Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Arsene, we're ready to go.

Good evening, everyone. I hope everybody's having an enjoyable summer. I can't believe it's almost over. What is this nonsense about it being August 13th already? Well, thank you for joining us this evening. We would like to call the Planning Policy Commission to order, and it currently is 6.31 p.m. Today's meeting is a hybrid meeting. The Planning Policy Commission is in person, but staff or members of the public may also be joining us virtually or in person. Staff, do we have a quorum this evening?

Yes, we do.

Excellent. All right, the first item of business, as per usual, is our approval of minutes. You would have found those in your agenda packet. Any questions, concerns with the minutes provided in your guys' packet? All right. Getting a bunch of... I was going to say that qualifies as a no, too. So the no changes. So those meeting minutes are approved. Now we want to set aside some time for public comment because this is an important part of the public process. Do we have anyone signed up to speak this evening?

No, Chair, we do not.

Okay, everybody else is enjoying summer. Everybody's taking the summer off. We're going to jump right in for our regular business this evening, and tonight there will be three presentations on proposed amendments related to the 2026 Comprehensive Plan Amendment process. We're going to begin with 4A, which is the Comprehensive Plan Amendments, the ICAP update. So this first presentation will be from Stacey Vinn-McKinstry, the city's sustainability manager on comprehensive plan amendments related to the 2026 Issaquah Climate Action Plan, or lovingly called the ICAP plan. So this is the update. Whenever you're ready, Stacy, please go ahead. All right. All right.

Yes. I do this pretty regularly, but it's not .

Hmm. Is your privilege?

There we go.

OK. We'll try that.

I'm used to running my meetings on Teams, so apologies.

OK.

Great. Well, thank you for the introduction. As mentioned, my name is Stacy McKinstry. I'm the sustainability manager with the city. And I've had the opportunity to present to you all a couple of times over the winter and spring. Tonight, we're here to talk about the update of the city's climate action plan and then how that has impacts on the comprehensive plan and the proposed changes that we have in front of you.

Oh.

And there is some animation I didn't realize in the presentation, so apologies for that. When the first climate action plan was passed back in 2021, the comprehensive plan was actually updated alongside the passage of that climate action plan. When we updated the comprehensive plan back in 2024, we developed the first climate element to address state requirements. That new element made changes throughout the comprehensive plan as was required through the state process. And as we are going through that, we also tried to anticipate what we would be including in the 2026 climate action plan update. So moving then to the climate action plan update, we undertook a process from spring 2025 through summer of 2026 to engage the community, multiple boards and commissions and the council. We received quite a bit of feedback from PPC throughout that process during two meetings where we really focused on land use policy concepts. We had multiple council touch points throughout the process, including two PDE committee meetings, two councils of the whole. And all of that information over the year really helped to inform how we updated our climate action plan. Council did adopt that plan in July of 26. Some of the major changes that we made compared to the 2021 plan include how we're measuring progress. We've really simplified how we're reporting out on progress towards our targets. We moved from a five-year plan to a 10-year plan because we really felt like we had a sense of the work that needed to be done. And we wanted to not spend another year planning in the next couple of years, but really focus our time on implementation. We also revised several actions to make them a bit more broad and flexible so we could really implement best practices over time and kind of steering away from specific campaigns or initiatives that were called out in the first plan. And then another change we made was including some potential policies. Some of those which we talked to you all about this winter and spring, those policies are very conceptual in the plan and we'll be evaluating them over the next few years and seeing if they're right sized for our community. And then one of the other big changes we made was updating a few targets. And some of those you'll see through the changes we're recommending to the comprehensive plan, particularly calling out the tree canopy target as well as the resilience targets. The climate action plan, does not only relate to the climate element in the comprehensive plan. When we worked on the comprehensive plan previously, we really looked across multiple elements. But there are two that are most impacted by the update to the climate action plan. That includes the land use and sustainability element, and then the climate element, which is called the environment and climate stewardship So tonight, we'll talk through some of those proposed changes to just those two elements is what we're recommending to ensure that the comprehensive plan and the ICAP are aligned. We are recommending pretty minor changes. Some of those are major changes. Let me reframe that. We are recommending not that many changes. We really tried to just identify where it was absolutely critical that we updated the comprehensive plan to align with those updates to the ICAP. As mentioned, when we did the previous comp plan update, we really tried to anticipate what was coming with the climate action plan. We've included in your packet the full language of the element, so you can see how those changes fit within the broader context. And then your packet also, and this presentation includes the specific line numbers, so it's easier to refer to those changes. So I will walk through those now, unless there's any questions on background. Starting with land use and sustainability, we've summarized the changes just into two that are presented here. We made some very minor language additions to better align with how we kind of expanded or broadened some of the climate action plan actions. And then there was some language that was a little complicated. in the land use and sustainability element, so we've just recommended a minor revision to that to make it read a little bit more clearly. That's really it for the land use and sustainability. We worked really closely with Kate. Any other comments on those changes?

Okay.

Any questions, concerns with those proposed changes?

Go ahead. I don't really have any questions about changes, but I was some language questions that I had yeah so land use policy d2 the last part of that says including by and planting new trees I think and is super it's not necessary there it's confusing yes by planting

Including bi-planting. Yes, I think we were recommending striking and. So that full policy would read, encourage buildings, lighting, site, infrastructure design, and practices that provide safe fish and wildlife passage and reduce or mitigate hazards to birds, bats, and wildlife, including by planting new trees. So showing that the planting the trees was the action coming out of that.

The next paragraph. says require and incentivize. If you're requiring it, do you really have to provide incentives? And if so, What does that mean? I mean, developers are going to come to the city and say, what incentives do you have for me to do this?

Yeah, that's a great question. Open that up for discussion. We have several actions within the climate action plan are really focused with incentives. We try to primarily lead with incentives by encouraging the changes or even where there are requirements such as the state clean building performance standards we have an incentive program to help encourage so i think that was the intent with the language but i definitely hear what you're saying if we if we're already requiring it we don't necessarily want folks to come forward asking for those incentives it wouldn't preclude us from offering those programs i don't know if other staff have suggestions or welcome other comments from the commission

Real quick, Kate Caney, principal planner. So I was just wondering if Commissioner Ulner was, I mean, I think you're pointing out that the language is a little confusing. Is this saying, oh, we're requiring and incentivizing the same policy? I think we're open to wordsmithing. So if you find these areas where, and in the proposals that I'm going to bring forward too, we miss things first go around. So it's really helpful when you identify this as, hey, this might need to be clarified. I can look at that one.

Maybe work on rewording that so it's clear. There are requirements, but there are also some incentive programs that go along.

Thank you. I appreciate the qualification. Are we also talking about EC policy statements?

We're going to move into that next. OK. Yes.

I'll shut up then.

Great. Any other comments on land use and sustainability?

Yeah, I just want to say to build off of what Commissioner Oehner said, I think and slash or would probably cover it because then it leaves it up to us if we want to incentivize, if we want to do one or the other or both. That's all.

Great. Thank you. All right. I'll move into the climate element.

We can come back if you have any additional thoughts on land use.

So our environment and climate element, obviously we touched this one a little bit more since it is more directly related to the climate action plan. There was some data, or excuse me, I believe that was actually date. There was a date listed for the climate action plan and we removed that reference just so the comprehensive plan is up to date with the most current climate action plan. And then one of our next kind of big changes was updating the tree canopy target. This was months and months and months of discussion with park board, environmental board staff, where we have actually changed the tree canopy target in this update to the climate action plan. So previously the target was 55% canopy by 2035. Through data and recommendations, what we think is realistic but also a stretch is a tree canopy target of 53% by 2050, meaning that we would need to plant a certain acreage of trees by 2035. and then allowing them to grow up to that canopy level by 2050. This was based on data from our urban forester on what was available for planting across the city and likely to be planted. So the environmental board ultimately ended up moving that recommendation forward, and council approved that as well. So a bit of a long explanation, but that was a pretty big change. And then I did want to mention that Kate and I had talked about, do we not call out specific percentages or the targets within the comprehensive plan to be more in line with some of the other functional plans and how they're reflected in the comprehensive plan? But we thought for consistency with how the other targets for the climate action plan are represented in the comp plan that it probably made sense just to keep our specific number targets within the comp plan. Again, the ICAP is also a 10-year plan, so we won't be updating those numbers again in just a few years. Anything else to add on that? Okay, great. And then, yeah, I can pause here. I have two more updates, but let's pause here, because this is a big change.

Sorry, I have a question about tree canopy. Yes, absolutely. What is the percentage currently?

We are at 51% was our latest analysis.

So we're saying in the next 24 years, we want to increase that only by 2%.

Correct. And that doesn't sound like a lot. That's a pretty substantial jump in terms of the amount of acres. I believe it's over, numbers are a little old to me right now, 360 acres, essentially, that would need to be planted. That's a lot of acreage of tree canopy. So again, we felt that 53% is doable. It will be hard to get there, but it's still doable. And then also having that additional component within the ICAP around how much planting is taking place is a good way to check ourself along the way and see if we're off track.

Thank you.

Any other comments, questions on these two? I do have two more. All right. And then just our other two changes. One, this first one was just to continue that alignment with the targets in the climate action plan. There were not other targets that were significantly changed. We made some minor changes to better align with the mobility action plan. for instance. And then this fourth one is more of a restructuring. So within the 2021 Climate Action Plan, our community resilience section was a little all over the place. With this update, we wanted to really structure it around prepare, respond, recover. And so we have specific actions in the climate action plan that speak to those strategies and within the comprehensive plan we have kind of generalized that language that falls into these three categories as well as a planning category. So that again looks like a big change but was really meant to better organize that section. Any comments on these two changes? That's all for the changes. Is there anything we missed that you all feel like we should be updating in either of these elements?

Sorry, I don't mean to monopolize the conversation here. No, it's great. But EC Policy F4 says achieve 100% It is. Yeah.

Yeah.

says achieve 100% renewable energy for municipal electricity use by 2030. Is that realistic? It is, yes.

We're actually on track. All of our buildings are on renewable energy, and that's through a subscription, a green power subscription we have with PSE. We actually broaden that, not just to include our buildings, but all electricity use, because we are piloting with PSE to be the first city for our streetlights to all be through this green power program. So we do feel like that is achievable. We're pretty close. That's great. Yeah.

Any other comments for Stacy? I'll just make a comment. Thank you so much for the line items. That was very easy to follow and get to. Trust me, that was much appreciated, at least for me. Seems pretty straightforward. I think the goals, they all seem pretty appropriate. I know the canopy was a big discussion a couple years ago. And I appreciate you kind of filling us in on the nuance of how you guys got to the new number. Great.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Great. Well, we'll make that one change on the wording. I think the and, or seems to work pretty well. If folks have other suggestions, please feel free to share those with us. Otherwise, next steps, I believe this will be a package that goes to council, but I'll let Kate talk all about those next steps. And then the only time we would really be back with additional revisions to the comprehensive plan is if there was something that triggered us to update the ICAP before 2035. if there was a major change in something, then we'll come back and share with you any additional revisions.

Well, I hope we see you before 2035. Yes, we will.

I'm sure we'll have many policy discussions before that.

Okay, well, thank you very much, Stacey. Appreciate it. All right. Where are we now? All right, we are moving on to 4B, which is our Comprehensive Plan Amendments, the Park System Plan Update. the second item is a presentation from principal planner kate kaney on comprehensive plan amendments related to the 2024 park system plan update kate when you are ready please feel free to go ahead oh and then fyi i know we've been gone for a little bit but If you will, when you guys chime in on your microphones, please state your name so the recorder can get it. That's one of the reasons I like to call on you, but if you're going to go rogue on me, then at least do us the courtesy of stating your name.

Okay, I think we have the PowerPoint up and I am here instead of folks from the parks department to provide you with an overview of updates related to the park system plan update, which took place in 2024. So this the main goals of this proposal kind of been shrunken down a bit from their original. I will get into that in a second. but tonight is the opportunity for you to see the proposed changes and to provide your input as usual. So just to step back in time in 2024, there was a big update to what was called the park strategic plan and they updated visions and strategies for the park system. One of the bigger changes that did affect work from this department was changing this open space concept that was in central Issaquah called the green necklace. been around since 2012 when the original central ISQA plan had been adopted to extend this green necklace into more of a citywide park and trail concept, a system called Creeks to Peaks. So we'll talk about that a little bit more in the presentation. And I just mentioned that the plan was renamed from the Park Strategic Plan to the Park System Plan. While some updates to some plans were undertaken, there are a lot of plans and a lot of references, especially to green necklace that perhaps you saw in your review that were changed. So the amendment proposal was to increase consistency between the park system plan and all the other plans. So comprehensive plan, central school plan, even the old town plan, as well as title 18. Um, and originally there were four items, you know, replacing the names park strategic plan goes to park system plan. Green necklace goes to creeks to peaks. There are some parks maps in different plans that we're going to update. And the big item was going to be a revision of parks level of service from a more quantitative measurement of, you know, like acreage to people and that kind of thing to a more qualitative type of assessment, which is, I think more best practice and parks and rec these days. Because of the parks levy and some other work items, the parks department has decided to delay that work. Perhaps we'll see it next year, perhaps we'll see it in another year. So what were those changes? First in the comprehensive plan, just one proposal. There is a parks map attached to the end of the parks element. And the idea would be to update the map with recent acquisitions. There's some reformatting I think they want to do. the comp plan already has the accurate terms for green necklace and creeks to peaks and, uh, all of that. So just one, one amendment there. And then in the central ISCWA plan, um, I just want to, first of all, thank the commission for not only reviewing the entire central school plan as part of this parks element. Um, we highlighted all the name changes in green or blue, That same exact big plan is in the Regional Growth Center amendments as well. So thank you for your patience going through those. We weren't sure how to show you what was going on. Again, just the changes were to replace those names of the park plan and green necklace goes to Creeks to Peaks and then some maps also if there is time and things are appropriate. One thing we wanted to do though was to give you more of an idea of what the green necklace concept was and what changes are really being made here. So just to cut to the chase, really right now we're just changing the name because the Green Necklace concept was integral to the creation of the Central Issaquah Plan way back in the day. It was very central. There's this section that has this map that shows these cool projects. Those projects were in the parks plan. on the park's budget list to be implemented. And those kinds of things continued, but they've been a little bit updated in terms of the projects. But what was this green necklace? And I love some of this language. So the idea was that it was a backyard for the city and visitors to showcase this beautiful city's connection to nature. The idea of inviting green spaces, more urban social gathering spaces were the jewels of the necklace, and a network of connected trails with the strands of the necklace. I really love that. I believe Kristen was the author of that. But it plays on these parks and landscape architecture ideas that are like Olmstead type ideas. So I think it's a very, very cool concept. So I just wanted to share. that specific language. Anyway, the creeks to peaks concept that was originated in the parks plan update is also very cool. It, again, was part of that 2024 update. And the idea was really just to extend that green necklace open space system, attaching parks, connecting them with trails to other parks and other places is really a wonderful concept, I believe. This idea of re-envisioning the green necklace to the city-wide kind of concept summarized here from the park system plan as this diverse system of parks, trails, and open spaces from the creeks of the valley floor through neighborhoods to the peaks of the Issaquah Alps I think is also a really great concept and it meets a lot of comprehensive plan goals and goals of the city's plans. I don't know if you've kind of walked through the park system plan but for the creeks to peaks they talk about the natural fabric you know where are the open spaces whether they're natural or actual you know park part of like parks where people play sports and have the natural fabric knit together with the more programmed park spaces so I there's some good detail on the concept in the parks plan there's also This map of components and this implementation guide. So specific projects are identified in this guide and they are, if you move through into the parks project lists, some of the items are on the project list. So again, it's a citywide concept. And what this slide is intended to show is literally the page that had the green necklace described as being replaced with the creeks to peaks kind of citywide concept. Um, the current central Esquire plan sends you to the parks plan and even says, you know, go to the most recent version of the parks plan to find the projects that will help us implement this plan. And that continues to be the case. So again, the change has been to just the language where, uh, we even recognize and maintain, you know, this is the actual wording, This background, that in 2012, the green necklace concept was created, here it is, but now we're moving to this Creeks to Peaks concept. I was a parks planner earlier in my life, so I could spend a lot of time talking about this, but one thing that I want to note as I turn to the Old Town Plan and changes here, is that currently in the Old Town Plan, it talks about, oh, we would like the Central East Coast green necklace concept to be connected to locations in old town. So, you know, the kernels of the citywide system was we're already in existence, uh, even before the parks permit, uh, updated the plan. So there are just some minor updates and the old town plan, um, to make sure we have the right names in place. The list of, uh, Changes in Title 18 might have been impressive to you, but in addition to the parks budget and program working towards implementing, you know, Green Necklace and Creeks to Peaks improvements, the city's codes require developers to orient to the Green Necklace, now Creeks to Peaks open space. We went through the natural context area language, added some specificity. It's a little higher level, but it also, for the requirements adjacent to the green necklace, now creeks to peaks, but there is acknowledgement that if you are a private developer, you have some responsibilities to help activate and connect to this park and trail system. So there are 13 changes in the, or sections that were changed in the code. I'm not going to go through all of them, But again, really name changes, and we're still asking for the same types of activities from development community. I will say that the park staff is interested in engaging in the future to really talk about next steps to streamline and improve processes as possible, not only for parks improvements for this Crete to Peaks in central Issaquah, but possibly for what is required from the development community. um that was it for the overview of the changes that are associated uh and with the parks changes and we just want to know if the proposals are clear if you need more information or if you have any questions thank you kate i believe we do have questions and uh we'll start with commissioner oler yeah sorry um on page 12 of the old town plan there's a chart with immediate actions the third one

talks about increasing impervious surface. Is that really what we intend to do, to put more paving in? Or is it the opposite, which is to increase more pervious or permeable surfaces?

So I can address that one. We're not going to, what happened was at the time, we reduced the height maximums in there. And as sort of to compensate for that, we're going to increase impervious surfaces because much, most of the area there is only a 50% impervious surface. So if you wanted middle housing and a lot of the developments that were coming in on sunset, they couldn't happen, especially if we lowered the heights as much as we did. However, we have since found that there are some serious stormwater issues that need to be addressed in Old Town before we can even revisit the idea of expanding impervious surface.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Commissioner Matthews? I was thinking the same thing. Any other questions or comments for Kate? Please, Commissioner Matthews.

I actually did have a question about, are we up to 95? I was like, am I too far ahead? Because I was looking at the neighborhoods where they're describing parks. And in the West Newport neighborhood, there's a lot of out-of-date information. And I wondered, oh, you already know. Oh, sorry.

No, and thank you for raising that. So the Central ISCWA plan has a lot of information that could be changed. And within the time span and the focus that we had where we were really mainly looking at the Regional Growth Center because we don't have a proposed amendment that says, you know, update everything in the Central Iskwak land. So in some cases, yeah, definitely projects that were completed a long time ago are talked about as in the future we will have this project. So really appreciate you raising that. And we are hoping to do a more sweeping update to capture everything. We are just beginning our process to come into compliance with what, you know, the Puget Sound Regional Council is asking us of the Regional Growth Center. And as part of that process, we want to definitely bring everything up to date, you know, as we move through. So appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah.

So that was the idea, Kate, is the Regional Growth Center took precedent?

Yes. Okay.

Precedence, precedent.

It's one of those words.

Any other questions or comments for Kate? Not done with Kate, but on this topic. Okay. Thank you very much. We'll move on to our third item of regular business tonight. And again, Principal Planner Kate Kaney will be speaking on this particular amendment related to Central Issaquah's Regional Growth Center policies. Kate, it looks like you're ready, but please go ahead when you are.

Yes, the magic of the screen has occurred. So we have the proposed amendment number three presentation loaded up. And I am also here to provide you with that overview of the changes to policies and strategies that are proposed. So again, we're here to provide you with this review, take your questions, take your input on everything that is proposed regarding updating regional growth center policies in the comprehensive plan and the Central Issaquah Plan. I thought we could start just recapping some of the background that was shared. I believe it was May 28th was the last time we had sort of the deep dive into, you know, what are regional growth centers? What is Puget Sound Regional Council asking the city to do about them? So as you are well aware, in 2015, PSRC approved the designation of a portion of Central Issaquah as a regional growth center. It also certified the central list of plan as our sub area plan for the RGC as it's known. And you can see on the map that central area on either side of I-90 and it's kind of boxy configuration there. So in 2020, Puget Sound Regional Council updated policies regarding regional growth centers. And actually in 2018, they updated their RGC framework criteria. And all of this was part of the process of the major update to city's comprehensive plans based on new forecasts from the 2019 to 2044 period. Issaquah 2044, the major periodic update of Issaquah's comprehensive plan was adopted in 2024, along with most of the comprehensive plans in the Puget Sound region. So as part of that, again, PSRC was teeing up. So this is the framework for the four county region in Puget Sound. for everyone since, you know, PSRC handles federal funding for transportation. Transportation flows through all of our counties. And then they also help create policies to maximize that infrastructure. So, again, in 2020, they updated Vision 2050. They incorporated some of the changes to regional growth center policies that had been approved in 2018. And some of it was very similar to what we knew about, and we were certified in 2015. Regional growth centers, they're central places. There's a mix of uses and activities. They're intended to absorb most of the growth in the region. They're supposed to be dense, walkable, connected, transit-oriented communities. And this was a new goal that 65%, they actually put some numbers on it, 65% of the region's population growth, 75% of the region's job growth should be focused within these RGCs, 30 throughout the four-county region. Some of the key themes in that 2020 update, if you're wondering what was new in that big update, had to do with equity, affordable housing, and really doubling down on the idea of transit-oriented communities. So supporting equitable access to housing services to you know to help improve quality of life health um and to maximize community assets all of this is in vision 2050 and provides that framework that we plan under as a city in this region so um in 2024 right um after the year of the comprehensive plan updates um Everybody's comp plans are aligning with Vision 2050. And PSRC said, next, we're going to look at the regional growth centers. There are a lot of regional growth centers that were certified 2012, 2013, way back in the day. And we want everyone to come up to date with some of the newer centers. We want to have consistent requirements. So they started a process to review and redesignate the RGCs and recertify our plans. So they finally got to Issaquah and many other cities in 2026 with the results of their assessments. And like many other cities that were designated a while back, Issaquah was conditionally redesignated as an RGC. Our plan, though, was recertified. However, there were some items that PSRC said, you guys need to work on this. In fact, there were four conditions. And if I can remember, Two related to housing, the city needs to demonstrate forward movement in building housing in the city that we need to definitely work on our growth targets for both housing and jobs right now as you can maybe you can see in the summary of statistics there are no There's zero in the population and housing units section just for the RGC, even though there is some housing in other locations in central Issaquah. So I'm confused. There are two housing-related conditions that you should align with the targets that meet the regional 2019 to 2044 time period that you've adopted in your comprehensive plan. And then the fourth condition has to do with reviewing our boundary to make sure that we have pedestrian connectivity to potential light rail station locations. Now, that last one we shared with PSRC, and this was in the spring before Sound Transit had done their kind of LU engineering on their budget. We let them know that we were going to wait to see where Sound Transit landed before we were going to do any reviewing of our boundary. So they're fine with that, and we will move forward before the 2028 deadline that PSRC has established for coming back to us and asking how much progress we've made. Oh, yeah. more housing and show us progress towards, uh, removing regulatory barriers. So of course the whole PBI promoting building investment, uh, code amendment process, um, is, uh, happening to, to specifically look at moving or do sorry, move forward with removing regulatory barriers barriers. So we have a good story to tell already. And part of this includes, um, taking another look at our targets. And that is what is the main purpose of this amendment. So this pink chart was something that you all reviewed. It was the color of all five docket items on the 2026 Comprehensive Plan Amendment Docket. And the idea was that we would ensure that the city meets the updated PSRC requirements for RGCs, updating the growth targets, and increasing consistency where we can between the city's planning documents and that Vision 2050 policy framework that PSRC has. So we went through the comprehensive plan, we went to the central ISSAQUAH plan, the one you had to read twice, and we identified a lot of changes. So starting with a comprehensive plan, and I think AI is putting in some animations in different locations, so that's exciting for me to see what's happening on screen. What you see before you is The one chapter, the land use and sustainability element in the comprehensive plan that we are proposing some changes to. So this is the table of contents. What's highlighted is the regional growth center section. And that is the section where we are proposing changes. So in the comprehensive plan, I don't know if you spend a lot of time in it, there are goals for overarching topics and then there are policies that help to flesh out how the city should move forward to address that topic. So in this case, the goal for the regional growth center has been to focus and promote growth in the RGC, but it also has talked about, you know, and also growing in other areas designated for compact mixed-use development. So it hasn't been as clear that, you know, the main focus for growth is really the RGC. This is the RGC section. Other areas of the city have growth goals and different policies in different sections. So the main goal is to clarify what needs to happen in the RGC to, you know, better align with PSRC's guidance. and to confirm its role as the major focus for growth. So in addition to that goal, what is proposed is this new policy that specifically says focus most of Issaquah's housing and job growth within the RGC and ensure the targets align with this vision of 65% of the regional population, 75% of the employment growth. So this, again, is to ensure clarity and to confirm the RGC's role as the main focus for growth. This language is in other plans. Mobility Action Plan talks about it. Some other plans talk about it. But we need it in our foundational policy document in the comprehensive plan. So this second half, though, this idea of, you know, PSRC's guidance says our plan should recognize this goal, 65% population, 75%. employment, but it talks about at a regional level, which is why if you recall in May, what we did was take a really close look at the center, look at our current targets, 3,500 housing units by 2044, 7,950 jobs by that time, and really look at the environmental review documents for the comprehensive plan, for the central ISCO plan to really get a sense of, you know, our 75% jobs, 65% of our, you know, forecasted growth, is that realistic for this area? And we did some math. There's kind of an incongruity, though, in the targets that we settled on. We talked to you all in May about Should we match or should we go with kind of the math from our assessments and analysis? And we all decided, well, 62% of the housing units, 72% of the jobs really aligns with what, you know, the math we did was talking about. So let's choose that. The vice chair got in touch with us before the meeting and was like, am I reading this right? Because it says all this 65, 75, and then you guys have 62, 72. And it made us take pause because we love hearing from you guys. And we had a conversation about, well, should we reconsider what we're doing here? You know, the percentage, I mean, there's science, but there's also some art in forecasting how much we're going to grow. And so we wanted to take a moment to talk about whether we should think again about our targets. Especially because the language in the policies unit says ensure that we align with this PSRC stuff. So just as a reminder, we looked back at the data, the number of housing units from the old time horizon. We arrived at how many units we should get to, and we figured these This information is close to what PSRC has asked for. PSRC understands that they are not requiring cities to have those 65, 75% numbers. It's guidance saying, for the region, how much can you guys take? What do you guys think is realistic for you? I have another slide with the 65, 75%. And again, it talks about how it's not required. It's guidance. You know, because there's science and there's a little bit of art in that science for the other, the 62%, 72%, I did some figuring of, okay, so what does that really mean? You know, if we were to increase to 65%, that's a difference of 105 housing units from the current 62% proposal. For jobs, it's a difference of 239 jobs. Um, these are, these are significant numbers, but you know, how should we think of those? So I went and I took a look at, um, what's happening in terms of housing development. I believe there had been a question blast PPC meeting about, well, where are we on our housing targets anyway? How should we think about that? Um, as you all hopefully know, um, the trailhead TOD project broke ground last week, I believe. Um, which is awesome. So under construction, 164 units, Affordable units, 154 being built by King County Housing Authority. And then there's the Leo Life Enrichment Options Homes as well. We have Motel 6, which if you see that Pickering neighborhood to the north of I-90, that is going into a conversion. There's actually going to be a public hearing on that to talk about what that, that's really very interesting, I think, to understand that. 103 units there. There's the market rate portion of the trailhead development. Should be a capital T there. Apologies for that. You can see the trailhead has that little star next to the transit center. There are actually two projects. King County Housing Authority has the affordable project that broke ground. There is also room for a market rate project. The city's very hopeful that that will come through. The market will decide, you know, this is kind of interesting times for real estate development. So you should know that the city is having ongoing conversations in hopes of promoting the success of that other development coming through. Anyway, as we've been looking at other projects coming through, you see these numbers that are, okay, 150, 160, 200 maybe even a realistic kind of way to think about other projects coming through into the city as more multifamily comes in. So going back to the conversation about what are we really talking about if we choose to reconsider and bump up the 62% to 65% to 75% significant, maybe a whole project worth of housing anyway. And the job numbers are even more difficult, really, for us to predict. We just wanted to take a moment and talk about, again, whether we should be, hold on, sorry. we should be changing our language around the policy that says, you know, ensure we align with those PSRC numbers, but then we have targets that are just a little bit lower. We could definitely retool that language to say, you know, align with, you know, support movement toward. We don't have to say ensure. Ensure is a pretty, you know, specific kind of like, well, make sure we do this. We could change the language in the policy. Whoops, let me go there. Or we could come back and change the numbers. Or we could leave things the same. So again, just wanted to see what you all were thinking. Our goal is to get redesignated an RGC. So is this a big deal or not? Not sure, but just wanted to have the conversation and get input from the PPC.

Great. Thank you, Kate. Questions, comments? A lot of numbers thrown around right there. I'm sorry, I'm drawing a blank. Commissioner Adair, sorry.

I mean, I can introduce myself too. So out of the core target of 2,170 units, how many units have we achieved already? Can you remind me of that?

I think at this point under construction, we have that trailhead development. Whoops.

Yeah. Trailhead is 165 units and actually technically 164 units. That's all that's under construction. Okay. Um, Avalon or the motel six has applied and depending on their variance, um, that that should happen and that'll be 103 units. So, okay. So 375. And that puts us at about 1900 needed in how many years? By 2040. 2030. Okay.

So if we're doing the math, then that would be like we need 19 projects. And so roughly, just napkin math, 19 to 20 projects equivalent to the Motel 6 or Trailhead within that region. And then over the next 10 to 15 years, and by changing the numbers up, we would have to add one more. So we'd be ambitious, but it wouldn't be hyper-ambitious.

Right.

Got it. OK. That was my, I'm thinking out loud.

Just so you, I mean, pardon me, just to let you know. So when I worked for the City of SeaTac, we had quite ambitious numbers. And we were an airport adjacent city, and the employment numbers were really high. The city had no control. And so we wrote into the language, this is an ambitious target, but this city will move forward to the extent possible. And the agencies understand these are targets. These are not requirements.

Just since I'm already on the thing, I would say I almost think let's put down 65% and include we will strive to reach the target, something like that that shows that we're We might not make it, but we're trying to make it.

Thank you, Commissioner Adair. Just to piggyback on what Commissioner Adair was getting to with the math, and I like the idea of saying it because there's no harm in it, and you get the money. Give us the money up front. But honestly, it sounds like 267 units out of just 2,170 units If I'm doing my math right, we're at 12%, and we're already seven years into that target. I think aspirational is kind. Because I don't know how many more projects the city's looking at in that part of the valley floor. I mean, again, our bigger builder agreements are built out. They're not even in the RGC. So unless you guys know something we don't know, that seems more than aspirational. That seems, I don't even know what the word would be.

Well, and you know what I should have done, and I'm sorry I threw these slides in at the last minute. In the Central Issaquah Plan, there is a section that talks about our development agreements and how many units are anticipated in terms of residential and commercial space from properties in the Urban Village R Rowley sections, you know, in the Gilman kind of south of I-90 section. There's also jobs anticipated from the agreement with Costco. Those are 30-year agreements. And I should have done this math, and I could bring this to you, because we will be looking at this September 10. We'll have another chance to talk about this. So you could see what is anticipated from those agreements. It has long been thought that our targets would not be able to really be reached, I think, without fully counting those parcels, because they're significant. acreage of land in our regional growth center. So again, could come back with that math. I could come back next time and give you more of an idea of what that would look like. We don't have to make, we just want to get input today. Don't have to have a decision today. So maybe hold till you can see the full set of agreements.

I have a little information there for you. So the Raleigh Development Agreement, they're expected to build about 1,050 units. I don't know if they'll get there. But that's what's in the development agreement. And storm water may be an issue. I'm not sure. But that's what's in the agreement. And then for Costco, they are not, housing is not listed as a use for the Costco development agreement in their expansion areas. Yeah. And then we have an issue as well where right now there is a sort of, I think I've talked about this before, the commercial sort of CC&Rs and where you have PPC or PCC And Lowe's and that whole area over the Pickering Shopping Center where they don't currently allow housing. So those are two rather large areas.

Commissioner Zachroff.

Yeah, I would also like to see more information before we kind of talk about this, because right now we are celebrating the transportation area into development, the trailhead, but we don't have to forget that it was 10 years in the making. So yes, we are seven years into the plan, but we are actually like, we've been waiting for this for 10 years. So at any point in our area, there can be a problem with development. So if one part of me, again, wants to be very ambitious and I don't see a big difference between 62 and 65, and 65 sounds better and kind of like aligns with a Puget Sound regional plan, but you never know because developers start building here and then they find that we have more issues than they assumed we have. So that kind of...

Thank you. Can I ask a question? Chair of Voice, what's the con of putting 65? I mean, I can understand why the Puget Sound Regional Council wants a high number. They want everyone to be racing towards a high number. I understand it from their point of view. You know, they don't want to set the bar low. They're the ones putting out these funds. So I get their reasoning. What's the con of having it at 65, kind of to Commissioner Adair's point? I mean, I don't really see a negative in it. I don't I mean, I appreciate Kristen chirping in there about the 1,500 units, because that makes me feel better. But is there any con in actually putting that in there? And again, to your point, Kate, aspirational. This is what we are striving towards. What's the downside of putting in 65 versus 62?

I don't think there's a downside to just writing in the numbers, to saying, OK, we're just going to do 65 to 75. I think we would need in our discussions, you know, narrative to talk about how this is ambitious. This is, you know, an effort to align with the goal. Realistically, the city has, you know, understands, you know, there are market conditions that will affect all of this. And I think what PSRC is really looking at is how are we trying to change our policies, our codes, to take away these regulatory barriers and to really try to get housing into the city. When we've relayed to PSRC staff that, hey, look, as members of ARCH, we work in this partnership. They like that. We provide funding as the city to not only the ARCH Housing Trust Fund, but Issaquah has its own IHIP, which I always forget what that stands for. But that's the Issaquah Housing Fund. Issaquah Housing Investment Pool. There we go. So we are, you know, we're doing more than a lot of cities just to fund things, you know, right now working on the PBI code amendments. That's a big deal. Shared a little bit of that story with PSRC staff. They thought that was great and exactly in alignment with what they're asking us as we're, you know, kind of trying to get our redesignation. So really it's the story that we tell and it's, you know, showing the actions. We are taking these actions. We are having to report on those actions to King County, to PSRC, to others. And frankly, we have a good story to tell about it. So on the downside, we might not reach those targets. But again, if we talk about it, it's being aspirational and we're realistic about trying to get there. More realistically, we're seeing 62%, but we're going to bump up to... But I mean, it's for you all to talk about and to think about.

Yeah, I think, again, I know as planners, you guys probably want numbers to be spot on. I think everybody wants spot on numbers. You want to know if your forecast is legitimately attainable. I just wonder from like a funding point is, you know, and again, I think you're right. It's how you tell the story. I mean, Issaquah does have a great story to tell. We have not heard enough about high hip. I've heard it in other venues, but like you said, that's a good story. Yeah, just as long as there's no detriment as far as funding and things like that, yeah. I don't know. I mean, I want legitimate numbers too, but if it makes the PRSC board happier, I don't know. Tell me how it's a bad thing. Commissioner Adair.

Yeah, and just along those lines, to me, thinking about it as a number of projects, like this is the number of projects we've got to get going each year. Like, you know, to meet this 2044 target, we've got to get one trailhead a year. Okay, let's get zipping on it. That's really helpful, actually, to have in the back of my mind.

Yeah. And to your point, yeah, the jobs would seem to be a little bit tougher. But, okay. Any further discussion? Yes, Commissioner Matthews.

I had a question that I may be going into the weeds, so you could just say, no, we're not going to talk about that. But just out of curiosity, did the city ever talk to Costco? Are they willing to update their CC&Rs to change? Because that's possible. They just have to be willing to do that to allow housing. And where are other land possibilities? There's stuff sitting everywhere all over Issaquah. And I understand that some of the owners don't want to give up their land. So are talks in the process? to actually acquire land that could be redeveloped?

That the city would acquire land? That's okay. That the city would acquire land that could be redeveloped?

No, just that if a developer was like, hey, I really like that spot where Rite Aid used to be, but I understand the owner is like, no, I don't want to sell it. So, I mean, how does that land get freed up Are conversations happening or do we just rely on the developers to go knocking on doors to figure out if a piece of land's up for sale?

So you may recall the Red Robin site where a developer wanted to go in there and build. And they worked with Costco and the property owners there for a long time and couldn't get permissions to do it. So it's a private thing, but it could be something where the city could step in. I don't know, but it's not something, it's not our role right now, so.

Yeah. The city can help facilitate, but that's the dirty bird for you. Um, vice chair Patterson.

Uh, thank you chair. I'll try and string together a coherent thought here. Uh, lots of things swirling, but, um, kind of on along the same line we were discussing about like the 62 to 65. Um, I think if we were talking about going from like the 37 to the 62 or the 37 to 65, like I'd probably feel a little bit more like those numbers are super aspirational. But going from 62 to 65, I think I start looking at, you know, we currently have conditional approval and we're trying to meet these conditions. And so I think we should, I guess I'm leaning towards like trying to honor those as much as possible, if that means going from 62 to 65. Obviously acknowledging that, you know, 62 is probably aspirational as is and going to 65 makes it that much more. But I think there's a lot of, you know, considerations where that be, where the region's been in the last six years or seven years that we've been trying to spurn some projects, where the economy is as a whole currently. Some of those things are uncontrollable. And then I do think looking at the region, if you look at where all the light rail stations are, I mean, that has spurned massive development. You look at Redmond and the Marymoor area, Um, all along that Bellevue line, like in the last five or 10 years, there's been a lot of multifamily development, like designed around those specific stations. Um, and we've been kind of waiting our turn, you know, for, for that to happen. And it sounds like we're moving in that direction by 2044, probably not. But when you talk about the, the timeline for starting these conversations, hopefully in the next five ish years, we have an idea of where it's going and what's happening. so that by the time 2044 rolls around, those projects are kind of in the queue moving forward, or at least in more of a, you know, formalized planning stage. So the optimist in me, I guess, is saying, like, I don't think it would hurt to go 65 from 62 with knowing some of those elements of what we can and can't control, what we're aiming for, meeting those conditional kind of conditions, I guess I'll put out there. So that's kind of where my head's at. thinking through that portion of it.

Would you want to do some kind of informal vote just to take the temperature now like where are people or not wait till the next meeting?

I think you guys want to I mean we could always we could I mean I think Jesse just put a little bit more meat on the bone for Commissioner Adair is my thought process but I mean we're still going to talk about it on September 10th. Yes absolutely. Okay so informal vote. Does anyone have any negatives or and see any detrimental reasons why 62 to 65 for the housing units would be problematic? Okay, there you go.

Yeah, helpful.

Nice to see Amanda have a hand.

No. We'll definitely come back to this, and you will have had an entire session next week, which Kristen will talk about more, to hear about the state of the market and real numbers. So that will... That will help your process. And I will not, I mean, it's going to be good stuff. But anyway, okay, well, thank you for getting into this because I think it's really important, actually, that we are, you know, on the same page as we go out to agencies. So this is very helpful to talk to you guys about this. So, oh.

Sorry, Commissioner O'Leary. Yeah, just a suggestion and piggybacking on what others have said. light rail is the huge variable. And I would suggest if there's a way to work into the wording of the discussion that we submit to PSRC, that that's the huge variable. That's the asterisk to whether these are truly aspirational or unrealistic goals. I just think it would be good to add that in there because that's not up to us.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for that. And more to come, for sure. OK. Well, let's move on to some of the other proposals. Again, we are still talking about the comprehensive plan, some changes to that land use element in the RGC section. And the changes that you see here are talking about supporting development in the RGC. The sentence that has been proposed to be stricken talks about ensuring that other commercial areas help enhance the urban core and help meet other community needs. Again, there is a lot of similar policy language for the rest of the city outside of this RGC section. So the idea is just like, let's only talk about the RGC here. So that's what's proposed. So those were all the policies. Wondering if you have any comments about any of the proposals for the comp plan.

Commissioner Adair?

Hi, could you go back to the, I have a wordsmithing comment. If you go back a couple slides to where it's talking about the transportation city or transportation community.

Sorry, pass this before this one.

I think it's before this one. Yes. I just personally feel transit communities served by a full range of transportation options is a little bit redundant. So you might want to X transit communities, my suggestion, but I just wanted to point that out.

Yeah, thank you. Great point.

And just note, wordsmithing never ends. You guys can always, always send emails to Kate and Kristen when it comes to wordsmithing.

I have one curious question. I noticed the boundary grew from 461 acres to 465. I was just curious if there was a story behind the additional four acres.

So PSRC reached out and asked for GIS updates. And when we update all of our geographic information systems technologies, there's little tweaks of precision. So this number is from Our input to PSRC, PSRC coming back to us and saying, this is the number. And we said, thank you, and put it into the plan. So that's how that process happened. I mean, sometimes right-of-way is counted in different ways. And so perhaps we captured some sidewalks that weren't captured. That's what I think I'm recalling happened. Yeah, please go ahead.

One more kind of going back to the light rail discussion. I've thought about it some more and I'm wondering if it's possible to look at numbers of those other cities who got light rail stations and how many units it did like spurn or spark in that area. That might be something we could leverage or look at in consideration for our numbers or like telling that story, like building it out as like, If you look at Bellevue or Redmond or that track in between, like how many units were built around there that we could kind of hope for or like consider as part of our target.

Yeah, that's great. If I can find that, if we can find that kind of data, the quarter mile walk shed is kind of the gold standard or if they have a plan area, we'll do our best to try to bring that. That's a very great question.

Any other comments? All right. Thank you, Kate. I believe that does it for regular business this evening. Actually... It does not.

The bigger part of the presentation is coming, I'm sorry, on the Central Isco plan changes. And actually, I think we'll be able to move through this. Okay. This... Again, you all read through, saw all the strikeouts here, and these are all the chapters that are in the Central Issaquah Plan. We made some tweaks to some language. We're still working on some formatting and trying to align better with PSRC, so you may see some more. But I will just try to go through this fairly quickly. So this is just a reminder of what the vision of Central Issaquah is overall, the entire area, because it's important that not only do we align our policies PSRC, but also, you know, are true to the vision. So, you know, we're talking about creating pedestrian and bicycle-oriented mixed-use centers, multimodal transportation, diverse local economy, you know, ensuring this green creeks-to-peaks park system is there and preserving and protecting the natural environment, of course. Also, just a reminder that the Regional Growth Center is on either side of I-90. It's an issue we will come back to when we look at the boundary later on. and Pickering and Gilman are the neighborhood names. Some of the changes now, I will, let's see, sorry, yep, I'll go over the changes section by section. So in the overview section, maybe you saw a lot of the data that we were trying to add to bring things up to date. I think the last update was maybe in 2018 of the document. So we were just trying to bring in pertinent things like, oh, light rail's coming, and here's the map, and that kind of thing. So the other changes were in the RGC-specific section. There's existing conditions about the RGC and then the policy. So in the existing conditions, we move things around a little bit to try to align with PSRC's guidance for where they wanted different information and provided a little more background information because we not only have growth targets and do we have the zone capacity to handle our growth, but we have this thing called activity units that encourages density and measures density. An activity unit is one person or one job. And there are numbers for how many activity units we should have. So added some background information. Currently, the RGC has, let's see, our RGC is an urban center type. So we have to plan for a minimum density of at least 45 activity units per acre. And we are at 27 activity units per acre. This is something PSRC is going to watch. So as we add the jobs, as we add the housing units, those numbers will go up. And the targets help us get to those goals. So just some background information about that. And then this is how the policies section has been reorganized. The red underlined topic areas were added to match the sections of Vision 2050 and also to align with that guidance. So I'm going to go through those sections and just share with you that kind of general, it's a bad name for a section, but we just wanted to touch on points that Again, the vision documents really kind of focus on. So, you know, supporting this transition of our center is something that, you know, is our goal. The second policy, which talks about prioritizing services and access to opportunity for people of color, people of low incomes, and historically underserved communities, that's part of that equity theme that the Vision 2050 entire update was all about. Like, recognize who's in our community and make sure we serve everybody with this RGC growth. The environment and climate change section is something, you know, we just had the ICAP update that we want to make sure we align with. Some of this language might be tweaked a little bit because I haven't worked fully with Stacy on it. But again, we're just trying to, you know, create a climate resilient environment and protect and enhance our critical areas. Got to plug into the creeks and to peaks park system in that section. Urban community is a section that exists. This is also sort of the land use and development pattern section. And this, again, confirms and clarifies the RGC's role as the focus of most of the city's job and housing growth. That we need to plan to accommodate population, housing unit, and employment targets specific to these charts. And they are the same ones that you just saw. The same with the 62% and 72%. Again, we will come back to it just in the format on this chart. This one is specifically requested, so a lot of data. One thing that's pretty interesting is to get to the population number. You take your housing unit divided by your persons per household, and the estimate currently is 2.35 people per household. which is lower than it was several years ago when the last update, the plan was perhaps created. So kind of interesting to see that trend of our households shrinking in size. Anyway, some of the policies have to do with supporting the RGC as the primary location for growth, how we're going to do it. We're going to really look at our development regulations and try to change these things, et cetera. This is the second goal, ULD4 is kind of an interesting one. Encourage a mix of complementary uses with a goal for a minimum mix of at least 15% planned residential and employment activity in the center. We debated for a long time in my former city, what did that mean? So the idea was you can't have all one thing. Like right now, we have zero housing. So you have to have at least a mix of 15% overlapping. So it can't be just one unitary set of just jobs. So we have work to do on that. increase access to opportunity. I think it's a theme of our comprehensive plan anyway, but we want to put it in directly. There's a housing section that we added some policies, some word for word from the guidance from PSRC about ensuring density standards and development regulations allow for a variety of housing types for all income levels. You may recall that the city has Housing targets associated for income levels that we are being asked to report on almost yearly, how we are trying to get housing for folks at 80% and below median income, that sort of thing. Also a policy about reducing the risk of residential displacement. That's one we're adding. We don't have folks living there yet, but in the future, you know, in a lot of areas when you do like huge park improvements, it might raise the cost of the, or raise the rents nearby. And so that's something, you know, in the future that we want to make sure we pay attention to. Encouraging coordination with other organizations, something we already do. That was added. We have this section called Mobility and Connectivity, Transportation, and PSRC. I don't know, maybe we should go back. I don't know, we'll come back with the final proposed name. And what this section talks about is looking, sorry, these two policies are really, really say go to the central Issaquah connectivity section, which is really great because it talks about breaking up mega blocks or super blocks, right? Areas that just are not walkable. Walkable block sizes are between 200, 400 and 600 linear feet aside. We have some block sizes that are bigger. Pedestrians get tired of that. You know, there's also intersection density. It's a way that PSRC says, you know, a lot of intersections, so it seems like, wow, you'd have a lot of traffic then. Actually, that speaks to your block size, shorter block sizes, or sorry, shorter block length, smaller blocks, so that it's actually easier for people to walk to. It's more interesting. It's something that we will track. It's something that the other part of the Central Issaquah-wide policies talk about. So these two policies say, hey, look over there and ensure we do that. Let's get the grid that we want. There's some really Great policies there and great standards that the city has to implement that. So public service, I believe this is the last one. Just kind of word for word pulled over. Ensure the availability of public services to meet the needs of our businesses and residents. Again, speaking to the future residents that live in the center. So let's see. There are just a few more things, yeah. In some of the policies for the housing goals, we updated some of the information. This is that guidance that is adopted in our comprehensive plan housing element that talks about the housing need and the need is if you add all the numbers together, it's our 3,500 full units and in each income level you can see the allocation. Something to keep in mind as we're trying to put most of the growth in the RGC. How are we trying to attain that? One last thing, I think, just to change, again, talking about the designated regional growth center as where we want to locate the majority of Issaquah's housing growth. Currently in the plan, it talks about most of the growth is going to go into central Issaquah. where now we know that we really need to talk about most of the growth in the city is coming to the RGC. So that's what that differentiation is. Okay, that was the Central Issaquah Plan. Lots of policies for you to consider. Any questions?

That went quick. Any questions for Kate? Are we intending to see this again?

Yes, this will all come back to you on the 10th. And we'll try to clean. I was looking at typos and all sorts of things. And if you guys have any and you want to send them my way, that'd be great, because we want to clean things up and bring everything back to you on the 10th. We have this little graphic. You will have this opportunity to review all of the amendment proposals. Do you need to see the ICAP amendments again? Or do you feel like Stacy gave you a sufficient review of that?

Want to do an informal vote? Who would like to see those come back for a full presentation? Please raise your hand. Okay.

We will put in the packet the language change that Stacey had, so you can review that, but there won't be a presentation on that then. So there will only be four amendments to review at that time. Public hearing is supposed to be in September, is anticipated to be on September 24th.

then you know october pve review november heading to council so um thank you so much for your input tonight and do you have any last thoughts or okay i was just going to say i'm going to miss the green necklace i like that language it's cool i really liked it i've always liked it by creeks to peaks maybe it'll grow on me but i i i mean i enjoy the fact that it's going city wide so clearly something was born that was great there But thank you, Kate. Great. Thank you. Okay. That is it for our regular business. So we will move on to reports. And specifically, we'll begin with City Council updates.

Okay. So... funny I sat down and I thought what do I have and I even have anything to say and then I've got like a whole page written down but it won't take long so the last amendments that you all had for the pub for the public hearing which were the parking UV comrade I'm gonna do spaces in context natural context areas I haven't told you about this have I okay so it went to the Planning Development and Environment Committee in August so I guess not and They agreed with the proposed amendments for natural context areas. They agreed with the proposed amendments for UV Comret, commercial retail. The transparency, they would like to recommend changing the multifamily transparency from 40% to 15%, and the commercial from 45% to 40%. And with parking, they are fine with adding the amendment to allow for two parking spaces when it doesn't face the street. They're fine leaving that in there, but they do want to recommend removing minimum requirements for urban core and mixed-use central Issaquah. That goes to council not until September 22nd. So we'll see what happens then. And let's see, on... September, that goes September 22nd. I'm gonna kind of skip around a little bit, is that okay? All right, so as you know, on August 20th, we're coming to talk, as Kate mentioned, about just sort of development again in Issaquah. We looked at four different typologies. We looked at a five over three, so it's podium style. You've got five floors of, in this case, housing over a larger sort of, I always think of it like a blender, you know? That's what we used to call it, anyway. and then the larger podium, three stories at the bottom. That's what we called it. And when I went to school, we had a building. We called it the Blender Building, and that's what it looked like. Then we did five over three, four over one. We did your standard garden style. We have surface parking and walk-up, no elevators. It's usually walk-up to the third floor. And then we did townhomes. And we looked at, you'll learn more, but we did just plain old market rate. What does our code look like? What's development look like with just that? And then we did it with inclusionary zoning. Then we did it with development bonus. So all different scenarios that we'll look at to help us then figure out what you all, the discussion will help us to help figure out what kinds of amendments we're really going to start looking at making based on what we found. So after we do that, we go to council on September 1st. We met with the developers yesterday. We'll go to, got there and put, and I'll let you know what that is in the staff report, then we'll get yours, and then we go to Planning, Development, and Environment Committee on September 1st. And then lastly, we have had a new request from Deputy Council President Shang, excuse me, to, and this goes to Council on September 8th, to do an ordinance allowing neighborhood commercial uses in primarily residential neighborhoods. And so then we just need to respond to that. It hasn't gotten started yet. I'm just looking at it now. We respond to that. And if council supports the idea of doing this, then the next step is it goes to Planning, Development, and Environment Committee. And then because if we move forward with it, it would be a land use code change, it would come to you all. Yeah. And I think that's all I have.

All right, thank you, Kristen. Any other staff updates to provide?

No, not at this time.

Everybody realizes that next week is our next BPC meeting. Yeah, so. Packets tomorrow. Packets tomorrow, that's right. Yeah, so kind of a little odd, the second and third Thursday this month. Okay, any other business or announcements from anyone? staff, commissioners. There is the aircraft.

Yes, I was going to say the aircraft festival started tonight.

It starts tonight?

It started tonight. I was down there before I came here, and they have trapeze artists, and an oboist was out there at 6 o'clock. I didn't get to hear it. But yeah, this weekend, it's going to be fun. And apparently, tomorrow night is supposed to be kind of rocking. So see if you can stop by.

I saw the alfresco this weekend. That was fun, too. A little bit more low-key. But it's still a lot of fun. It helps, you know, if you can get out there and support our local businesses, that'd be great. And did I see a, what is that? What is it that I saw at the Izaquah Community Center like a week ago? Did they have like some medieval play out there? Do they do that out there? I'm pretty sure I saw like a knight. Was it that? You saw it too? Yeah. Yes, okay, so Kristen doesn't have any idea what we're talking about, but yeah, I saw it too, Genevieve. Right, okay, I wasn't crazy, I stopped, and I go, yeah, and then all of a sudden everyone looked at me, and I was like, uh-oh, uh-oh, better get out of here. Right, hopefully I didn't stop anything. Please, Katya.

So if you go to the Alfresco, and if you look at their plan, there is some ballroom dancing there on the 22nd and the 29th. And it's going to be me with some of my colleagues. We're going to be teaching. I'm not going to be dancing. No, no, no. I'm not dancing anymore. So we're going to be teaching 6 to 7 p.m. Just get confirmed with Christina Bruning. So, yep. Excellent. You're welcome to come and try it. So 22nd and 29th, 6 to 7 p.m. Okay. Two Saturdays.

Well, wonderful. So, again, if you can make it down there, go say hi to Katya. Well, great. Thank you, everybody. Again, we'll see everybody next week, but we will adjourn this evening at 7.57 p.m. Have a good night, everyone.