on. And I think that's what's prompted these kind of 17 items you see that staff has kind of broken out, I think, in a very thoughtful manner, quarter by quarter of things we can get through. And just to look at the ones you guys have already done, and this is a case study of it. I think the recommendation you made around saying not everything has to have a balcony, 30% could have a balcony. You could also meet that with general open space requirements. I think that's fundamentally changed what people look at who want to build homes in our community now. Look at those projects differently because of that proposal that you guys proposed. put forward i think that's meaningful progress it doesn't mean we've said we don't think outdoor space is important it's just we provided i think some flexibility to people want to build homes here i think the the step back issue that you guys also addressed you know this came directly from the king county housing authority who basically came to us with a spelled out very detailed cost estimate of a requirement we had put in place it was going to change the price of their affordable housing project by 1.2 million dollars and so once again i think the recommendation you made on that step back I've looked at it. I think having flexibility, whether you want to do it right above the parking level, like the second or third floor versus higher up, I don't think it changes the aesthetics of the building at all. But we know that we have lowered the cost of the project by seven figures. And so to me, the work you guys are doing is actually very important and very meaningful. And so I think this is why I know it's a lot of work, but I also feel like this is essential. to make sure that our town doesn't fall into what I call kind of the blue state trap of just saying, here's all the rules and regulations. If you don't like it, not our problem. You don't have to build here. And I think we're just trying to kind of have this collaborative balanced approach as we go forward. And I think I'll end before we go to Q&A of one kind of tweak you'll probably see coming forward. It was a little bit different than maybe the first couple of proposals. And this comes directly from our council president's request. I think everyone wants to see all the options now. And so basically if you look at all 17 of these things, every one of them will have an option to say we're going to keep what we're doing right now. We're not making any changes. That will always be an option that you guys can choose to go down. The second will be what I think you'll probably see from the administration, which is here are some thoughtful changes we think we can make that we think will make it easier for people to invest and build homes here. And the third option will be we don't regulate this space at all. And so take the, you guys will have the parking minimum discussion in front of you. And basically the administration proposal is there's a state law that goes into effect in 2028 that says, you know, you can't have more than the 0.5, half a parking space requirement per home. We have members, I know on the council, who would rather that just be zero. And so I think that discussion is going to happen, I think. And I want you guys to know you have choices in front of you. And I think I value the input that this Commission puts forward. And in that parking example, it's like you could keep the current parking requirements we have up until the state law forces us to change. You could implement the state law early in which you would go to that lower 0.5 threshold. Or you could say we're not going to have any requirements whatsoever in certain parts of Issaquah. And I think those are the decision trees you're going to find yourself having on all these issues. And I think the message from Council President Martz was Even if you choose the middle option, he's going to support the middle option if you had the full range of options in front of you. So I think you're going to see a wider range of options as we navigate the remaining items on the list. And I did want to explain that change as well. And like I said, it's us kind of listening to the council to make sure that you guys aren't kind of pigeonholed in which direction you're going to take on these issues. And with that, I would love to be able to answer any questions people might have.

Well, thank you, Mayor Mullet. And yes, this commission does love work. We show up on U.S. men's teams. We show up on 83 Days. At least most of us. And I also did want to reiterate, Mayor Mullet's not under a time constraint. So please, if you want to keep going.

No, no, no. I'm done.

Okay. Fair enough. Let's keep it on topic, everybody. But I'm sure we have a lot of questions we'd love to ask Mayor Mullet with his time. But as far as the presentation that he just laid out, does anyone have any questions for the mayor?

And you can ask me questions on anything.

Commissioner Holmstrom.

Yeah, I think the 17 items are great. And I'm wondering, is there more suggestions coming after that?

Well, and that's where I look to you guys. I mean, I'll be honest. You know, we're a city of roughly 42,000 people. So we have the staff. that I love, but we also aren't gonna double the size of our staff in the next couple years. And so I think it is trying to manage priorities, but acknowledging like, hey, we have to actually, while we're doing all this, have to keep processing the permits that are getting submitted on a weekly basis and make sure they do get back with the answers they deserve in a timely manner. But I think when you get through this, if there's other items that you would like us to address, THAT'S WHAT I'M HERE TO BE. I'M OPEN TO THESE SUGGESTIONS. I FIND THE IDEAS THAT COME OUT OF BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS EXTREMELY HELPFUL, AND OUR CURRENT PARK BOND PROPOSAL THAT'S GOING TO BE ON THE BALLOT WAS BASICALLY DRIVEN IN, I MEAN, MAJORITY OF THAT PROPOSAL JUST CAME OUT OF THE PARK COMMISSION, AND SO THE PARK BOARD. SO I THINK THAT, YES, THE ANSWER IS IF YOU GUYS HAVE OTHER THINGS YOU THINK WE SHOULD BE LOOKING AT ADDRESSING, I 100% WANT TO HEAR ABOUT THEM, AND THEN we'll figure out what the timing looks like for those.

Commissioner Adair?

Yeah, I think for me, one concern I have is we're hearing a lot from the developers, which is great. We're not getting a lot of hard numbers from them in terms of how much, like you just said, the step back saves us seven figures. One thing that was really helpful is when we get the letter breaking down the cost of adding additional step backs. Right? So sometimes we get these things of, well, we want it reduced from 45% to 15% transparency, for example. That's a huge jump. So if we could get more idea of like, well, in the big scheme of things, how much money is this going to save? How much of an impact is this going to have versus other changes versus, for example, reducing it to 30% or something like that? And then on top of that, I would love if we could hear more from the people who are living here, right? Because I do think the aesthetics and the people who are staying here, we should be listening to them as well. And I know we're here to represent them, but I do feel they're not here.

I think that's an excellent point. I would say in my Senate role, sometimes there were some changes that were easier for people to quantify. Other changes, they were just like, well, you're driving up the cost. But to us, sometimes they give you an answer how much, like we'd actually have to spend money to determine. So I think it's that balancing act. I think that's a very valid question though. I think Commissioner Adair to basically say to the people who are trying to build homes here saying, hey, we want flexibility on this. It would really help, I think, for you guys and everybody else to understand, well, what is, the rough cost of those things that we're saying we need to look at again. And I can't, so that's helpful to know going forward, we can try to do the best job we can of trying to get those estimates. In terms of, I mean, everything we do here, I think we want citizen input. And I've explained, I think, going back to the parking example, like the proposed administration has just adopt the state law early. I honestly think if you remove all parking requirements, that there will be a lot of people in the city of Issaquah will say, well, that seems like you're just going too far. And even the people trying to invest and build homes here say you don't have to go that far. Because I've asked them this exact question is, do you have to go all the way to zero? And they say, no. They're like, it would be hard for them to sell a home in Issaquah without providing at least one parking spot. like it would be really hard, or to rent a home in his quad without providing at least one parking spot. So I think it's one of those things where you wanna, as you're listening to community feedback, sometimes that's gonna be the challenge of us saying we're not gonna regulate the space at all, is you're really gonna make the community uncomfortable FIRST, I THINK IN THIS EXAMPLE, WE'RE SAYING TO THE COMMUNITY, WELL, THIS IS GOING TO BE STATE LAW IN A COUPLE YEARS. IT'S JUST A QUESTION OF DO WE WANT TO ADOPT IT NOW TO SEE IF IT SPARKS ANY INTEREST BETWEEN NOW AND THEN OF SOMEBODY STARTING A PROJECT SOONER RATHER THAN LATER. BUT 100%, THE FEEDBACK FROM ALL RESIDENTS OF ISSAQUAH IS GOING TO BE EXTREMELY VALUABLE. AND THIS IS OUR BALANCING. I DON'T KNOW THE SOLUTION TO THIS. THERE'S NO SILVER BOWL. MY KIDS WHO HAVE GROWN UP IN A HOUSE WITH SOMEBODY in the elected office, they wouldn't even come to things like this. The challenge I find is that people who tend to show up a lot with very vocal feelings sometimes are people who have owned a home in this community for a very long time, and this issue isn't really impacting where they're going to live next. And so that's my challenge as mayor, is how do you get the people who are graduating from college to engage in this discussion at the same level of energy as somebody who's lived here for 30 years and owned a home for a long time and is in a different perspective, I guess. And so I think we've heard a lot from that latter category during my time on the city council and the last 15 years. And I think our challenge as a city is how do we get this younger generation to engage on this topic with their city council and their city commissions? And I don't know the answer of how to do that I have a hard time getting my kids out of bed sometimes on the weekends before 10 a.m. So I don't have any magic wand on that front.

All right. Any other questions for the mayor? All right. Well, thank you, Mayor Mullet. That was great.

Well, thanks again for your guys' commitment to this community and for your level of volunteer service. It's really appreciated. And thank you very much from the bottom of my heart. And I'm sorry you're missing this. 80 degree weather. It is nice and air conditioned in here. That's one thing that has not failed in City Hall South yet is the AC. So that's good. Okay. Hey, thanks a lot.

Excellent. Thank you, Mayor Mullet. Appreciate it. Okay. Moving along, our first, well, our first item of business was Mayor Mullet's remarks. So our second item of business this evening is a presentation from Associate Planner Andrew Love and Principal Planner Kate Kaney on two proposed code amendments related to the Promoting Building Investments project. Specifically, changes to parking requirements and updates to the Urban Village Commercial Retail Zone, also known as the UV-COM slash RET Zone. Andrew and Kate, please go ahead when you are ready.

Thank you. Kate will lead or start the presentation off.

Thank you, Andrew. So Andrew is going to be speaking about the parking requirements and the changes to the UV Comrade Zone. But before he does, I thought I'd take a minute to provide some introduction to this overall briefing process for these proposed amendments. I wanted to share some goals. Today is really a work session, and the work session is aimed at helping you prepare for the public hearing, which is going to be at your next meeting on July 23rd. Our goals for you is that you can go back and review the guidance that we have from City Council on the PBI or Promoting Building Investment project that the mayor was just speaking about. The speakers will review in detail what that guidance was on each of the amendments. We'd like you to fully familiarize yourselves and understand what is being proposed in the amendments that were in your packet and ask clarifying questions for us. We also want to walk through and confirm sort of this review and recommendation process because there are a few differences between this process and what you proposed. did the last round of PBI amendments. So these are just some FYIs. The amendments that are in the meeting packet for tonight are the same amendments that will be used at the public hearing. I don't know if you're on the public hearing calendar, but you may have gotten the message that these were posted yesterday. Generally, a couple of weeks before a public hearing, there's a notice that we provide to the public and a chance to look at these amendments. The goal again for tonight is to talk about those proposals, but no changes that you may talk about tonight will be made to the amendment that you have in your packet, because again, those are for the public hearing. Of course, if you want changes to be made, that is always your prerogative, and as part of the public hearing, there's the deliberation process, motions can be made, and votes can be held. One thing that is a little bit different this time is, as we understand it, City Council would like to better understand the perspective of the Commission on each of the items that have been identified as part of the amendments. They're listed as possible actions, and again, the presenters will go over what those possible actions that Council wanted you to consider when they do their briefings. And so as part of the public hearing afterwards, your deliberations, wherever you land on votes. I believe we will work to try to understand a little bit, flesh out the rationale behind your recommendations. So just wanted to give you an FYI on that. So lastly, just want to confirm again what the work is today and then also how the public hearing will go. So again, tonight we want to review the PBI goals and outcomes guidance with you. We want to give you a full chance to understand the proposed amendment language. And we heard from some of the commissioners when they noticed there were some new things in the packet that you guys had already talked about and maybe made recommendations about. And you might be wondering what those are. In the parking requirements, the commission had already spoken about eliminating parking minimums in Central Issaquah's urban core and mixed-use Central Issaquah zones. There had been some feedback that you'd already given. Those proposals, that elimination is in the parking code that is going to be reviewed at the public hearing for comment. So we just wanted to make sure you understand that. Andrew will talk about that a little bit in his presentation as well. Opportunity tonight for you all to give some feedback on your thoughts on that, whether they've changed or not since the last time you talked about it. Additionally, there's a discussion about potentially removing transparency requirements from town homes, something that was kind of talked about a little bit and heard some feedback on that. So I want to give an opportunity to talk about that too in that presentation. So again, this is your meeting, your work session, and there will be opportunities to discuss and provide additional feedback as you'd like. Just a reminder of what happens at the public hearing. You will hear public testimony. You'll deliberate over the proposals. Again, if you want to make motions to propose changes, that is something that can be done then, as well as that vote and that little new opportunity to share your feedback on specific PBI items so that council can fully understand what your opinions are and your recommendations. So with that, I'm going to go ahead and turn the presentation over to Andrew. So thank you.

Thank you. Um, good evening commissioners. Uh, my name is Andrew Love and I'm an associate planner here. Um, so the purpose of this portion of the meeting is to, uh, is presenting and a discussion of the proposed amendments to parking in addition to the proposed or the, um, the permitted uses in the urban village commercial and urban village retail zones, um, in preparation for the public hearing. So first we will start with the parking reform updates. So the table that you are about to see is just setting the stage for more of a formal response to the possible actions that you see on the far right hand side. This is taken from the goals and outcomes work plan that was developed in the council meetings, and the possible actions being adopting minimum parking required per Senate Bill 5184, eliminating or keeping current maximum parking requirements, establishing minimum accessible parking requirements prior to guidance from the State Building Code Council, and then lastly, potentially looking at eliminating parking minimums in Central Issaquah, specifically the urban core and mixed-use Central Issaquah zones. And this kind of hopefully accurately recaps feedback that we have heard to date from the PPC. So in relation to the four possible actions that were on the previous slide and this slide. So for adopting the minimum parking, we did discuss complying with the Senate Bill 5184, which is known as the Parking Reform and Modernization Act. In addition to complying with House Bill 1183, which is technically called the Building Code and Development Regulations, but it also addresses residential parking standards, and we're including it since it is also addressed in the Commerce Checklist that staff relied on a lot when I was drafting the code amendments. Next is eliminating or keeping current maximum parking requirements. We discussed this last time, and it was recommended that it was an anonymous motion to maintain the current maximum parking requirements. Next, we have eliminating the parking minimums, and at the last meeting, it was discussed to not move forward at this time, and to wait to understand more fuller effects of the parking bill compliance, and we do want to discuss this more at this meeting. and it was incorporated into the code because it's easier to get rid of something after publishing it for a public hearing or SEPA than it is to add it back later. And then lastly, establishing minimum accessible parking requirements. We can also discuss this more later in the slides. So I'm gonna jump right into the code amendments. I apologize, it's a lot of text, but it's a little kind of technical. The code amendments start with changes to the provision of required vehicle parking. There is a proposed amendment to subsection G, which addresses changes in use, and this is to comply with Senate Bill 5184. And then the new proposed subsection K, that is on the same slide, is to remove parking minimums for ground level non-residential spaces and mixed use buildings, which is also meant to comply with Senate Bill 5184. And then in the same section, there are new subsections L and M. And subsection L was crafted based on draft commerce guidance that recommends specifying certain categories that are applied before less specific categories. For example, the type of building construction or the size of a particular residential unit or whether or not the unit is affordable may mean there are no parking minimums, which takes precedence when determining how much parking is required. The less specific categories would be things like single-family housing, whether it meets middle housing, multi-family housing, or certain non-residential uses. The state law also requires no more than X amount of parking. So when determining if there's like, say, 11 multi-family units and there's 0.5 parking spaces required, The draft commerce guidance does say that it is to require no more than. Therefore, there is that added subsection M to round down in the case of determining parking. Next, we're going to move on to the parking table, which has quite a few different changes. And again, we can... happy to discuss things. Uh, so I did want to, um, shout out to the vice chair for catching a Scrivener's error, which will be corrected. Um, and one of the code references, but, um, no parking minimums would be for the current amendments. No parking minimum would be a part. I'm sorry. In order to meet both Senate bill 51 to 84 and house bill 1183, there would be no minimum parking requirements for affordable housing. And then related to specifically Senate Bill 5184, no minimum parking required for any dwelling unit under 1,200 square feet of gross floor area. Let's see here. And then lastly, the last row starts to talk about what I like to call as innovative housing types. So we talked a little bit about this last time, On this slide, there's passive house requirements, which means the criteria for certification as a passive house by either FIUS or the International Passive House Institute. So that would also see no required minimum parking to meet the state law. And this kind of continues with two additional, what I would call innovative housing types. So we also see residential projects utilizing modular construction methods, specifically as it's outlined in the section of RCW, and then in addition, residential projects utilizing mass timber construction. These, in addition, would see no minimum parking requirements in order to meet state law. And then we move on to single-family housing. So currently, if you are on a lot greater than 6,000 square feet and you want to build a detached single-family residence, you are required to put in at least two parking spaces. But if it's smaller than 6,000 square feet, it's just one. So the proposed amendment is to lower this to one regardless of the size of the lot to meet state law. And then we move into middle housing. So I think when the middle housing guidance originally came out, you could separate it based on the 6,000 square foot lot size. You could require two per unit if it's more than that. But if it's less than that, it's one per unit. However, in order to meet the middle housing bill as well, you can't have regulations that are more strict for middle housing than they are for single family housing. So in essence, We also have to reduce the middle housing, at least it's staff's interpretation that we would have to require no more than one space for middle housing since the same is being asked of single family housing. So that is reflected in the first two rows that you see on the screen. The third row would be multifamily and live slash work units. So our code currently has a minimum of 0.75 spaces per unit and tier one parking And in the tier two parking area, it's a full parking space per unit. Um, in both cases, this would need to be reduced to 0.5 spaces per, um, per unit to meet the state law. And then lastly on this side is senior housing, which, um, under the proposed or under the law is, um, would have no parking minimum. Next, we move into office. So office is particularly called out as meeting the definition of commercial, which is not, you wouldn't typically think of office as being a commercial use, but in the state law, they specifically call out office as meeting this term of commercial, so in 5184. So in this, in the law, there's no parking minimum if it's under $3,000. square feet of gross floor area. And if it's above that size, then it's one space per 500 square feet of gross floor area. So there are proposed changes there. And then in addition, daycare operations would have no parking minimums in order to meet state law. And then continuing on this slide is mostly just kind of housekeeping changes, moving personal service, keeping the same requirements, but moving it from overnight lodging category to general service, just so it's a little easier for staff or applicants to navigate the parking table. And then since office is called out as its own use, we are proposing to remove the separate medical office category Even if we were to keep it, it would have to meet the same requirements as the office category we talked about in the last slide. And then the last bit of the table, the proposed changes to the table would be restaurants and retail sales also fit into that definition of commercial in the state code. So you would see no minimum for spaces that are less than 3,000 of gross floor area. And then if it's 3,000 or greater, it would be one space per every 500 square feet of gross floor area. And then you can see that the maximums were kept the same. And if the minimums for some of the tiers were higher than what's required by the state, then we just, I'm sorry, were less restrictive than what was asked by the state. We tried to do the lightest touch, if you will, but still trying to meet the state law. Next we move into the flexible parking tools section. So essentially this was about tandem parking for strictly residential uses should be allowed for up to 100% of the parking per RCW 3670A622. This was a part again of the commerce's residential parking checklist. that helped guide the proposed code amendments, which is why these changes are also being included. And tandem parking for retail and commercial uses is addressed in subsection K of the same section and no amendments are proposed to tandem parking for retail and commercial uses. And then this last section of the parking amendments is more of a cleanup. Again, single family residential uses are not required to pave and stripe parking and circulation areas. They can also use grass block pavers if they would like to meet minimum parking. Therefore, we are simply adding, proposing to add and middle housing after single family residential in order to make sure that we're compliant with the middle housing bill. So to kind of circle back on what we had previously kind of talked about, and we can definitely open up the discussion again. We previously talked about potentially, oops, eliminating parking minimums within central Issaquah, specifically the urban core and mixed-use central Issaquah zones. The urban core zone you can see in kind of a salmon color, fittingly, and then the purple, the one with the thicker purple lines is mixed-use central Issaquah. So just a friendly reminder, the PPC feedback to date has been to not move forward at this time and to wait to understand the effects of the state parking bill. And I would like to ask if you have any changes or additions or further comments on that. We would still like to hear that as part of the public hearing process since I think Yeah, we would still like to hear it as part of the public hearing, but I'm opening up for discussion if you would like to discuss it more tonight.

And if I may just add, it's just an opportunity. We wanted to let you just feel free if you wanted to provide us more feedback. Now, if you want to wait and provide feedback at the public hearing, it's your choice. Just wanted you to use the work session as appropriate.

Well, thank you both, Kate and Andrew. And again, The public hearing that has this all on the agenda has already gone out. So nothing we do tonight is going to have any effect. We would have to basically have this conversation or that vote at the following PPC meeting. But it is an opportunity to flesh this out, as Kate mentioned earlier, to kind of get the idea to, again, it's good to see this the second and third time. I had the opportunity to talk to a couple developers. And again, I'm proud to say that my mind also is never set in stone. I like to learn from lots of people. And so I'm interested to hear what all you have to say. Again, originally, as you can see, and thank you, Andrew, for such a, this is a great shot. You know, our last discussion, if you remember, was kind of about the chicken and egg. You know, do we want to go first? We don't really have the transit, but at the same time, as Mayor Mullet said, we want to spark development. We want to do what we can to help developers. Parking is one of those things. And ultimately, we want to get to less parking in the city to utilize our land better. So we have those goals and outcomes. I think that was one of the things that we did want to see where that state bill landed, but we know where it's going in 2028. And the question is, as you all heard, is do we want to stay where we are now? Do we want to jump ahead and go to 2028 now? Or as you can see, do we just get rid of the minimums completely and hopefully amongst other things, that would be one tool for developers. So that's kind of it. I mean, again, there's other options in between, but those are kind of the big three. Looking for questions, comments, feedback as we go. Commissioner Adair's got her microphone on, so I'm going to guess she's got something to say.

Yeah, no. So I actually, I'm not opposed to jumping to the 2028 because if we feel like that's where things are going, we might as well lay the groundwork now and start to see what the results are. I would like... to kind of see what the impacts of those are before going getting rid of minimums entirely but i'm not emotionally opposed to getting rid of minimums if that makes sense like i'm like yes i can see us gradually moving to a place where we have no parking minimums but if we don't maybe want to dump the general populace in ice water and be like swim swim it might be a bridge too far right now um commissioner holmstrom yeah

I mean, seeing how these state laws are coming in 2028, developers, anybody building anything is just going to, they're designing for those right now. So if we say we want to hold on to our current in the meantime, it's not really going to matter. I don't think it takes so long to get a building permit, especially for a bigger project that it's not really going to be applicable in a way with that, because they're just going to design for those laws as soon as they hit 2028, would be my feeling.

Yeah, probably not many projects are going to be able to sneak in before that. Yeah. Commissioner Matthews.

I also agree with you. It's going to take a while for them to break ground and everything else, so it makes sense to adopt it now. But I think at the same time, we need to prep for the reality of people having cars I mean, I know that developers, they're not going to build with no parking spots, but we definitely want to put a permit process in place for parking in established neighborhoods and around like the parking rights where people are not doubling into those areas. So I just think we need to prep as a city knowing that this is coming, that we need to put a parking permit process overall.

And by permit, what do you mean?

Just like in Seattle where the neighborhoods have like parking permits in your neighborhood because everybody street parks. Yeah.

Got it.

Sorry.

Nope. No problem. Anyone else like to add?

And I do have a few more slides on parking. I just wanted to give you some time to kind of noodle on this particular question.

Well, let's stay here while we're here. I could probably be sold either way if there was a strong enough argument to get rid of them now. I'd like to see build development sparked. I also am not opposed to just leaving, going with the 2028 laws. Again, these are all things that I would assume that, again, the developers want a viable project. They want to be able to sell. They know if they have absolutely zero parking, that actually does not help them for a car-centric state and nation and city. But at the other hand, anything that we do that we overshoot can always be looked at again and corrected. Now, the only question I have for Andrew is, again, with the exceptions of certain areas, like you said about the GFA, basically when we say getting rid of all the minimums, you're talking about everything unless it's state required, like the ADA, certain things like that, correct?

Yes, only from my understanding, the council never wanted to get rid of parking minimums for the citywide. It was specifically to explore the idea of only doing it in the two zones that are on the screen, whereas the rest of citywide, it would be basically what was just presented in the table would apply citywide, but specifically just these two zones, basically that table doesn't matter because there is no minimum.

if that makes sense yeah yeah okay okay shall i continue or would you like to discuss like i said we can also come back to it too yeah no at this point like i said i could probably be sold on either getting rid of it completely or going with the 2028 i don't really see any utility in keeping us right where we are today that doesn't make a lot of sense to me put a cap in it we'll come back to it

And just thank you, Kate, for making this. This basically is a visual, I'm a very visual person, a visual graphic of basically what, which, this is only focused on the no parking minimum uses, not the ones where it's like 0.5 spaces. But this shows like these are applicable for the Senate Bill 5184. The middle column is for what's being addressed in House Bill 1183. for whatever reason, affordable housing is in both. And then the last column is basically checking the box. Yes, we're looking at this right now. And I did want to bring up the question of accessible parking spaces. Since this was in the golden outcomes chart or the work plan developed by council. So currently parking for individuals with disabilities is regulated by the federal ADA the building code and other standards. And the number of accessible parking spaces currently for Issaquah and I'm pretty sure all the other cities in Washington, it's not really a land use matter as much as it is a building code matter. So the Senate Bill 5184 does not change what's required for ADA parking. It's still based on the amount of parking that is ended up being provided. And I'll, I have an example after this slide. Now I will say that it does the draft commerce guidance does point that local government should be aware of potential updates to requirements for accessible parking spaces resulting from a study, which is being done by the Washington state building code council. And that it's either the guidance is either coming out in 2027 or that's when they're starting the guidance. But there's more to come on that. And so this is the table that we would reference. This is the currently adopted 2021 IBC. And you can see that if 1 to 25 parking spaces are proposed for any facility, a required one parking space out of those would be required to be accessible. And it goes up the more parking you provide, the more ADA spaces you need. And as an example, we have the Trailhead North building. So for example, they had to provide or opted to provide 162 parking stalls total, meaning that they fell in the, what was that? 151 to 200 spaces. So they, on paper, they had to provide six ADA stalls. They ended up providing seven. So another possible action that, I said we would come back to is, um, in the work plan, it was established minimum accessible parking requirements prior to the guidance from the state building code council. Um, this is up for further discussion. Uh, personally, um, you know, staff really felt like we needed to wait until further guidance comes out before determining what the best course of action would be. Um, it kind of falls a little bit outside of my own area of expertise for determining, um, how many accessible stalls should be required. Um, but I guess the, right now it's the proposal is to wait and see and monitor and, um, happy to hear any thoughts you may have on that.

No shame there, Andrew. I'm in the same boat. So again, I couldn't tell you what the magic number is. Any comments? Feedback for Andrew regarding the accessible parking units? Commissioner Devon?

HYPOTHETICAL QUESTION FOR ANDREW. IF WE WERE TO SAY WE WANT TO GET RID OF PARKING MINIMUMS IN SPIRIT BUT STILL MAKE SURE THERE IS ADA PARKING AVAILABLE, COULD WE SAY EVERY RESIDENTIAL MUST HAVE AT LEAST ONE PARKING SPOT SO WE CAN MAKE SURE THERE IS ADA ACCESSIBLE PARKING FOR THAT BUILDING? WOULD THAT BE POSSIBLE?

I DON'T KNOW.

Wouldn't that kind of run up against the whole no minimum, though?

The idea would be we don't want to dictate how many spots you have, but we would like to make sure there's at least one spot for somebody who has a disability. I mean, just having worked in a pediatrics office, there's a lot of people who need that parking.

And if I can just jump in, I think that was, as staff was talking about, OK, where would we start? What kind of analysis would be necessary? And this is part of the building code, part of the federal law. There are these potential conflicts with what was in the bill. We heavily rely on what we hear from the Department of Commerce. And in the bill, they talk about having this building council look specifically at this issue. So not a clear answer from them at this point. And again, the study is set to start in 2027. it just kind of opens up a question. So I don't think we do have an answer for you right now on that.

Commissioner Zakharov.

Thank you. Well, I can bring kind of like a personal example. Out of over 150 parking spaces in my building, there are like six or seven ADA parkings, and they all taken. All of them are being used, and used not by the guests, but by the people who live in the building. So it's kind of like it's, seems like it's needed more than like one space per 162.

I think for me it's just easier to compartmentalize and let the brain trust figure out the ADA requirements and just focus on my narrow perspective of parking minimums as just the bigger vision of do we want to require a certain amount of parking for different projects, different developments around the city. And again, I can still be convinced of no minimums and let, again, the brain trust figure out the federal guidelines, the building codes, department of commerce, all of that stuff. And I could still sleep well at night, maybe until you get back to us. Then I might not that help you out, Andrew.

Yeah. I think that there's probably more to be discussed at the public hearing, but I appreciate your, your thoughts. Um, so just to double check, um, the feedback that we've received to date, uh, on these, I won't read them out again, but, um, would you like to discuss further, um, ANY OF THESE, THE POSSIBLE ACTIONS. WE KIND OF WENT INTO THE LAST TWO, BUT HAPPY TO OPEN IT UP FOR DISCUSSION, ANY OF THOSE FOUR.

COMMISSIONER MATTHEWS.

I HAD A QUESTION THAT POPPED INTO MY MIND, AND IT WAS ACTUALLY WE TALKED ABOUT A LITTLE EARLIER ABOUT HOW MANY PARKING SPOTS CORPORATIONS NEED. SO I'M THINKING OF COSTCO. and how many parking spots they take in this entire city. So they have two huge parking lots or garages, and they also park at, what is that, the barn? Pickering Barn? And they park in other places in the city. So is that going to be viable if we have, say, another corporate Headquarters comes in here. Is that going to be a viable? Are they gonna be like Expedia and parking at Lake Sammamish and taking up park space? Parking spaces too. I guess that's something to think about because I just noticed today when I was walking my dog is like wow There's a lot of Costco parking everywhere. There's Expedia that takes up that huge lot at Lake Sammamish. So that's where the overflow is going into our park spaces. Something to think about.

If I understood one of those slide panels correctly, commercial projects are still required by the GFA to have a certain amount. We're not talking about getting rid of those minimums, correct?

If it's under 3,000 gross per feet. Right.

But even when we say we're getting rid of parking minimums in the urban core and the retail area, it's still dependent on what you're building and how big. It's not like Costco could just build their office space today and wouldn't have any parking minimums.

Correct. It would be one space per 500 square feet, which is about the size of a small one-bedroom apartment. So it probably could fit more than one person in that same space, but it's not telling them you can't have more than that unless There's maximums, but yeah.

Yeah, for the purpose of our conversation, when we're talking about minimums, we're really talking about those specific line items, which mostly have to do with a lot of multifamily, things near transit, all of this stuff. I don't think we're necessarily talking about Costco's or big retail giants getting away with not having parking. And again, I want to make sure I'm saying that correctly so you guys can tell me if I'm interpreting it wrong.

As far as what Costco would fall under, it could be retail, commercial. So I think that they would fall under the new category. But certainly, I mean, they want to add more parking. So I don't think we would have concerns about them wanting to get rid of their parking because they, I mean, you can't go to Costco and generally you're not going to go to Costco and like lug your groceries back on the bus unless you have a big wagon so yeah oh yeah sorry so if you are if you're kind of if you're talking about specifically the question of do we do we still want parking minimums in those two specific zones the one option would be, no, they would not have any minimum parking requirement. It would be up to them to decide. But the offices, if, for example, another office were to come outside of those two zones, they would be held to the state standard, which is one space per 500 square feet of space.

But for those two zones, we are talking about a blanket, absolutely no minimum.

If that was the recommendation from PPC. No, that's perfect. It is written that way in the current code that will be in the public hearing. But it's completely fine to, you know, it's up to the PPC to make a motion to change it.

It hasn't shaken my faith any. I mean, as you said, Costco is going to do what Costco wants to do in order to better service them. So, again, it hasn't shaken my faith. I just want to make sure I'm understanding it correctly. So when we talk about those two zones, we're talking about a blanket, absolutely no minimums for anybody who builds in these two areas. Correct. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Oh, Commissioner, let's go to Commissioner Mill and Irwin.

Thank you. I just had a question in terms of the early adoption of the other requirements in 5184. Do we have any similar cities like Redmond or Bellevue that are somewhat similar to us that have done any early adoption of this particular Senate bill?

Yeah, that's a great point. So in the last, I can't remember off the top of my head, but I know that there are some examples. I want to say It wasn't, was it Kirkland?

I know that Bellevue and Brenton are actually working on these code amendments. I don't know their timelines, but I imagine other cities are as well. We can find that information.

Thank you. Yes, I will definitely circle back on that. Commissioner Adair?

So could we theoretically amend the no minimums to just be residential and mixed use and omit so that we can maintain minimums for commercial? Because I mean, obviously Costco is going to have parking, et cetera, but I'm thinking there are small businesses like hair salons that see really high traffic for prolonged periods of time. And we do want to make sure they have parking available.

That is definitely an option. Um, to meet the state law early, we would need to have the standards that are basically in the table that was presented in the packet tonight. Um, but the line in front of the parking table that says, unless you're in central Issaquah mixed use central Issaquah, or I'm sorry, unless you're in urban core or mixed use central Issaquah, that part could be, there could be a motion made to only, um, to get rid of parking minimums in those two zones, but only for these X zones. Is that what you were getting at?

Yes. So we can make a motion to get rid of minimums for residential and mixed use within the urban core and the other zone.

Yes. That is absolutely an option.

Okay, great.

For a great debate in two weeks. Okay.

Okay. Now I have one more section. This one is a little bit more straightforward, hopefully, but this is allowing multifamily housing in the urban village commercial and urban village retail zones. So just to kind of display, go back to the golden outcomes chart or the goals and outcomes work plan. So the possible action on the far right is to allow multifamily in the urban village commercial and retail zones while not losing retail requirements. And just to refresh everybody's memory, the PPC feedback to date has been to comply with Senate Bill 6026 to allow multifamily use in all commercial zones. And also we discussed allowing transitional housing, permanent supportive housing, and co-living in the UV commercial retail zones to also ensure compliance with House Bill 1220, which was adopted in 2021, and then House Bill 1998, which was adopted in 2024. And here is a snippet of the table of permitted uses. I did remove any of the rows that were not being amended this time. The one in the packet has all of the residential uses, just so It's a little easier to understand maybe, but you can see in green the cells that are proposed to be changed would be permitting multifamily dwellings, meaning five or more units in those two zones. Transitional housing and permanent supportive housing are already permitted in the UV commercial zone. However, transitional housing and permanent supportive housing have to be allowed in any zones that allow multifamily hotels and since we are proposing to allow it kind of has a trickle effect since we're proposing to meet one state law to allow multifamily in these both of these zones therefore we have to we're proposing to permit transitional housing and permanent supportive housing in these two zones as well similarly co-living there's a separate bill that addressed co-living in Washington to make it easier for developers to build boarding houses which were a more old fashioned style of building but more affordable for people since you don't have your own bathroom or kitchen necessarily. So that separate bill says in all zones you allow multifamily, you have to allow co-living. So I guess the scope got a tiny bit bigger than just simply allowing multifamily in the two zones but that's also being proposed to change. Uh, so any questions regarding the, um, before I move on to that next slide regarding this in particular? Yes.

What's the timeframe on that law kicking in?

That is a great point or a great question. Um, so early compliance, uh, in particular with the allowing multifamily in zones that are primarily zoned for commercial or mixed use, um, that is not due until, from what I understand, December 2027. So we would be early adopters of that as well. I think the co-living and the transitional housing and permanent supportive housing are already in effect. So once we would allow the multifamily, we would then have to allow the other three. Thanks. And sorry, I called on you. That was not my job, but.

Luckily, I'm secure, Andrew. Okay.

Uh, then lastly, I did want to, um, I didn't want to ignore the questions that I put in the memo. So, uh, in the memo we had posed these questions. They're definitely still up for your consideration and up for potential discussion tonight. Um, however, we are not able to make changes to the code amendments at this time as we already published the public hearing packet, but certainly motions can be made and, um, at the public hearing. Um, so our, Are there any questions before I turn it over to the next presenters?

Yeah, ultimately right now is a great time for questions because, again, we're going to have the entire debate in front of the camera and the public next meeting. And then it sounds like a very formal declaration of why we want to go this way for the council so they have a better understanding of our thinking. So no need to wear yourselves out tonight by fleshing it all out, but that ultimately will be our goal at the public hearing. So any questions?

I have a question. I'm trying to figure out the best way to frame it. It's a couple of slides back in regards to multifamily being included in this area that we're discussing having the minimums in. If you have multifamily in that area, you're increasing the number of people that would thereby have vehicles. So it seems like the two ideas might be Struggling against each other you're putting multifamily housing in an area that you're reducing Parking minimums or removing them all together.

I'm just kind of wondering about the what I'm picking up as a conflict between those two ideas Yeah, definitely a good point as far as the conflicts I think that it would it would still be up to the developer to To provide the amount of parking if they wanted to do more than the minimum it would do if it was market rate theoretically if we let's just say we fast forward and we're already meeting the minute the state guidance Then it would be 0.5 parking spaces per unit Unless the units are less than 1,200 square feet, which would be like a studio apartment Potentially one-bedroom apartment then there would be no parking required So there's definitely a valid concern. But at this point, we are trying to meet the state law early and not, yeah, anything.

Now, I appreciate that feedback, and I do remember from a couple of months ago when we had a joint meeting, I'm forgetting what the, I think it was Economic Vitality, probably about a month or two ago, and we had some developers speak with us. They were very adamant that development in Issaquah was very important, but they were looking at market rate housing, so I'm sure that would be a consideration for them in terms of... making sure they can rent market rate and maintain the parking that's going to attract folks willing to pay market. So thank you.

Yeah, no problem.

Commissioner Zachroff.

Sorry, I just wanted to make a little point. 1,200 square feet, so we understand it's actually a two- to three-bedroom apartment.

Okay.

it is two to a third bedroom. So two to three bedroom technically can be four people and all of them can be adults driving a car or needing to drive a car. So that's what we're talking about.

Okay. Commissioner Matthews.

I just had a general question. So the area that we're looking at for the urban village that's pretty much in the highlands right so yes the highlands was built under like an hoa or some kind of development agreement that is over now right so are they going to change like the building heights or anything to accommodate the change in adding residents

The development agreement has sunset and, uh, I'm not super fluent in what that development agreement was, but the code that is current, um, is basically was modeled after that development agreement. So whatever the heights were, um, it's is likely what the maximum heights are in the zoning. Um, and that's not something that we took a look at. Um, but I think that they're, they're probably pretty high, um, in that zone. I'm not sure.

Yeah, not that I was around at the time when that development agreement happened, but wouldn't they have had to up zone and also change all the land uses to accommodate that land use agreement, the development agreement? So to your point, they probably, for the most part, are very similar, if not the same.

Yeah, so when the development agreement sunset, the city adopted regulations. It was called replacement regulations, which then got folded into the Title 18 update. So with this change that's in front of you, we're not changing the height or anything like that. That's already in the code. But I think maybe your question was, how is it consistent with the previous standards under the development agreement? We're not sure. That must have been looked at during the replacement regulations. But regardless, any development in the Highlands has to get approval from Highlands Council. And so they have their own design bylaws and guidelines. But our requirement and our code is you have to get their approval first before you apply to the city. But this, while I have the mic, I think this point about the 1,200 square feet doesn't have to have any, there are no minimum requirements for that. I don't know if the commerce guidance is that for each individual unit, or is it the overall size of the unit is 1,200? Each individual unit. So you could have a 200 unit.

200 units that are all 1,000 square feet. They would not technically have a parking minimum required.

That's the guidance from Commerce. Okay. You know, sometimes these bills get passed so quickly in the guidance. Sometimes I wanted to make sure the legislative intent was, I mean, it is encouraging smaller units for sure. But you're right, 1,200 square feet could be three-bedroom apartments.

And if I could just jump in, I looked in the code for the UV com-ret zones, and they do have a split for building height. If you're a commercial project, it's 85 feet. If you're a retail project, it's 40 feet at this point.

Commissioner Matthews?

So if you mix those, you say they want to, like, these buildings aren't that old, but I'm just thinking ahead. they want to build retail on the bottom and go up with apartments on the top. They wouldn't be able to if it's at 40 feet, right? That'd be kind of limiting.

And I mean, my understanding is at this point, the building heights that are in the codes are what we would use. So generally around 10 feet of a floor. So 40 would be maybe allowing, you know, four stories for your mixed use or whatever. And then maybe eight stories for if you had a, commercial use as defined in, in that specific part of the code.

Okay. Any final comments for Andrew or mini? Okay. Thank you, Andrew.

Thank you.

Okay.

Moving along, our next item of business, you guessed it, more proposed code amendments. And this is also related to the Promoting Building Investments Project, but right now we have Senior Planner Emily Medina and Associate Planner Yeyi Chen who will present the Natural Context Area and Transparency Code Amendments. It looks like Emily's up first.

I am, thank you, Chair. So I will do the transparency and then Yi will do the natural context area. So purpose, just like the other one, present and discuss proposed amendments, this time for transparency and natural context area to prepare for the public hearing and get any questions you have for staff figured out now so we have a clear idea of what's being presented and you have an idea of your stance going into the public hearing. So this is what the PBI work plan approved by council is for the topic of natural context area and transparency requirements. So this is the guidance that was received by staff of the issues that they see, which is the difficulty of meeting the energy code and the issue with the 30% on, for over 30% on the facade, as well as the possible action items from that work plan about how to fix the issue. I clicked forward. All right. So tonight, just really focusing on what those amendments are, that track changes document, the examples document, not really going to delve into the background and the why and how we got here because we've had multiple meetings on this. We will dive in. So feedback we've heard thus far from the Planning Policy Commission that we've taken into account is eliminating transparency along the natural context area, which you will touch on, reducing transparency requirements for commercial uses, and maintaining those current percentage requirements for multifamily, the urban core zone in so much as that it's pulling that 70% retail percentage. and then not doing any changes to the old town sub area. And then tonight we will be revisiting the transparency requirements for town homes in particular, as well as two new code proposals regarding measurement and deviations. Those will be the new ones to discuss. So my slide layout here, the top one, the colored one is the proposal that was brought to you on June 11th. And then the one below that, the July 9th is related to that top one, but it's how we've either amended it or revised it, refined it further. So in looking at this, the first one was grouping commercial uses with retail for purposes of transparency requirements in line with best practices. Now we have removed the word retail altogether for clarity, as retail is a commercial use. They're typically grouped together. Other cities in the area always group them together. The commission did have a discussion about do we want to break up commercial uses farther? Do we want to have services and offices and all those different types of commercial uses to have different requirements for each of those? Staff discussed it. Our stance is that having just a commercial transparency requirement is clear for implementation and for the developer. And it also... Helps limit creating non-conformity So if there is a TI if something changes from a retail to an office use and then all of a sudden their windows don't meet our standards So it's either creating the non-conformity use or we're making them Change out their windows just because the use within the building changed which is costly and not maybe something we want to do as well as you know, like we talked about When mixed-use buildings come in for their land use approval, which is when we're looking at do you meet these requirements? They oftentimes don't know what they're what's going in on the bottom floors. They don't know what that commercial aspect is So it would be very hard to tell them hey You have to do this percentage for certain if it's service and this percentage for retail when they don't know who their tenant is gonna be So for those reasons keeping commercial broad I Moving on to, we discussed separating the multifamily commercial ground level transparency requirements. And we have further clarified those to state that commercial does not include industrial, light industrial. So transparency is not applicable to that, as well as townhomes. So before the meeting, Commissioner sent a question, and I'm sure you all looking at this as well, exempting townhomes, a little bit different than what we talked about last meeting. At the last meeting, the commission showed interest in separating out different types of multifamily. So kind of the apartment style multifamily versus the townhome style. We had a lot of discussion about how the forms of those buildings are just very different in how they're designed. And so staff went back and we were looking into what do other cities do? What's best practice? How would this be implemented? How would it work? And we looked at five different cities, and instead of having a different percentage for townhomes, most of them don't have a percentage for townhomes. So in some cities, townhomes are considered middle housing, and thus they're exempt from transparency requirements. So no transparency for townhomes. Or in two or three of the other cities, townhomes weren't a permitted use in the areas that they had transparency requirements. no transparency requirements for townhomes just from the fact that they're not allowed. So for those reasons, the code in front of you tonight for discussion is to exempt the townhomes from the transparency requirements. Okay, next big one. So again, top is what we talked about last time, which is that we were clarifying how to measure and calculate transparency because for the residential use, there was some inconsistency about the like above six feet, five feet to whatever. AND THE COMMISSION HAD ASKED FOR REAL LIFE EXAMPLES AND I TOLD YOU I WOULD GET MY TAPE MEASURE OUT AND HIT UP FRONT STREET AND I DID IT. AND IT WAS ACTUALLY, WELL, I MIGHT HAVE FREAKED A LOT OF PEOPLE OUT WHEN I WAS OUT THERE TAKING A LOT OF PICTURES, BUT IT WAS SUPER, SUPER HELPFUL AND SO THOSE ARE THE PICTURES THAT ARE IN THAT TRANSPARENCY EXAMPLE SHEET THAT YOU ALL GOT. SO ONE THING I NOTICED WHEN I WAS OUT THERE MEASURING IS THAT MOST OF THE WINDOWS START feet above the ground and currently how we measure transparency is from the ground so zero feet up to five feet um whereas the windows were frequently starting at 18 inches two feet and then up and higher and that is also when looking at other cities how most cities measure transparency they don't start at the ground they start at 18 inches to 30 inches and then go up to like seven or eight feet, some of them up to 10 feet. Um, so taking those two items into consideration as well as the intent of, um, I've lost my slide. Um,

So we'll have to wait a moment. Are we having a moment? We reboot. Okay.

So maybe we take a five-minute break?

Sounds great.

Is that okay?

Great.

Thank you.

Okay, it looks like the technical issue has been addressed.

Our five minute break is up. That was a quick five minutes. Okay, well thank you tech team, all the wizards up there who helped us out. Emily, please go ahead with your presentation.

Yes. So measuring windows, front street, taking pictures. So when we were comparing measuring from 0 to 5 feet, 2 to 8, and how that, at that time, not 2 to 8, but considering what that meant and how does that impact the pedestrian experience and what's the intent of the code. And you're thinking of the average height of adults and only measuring up to 5 feet. A lot of people taller than that. And the pedestrian experience is all about seeing inside the windows and providing this kind of transparency. So reviewing the other cities, looking at our own city as an example, staff's recommendation is to change how we measure transparency to better encapsulate the intent of the code and creating that pedestrian experience. And this was a great example of that. Out on Front Street, measuring from 0 to 5 feet, 58% transparency. But measuring from 2 to 8 feet, it's 81% transparency. with the note that all these windows are transparent now they're not covered. So that is the recommendation around that. We did have a question from a commissioner prior to the meeting about how would the measurement change impact the percentage that is being recommended and staff still feels that 45% for the commercial areas makes sense. It's in the kind of in that middle area of all the other cities around and actually a lot of other cities have a higher percentage on those high pedestrian areas. So we do feel like 45% remains a good place to be even with the change in measurement. So June 11th, we talked about the changes in percentages for what was retail and is now commercial, reducing that from 70 to 45%. And that is still the code amendment in your packet tonight. There was no further changes to that. And then same with the 70% requirement that was for retail, moving that just to the urban core zone, which is in Central Issaquah and just along streets. Maintaining that recommendation, no changes to that tonight either. And then lastly, maintaining, removing the transparency standard that was really assigned standard, no changes to that. But last meeting, we said no changes to deviations and we got some great public comments and we were talking about it and we have now proposed, staff has proposed a deviation for buildings that would be required to meet ground floor transparency standards on more than two sides. So we saw that with Trailhead coming in, there's a... road on one side, a road on the other side, a natural context area on the other side. And that means under current code, they'd have to meet ground floor transparency on three sides of the building. So that CREATES ISSUES OF WHERE DO YOU PUT YOUR GARBAGE? WHERE DO YOU HAVE ACCESS? YOU CAN'T HAVE TRANSPARENCY ON FOUR SIDES OF A BUILDING. SO WE CREATED A DEVIATION AROUND THAT TO PROPOSE TO THE COMMISSION ABOUT IF YOU, IF A BUILDING IS GOING TO REQUIRE MORE THAN TWO SIDES, REDUCING THAT TO JUST TWO SIDES AND CREATING A HIERARCHY OF WHAT TWO SIDES MATTER THE MOST TO GET THAT TRANSPARENCY ON THE STREET SIDE PRIMARILY, AND THEN ON THE OTHER SIDES WHERE IT WOULD HAVE BEEN but now isn't under the deviation having different design elements there instead. So just kind of a summary of how we clarified and reduced and combined our transparency requirements. We used to have three citywide standards and that's been reduced to two. The Central Issaquah standard used to be in the natural context area. You will touch on that more, but that is recommended to be removed. And instead, the Central Issaquah transparency standard will just be the urban core zone and just be abutting streets. As a reminder for the citywide ones, it's streets, three block passages, natural context areas, The urban core zone is that pedestrian priority area, which is along streets, so that is where the highest percentage is recommended. So a couple of questions from the memo and that are just up for consideration tonight so that the commissioners can have discussions about it and ask staff any clarifying questions is, do we support the change? Do you support the change of how transparency is measured? How does commission feel about exempting the townhomes from the transparency requirements? And then just generally, are the code amendments clear? Do you have any clarifying questions that staff can help answer for you? Or is any additional information desired prior to the hearing.

Excellent. Thank you, Emily. Great presentation. Thank you for the photos, and thank you for the hard work of going out there with that tape measure. I'm sure you did get a lot of odd looks. Let's take it apart one by one. We'll start with question one. Do commissioners support the change in how transparency is measured? Again, we're going to have this entire conversation in two weeks, but always good to flesh it out a little bit more. Please, Commissioner Zakharoff.

Thank you. Uh, question one more time. So how do we, can you please repeat how exactly do we measure it now? Thank you.

Of course. Yeah. It's from the finished floor, the first, um, floor. So essentially it's from zero feet from the ground up to five feet. And then the recommendation is from two feet up to eight feet between two and eight feet. Correct. Yes.

I mean, I'm going to phone a friend, but commissioner Holmstrom, who's a developer and I know, Myself, I work, I mean, that makes more sense. That's gonna be a lot easier because if you're building windows and transparency down to the ground, that is more expensive. That's a lot more expensive, I would assume.

yeah this makes a lot more sense and it also addresses egress for getting out of a bedroom window those have to be a certain height off the ground i mean this i couldn't wrap my head around the zero to five measurement before i just could i'd really struggle with that one so i think this is uh much more logical yeah it makes sense to me i mean just the way i'm just thinking of stick frame houses and you know again much more cost effective and it would help

ACTUALLY BUMP UP THOSE TRANSPARENCY NUMBERS AS WELL. I'M ALL IN FAVOR FOR IT. IT STILL SEEMS HIGH. FAIR ENOUGH. BUT AS FAR AS THE MEASURING, I'M COMPLETELY, YEAH. ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS WHEN IT COMES TO MEASURING? COMMISSIONER MILLER-ROWAN.

MY COMMENT IS IN REGARDS TO FOLKS THAT ARE WATCHING US AT HOME. I'VE BEEN TOLD THAT THERE IS NO AUDIO. THEY CAN SEE US, BUT THEY CAN'T HEAR US.

Oh, it's been a while. How's that work? Um, just now, um, I know there's, I know there's a requirement, right?

Okay. Just sure.

Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

Um, pardon me. Do you know if this is just since the reboot of the system? Okay. So maybe if we can take another break so we can try to figure this out.

I'm going to blame it on the squirrel again.

Hello? Hello?

Hello?

That might be it. Testing. One, two, three. Testing. Testing. Testing, hi. Can you hear me?

It's not working.

This one too?

This one too?

Hello, testing, testing.

Thank you.

Thank you. All right, we're back. We're back. Okay, I think we, so we didn't really capture question one. Um, do commissioners support the change in how transparency is measured? I feel like overall we do. So I believe we can go to question two. Do commissioners support exempting townhomes from the transparency requirements? Okay. Let's hear a little bit of feedback. Anybody like to go first? Commissioner Adair.

Yeah, one thing is when I was researching transparency, you know, there's more than glazing to it. So I think obviously there's a lot of privacy concerns and structural concerns with townhomes that makes them a unique type of business. I mean, not business, but building. So I think if we obviously have other codes and design standards to make sure they have porches and other attractive things going on, I think that that's fine.

Excellent.

Any other comments about exempting? That's a big question. Commissioner Matthews. Sorry, I was just about to start talking.

I also agree with that because mostly townhomes are narrow and they have their doorway there and it's really hard to get to that glazing percentage if they have a garage and a doorway. So on the ground floor, I think that's probably a good idea. There's townhomes right across the big tree trailhead in Issaquah that has glass doors and windows and everybody covers them because

it's they don't want people looking right into their house it's not like downtown as well but you still have some privacy concerns so i think that's a good idea to exempt it great any other feedback regarding the town homes i think commissioner matthews brings up a good point you know nobody's building ramblers anymore isaac does not have the land to build that way they're building up these are going to be two to three floors and i'm want to say thank you to Commissioner Zakharoff. We had a nice coffee the other day. And she showed me a few buildings around the Highlands. And there's so many different unique ways to build, whether it's Pacific Northwest Lodge, whether it's something much more modern and contemporary. Having a requirement for transparency on a townhome seems pretty tough. And I don't think you're going to get the different variety of aesthetics. And I think it would be very tough for developers to have to get to that transparency if they're trying to build townhomes that are typically going to be more narrow and upward focus. So at this point, again, we'll have the conversation in two weeks, but I'm okay with exempting them. Okay, question three. Are the code amendments clear? I think so, too. Is there any additional information that the commissioners need for the public hearing? Commissioner Adair.

I think a lot of us understand this, you know, that there's more than, excuse me, I'm still articulating my thought. It would be great, I think, for public comment and for the people coming if there was maybe a little sidebar that did highlight other aesthetic requirements that townhomes will still have to meet just so people know that they're not getting a straight garage door when we say no transparency. I just think for general public.

What we're saying, Emily, is more photos.

Happy to. Okay.

I think that's it, unless anyone else has anything for Emily. All right. I believe Yi's up next. Thank you, Emily.

All right. Good evening commissioners. E Chen associate planner CPD here and tonight my part of the proposal will be for natural context areas. So just a little bit of a recap on the PBI goals and outcomes and the overall goal for natural context areas code update is to reduce the burden of transparency requirements when facing said natural context areas. So from the previous meetings, staff has taken PPC feedback into consideration of eliminating transparency requirements along natural context areas. In addition to that, we're providing more clarification and refining other natural context area requirements. So just a little bit of a recap on the background. Within Central Issaquah, natural context areas include regulated streams, wetlands, city parks, city open space, private open space, as well as natural storm ponds. So the goal within city plan policies and code regulations is to have developments prioritize resource management and integration of Issaquah's natural features while ensuring they remain accessible to the public. A new definition is being proposed to clarify natural context areas and what they entail. The new definition outlines natural context areas to mean regulated streams and wetlands, city parks, city open space, private open space, permanently regulated and natural appearing storm ponds. Please also note that this definition has been taken directly from a diagram from within our code. So it's kind of what we've been directing people to utilize already. So staff is proposing to remove the provision of buildings must be designed with doors and windows, making out 50% of the walls oriented towards natural areas to blur the transition between outdoor and indoor spaces along natural areas. And this is done in order to meet PBI goals. However, citywide transparency standards will still apply. So no changes are being proposed to the previously discussed removal of code specifying natural materials, which is ill-defined and likely in conflict with upcoming state law changes. But based on the June 11th staff also proposed amendment to eliminate sections that are vague and are better implemented by more specific sections of the same code. So with our most recent revision, this includes adding a specific definition for natural context areas, revising subsection A to clearly divide it into intent and applicability statements, and reorganized code to clearly identify building and site requirements, along with a revision to clarify applicability when a site is bifurcated by streets. So you might be asking, what changed exactly? To sum it up, here's the track changes. But site orientation and natural context area integration into site design and development has been clarified, along with an addition of language to take into consideration when a site is bifurcated by a public or private street. So we have an example for existing code conflicts. This is a project that's in design currently, but it's located within Central Issaquah on Rainier Boulevard North. The proposal currently consists about 16 town homes designed in two rows. One will be facing Rainier Boulevard North and the other row will be facing the alley. So the natural context and area across the street is Rainier Trail. And this kind of shows how street and engineering standards could potentially conflict with land use regulations since original provision 10 of our existing codes prohibits driveway access off of natural context areas, but sites and their uses should still be entitled to access. The new updated code will allow sites to have access where there is bifurcation via public or private streets while maintaining that natural context area intentions are still adhered to. So here we have some lovely examples from other cities. So please note that we're not saying that these adhere perfectly to our code sections and provide all the amenities. However, they're great examples of what we want our codes intentions to kind of convey. So this development is Thornton Place located in Seattle. And this is a project that daylighted Thornton Creek. This is what natural context area code intends to do when not bifurcated by public or private roadway. The natural context area is incorporated into the site design and is integrated as a site design feature to connect residents and pedestrians alike to our natural resources. So next is Blue and Bellevue. Blue is a mixed-use residential building located within downtown Bellevue. Right across the street is Bellevue Downtown Park. With the implementation of Provisions 1 and 5 in the Code Amendment, this example shows how even when a development is bifurcated by public streets, Site design can have facades that are oriented towards a natural context area with amenities such as balconies, transparency, and design details to seamlessly blend development and natural context areas together to create harmony and then a sense of place. Um, and this is pertinent because especially in central Issaquah, our regional growth center where buildings are required to build between zero to 10 feet, um, in the front without consideration of verification by public and private street into consideration, this could create conflict between development and the amenities that the building and you should be entitled to. So some questions for tonight. Um, Again, we will be, you know, requesting changes after the public hearing and your feedbacks in particular, like I stated in the beginning. However, we did want to come with some questions for you to stew on tonight in preparation for said public hearing. And the first one is going to be, do commissioners support the exceptions allowed in E1 through E5 in the track changes that are up on the screen? If a building is separated from a natural context area by a public or private street, Second is, are the code amendments clear? And the third is, is any additional information needed for the public hearing?

Okay. Thank you, Yi. Looking for comments, this one's a little less clear to me. So one question I did have for you, Yi Yi, if you could go back on your slides. Yes. One more, I think.

Okay.

Was it this one? No, that one's perfectly fine. I think it was one more before.

Okay.

Okay. Yeah, that's where I wanted to start. So as far as the natural context areas we're talking about, what I understood we're talking about right now is just transparency. Again, the same we were just talking about, we're talking about windows, glass, in order to have harmony with the natural context area.

Yes.

What does it mean when it says, I don't recall that we said we were going to eliminate standards, And then I don't quite understand where it says citywide transparency standards will still apply. Help me get past these because that's the part that's getting me a little upside down.

Yeah, so within the transparency changes that Emily has implemented and presented on, we're just trying to confirm that while the overall facade transparency when facing natural context areas will be eliminated, if a area or let's say a site faces a street and then there's also a natural context area on the side, right? Because there's still two sides that faces the street frontage and the natural context area, they wouldn't qualify for the deviation of having less transparency for sides beyond that. And so we're just confirming that if natural context area is still a consideration for the project, citywide transparency standards will still apply to that side.

I don't know if that helped me or not. Full transparency. Full transparency.

I can give it a whirl since I presented on it on the 11th. So this essentially is saying, so currently in the natural context area code, you have to have 50% of your entire facade that face the natural context area be transparent. And that was kind of the original trigger of the PBI code amendment is that anything over 30 is really difficult to meet. And so when I presented on this on the 11th, we talked about how we're moving the transparency standard from the natural context area code and kind of consolidating all of our transparency code into one section, which is what I presented on earlier. So it's removing the 50% transparency standard that specifically speaks to natural context areas. And instead, let's say a building is faces a natural context area, it has to meet that 45% if it's commercial on ground floor or 40% if it's multifamily on ground floor or if it's in the urban core, 70% along the street. So it's just having the building still having to follow all those other transparency standards. It's just eliminating this one specific one that just has to do with natural context areas.

Right. And you mentioned something else too. So the ground floor stays within citywide context. When you're talking about the 50%, you're talking about the entire facade. Correct. We're talking about all four, five, six floors. Correct. Whatever have you.

Correct. So it's still going to have to meet the ground floor that all the other ones did that I presented on. We're just removing that, suggesting we remove the 50% for the entire facade.

Right, because I think we all felt that developers would take advantage of a natural context area. We didn't need to regulate that to death. I remember the conversation.

That is how I remember the conversation as well, and that this removal at the time, commissioners appeared to support it since we saw the other transparency standards that were still applicable to the buildings.

Right, because again, it was more about the pedestrian-friendly area where pedestrians and people using it on the ground floor are still getting what they need, and again, most developers are going to take advantage of views and things of that nature by all means. Okay. Thank you. And thank you, Yi. Like I said, sometimes the old mind doesn't go as quick as it used to. Okay. Having said that, was that clear enough for everybody? I guess is the next point because I know that's one of our questions too. I feel like it's clear now. Commissioner Holmstrom.

So essentially we're going to go from 50% to 40 or 45 on the ground floor? On the ground floor.

So yeah, it was whole facade before. Now it'll be just ground floor.

Right, but it's still, kind of back to a point I made in a previous meeting, like where does the garbage room go? Where does all this stuff go?

That's addressed in the prior one where they only have to do two sides now.

So this is on the side.

Right, there's now a primacy, a list of like, I understand correctly, right? Where there's now a list of kind of priorities and they can pick two sides that will meet the 45% and they don't have, correct?

So let's say a building is street on one side, natural context area on the other and not any of those things.

Yeah, like trailheads, like three streets in the natural context.

Yeah, so if it's just two sides, it's gonna have to meet the ground floor transparency on the natural context side and the street side, but- Correct, on the ground floor instead of 50 for the whole facade. And it still has to meet the other natural context area standards like balconies and orienting towards that and those other ones. It's just eliminating that whole facade 50% requirement. OK.

I also wanted to provide a little context of where this requirement or was added to the list. It's the conflict between the energy code, which is very strict and people were having a hard time meeting their energy because you lose heat. You're trying to be more energy efficient and the modeling that you have to run for the building code. we understood from that it was 30% was the max. And if you went for the whole facade, now we're talking about the whole facade. If it was more than 30%, people had a hard time complying with the energy code. And so that was a fix that was trying to be, you know, we were attempting to, and of course, once you get into it, you know, staff has done a great job of like all finding all these conflicts and other things. But that was the intent initially. to eliminate that conflict of 50% versus 30% under the energy code.

Okay, wonderful. Commissioner Matthews.

I guess I would just recommend that when you approach this subject is to say it just like you did before where it's like this is already going to be discussed in the natural context area. We're moving transparency to law You know, so it's just a little more clear, because like him, I was like, wait, what does that mean? So maybe, and we've discussed this many times, so maybe just making it really clear so that the audience understands that too, because that was very clear.

Yeah, no, and I think, like I said, I think staff's looking for constructive criticism in order to present this on the public hearing evening. I'm all in favor for it. I just, like I said, it just took me a moment to catch up.

NO, YOU'RE TOTALLY FINE. IT'S EQUIPMENT MALFUNCTION OR IT WAS ME MALFUNCTIONING.

NO, NOT AT ALL. OKAY, CAN WE GO BACK TO THOSE QUESTIONS? YES. LET'S MAKE SURE WE ANSWERED THEM WELL ENOUGH FOR YOU. SO, DO COMMISSIONERS SUPPORT THE EXCEPTIONS ALLOWED, E1, E5, IF A BUILDING IS SEPARATED FROM A NATURAL CONTEXT AREA BY PUBLIC OR PRIVATE STREET?

NO.

AND AGAIN, WE'LL DEBATE THIS is the code amendments clear we just covered that and any additional information needed for the public hearing i think commissioner matthews spoke to that please i'd also add pictures just like commissioner adair suggested because nothing says easiness to us than photos absolutely no thank you more pictures ee

I will also go out there. Sorry about that.

If I could just jump in. Yeah, and I mean not just pictures. I'm not saying you have to take pictures of everything, but I'm just saying that if there's like a little bullet point list even in the corner that says people still have to have balconies, landscaping, you know, things so that people aren't thinking that, oh, my God, we're looking at. A single concrete wall. No, we still have codes elsewhere to handle aesthetic things. It's just not as much glass.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Okay, well, thank you, Yiyi, and thank you, Emily. You guys both good? We're good?

Yes.

Okay, excellent. Thank you, guys. Thank you. That concludes our regular business for this evening. I want to thank our audience and obviously our great staff who continues to help us along with this. And now we are looking to, I believe, Kate for City Council updates. Or Minnie.

And I'm wondering if Minnie wouldn't mind coming up. I can share that... Well, actually... I believe there was a City Council meeting where the PBI amendments were discussed. Oh, and also the PDE meeting which maybe Director Dhaliwal can...

Sure. So the two items that Planning and Policy Commission recommended were the step backs that Ma'am Ollet talked about and the open space. So those were discussed by Planning, Development, and Environment Committee. There was a split vote, two to one, for the THE POINT THAT WAS DEBATED WAS WHETHER THERE SHOULD BE A COMPLETE ELIMINATION OF STEP BACKS AND WHETHER THAT WAS VETTED OUT OR DISCUSSED AT THE PLANNING AND POLICY COMMISSION. SO THAT WENT WITH THE PLANNING DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE'S RECOMMENDATION TO FULL COUNCIL AND COUNCIL PASSED IT WITH TWO NAYS AND THE REST OF THEM SAYING YES AND THE TWO NAYS WERE PRIMARILY The feedback was that we should look at all options. So if it was step backs were to be discussed as a menu of options and things like that. And those two started off before we had the conversation about goals and outcome and discussion with planning development and environment committee. So because we have an ambitious work plan, we got started on it, and in the meantime started this golden outcome conversation. So for the other ones, like tonight's, you actually see the chart that kind of lays out some of the framework that can help you during your deliberations. The other feedback I think that Mayor Muller talked about today is we want to be clear in your recommendations as we take them forward. That if there is, if you disagree with certain thing, why? You know, we capture that clearly. And then we can assist you in making motions and other things. And so having the public hearing draft out, if you are going to propose amendments, you know, reach out to us. We can help you craft motions and help you frame what you're thinking so that you can make a motion and then decide on it. And then it gets captured. If some of you agree or disagree, then we can actually lay it out and explain it to counsel your reasons behind your thought process. So if, for instance, for parking, you decide to not eliminate parking minimums, then why are you thinking that? You make a motion to take it out. of the code or you make a motion to only eliminate for residential, whatever your discussion is that we actually capture it well for the legislative process, you know, as it moves forward.

They'd like us to show our homework.

Yeah, but both of those were approved and have became, you know, so those are done. These two are on the way. Other, I mean, this is a lot of meteor topics and then some other stuff is coming your way. So thank you all for all your work. One item, which was self-certification of detached accessory dwelling units, because it was amendments to Title 16, didn't have to come through a policy discussion, and that was just changing our processes to say if someone has a detached ADU of 1,000 square feet or less, and it's stamped by a registered architect, we're not going to do a building plan review on it. We'll still review it for geotech, critical areas, utility connections, and so on, but not for building plan review. So life safety stuff under the IBC or IRC will rely on the registered architect to do that. So that went to Planning, Development, and Environment Committee, and that is going to get passed on to full council for action on July 20th. So we're making good progress. Thank you all for your work and a missing World Cup, two nice summer days. Sorry.

Yeah, Jesse, yeah, no. John told me the score, yeah.

Uh-oh.

Anyway, it's okay. No spoilers, John. Thank you, Minnie. Okay. Finally, any other business or announcements, anything going on in the city? I know the city actually has a lot of things going on this summer. I could hear it the other night from my porch. We've got concerts in the green again. Thursdays, they're doing, what is that, gas station blues. We've got some more.

Wonderful 4th of July parade. I saw some of you participating in it. It was great. Farmer's Market was on the veterans field. The counter counted about 5,000 folks. It was a big community pride event. What else? There's going to be a summer employee recognition event coming up. I should know the date and Does anyone know the date? August? Or July 26th? We will send that information to you. Yeah, please do. And that's an event that the city hosts for employees. Public Works makes big barbecues and it's at the Flintoff little field.

Is it closed to just the city employees?

I will find out. I think anyone's welcome. There's plenty of folks in there.

The city has amazing employees, some of them who obviously we never get to meet, but yeah, Bizuqua's very fortunate. Okay. And then I noticed something else. Something August 13th through 16th, some type of, is it like an art and music type situation?

Festival.

Is it trying to compete with Salmon Days? Is that what's going on?

Yeah, our communications department does a great job. Do you guys get the communications email?

I just see it on the banner when I'm stuck in traffic.

No, but our communications department pushes out the events to community members. You don't get it?

I don't think so.

We'll make sure all of our planning commissioners are added to their list.

Okay. Yeah. A lot of fun around the city, so that's wonderful. Okay. Going once, going twice, anything for the good of the order, staff, Commissioners? OK. Let's get out of here. We will close. We will adjourn this meeting of the Planning Policy Commission at 8.30 PM. Good evening, everyone.