Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right. Okay. All right. Good evening. I would like to welcome you to tonight's meeting of the Lyon-Houston Planning Board. It is June 22nd, 2026, and the time is now 6.06. This meeting will come to order. Ben Reed will be chairing the meeting. I'm Brian Kesterson. I'm temporarily taking over, as he will be here in a couple of minutes. Tanya, will you please call the roll?

Yes. Ali Shasti? Yes.

Present.

Ben Reed will be here shortly. Brian Kesterson? Here. Justice Phelps?

Here.

Sandra Pereira-Reynolds is excused. Todd Oyofeso? Here. And Bonnie Williams? Here.

Thank you. Are there any added items or changes to the agenda from staff?

Good evening, Landis and Planning Board. We are going to switch the order. So we'll do Recode Kent, which is item six. We're going to do that as item number five. And then we'll do the Rediscover Downtown Plan briefing number one as item number six. So just moving one item up ahead of the others. I did also want to announce because I know there's been interest in this and there's been questions but we as a city received the official sign off on the quiet zone designations for the railroad. So we I think it was within 60 days we can start the process of doing a notification and then train horns will only be used in emergencies and for safety reasons but are not required at every intersection crossing going forward. So that was a Huge effort by Public Works. I think it was a 14 years effort from inception and initiating the process to getting the funding. And there's been substantial improvements at all of those grade crossings as well. And so really big accomplishment for our Public Works and city team. So wanted to give you all an update on that.

Congratulations. Yeah. And when we get to the... I'll just... Make you aware in advance when we get to the rediscovered downtown. It would be interesting to hear how that will change things.

Great, sounds good. Well, we will move on. That was our only change to the agenda.

Thank you. The meetings from the previous minute have been presented to the board. I call for a motion to approve the minutes of April 13th, 2026 as presented.

This is Justice Phelps. I move to approve the minutes as presented. This is Ali Shasti. I second.

Is there any discussion? Hearing none, I will move to a vote. The motion on the floor is to approve the minutes of April 13th, 2026 as presented. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say nay. The ayes have it. Tonight we will be holding a land use and planning board meeting in which staff will give presentations on downtown plan and Recode Kent Phase 3. If there are no objections from the board members at this time, we are ready to begin the presentation on Recode Kent Phase 3. Staff, you may begin.

Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Deja Mitchell, a long-range planner here. And I'm here to give a presentation on RecoKent Phase 3, in particular, our site design and building design standards. As you know, we haven't seen each other in a while. So as you all know, we had our phase three kickoff last year in October. So this was our joint council boards and commissions meeting. And this really helped to lay the, start to help laying the groundwork for understanding what the community's priorities are when it comes to site design for middle housing. and how to develop site design requirements around existing challenges such as houses or existing houses or trees. It also helped us start the process of developing site design standards that work with middle housing updates that we had in phase one. So we heard a lot about parking and green spaces, so we took that information and worked with our consultants and audited our code and looked to see how and where we can implement changes for site design for middle housing when it comes to the city of Kent. So our first step in taking the code and figuring out what we can do with it as far as site design was to submit or send to our staff a survey. So we talked to our current staff because they're the ones who use our... our code on a day-to-day basis. So we sent a staff survey to our planners, our engineers, our public works team, and our building departments to collect staff perspectives and challenges and questions regarding multi-unit projects in our NRL, NRS, and our NR2 zones. So these are our lower density zones and where site design really matters when it comes to adding new units in existing neighborhoods. We found that development standards, design standards, civil and right-of-way improvements really tend to be the most problematic issues when it comes to residential development and residential development permits. So the problems with these requirements, or these permits rather, they must be addressed to successfully implement site design for middle housing in Kent. So essentially, our engineering, our public works, and our planning code need to work in tandem. So we took these results and we brought them to a workshop with our engineers and our planners. More specifically, we had a meeting with our planning manager, our engineer manager, and some additional engineers. So we had a site design workshop February 10th, and our goal in this was really to refine and align middle housing implementation guidelines across departments. So our main takeaway from this workshop was that each department has a different focus area when it comes to site design review. So development engineering usually focuses on infrastructure, particularly those related to public improvements, public and private interface, And the planning review for site design really focuses on site planning and building configuration. We found that planning and design topics are more aligned with the tiered framework, so that's 1 to 4 units, 5 to 9 units, or 10 plus units. During this workshop, we had our planners and our engineers, or our planning manager and our engineer manager, and our engineers rank their priorities when it comes to the amount of units, so frontage, landscaping, things of that nature. And they all agreed that smaller projects may warrant simpler and more flexible standards, while larger projects may require additional requirements. So after that discussion with both our planners and our engineers, we realized we needed a lot more alignment with our public works and engineering standards with our planning standards. So we had our long-range planning team creator. We did two additional workshops specifically to understand how to better integrate our planning and public works or development engineering standards together. As most design standards or design elements directly impact private property are typically not subject to public works or DE review. So there are, however, topics such as access, parking, utilities, and things of that nature that do affect site design and can be project killers, which is why last year we did implement those small-scale development or small-scale infill development exceptions or exemptions. So we had two workshops. Our first workshop was in March, and it was our site design workshop. So that was really our initial workshop with our public works department and planning. So we got together, and it was really just to collect ideas and their thoughts on topics such as that access that parking, that utilities, and discussing how we can implement and cohesively implement code from the DE department or the public works department, as well as planning department and have a balance when it comes to planning code, development code, or infrastructure code. Then we had a second meeting to really hone down on stormwater and drainage. So that's that meeting that you see here on the 13th. And that really focused on shared utilities. How can we go about sharing utilities when we have more than just an ADU or more than just our normal single family home? Then also changes to how drainage is calculated. So again, when we have more than just our single family home or more than just our ADU that we're so accustomed to, how do we go about calculating these new impervious surfaces and drainage and charging for that? And then in term of all those meetings, we also had multiple meetings with our Master Builders Association. We discussed streamlining subdivision processes, updating site design standards, addressing implementation issues, and pretty much all things related to middle housing. So you can see here on your screen, we have some pictures. And this was our May 14th meeting. So Kristen and the mayor had a meeting with master builders, or more so breakfast. And then more recently, we had a workshop, a virtual workshop with our master builders on the 17th. So these members or our members provided detailed real-world feedback on subdivision review, retaining walls, building height, tree retention access, and final plant timing. Essentially a litany of things that affect middle housing and building middle housing. However, these meetings really help to lay ground conversations with the master builders to better understand what the issues are when it comes to developing in the city of Kent and how things work and what works best when it comes to our middle housing code. So I'm sure you guys are wondering what next steps are. So we will have a couple of staff and council workshops coming up. Of course, we want to do some engagement and specifically engagement around the developing community or developer community rather. So our master builders. And also we'll have some draft design code coming up for you all to review. Not as soon as the other two, but we will have it coming up for y'all to review soon. And that is all I have for you all. Any questions? Yes.

Deja, so quick question with shared utilities and all of that, and also, I guess, the drainage and how that's calculated. When you say we're looking at calculation or how to do that, can you go into a little bit more of...

Yeah, so our code is really based on that single family home. So we're used to having single family homes or multifamily homes. So the way DE or Public Works would calculate that is you're either single family or multifamily homes. So now it's like we have to work in, if we have a duplex or we have something other than our typical single family or an ADU exemption that we may have. So it's really just working with them to figure out how would they want to go about calculating those things. So After the meeting, they did decide to treat anything that isn't just a single family home as multifamily and calculating the impervious surface based on their code. So it's really just finding that middle ground for them and how do we implement that with mental housing.

I'm gonna chime in on one other part. You asked about the shared utilities as well. That's something that, so Kent does have our own water and sewer district, but then that only covers part of the city. We also have services from Lake Meridian and Highline and all these other sewer or water service providers. And so we can only set those policies for our own utility district, but we're working and coordinating with those other districts. There's pros and cons to different approaches, and that's what we're working through right now. The way that our engineers explained it to me, a non-technical person, is the idea of a shared utility. So if Deja, Caroline, and I all live on one property and have three separate units, They could send us 1 bill and we figure out how to split it amongst ourselves. There's technologies after the meter that can sub meter it out. There's all these other things that are now because middle housing is now more widespread. The market has found some extra solutions, but we still have to think about how our, our. At the end of the day, who's responsible for the account? Who's paying for it? So there's some weirdness in that that we're working out, but it's no different than if you had a commercial tenant or an apartment building. Basically, it adds an extra layer of someone has to pay the bill at the end of the day, but how it gets paid isn't really the city's business. One of the reasons why shared utilities are really beneficial is if you think of, like, if you have a straw company, and you put a bunch of little holes all really close together, the distance between those holes, if three people are tapping into the utility, can limit the integrity of that straw where it all just may collapse. And so having a lot of utilities plugging in right close to each other for connections is also something that Public Works is concerned about. So we're working with them on kind of what do their customer service payment systems versus the infrastructure itself versus all of these other things. How do they align together? So Deja did a really good job explaining. We're having some really technical conversations right now, but I'm not used to having, but I'm really proud of the city for having a more holistic view of this than versus just saying like, well, we're just going to fix the land use and not not think about the other impacts. And so our stormwater district, that covers the entire city. Water and sewer are more limited. And so we're having all of these like, so what applies where conversations as well, and then working with partners. So Deja did a really good job summarizing, but there's been a ton of work behind the scenes just to get us to this point where we're all

the same page of what are the issues and kind of bringing up now that we've actually seen middle housing permits come in what where do we need more clarification so that we can write that as our next step and I can't remember Kristen and I think it's because it's been in I think the chain first change did we do something with impact fees with this or the impact fees staying the same or is that going to be recode can't for

Deja, do you want to? I'm happy to answer it if. I think OK, so ADUs we waive the first impact fee and the second one is at 50% of single family rate and that is a state law requirement and then the rest of the impact fees. There's a new state law that says they must be. Proportional and there's a variety of different ways that you can do it proportional and basically they want if it's a larger unit, they want to charge more impact fees than if it's a smaller unit. So parks right now is going through and updating their park impact fees for that. Transportation already does something based on their Institute of Transportation Engineers trip generation models. So there is more or less based on some of that proportionality nexus already. And then school districts aren't collecting impact fees for any of our schools right now. So that's the it's their process they adopt that but it's a zero regardless of the unit size and then fire has also worked on updating to be more of a square footage size so um we're not directly changing our impact fees because of middle housing there's another state law that's affecting it that we're doing that for

I just want to follow up on the shared utility.

It gets a little bit complicated regardless of where those utilities are. Because there is a document, 10 state law, which requires utility have minimum requirement depends on the type of utility and the size of utility. For example, water and waste water, you can't keep them too close to each other. There's a minimum requirement for that. Electricity, for example, PSC doesn't allow any other utility in their easement. So it's not that simple to just say, OK, everybody has to put their utility here in this channel that we proposed. And I also have a question in regard to the design code that you are coming up. What does design code entail, and who is going to be involved in that? What department divisions working on that?

So like our site design requirements that we're working on currently.

So it would involve site design for different tiers so that. So this tiered framework we have, so those 1 to 4 units, those 5 to 9 units and the 10 plus units. So we don't have any particular code as of right now. It'll be something similar to what we have now for our design review. So if it's. And this is just an example. I'm not saying we'll have diminished garages or shutters. So particular things for each tier. And they could be less or more intensive depending on which tier you have or which tier you're building. And it will be focused on planning, sorry. And there will be some public works and engineering, but that's more so their code. We're more so wanting to integrate and have them update so we have a smooth transition into building these middle housing forms. Thanks.

I'll do one other shout out. So one of the aspects of this project is also the building designs themselves. So what do the buildings look like? If you are bopping around Kent or any of our neighboring cities and you're seeing newer development come in, and you see things that you like or you don't like and want to send pictures and tell us why you like it or don't like it so that we're not trying to read your mind. You know, you may just say, I think this looks really great and that's good. We can take it from there. But if you're like, I don't like this, if you can eliminate or if you can help illuminate what you don't like about it, is it because it Is, you know, it's directly facing a really busy street or the yard is too small or that whatever it is, because we may have I think Deja and I have been doing we did a site. We did a building design review in the past, so we may have very different ideas of what is good or not good versus what you. kind of just generally what you're drawn to and what you like and that will help us. So we have a couple sites already that we've gone out and driven to that either council members or other people and on the staff have said, have you seen that? It's really bad or that one's really good. So if you have those, that's really helpful for us too as we're looking at that.

Anything else? Thank you guys.

We flipped the script, so Rediscovered Downtown is the next item. So Deja went first. We really pulled a fast one on you. Just say the next agenda item.

If there are no objections from the board members at this time, we are ready for the presentation on Rediscovered Downtown plan briefing. Staff, you may begin.

Well, I'm really glad to be here today. We are at the very beginning of the home stretch of getting the downtown plan through. And it's been a lengthy process. I know many, if not all of you, have been involved in kind of multiple parts of this process. And so... really eager to show you some of what we've got in the plan in terms of the substance. We're going to break it into two parts. So today will be the first briefing and then on July 13th will be our second briefing with you all. So we'll kind of divide and conquer so that we can kind of dive in and allow you to talk through some parts and pieces of it. IN A LITTLE MORE DETAIL IF YOU'D LIKE. SO OUR MAIN GOALS FOR TODAY, WE'RE GOING TO START TO REVIEW THE DRAFT PLAN. WE ARE IN PREPARATION, WE'RE GOING TO BE RELEASING IT FOR PUBLIC COMMENT THIS WEEK. IT'S VERY, IT WILL BE THIS WEEK FOR SURE. EITHER TODAY OR TOMORROW WAS OUR GOAL. SO WE'RE WAITING ON THE PLAN TO BE UPLOADED FROM OUR CONSULTANT ONLINE. And it will be available through our website. So I'll share that information with you. And if you can help us let people know, we would be greatly appreciative. And then we are preparing for bringing this to you on the 27th of July for the public hearing, which would then close the period of public comment. So with that, I'll jump in and what I'll probably do is walk you through some parts and pieces of this and then pause along the way to let you discuss or answer any questions that you might have. So I wanted to step back for just a moment and kind of orient you with the purpose and the context of this planning effort a little bit more. So this is a downtown area that's now being grounded in a regional plan. The Vision 2050 is the Puget Sound Regional Council's plan that's guiding and recommending that we update our downtown plan as a regional growth center. We have our comprehensive plan the 2044 comprehensive plan that then Indicates the kind of growth and development that we're wanting to sort of focus in the downtown area as an impetus for us sort of Growing this plan out of the comp plan and then we also have our previous downtown sub area action plan, which was adopted roughly 2013. And so we are updating that plan. So these are sort of the roots of this planning effort. And it's particularly important as well that we're undergoing this update because the Puget Sound Regional Council has designated downtown Kent as one of 30 regional growth centers or RGCs in our region. And this is great because it then allows us to then pursue grant funding and resources for infrastructure and other kinds of improvements. That's another purpose for us, revisiting this plan, making sure that it's up to date, is to go through the process of PSRC's recertification of our regional growth center. So, a little bit more in January, we were able to go and present our downtown to the growth management policy board, PSRC's growth management policy board, and they recommended that our downtown be recertified as our regional growth center pending the adoption of the plan. So this is great news. They looked at the criteria that they are reviewing so that we're aligning with that vision 2050 plan. And they find that substantially we seem to be on track for that. So they are currently reviewing the tangible draft plan to dig in deeper and make sure that we are meeting all of those goals. at the regional level that will allow us to be recertified. So this again for context as well, that blue outline is the area that's designated as our regional growth center by PSRC and that broader dotted line is the study area for our downtown plan. So it takes in a little bit more space, a little bit more connection to the adjacent neighborhoods. For our project schedule, this has been a really lengthy as it's had a lot of lots of starts and stops, and I actually came on board in the middle of this plan process. So winter of 2024, we were kind of in the process of wrapping up the comp plan. And during that process, the downtown plan sort of. was started and then last spring and summer, we really dove in much deeper to develop the groundwork for the plan. And then in the fall and winter of this year, we've been writing the substance of the plan and now we're moving forward to adoption. A big focus throughout this process has been going to the community, making sure that we are understanding what the needs of the community are in the downtown and so that included focus groups kind of at the beginning. We've had a series of staff work workshops over time to make sure that our internal staff members from across all the departments are understanding and. looking at the challenges and opportunities that we have downtown so that we can come forward with our best ideas and ideas that will be feasible, ultimately, for us to implement over time. We were able to go to some career fairs and do some youth engagement, specifically at Matson Middle School and Mill Creek Middle School. We had a walking tour of downtown, which was an online community survey where residents and visitors could Have an online walking tour on three different routes through the downtown. We had a number of respondents were able to provide this in multiple languages and allowed people to give us their best ideas at specific locations through the downtown. Things that they would like to see or do or experience. We also had a community advisory group that we were engaged with a course of a series of months last year. They helped us in refining the goals and kind of urban design framework for the plan. And through that we had a number of key findings that downtown really is sort of the cultural heart of Kent, that there is a need for public or community gathering spaces. And so looking for opportunities for that to occur in the downtown. There's a need to enhance the pedestrian experience to ensure safety and connectivity to and through the downtown. We're also, we have a series of concerns around safety that we are wanting to be sure that we address in the plan. And we're looking at ways that we can be predictable and consistent and provide clarity for business and development that might want to occur in the downtown. And we're looking at parking availability and challenges around parking in the downtown as well. Nice. For opportunities and frustrations that we heard through some of the other. phases of community engagement. We know that we need better activity across different spaces in the downtown, better use of our park space. We have a number of park amenities in the downtown that we want to magnify. Looking at signage and wayfinding and lighting to both enhance safety and allow people to be able to navigate our downtown and find businesses and find places that they want to go. We're looking at ways that we can incorporate art and other memorable experiences across the downtown, supporting businesses, encouraging new businesses to occur, providing connectivity both within and to the neighboring parks and trails around the downtown. So these are just a few of those that we heard. I see that Brian, you have a question. I'd love to sort of pause and answer anything I can at this point.

Yeah, the sort of picking up on several themes in there about meeting spaces and parking and downtown businesses. If we're going to continue with the farmer's market, is there a way that we can put some plans into place to find a place for that that doesn't isn't as destructive to downtown businesses by consuming so much of their parking area i think that's an excellent question and i'm hopeful that maybe as we dive through the plan there are some pieces of the plan that focus on events downtown and how we can work

in better partnership with our businesses in order to make sure that all events that are occurring downtown are happening in such a way that it provides mutually beneficial results for existing businesses and also the event itself. So I don't think in the downtown plan we've produced specific recommendations for the different kinds of events that are occurring downtown, so we're not proposing any specific solutions. There is strong guidance in the plan around events in the way that we need to be approached.

Yeah, if you want to have events down there, it would be helpful to have an event space that does not. I know we went to the farmer's market down in, I think it was Enumclaw, and they have kind of a park there that the farmer's market is in the park, and it doesn't really, you know, there's Parking lots around there, and they're you know it doesn't have that nearly the impact Hmm That's an excellent example.

I think It's definitely something that as we get into that section of the plan I'd love to hear your thoughts on whether what we're including in the plan gives us enough what we need in this plan to make sure that we have those conversations ongoing when we need to and we're looking strategically at how we need to build spaces or think about spaces. It's guidance both for staff as we look at ways that we're refining some of our public spaces or parks or street facilities, but it's also guidance for other partners that are coming together and planning things in the downtown. So as we get into that, some of those recommendations, I'd love to see what you think if we're addressing that in a way that's gonna yield results. We have heard that feedback and we want to make sure that we incorporate something that gives guidance around that for sure. Are there any other questions up to this point? so let's get started so there are five chapters included in the plan the chapter one essentially is laying the groundwork for the plan so it discusses all the context that i've kind of laid out today but with much greater depth around why and how the plan is coming together, how public input, public engagement has helped shape the recommendations in the plan. In chapter two, it presents kind of the existing conditions. What is the current experience in downtown Kent? What are the strengths and the challenges and the character of downtown Kent that makes it unique? And what does that suggest that we might need to do or address? So chapter two gets into some of those questions that we might be posing and trying to sell for in the plan. Chapter three is where we spend. It's the majority of the document and it's where we're going to spend time today focusing. It's outlined by goal and underneath each goal is a set of strategies and then a series of actions to help us implement what we need to do to reach the goal. So we'll kind of walk through and see what some of those look like today starting with the first three goals And then the last three we'll tackle next time Chapter four is going to be our urban design framework and really looking at how do all of these actions Play out in the built environment. What does that look like on the ground? So it's really based around that urban design framework, but looking at the physical design of downtown And then Chapter 5 is an implementation matrix that really is taking all of the content of the plan and laying it out in such a way that it makes it easier for us to work through implementing. So it's organized as a grid with the goals, strategies and actions laid out with the types of partners that we envision coming together to advance each of those actions. OK. So the vision has not changed substantially since we've met previously. The goals have not as well, so I know we've gone through each of them. I'll walk through each of these and kind of, as we go through, kind of remind us of each one. So for goal one, our focus is to create a safe, welcoming and walkable downtown that tells Kent's story through art, design, events and cultural experiences. And for this we are focusing first the first strategy underneath this goal is to continue to focus on public safety. So the sets of actions that are related to that strategy are a to strengthen public safety partnerships. Our police department has many things already in place and we've spoken with them about some of their goals for moving forward. And so we're looking at how can we enhance and support the work that they're doing in the downtown and make sure that those partnerships that they have formed are including everyone that needs to be at the table and that we're supporting the work that they're leading in terms of public safety in the downtown. Um, I don't actually be is advocate for ongoing funding and support for consistent and sustained public safety efforts. So this is looking at, you know, we've received some resources from the state level for our police department to enhance the work that they're doing in the downtown. What are some of the other, um, What are some of the other strategies and funding that we can continue to advocate for that will support them and continuing and providing a sustained effort? One of the things as we talked with our police department was they discussed a number of interventions that they've made over time in the downtown that were successful. And then when funding changes or when they change where they're spending their time, those problems tend to reemerge. We recognize that if we want to be consistent and diligent in the downtown, that's going to help us get where we're trying to go. So it's going to require sustained, consistent effort. We may have to test certain approaches and revise what we're doing, but if something's working, we can't pull it back and hope that we've solved the problem. Like if there's something that's working, then we need to continue to invest in that. solution that's working. So those are some of the strategies that we've worked on. with our police department, applying principles of crime prevention through environmental design. This is something that the city already does. We're looking at additional strategies that might help us do that in and around parks and in other places to make sure that we're thinking about those solutions that we can implement in the built environment that will also support public safety downtown. The second strategy under this goal is to increase activation downtown, increase activity. We want to see more people downtown, more people, help people feel more comfortable. So we want to create great third spaces downtown, meaning places where people can gather. And so we're looking at some ways that we can think about and support these community gathering spaces. Action B is to support a mix of housing and commercial uses. So we want to make sure that we're continuing to incorporate a mix of uses and amenities in the downtown to support residences and businesses. C is to prioritize street level activation. So we want to make sure that the ground floor of buildings is well activated wherever possible, where we have vacancies or neglected uses or uses that maybe aren't as active on the ground floor. We want to try to create strategies and encourage those ground floor levels to be engaging spaces where people are comfortable walking by and they know that there's people around and eyes on the street. So focusing on things that will help us activate permanently and also temporarily those spaces at ground level. And then D is to invest in signature events and attractions. So we recognize that we have a number of events in downtown Kent. Some of them seem to be working really well and others. Have have a lot of success and we could maybe enhance them and make them better. And so we have some specific strategies written in here to help us think through how we can go about working together with our partners and how we can focus our efforts on those unique events to Kent. in order to make sure that we are capturing the cultural aspect of our community as well. And inviting people downtown. We want to create a space where people know what downtown Kent means, what it feels like, what it looks like, something that's iconic. And these events really have potential to help us build that image. So looking at activities through that lens as well. This is one where we this is where we specifically wrote some additional recommendations relating to. Let's see if this I can get this to work. So in through here is where we've written some additional guidance on. When planning events, working with existing businesses and event organizers to minimize any negative impacts on businesses during these events. So that's one way that we're looking at making sure that we are. Making our events work well for the businesses that are invested in the downtown in there permanently. So I don't know if Brian you felt like that was capturing a piece of what you. Right. That's why we're writing this into this plan as a guidance for that going forward.

yeah yeah and then yeah yeah so i think you know farmer's market is one example but there's a lot of events that happen the city of kent and sometimes is the driver of those events and other times we are partners with those events and there's another organization that's leading it and so um you know other cities may have permanent full-time staff singularly dedicated to a signature event or some community programming. In Kent, we are not staffed that way. And so I think one of the things that we noticed throughout the creation of this plan, and we'll get to it later, it's not going to be tonight, but there's a lot of Partnership that has to happen in order for things to happen downtown. There's also a lot of it's other duties as assigned for a lot of different people. So when businesses are having some frustrations, they have to call three or four different people in the city or different departments. And so one of the things that we've talked about is the potential to create a position focused on downtown. And it would not necessarily be just business support and liaison, but it would be a point of contact that that person could help run down who's the right person to talk to. And then also to help implementation of this plan. And so I think a lot of things, Brian, that... In previous conversations we've had or I've had with other other colleagues that are part of KDP as well as that I The coordination, it can be frustrating with the coordination or lack thereof between all of these organizations. And so the goal wouldn't be to step in and take over, but to help make sure that if it's a little bit of everyone's job, it becomes front and center when there's a problem. But if we have one person who's focused on it, they are singularly thinking about, okay, what does downtown need and can help flag that forward. for both internal work as well as external work with chamber and businesses and all those other groups so um that's i think it you'll what we i this plan is organized non-traditionally so normally when you would see a plan it would be more like the comp plan where you have like land use, housing, transportation. This is more of a it's all integrated approach. So you'll see interactions with local businesses. You'll see conversations about connectivity, housing in multiple goals and across multiple things because we're trying to push um internally for us to think beyond just a specific site and think more holistically of how they work together and can support each other or potentially work at odds and so that we're thinking but you know that we're thinking big picture so we're not doing one thing that's great and setting back another thing so because we have a lot of competing goals and objectives and so sometimes it's it's really easy if if everything that you do looks like a nail and you're a hammer but if you have a screw also and you're having to figure that out we're having to like We're wanting to have that conversation across a variety of both internal and external groups that will have shared partnership in implementing this.

So I kind of say this recognizing this is going to be a challenge more than anything. And also a little bit to kind of push back, Kristen, on something that you said of not... cities don't have event planners or they don't have some of this and they don't. And I do agree with that.

But one, I was saying a lot of cities do. We do not.

Yes. And I, but I think, and I'm going to push, but that's where I was trying to push back. It's been a long day. Uh, it's a Monday for sure. Um, I don't, there have been, I have traveled the state quite a bit lately. Um, And one thing that I have noticed is it's not the cities doing it, it's their chamber. And I recognize that that's going to be a hard thing to get the Kent City Chamber to kind of come alongside and agree to this. But if you look at the cities that are, some of our cities that are doing it well, Enumclaw, Maple Valley, Salton Arlington a lot of those places. It's not the city. That's putting them on. It's their chamber Enumclaw every Friday during the summer shuts down Cole Street. That's not the city shut It's the city shutting the street down obviously, but it's it's the chamber Bringing those businesses together and doing it, you know the 4th of July Enumclaw is doing a parade That's not the city. That's the chamber and And unfortunately, and I think this is what we're having to do is that position's going to be created to kind of be that person that handles all of it and kind of becomes a mini chamber almost without being, I know, but that's how, I mean, to get everybody to find that person to agree to do all of this or to get that person to manage that one issue or go and find somebody for that other issue, that's what your chamber's for. That really is where our chamber should come in and start helping. And I recognize, again, that that's an issue. And that's something that I'm talking to people outside of this. That's not a Kent issue. But really, this section, this increased activities and the events and the making the space for the community for the events, This is Kent taking on a major issue that I want Kent to be successful. Trying to address this, trying to do this could be really, really hard. Because again, it's a person trying to do what seems to be 20 different jobs. And a lot of our external partners, a lot of our other cities are doing this through their chamber. And then the chamber's partnering with others. not the city doing it completely.

I appreciate that feedback greatly. I I think a couple of things as you were talking that came to my mind too. I think that one of the ways that we've been thinking about implementation of the plan generally, but specifically like if we take something like the events in the downtown or activation downtown. Events planning and the orchestration of those events. is one thing and it's a major undertaking to plan any event and it would require multiple partners. So chamber certainly, KDP certainly, like there are main street organizations and chambers across the country that are really leading a lot of these kinds of efforts, certainly. We also have in Kent because of the way that we're organized, multiple departments that are also needing to coordinate internally so when we do provide service to event planners this is just around this one one specific topic i think that it still could be a very helpful thing to consider having a point person who can navigate the multiple internal stakeholders as well as bringing together the external partners where that really starts to play out in some of the other areas of this plan that require a lot of maintenance around parks and streets and all of our public facilities in the downtown. You know, these are real challenges that are going to require a lot of people being involved, internal and external. So that's a different example, not events related, but it's another place where we see it. We kind of need a convener. We need someone who can bring all the right people to the table around a certain problem and help figure out how to solve it. And that's just something that we kept sort of finding as we went through different strategies like, OK, well, who is really going to be able to own this and move it forward? And we feel like the city can play a role Figure out how that's housed and what that looks like and how to bring it all together is another thing, but that's that's kind of one of the reasons why we're looking at this approach as a city is not just around this one specific action in the plan, but really the whole plan has a lot of moving parts and right now it's challenging even internally to figure out who all do I need to talk to you if I want to do this on this one street or if we're having trouble maintaining this. like lighting in the downtown and there's just, there's a lot of moving parts. So that's kind of one of the reasons why we're looking at this approach, not to take over event planning for every event, because I don't think the city could ever own that.

And, and we did, so we have worked with, so there's a variety of different state level tools. Chamber of commerce is one historic downtowns or historic Main Street programs. Thank you. I couldn't think of the word. There's a variety of different tools that the state has that we actually have in Kent to build with and work with. And so it's not to supplant them at all. It's to better coordinate amongst the efforts. And I think, you know, we, Caroline and I attended a really, really wonderful presentation on various ways that Main Street programs are addressing safety. They're addressing crime. They're addressing other things. And so I think, you know, this is not to discount any of our partner organizations, and in no way do we want to supplant it. They've also been part of this plan creation process. So recognizing that there's shared ownership in a lot of this as well for its success. So thank you for highlighting that.

I guess I would just echo kind of what I'm hearing as well in terms of just, you know, thinking about how does the city set ourselves up for success with this plan? The idea of having this one singular resource to serve as like a project manager for the plan and then this catch-all for all else just, I guess it raises concern. Like, you know, let's set ourselves up better than, you know, a single point of...

Potential failure. Do you have a recommendation?

How you would set it up? I mean, I think we need to have a distinguish the roles and the plan itself. I just looking at the plan itself and just the coordination across the city that feels like it's one job in itself. You know, is there a need for a separate role? to coordinate across the city all of the events that we have going on or a partial FTE? Do you carve out, maybe it's not a full-time job, but do you carve out a part of an existing FTE to take on those responsibilities, but that they're concentrated somewhere and not dispersed? See, I just think the magnitude of the plan and what we're trying to track here, it seems a lot to stretch the resource across both of those. And I don't know, maybe there's, I'm not sure what, again, back to like, is that the chamber? What other cities, how are they modeling this, these roles, these responsibilities? Is there something that we can glean from adjacent cities or cities in the region? Another question I have is on, for these, for all the strategies, is there an order of, are these in order by priority, going from like A, B, C, D? Or not particularly?

Not necessarily. We've grouped them and regrouped them so many times at this point. I think that we wanted to place safety front and center, so that was up front. And then activation, like I think the order of the strategies is more trying to tell a story of kind of what we feel like is the foundation. And then, you know, the things that we're growing from. So there is a bit of a, not a prioritization per se, like, well, we need to do this first, but like as a, like these are sort of foundational things that we can layer on and that are kind of foundationally critical to everything else that we're recommending the plan. There are some things that are maybe more important based on the feedback that we've heard. And so we've kind of worked the strategies in that way. I would say the actions are kind of not necessarily grouped in that order of priority?

It's a long-term plan, a long-range plan, and the actions beneath them still feel very high level. When we, I don't see, I kind of flipped through, maybe this is, you guys will answer this, but what does like the next five years look like? Where do you start to see more specifics behind these activities? And how will we, how will the city, I guess, track those? You know, how do we track those? How do we have like, you know, metrics and KPIs against kind of how we're doing against some of these?

goals that we have laid out for ourselves those are excellent questions i um so the chapter five is really kind of the beginning of that framework um and so when we get to that chapter we can kind of look at it a little bit more in depth um it's i think the nature of this plan and the conversations that we've had throughout the plan i'll say i feel like there are certain things that felt ripe and ready to make decisions on and be more specific about and dive in and get to the meat of what we want to accomplish and then there are other things that we were realizing oh these are going to need ongoing conversations and additional work with partners to really put meat around i think we could spend another year really crafting some of the things that need to be accomplished and figure out how in a meaningful way, we're going to advance some of these things going forward, which is another reason why we think it's going to be important, whatever set of strategies we use that we think about implementation of this plan in a way that is going to have to pick up a lot of these conversations and advance them forward. And it's just the nature of wanting to make sure that we are bringing people with us, both internally and in the community, all of our partners. We need some alignment around some of these challenges. And there are some really hard things that are going to require testing and kind of adjusting. So I think the nature of what we uncovered during the process is that a lot of things that I think from a planning magic wand kind of like we would love to be more specific. And I think some of the things it just felt like, okay, realistically, we need to make sure that we're providing the guidance for the conversations that need to be had going forward. And that's just the reality of kind of where we are. I don't know if that's fair, Kristen.

Yeah, so this is a 20-year high-level visioning plan. When we think about what does this look like on the ground, that next chapter has some really, chapter four has some concrete examples. But this is, again, this is, I like to think of a sub-area plan as what are the North Stars we're aiming for? So if I'm updating development plans, code about what uses are allowed in downtown, I should be running through these strategies and actions of Am, am I helping to achieve what this plan is calling out for or not? If I'm going to be building a new park or renovating a park running through these actions. So it's, so this is not necessarily the final, like here, you'll see everything is built, but it's more of the priority. It's the, the lens we should be looking through. There are areas where we say we need to advocate for funding or we need to better coordinate. And then there are some transportation and parks specific call outs where. Those plans, those functional plans where Park says this is where we're investing in our parks, this is where roadway and pedestrian and bike connections are going to be improved, those are really, that is where when they are updating those plans, that's where you'll see on the ground what does that look like. So some of that is set in this plan, but it really is that level of detail of exactly what it is gets worked out and is informed by what this is.

uh... okay so this is a a guy you know a guy this is their your your goal this is what your vision of where you want to go one recommendation i would have would be sadly the term walkable downtown has become a buzzword that means many different things to many different people and therefore does not establish a clear guideline of where you're trying to go and perhaps you could be more specific about What you mean by that, do you mean a city-wide resource where people will drive in from the city limits and then once here can walk the area? Or do you mean something that you're anticipating that the primary people who use it are the people who live within walking distance of the downtown area? Because those are very different solutions.

Yes, I agree. I hope that we ultimately, when you see the plan, that you'll see that we've addressed some of those things. We have a chapter or a goal specifically related to transportation. And then we also, some of the chapters at the beginning provide context for all of the infrastructure recommendations that we're including in the plan as well. I think that there, I'm curious when you read the plan, when we post it and you're able to thumb through all of it, if you feel like some of those questions start to be answered and we certainly want to make it as Descriptive as we can.

Okay. I'm having trouble reading this, so that could be part of the problem. Maybe there's more there. Yeah.

Yeah. And the point, the point tonight, so we broke this briefing into two because it's a meaty plan and we want to give you guys time to digest. So I would recommend for the sake of time, uh, Ben, if you want to ask your question and then we let Caroline run through because we have. several more strategies and actions to get through tonight that we let Caroline give an overview so you can start seeing how the pieces are coming together. And then we can have time really in the next meeting to dig into more. We can have time tonight for questions based on how timing is, but then we can, once you've had time to actually absorb the plan more, this is to get you oriented of like, okay, this is how this is structured. So when you open it, you can dig in and see if those questions are answered. So Ben, did you have something else you wanted to add?

Yeah, so I mean, I think a lot of the challenges that we uncovered from community feedback, for example, just thinking about maintenance throughout the downtown, like keeping things clean. If we want a clean downtown, who's involved in that and how. It's more complex than I initially would have thought, so there are people in parks. There are people in public works. We have community partners like KDP and others that are also playing a role in maintenance, depending on whether it's a bench on this street or if it's located in the park or. And so figuring out who to go to and who to ask and how to move forward if something needs to be changed is feels a little bit more complex than it should be. And so our from our point of view, we want to make sure that residents who maybe have a problem or a business owner who is having an ongoing maintenance problem that they know who they need to talk to. And so if there's a point of contact, a single point of contact at the city that can then help them navigate where they need to go, who knows all of the players at the city and who knows all of the general partners that are on the community. that person is kind of like a concierge, I guess would be another way of thinking about it to help navigate.

The problem then is like it is just massive fragmentation. There's too many things. Is it because there's too many code rules that need to be in place? Is it too much voters? too many things that have been built upon each other over years?

I would say if I had my magic wand, it's that the city's resources and what we task. We have very defined tasks of who manages what, where. And so some of that, and then who plans for what, where our funding's coming from. Some of it is tied to the way funding for grants and other things are all put together. It's not as nice as, like, we just have this money, let's coordinate. And so there's just structural challenges. I don't think it's necessarily... Development code or regulations. It's more of there's everyone has. Projects, but not all of those projects. It's one of many things that they're also doing in a lot of other areas. And so what we've heard is downtown. needs some extra facilitation between all of the efforts and all the players in the city that are working on that right now. And so that is something that is... We have meetings. We have a lot of other project status update meetings. It's not that no one's not working together. It's that there's... I mean, the number of emails... Like between economic development, long-range planning, parks planning, public works transportation, public works utility, mayor's office, communication team, like those are just seven of the players in the city that all have different things that we all have talked about one specific corner. And so some of this is like, there's a lot of side conversations. There's a lot of inefficiencies and things that we're saying, okay, if we had someone to wrap their arms around this, to dedicate time to it versus it being one on a list of 50 things that I need to get done today. And so some of it is just to help make sure someone's tracking those, the nice well wishes and the intense through the end of the process with the other various players that are all tasked to do their work. Does that make sense?

It's a budgeting issue.

It's a resources issue. It's also not uncommon for government. A city up north that will remain unnamed recently repaved the same road three times in 18 months because they had a park go in and then it got repaved because they did some extra parking curb cuts and then a new utility worker work for fiber came in and then the city had a plan to do a bike lane and all three of those happened within 18 months and the community was like what the heck one you're shutting the street down three times for lawn periods? And two, why are we paying for this pavement three times? And so it's not, that's not to point blame, but it's those types of issues of like, didn't someone see this coming? And the reality is each one of those had very specific funding streams, very specific people in charge. And that is what we're, we have not had that issue, but that's what we're trying to get ahead of is examples like that of didn't someone see this coming? And right now, if we don't have... If it's everyone's job, it ends up being everyone's responsibility, hoping that someone else catches it. I think that may be the example of the internal coordination that we're talking about of that part. It's not to take away other people's work or add to it. It's more of just, let's put it all on a map. Let's think about all this holistically and benefit the community and reduce those impacts. But I hear you, and government just operates different.

I mean you, yeah.

We're happy to have a separate conversation if you have specific recommendations.

Sorry.

Open to the conversation. Let's keep rolling just so you can see kind of the pieces of how we're layering this together.

But genuinely, if anyone has other ideas for ways that we can address this challenge, it's still very open and public comments open until July 27th at least. And so we would be grateful to hear other ideas too. Yes. Okay. Let me keep rolling to give you guys a little bit more content before the end of this meeting. So for strategy, the third strategy for goal one is to continue to invest in parks, open spaces and public amenities. So specifically looking at ways that we can enhance our parks, ways that we can expand the access to public amenities that are downtown. We currently are having challenges. Benches and restrooms and all those kinds of things are challenging right now for us as a city and our partners to build and maintain. So we're having to come up with some creative solutions to try to help us address that specifically. And then action C, strengthening stewardship and improving cleanliness is kind of a key piece of that. really needing to come up with some strong maintenance strategies for everything that we're going to be doing downtown in order to make these investments last and serve the public purpose. The strategy four is going to be highlighting downtown's history, creativity, and community. So investing in public art and creative placemaking. Looking at supporting the historic core of the downtown, so those historic assets that we have that are within KDP, for example, would be a focal point. And then looking at promoting culturally diverse businesses and spaces to really elevate them as a face of downtown because they are an identifying feature that we have within the city and we want to promote and encourage those uses in the downtown so that's everything for goal one so goal two is really housing focused so we're looking at providing a range of housing types services and amenities to support new and existing residents and vibrant mixed income energy intergenerational downtown neighborhood So the first strategy will be to prioritize housing that meets Kent's housing needs. So looking at planning for a mix of housing in the downtown. Looking at a range of affordability and market rate options. Also looking at preventing displacement. B is to continue to implement the Kent housing options plan. C is to evaluate and update our incentive programs like the multifamily tax exemption program. So we're looking at ways that we can make these programs work better for Kent and yield the kinds of housing that we need within Kent. Strategy 2.2 or the second one for this goal is to update regulations to support housing amenities and neighborhood vitality. So we're going to be rezoning some key locations such as the Central Avenue corridor to allow opportunities that are allowed throughout the downtown to extend across central so that we can increase heights. Make the development playing field a little more even across that corridor. We're looking at updating our design standards citywide, but certainly for the downtown. And then updating regulations to be more streamlined and responsive to changing conditions over time. The last strategy and this goal is to adapt and lead in an evolving housing policy landscape. So Kristen is really kind of our point person for these. She's been very involved at a state level And so responding to everything that is being required and being worked on at the state level is a big piece of this. So we're going to be monitoring downtown housing trends and market conditions local to Kent to make sure that we're responding to the kinds of needs that we have within our community specifically. We're going to continue collaboration to achieve shared housing goals. So this is where we're working with our regional partners and developers and other housing partners To make sure that we're sharing data and that we're aligning with the kinds of work that's happening across the region. In this area and action, see there is to continue advocating for policies and funding that equitably meets Kent's housing needs so. We are looking at making sure that we are working. With everyone at the table to to meet those needs, And then goal three will be the last one for this evening that we'll look at. And this is really focused around economic development. So the goal is to build a more diverse and resilient economy that highlights local businesses, encourages entrepreneurship, and attracts new investment so that businesses of all sizes thrive, careers grow, and opportunity is open to everyone. For this one, we are looking at expanding small business programs. Oh, sorry, so the first strategy is to support and retain small businesses in the downtown. So we're looking to expand the programs that we already have in place to support small businesses, continuing to work with a lot of the partners that we're already working with to do so. b is to reduce barriers for new businesses so we're exploring programs such as a first year free business license program and some others to try to help facilitate new businesses who might want to test their business ideas in the downtown For C, we're looking at exploring micro enterprise and food truck hub concepts. So what are ways that we can use food culture that's already existing in Kent and make downtown a place where people are coming to explore new food ideas and to test out these smaller scale food incubators. pop-up markets, food truck hubs, etc. D is to support local businesses during construction. So making sure that we're really cognizant of efforts that are happening throughout the downtown as we continue to hope to see development occur downtown, that we're making sure that we are supporting businesses through that process and communicating well with them at each stage. Strategy 3.2 or the second one for this goal is to grow entrepreneurship, innovation and creative industries. So we're really focusing on the unique scale and affordability of downtown Kent and thinking about. What kinds of economic opportunities really are a good fit for downtown Kent and we feel like entrepreneurship and new and emerging businesses is one area that's kind of more unique versus like the industrial Valley where we have some of our larger scale, larger format businesses. This is an area where we can focus small or focus on new and emerging ideas. So we're looking at expanding entrepreneurial and workforce partnerships. providing financial tools for entrepreneurs, which we do have some existing, but we're looking at ways that we can grow and enhance those and target them for businesses who want to be in Kent. C is to explore a creative district designation with Arts Washington. D is to explore innovation and maker spaces. So looking at the entrepreneurial connections that we can draw from innovation districts of different sizes and scales and types to see what we can encourage downtown. The third strategy is to attract new investment and employment as well as tourism. So we're looking at recruiting larger employment anchors. Are there some key ones that might help bring additional foot traffic downtown? Might increase our daytime population. B is to cultivate tourism and destination experiences. So as we are looking at our sort of cultural anchors and our events and other things that we want to see happen downtown, are there things that we can do to help promote the culture through a tourism lens. C is to strengthen the downtown brand more broadly. So we know that right now, when people think about Kent, what do they think of? What can we do as we build out the downtown, as we think about ways to enhance downtown to really create an iconic or an imageable city? that people can remember and be proud to be a part of, be proud to visit. The strategy 3.4 is to catalyze redevelopment. So we're looking at evaluating and reducing requirements for private development when possible and appropriate. Looking at ways to really cultivate opportunities for people to build in a market that's not really conducive to a lot of development right now. So ways that we can facilitate that. B is to support side assembly to enable redevelopment. So we have a lot of these smaller scale lots throughout the downtown. There may be some areas where it would make sense for us to consolidate some land or to encourage that consolidation to promote redevelopment opportunities that are the right scale and size and type. C is to learn from past efforts to guide our future success. So we've had a number of things that have been tried in downtown Kent, and as we've had conversations, we've learned, oh, this worked, or this did not work, or we can't do that again because we've tried it before. So we're making sure that as we have conversations, we have a policy direction that we're open to trying. New efforts in a revised way that we're looking at opportunities to. Retry some things that we've tried in the past, but through a new lens or learning from past. Times that we've tried things and maybe need to adjust our future efforts. And then strategy 3.5 is to utilize programs for equitable development and reinvestment. So we are A is to pursue redevelopment tools and resources to address underutilized properties. B is to advocate for funding programs and designations that accelerate redevelopment. So this includes like tax increment financing and opportunity zones. And then C is to redevelop brownfields and underutilized sites. So, for example, we currently have our brownfields grant. We're looking at some things in the downtown area. We have funds available to support property owners who might want to sell or redevelop their parcels. um we can provide funding to help them assess any contamination that might be on site to help make that process more streamlined so that's the first first half of the goals at the next briefing we will look at goals four through six, but we'll also look at the urban design framework and the implementation matrix and talk a little bit more about how all of those things are gonna come together and the work that we'll need to do in order to implement the plan ultimately. So these are, that's a little preview of what's to come. So again, chapters four and five we'll cover at this next meeting. And then this just gives you a little bit of an overview for our next steps through the adoption process. So we've submitted our draft plan to the Department of Commerce and to PSRC for an initial review. This is really looking at their regional criteria and are we addressing their regional goals through our plan? So they're less focused on a lot of the details that we might need or want to hear from you on, but they're really looking at, are we checking all the boxes and meeting the criteria as they anticipate that we were going to? And so we feel pretty confident that those will probably be pretty, pretty fluid processes for review. Today or in the very, very near future, we were hoping to get our public draft out and posted. So the moment we have that link, we will share that with everyone.

Literally just waiting on the link. It's ready.

It's just waiting to go live. The moment that it's ready, we will send it out to the world, and we hope that you will help us share it. We'll come back to you on the 13th with our second briefing, and then on the 27th will be the public hearing. So that's the time when public comment will close. So we want to hear from as many people as we can between now and July 27th. um and then in august depending on the kinds of changes that might need to be made based on feedback we feel optimistic that august time frame is when we would move into council and then september 17th is when the gross management policy board is convening again and they can then officially certify us once our plan is adopted So that is again what opens that door and allows for us to apply for future funding and do a lot of other great things and be a part of the regional plan. This is the website for our downtown plan and it is where the draft will be posted the moment that it's ready. So again, we will be sure to share that with you the moment that it goes live. And would appreciate you sharing that out with us. We will also I just wanted to make a note that the rezoning along Central Avenue is going to be coming along with this plan. So as you as we do the future briefings and hearings, you'll also see. This rezoning is really to help us get at this purple line that's on our urban design framework, which I think many of you have seen before. But Central Avenue is a central focus of the plan from an urban design framework point of view. And so we are looking at changing this corridor, which is GCMU, changing it to DCE, which is our downtown commercial enterprise zone. So what's happening across the downtown will happen across central as well.

So that's actually 2 maps. The 1 on the left is what it is now and then you can see how it changes.

Yes. Yeah.

So the 1 on the right will be the future condition.

Yeah. So that's the existing. And you can see this is mostly and then, um, on this, this area, we're just gonna make it consistent all the way across. so that the same development opportunities that are available off of Central Avenue will now also be available on Central Avenue as well. So we're just trying to make it a more consistent playing field across the downtown. So, are there any other questions for this evening? I'd love to answer.

Yeah, the, oh, sorry.

Can I ask, what does the communication plan look like to get the community feedback?

For this, yes. So we're going to be sending it out to everyone who has signed up through various means. So we've got kind of a running tally of people that we've met across through all the different community engagement stages. So we'll be reaching out to them. The advisory group will be a group that will send this out to you all.

Yeah, we have so we have a running list serve that we send project updates out to, but then we'll update the website. It's going to have it's something called conveyor where people can actually add comments and you can see other people's comments as well in that document. So because we're at the stage of give us feedback on this, it's not so much like. do a survey now because that doesn't really make sense so it's people actually can look at the document on the website and they can click and like say this is a great idea or I disagree with this or it's missing the point and so it will be mostly a digital we have title title 9 and ADA requirements as well that we're But some of the ways we do it, so we do a listserv blast. All of those engagement efforts that Caroline noted, like the six different, we had like six different focus groups. We had the advisory group. We had all these things. We'll follow up with all those people as well. And then we'll use Mayor's Newsletter, which has a pretty good reach, to redo that outreach. So there's a variety of ways that we'll be reaching out for it.

I'm on the scenic hillside and there's like three Facebook groups and I always hear they folks don't see the information going out on these types of requests. So I would challenge I would say if you guys can leverage any of the social media sites like city of Facebook or city of Kent Facebook or any of those.

Yes. So sorry, I said mayor's newsletter that groups in all of the mayor, um, all of the social media for the city as well. What we don't do is a lot of times we, as the city cannot get access to some of those more private groups or the, like the buy nothing or whatever those groups are that it's like friends of this neighborhood. So we would love for you all that have access to post it there. If city's asking for comments, um, If you're part of those groups, I know our council members are very active in what I call extracurriculars, but all the community organizations, all these other things. And so we ask them, like, please email this to all those groups. Please share it on your own social media. Please post. So please do that if you can help amplify it. And then if you see also the city's posts are all shareable. So if you see it on the city of Kent Facebook, you can repost that way as well.

Go ahead. Okay, I'll mention the same thing, what I mentioned earlier. How does the quiet zone or thing with the train change this?

I don't know that it's going to change our policy direction for most of what we're including in the downtown plan. I think it works well with what we're recommending and it will help support any future development, the experience of residents downtown and experiences of businesses downtown. So we're hopeful that it will have a positive impact on downtown, but in terms of changing the content of the plan, I don't think we're gonna adjust recommendations within the plan. We're just excited that it's going to be moving in the same direction.

We had it set for more development, but now that may happen quicker and better and faster.

I mean, we hope that it will help. And the plan was developed knowing that we were marching towards this exact date TBD. So it took that into consideration. As we move down, we also recognize that the other rail line has much fewer... uh trains per day but those trains will still have horns and so we talked about are there other ways we could reduce those impacts in the future as well so it it's i don't think we flip the switch and say quiet zones are happening and all of a sudden everyone wants to develop in kent there's other market conditions but it was it it took that into account and there is a call out in the plan about it

Yeah, I cautiously asked this question because I work for two different city government and I understand money talks. So my question is, has there been any discussion in regard to creating something iconic, some type of facility that attract people to the city of Kent? to me event happens everywhere people come because of the event they don't come because of the city if the same event happened in city of renton they go to city of renton but you cannot have event every single day so But you can have one facility, one iconic facility that attracts people day after day. If someone comes to visit you from another country, another city, another state, where do you take them? You don't take them because there is a city here with a sidewalk or the building. They all have them. Some of them have better landscaping. Some of them have not as good of landscaping or sidewalk. But always there is something iconic about the city that attracts people. You go, I want to show you something you don't see somewhere else. What is that? That's what we need to have in order to attract people if you want to attract people day in, day out. And I know this is not an easy task. It's yeah, it's it's a 64,000, maybe 64 million dollar question. But but I think that's what it takes.

I would love for you all to also tell us what you think would be iconic to attract people downtown.

Just something come to my mind quickly would be like maybe a musical fountain because it doesn't take lots of room. You know, people, for example, in the city of Bellevue, people go walk around the lake, the man-made lake. because it's always there. And at the same time, when they do that, sometimes they go get ice cream or go to a restaurant. They don't go because of the restaurant. They go because they know it's a nice environment that you can walk around and enjoy it regardless. Take your children, take your friends or visitors. But what is going to be in the city of Kent that attracts people that way? Because this is all nice and good. It's for people who live here, for people who will be living here, they enjoy it. That's fine for them if they live in an apartment. But if somebody want to come drive 20 miles to come to the city of Kent, what is that one thing they coming to show everyone and to see? That's a great point. Thank you.

Yeah, and I guess I'll also share a thought as you're speaking. I think one of the ways, and I think that I would love to continue thinking about that question because I think you're correct 100%, but I think one of the things that we feel like is unique or that I do as like I'm newer to Kent, right? I've only been here for a year. And so I have thought a lot about what makes Kent downtown Kent particularly unique or why would I bring someone here myself? And I feel like the cultural cuisine, the food, the businesses that are located, that are cultural anchors in the downtown area and really throughout East Hill and other parts of the city as well, that's pretty unique. I think that we have a lot of things that we could build on. And so the creative district designation from Arts Washington, I think is one opportunity that we sort of uncovered through the process of having some conversations about what it is that makes Kent unique, the diversity of Kent, the fact that we are one of the most diverse communities in the country. I think that is something that we were looking at. Can we use that creative district designation to focus on food culture? And would there be an advantage of that? And it's not like a silver bullet by any means or like the one thing that we should do. But I think it could be something that we could explore and build.

Many cities have that. Sorry to disappoint you. No, it's true, it's true. Especially around here.

It's true, it's true. But yeah, that's one way that we're looking at, can we create a hub that's known for something? We already have some momentum there.

All right, last question of the night.

This one's going to be really easy, kind of, but it's going off of something that Bonnie asked a little bit ago, and I want to kind of ask it in a different way maybe. With the comp plan, we go back every five to ten years and kind of fix things or make changes. Can we do that to this or no?

Yeah, I mean, plans evolve and are iterative. So this plan was last updated in 2013. Before that, it was 1998. And before that, it was 19... We've had five versions of this plan. So this is very much we'll need to continue to evolve and ebb and change. And if next year, all of a sudden... some amazing opportunity comes up and we need to update the plan to reflect like hey someone just bought five square blocks of the city and we're now going to be doing something they're going to master plan something different we can update our plan to reflect those conditions so nothing nothing is set in stone permanently well thank you all i know tonight was a longer night we'll turn it back to ben to wrap up the meeting thanks caroline

All right, thank you, staff. Is there any further business to bring before the board?

No.

Since there's no further business, this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.

Bye, Todd. Bye, guys.