Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I would like to welcome everyone to tonight's meeting. It is 08/11/2025, and the time is now 06:02 p. M. This meeting will come to order. Tanya, will

you please call the roll? Yes. Ali Shosti?

Here.

Ben Reed is excused. Brian Kesterson?

Here.

Dion Ditmar? Here. Justice Phelps?

Here.

Sandra Pereira Reynolds? Here. Todd Oyofesso?

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

Good evening. No added items. I did want to note that there are a couple of people in attendance, and they may see us doing some funny things with moving houses up and down. Because

of

the way our technology system is oriented for council, and we're the only board that sits up at the dais, just for the public to know, if our land use and planning board members have comments or questions for staff, they will raise a little house, or Tanya will notify me. We have our city attorney on remotely tonight. And so it's just to indicate for our chair that someone has a comment or question. So if you see it going up and down, there's no secret messaging happening. It is just to notify because she does not have a queue to know who to call on next. So just wanted to note that for the record.

Thank you. All right. The minutes from the previous meeting have been presented to the board. I call for a motion to approve the minutes of 06/09/2025, as presented.

This

is dean ditmar I move to approve the minutes as presented.

This is justice phelps I second.

Is there any discussion? Thank you. I call for a vote to approve the minutes. All in favor say aye. Aye.

Aye.

Okay. The vote is approved six to zero. The minutes from the okay, we have two of them. The minutes from the previous meeting have been presented to the board. I call for another motion to approve the minutes of 07/14/2025 as presented.

I, Todd Oyefesto, approve the minutes as presented.

This is Ali Shasti, I second.

Is there any discussion? Tonight, we are holding a land use and planning board meeting in which staff will give presentations on the critical area ordinance update, the rediscovered downtown project, and the twenty twenty four fourth quarter numbers for economic and community development. If there are no objections from the Board members at this time, we are ready for the introduction of the periodic update for critical areas ordinance. Staff, you may begin.

She was gone, but not forgotten. She's back.

So I see a couple new faces. I'm Lindsay Walker, a planner, in the current planning department in economic and community development. So good to meet y'all. Today, we're gonna talk about the critical areas ordinance. Our goals are to learn about this periodic update, to learn about the types of critical areas that are regulated, and updates about this project overall.

We had a pretty aggressive timeline. We're hoping for adoption by December. We're expecting this could be pushed back a few weeks. This month, we're hoping to finish the gap analysis and some draft codes to bring back, Hoping to have a final draft release next month and potentially hearing in October, but, again, this could be pushed back a few weeks. So the growth management act requires all cities and counties to adopt regulations to protect our critical areas in order to preserve the natural environment, wildlife habitats, and sources of fresh drinking water.

This also encourages public safety by limiting development in areas that are prone to hazards like flooding and landslides. They have to be evaluated and revised every ten years based on best available science, so we're right at that ten year mark. So the types of critical areas are wetlands, areas with critical recharging effects on aquifers used for potable water, which is also called Keras or wellhead protections, fish and wildlife habitat conservation areas, frequently flooded areas, and geologically hazard areas. The ones I have in bold are what we most often see during development here in Kent, but all of them are protected critical areas. Wetlands are areas of that are typically saturated by surface water or groundwater.

You're most likely gonna see, swamps, marshes, bogs, similar areas. I have a couple pictures here from Clark Lake Park. So this the actual lake isn't a wetland, but you can see off to the side, we have wetlands here. Just give give a couple examples. This is our map that we currently have that shows current data for wetlands in Kent in yellow.

This does this does get updated with development. So our GIS team actually goes in and updates it based on the reports we get from wetland biologists. Next, have critical aquifer recharge areas. Again, karas or wellhead protections. These are areas which has critical recharging effect on aquifers used for potable water.

Typically, there's conditions associated with infiltration rates that create a high potential for contamination of groundwater resources or contribute significantly to the replenishment of groundwater. This is not something we commonly deal with in Kent. You're mostly gonna see it in rural areas or more in the county jurisdictions, but we do have a few areas in Kent that you can see on this map. The timeline is based on how in the red areas where we're to have our wellhead protection. And then the timeline is based on how long it takes contaminants to reach that wellhead.

So if there's any development that could affect us, our engineers look closely at that. Next, we have our fish and wildlife habitat conservation areas, mostly going to be our streams and some of our larger ponds. But these are habitats where there could be endangered, threatened, and sensitive species or other priority species that we wanna protect. You can see there's all these are local to Kent pictures that we've taken around the city. So the Green River is a good example of this.

So you're mostly seeing this habitat in the streams and larger ponds. The larger blue line that kinda has that crosshatching is the Green River. And then everything else is represented in those blue lines. And our GIS system actually does a pretty good job of identifying the types of habitat areas. So you can see it talks about Lake Meridian as a class one shoreline habitat area.

And then we also have North Fork Upper Mill Creek, which is a good another good example how it's identified. And then we have frequently flooded area or floodplains. This is just areas subject to flooding that perform important hydrological functions, and it may present a risk to persons or property. We have some historic pictures of the valley flooding and then more recently at Mill Creek area. This is just the West Side Of Kent since this is where most of our floodplains are in.

You do see, like, the areas hatched in that yellow and black are areas protected by levees, These are all regulated floodplain areas. And lastly, have geological hazard areas. This is mostly landslide hazard areas, steep slopes, areas of erosion or seismic or volcanic activity. And we can see that represented in different colors based on the hazards. And this is another one we see regularly during development that our engineers look at closely.

So, so far, we've started some internal conversations with staff, and then we also have third party wetland and geotechnical consultants that we work with during development. We discussed with them in 2024 what they've experienced with administering the code with us. And then earlier this year, we contracted with environmental science associates to complete our periodic update to Kent City code 11 o six, which is our critical areas ordinance. And then our best available science and best in gap analysis was received last week. That's gonna advise our code updates.

The anticipated areas of study, we're expecting that the stream ratings will be updated. It's currently class one through three, best available science hazardous type s, f, and p, and ns now. So we're expecting that to be updated. We're revising buffer widths based on that best available science recommendation from ecology and fish and wildlife. Also expecting to update language for clarifying purposes to review exemptions and then requiring the geologist or an engineer to continue working throughout construction like we do with our wetland consultants just so they stay on staff during development in case anything arises.

So we'll meet again to discuss that gap analysis and some proposed code changes and have a briefing later this year. So happy to answer any questions if we have any.

Sandra? Hi, Lindsay. Thanks for coming back. It's been a while. I have two related questions. You briefly mentioned GIS and how it would be updated in the event that there was any close to or other wetlands. I'm curious if the same information updates are done for any development that happens in your other critical or protected areas?

Yes. So typically, there's development proposed near those critical areas, as part of the permitting, they have to have their own professional on staff to give us reports and show us any type of impacts to make sure it's we can approve that and if there's mitigation needed. Okay. So when we receive this information and it's finalized, we present it to our GIS team and they update the data.

Okay. So that was actually my second question. We do have a GIS team at the City of Kent or is this something that we contract?

It's at the City of Kent. So we send them our reports.

Perfect. Thank you. Kristen.

Yeah, Lindsey, great job on the presentation. And I'll put one caveat on the maps, that it's a little bit of predictive measures as well. So, if we have known information about other sites, back when we did a critical areas update, we did do a predictive mapping resource for steep slopes and some other things. So, the map is a little bit of science and data and predictive elements. And so, there are pieces of it where it may flag it, and then when we say, hey, this is flagged as a critical area, someone may come in with a study from a consultant and say, actually, no, this is a drainage ditch that, for some reason, is showing up as a stream, but it really isn't.

And then we'd say, okay, that meets the reasons why it's not a critical area. You're correct. So there could be times when something is shown and it isn't actually. Or there could be times when we have our wonderful trained planners who say, you know what, I'm looking at aerial imagery here, and it looks like there could be some critical areas. You need to go out and do a site survey and have an environmental consultant come on. So, just a caveat that it is not 100% foolproof, and no jurisdiction really has 100% foolproof. So, this is in line with what the best available science is. We do try to keep those maps updated based on the development that comes in. However, there is a lag because our GIS team is rather small. They're mighty, but small.

And so sometimes things do get out of the queue for the updates, but generally, we should try to keep it updated to the best of our ability.

Thank you, Kristin. Ali?

Hi. Good presentation. How the FEMA map relates to the critical area update, in particular, wetland area update?

I know the FEMA map gets updated at a different point, and that was done in 2020. Kristen, did you have any other information to add?

Flood areas are through the federal government. Sometimes, areas can also be critical areas, so it may be tied to streams or wetlands that when floods happen, things happen. Or for CARAs, so CARAs normally are in the critical aquifer recharge areas. Those are normally more in rural areas than cities. So, counties have much more regulations, and floods normally overlap with that a little bit. And so

Any coordination?

So, there's coordination. The FEMA maps were updated in 2020 after an extensive process. So our flood code, we don't anticipate any additional changes to it because that was updated five years ago in that off cycle. But the other efforts around critical areas, streams, wetlands, all those things may have some touches, but the flood specific designations were not changing through part of this update. Flood is right now, when someone comes in that has a permit in the flood areas, they are reviewed as part of that permit process, and we're working as staff to embed them into our ECD process a little bit more firmly.

Right now, it's in public works, we coordinate with them, but we're actually bringing it as part of a budget change into the development review process so that it's a little bit more seamless. But there's definitely coordination there. And it's this is another thing where Shoreline has its own update timeline, which is not with flood or critical areas. And those are shorelines are a type of critical areas, but we're not touching those regulations because those were already updated in that off cycle as well. So we're in a weird the state set certain deadlines for certain things. The federal government has its own timeline. So we're touching the ones that we haven't touched in that ten year interim period.

Thank you.

Justice?

Thank you, Lindsey. Question for you, and just, I guess, terminology wise. So when we're looking at the stream classifications

Yes.

So one to three, meaning what, and then now going to SF, NP, and NS, what are those? How are those changing?

Yep. So type one was a shoreline stream. So that's around like Meridian and Green River. That's the class new classifications are basically saying if it's fish bearing and if it's seasonal or perennial. So it's a little bit of overlap with them. Sure thing. Thanks.

And, Lindsay, do you want to explain the director's interpretation there? That this isn't as massive of the change as it seems?

Sure. Can you go ahead?

Sure. So my understanding is we had classifications, and then the best field science was updated to have these letter designations instead of numbers. We have a director's interpretation that basically helps with that crosswalk for it, of how we do it. So, in practice, we've already been following the fish bearing, the perennial, the non fish bearing, the non salmoneoid streams information. But for the type typology and classification of streams and rivers.

But it hasn't been put into our code. So we've been in practice doing that already. It's going to be codified in our code officially because we knew the update was happening. It was there was some decisions made of, we're going to do this, follow the laws, be up to date with the laws, but not go through the whole process of updating the code. So we're going to pull that into our code officially now.

So developers, builders, homeowners who are building businesses, in practice, that classification system won't be a huge change to them. But if you're just someone who's reading the code and doesn't know about our directors' interpretations, it will feel like a bigger change. But our practice will not be significantly different. The wetland buffers is one that we will be studying a little bit more based on best available science. We're always doing this balance between environmental protection and also realistic development conditions, and how do we balance so that we're not completely getting rid of any opportunity for development, because that's also the state has I was just talking with another Landis and Planning Board member the state has a strong history of property rights, and so completely outlying development also leads to problems.

So, that's the evaluation that some of this best available science will be looking at as well.

Thank you.

Thanks for the presentation, Lindsey. I just wanted to ask, how often do we get updated best available science and gap analysis?

This periodic update is done every ten years. Typically, there's going to be some release in between those years that we'll do a direct determination for. I think every three to four years there' something they give us to update.

Any other questions? Thank you, Lindsay. If there are no objections from the board members at this time, we are ready for the rediscovered downtown plan update. Carolyn, you may begin.

Hi. I know at the last meeting where we had a workshop, was able to meet a few of you, but I am a new principal long range planner for the city of Kent, Caroline Echel, and very excited to have the opportunity to work with you all. And this will be my first opportunity to present, so thank you. Today, we're gonna talk about some of the things that have happened since we met in July. So we'll start by talking about some of our community engagement outreach efforts.

We've concluded kind of the broader public outreach at this point, and we are now working with a community advisory group. And we're also gonna be doing some follow-up with one on one focus groups as well. We'll then talk about market conditions. There's a whole range of those that we'll kind of touch on. This is new information for us, so we'll give you kind of what we have as a first glance, and then we'll talk about some of our next steps to lead us forward to hearing and adoption.

So we are currently kind of in the middle of our process. We're transitioning now from looking at the concepts and strategies for the downtown and moving into kind of plan development more specifically. And we're looking at implementation information and finalizing the plan for you all to hear. Ideally, we're aiming for October for you all to to see it and December for adoption. So those are our goals currently, and we're kind of in the middle of that that middle portion of the the process.

So first, we'll talk about community engagement. Specifically, we're gonna talk about some of the community survey results. It was really interesting survey. It was new for us. We had an online walking tour where people had the opportunity to choose different walking paths in downtown and give us their thoughts and feedback.

We also did have some boards that we had up at different locations, community events, and we had a paper version available as well. We had overall 307 respondents. It was open for seven weeks and offered in six languages, And we promoted as widely as we could during that time frame, and we found that of the people who responded, we had a pretty even distribution of people who chose to respond to the different we had three different paths that people could take through the downtown. So 67% did the interconnected neighborhood route, 75% did the destination street, and 71% did the connected public realm. So we had quite a bit of overlap, people who chose to do more than one.

And so that's we're excited to see such enthusiasm and response for something so new because it is kind of a new format for our community survey. So here's some of the things that we heard. So we've heard that there have been some frustrations with some of the lane or road reductions, especially for bike lanes, that the pedestrian experience and concerns about crossing busy roadways, like that is something that we've heard multiple times and had reaffirmed through the survey. Crime, drug use, and physical safety are definitely paramount among respondents to the survey and people we've spoken with. And then kind of the comment that there's no there there or that, you know, we want to create a place downtown where people want to go, but right now, there's not a place to go that that are of interest to to all people.

Some of the opportunities that we heard about were using Ground floor activation, having retail spaces or other customer serving spaces on the Ground Level to encourage people to walk and have more activity downtown. The use of existing public spaces, we have many parks downtown. How do we activate those and create experiences where people wanna come and spend time downtown? Signage, way finding, and lighting were things that were brought up multiple times where we we hear and see that there are opportunities for us to enhance the public realm and provide better ways for people to see their way through downtown and and find their way from one area to another. And then using art and other key elements to contribute to a fun or memorable environment to to really make it a place where people want to come where it really is the cultural heart of downtown.

We also had the opportunity to meet with our community advisory group in July. So on July 23, we convened the group for the first time. We've had a pretty enthusiastic response. We've got between twenty and thirty people who are gonna be coming to our first meeting and now our second meeting. We've got a few new people that will be coming in.

So August 13 and September 10 are the two subsequent dates that we'll have, and we're excited to work with them to kind of refine the plan and make sure that our end result really reflects the diverse interests of the community. So we're relying on them to help us to do that. So to kind of touch on some of the downtown market conditions. Again, this is all really new information for us as well. So we're giving you some highlights here.

So the current population and growth estimates for the downtown are that about 2% of the kids downtown, the regional growth center specifically, that portion of the study area that we're looking at is about 2% of the city's total population. But we're seeing that the growth center is growing at an annual rate of 5% compared to the city's point 6%. So we're seeing higher growth in the downtown, but a relatively smaller percentage of the population overall. We did see, according to the data that we've got so far, that there has been a drop from 2020 to 2022 in employment in the downtown as compared to the city overall. So it's just an indication that we need to continue to look at and monitor and encourage the economy downtown.

We did see that we have a really strong labor shed. So the highest share of workforce commutes were less than 10 miles from the downtown. So more than 50% are coming or commuting fairly closely to the downtown, and then that's supported by some moderate regional commuting from Pierce and King Counties. So that's a that's a great indication that people are not having to travel far to come in and work in Downtown Kent. Looking at housing units by type, we see that the downtown accounts for 2% of the city's housing units overall, but high density housing makes up the largest type of housing in the downtown about 43%.

This reflects a strong urban residential presence in the core area of the city. And the mix of housing types that you see overall supports a compact transit oriented growth strategy, which is in alignment with what the the PSRC, the Puget Sound Regional Council is encouraging for these regional growth centers. So we're looking at housing affordability as well. So when we look at cost burden, we see that more households are cost burdened in the downtown versus the city overall. Nearly double the homeowners in the downtown are cost burdened as compared to the city.

And many are so many what that says is that for it to be a cost burden, it costs more than 30 percent of your income in order to attain housing. To be severely cost burdened, it's more than 50% of your income is being spent on housing. So this is something that we're we're looking at, we're monitoring, we're trying to determine what what things we have, what tools we might have in order to influence some of that.

Can I caveat this one real quick? Yes, please. If you go back. Yes. So we talked a lot in the comprehensive plan about affordable housing.

We talked a lot about our housing needs in Kent. I don't have the exact number of new units that have come in since 2015, but I know of the new development of multifamily housing, all but one have utilized some sort of income subsidized tax credit form. So, when I see this number, part of me says, is this a push or a pull? If we know the data shows people that are on fixed incomes, like seniors, which is a type of an income subsidized housing, or are otherwise qualifying for Section eight or other housing programs, they tend to more likely be cost burdened anyways. So, if we've developed several projects and all but one of them are catering to that population, that may not be an indication that we haven't been developing affordable housing.

It could be an indication that the affordable housing is actually attracting people who are cost burdened to live in our city. So, I think this is where we just got this data a couple of days ago. So, we're looking at, is this a push or a pull factor? What does this mean for downtown? It could be indicating that we also need a mix of market rate units as well to help balance that out. There's many ways we can do this. So this isn't necessarily we're not here to draw conclusions yet. We're starting to piece together some information. So, I just wanted to plug that as one point. I do think the homeownership information is particularly interesting because the homeownership is something that we, as a city, have not seen a lot of new homeownership opportunities built in downtown.

So what we're seeing there is more static. It's not because we've had significant growth. It's that, truly, the housing and the people that own homes in our regional growth center of downtown are more cost burdened and that, again, could be a variety of factors we need to look at, but that, to me, we haven't seen such change in development patterns for that type of housing compared to our multifamily apartments.

Yes. Thank you. Thank you. So to give you kind of an idea of where we're going next, again, we will be having two additional community advisory group meetings on the thirteenth and the tenth. We'll we'll show them phases of the plan development and and receive their feedback and insights.

We'll continue to have internal conversations. Specifically, we're going to be having a series of meetings with staff and other departments to make sure that we're looking at feasibility and phasing opportunities to really understand what all of the different departments will be, the roles that we'll all be playing in order to implement a plan of this kind and what what roles the city can have in implementing the plan. And then we'll have a staff workshop where we bring all of those ideas together as well. We will also be bringing you additional updates as we go along. It's moving on a fairly quick schedule, and so right now we are aiming to release the draft plan and have a hearing in October with you all.

And this would allow us to move toward adoption by the before the end of the year, which is our goal in order to to meet our our recertification goals here. So with that, if you have any questions at all, I'm here to try to answer, and Kristen's here to help if we have any additional ones.

Yeah. So for the economic and workforce data, is that the latest data that we have, or are we basing that like, what are we concerns me we're going off of 2020 and 2022.

Right. So this is we are currently working with our consultants to get the best available data. We just received these reports. And so for us, it's fairly fresh as a as a first look. But we agree. We wanna make sure that we are using all of the best data, and we'll continue to kind of chase that down to make sure that we are doing that. I don't know if, Kristen, you have any other insights.

Yeah. Data lags. So it's I mean, 2020 was when the census happened, which is where we get a lot of this data. And we all know that 2020 had a lot of other things happening that year. And so the 2022 data is also a point that we have.

We're not going to be able to have 'twenty three or 'twenty four data at this point, just because it's not available. What we do have, and what Bill Ellis and Dan Blinko from our economic development team in ECD are doing, is there's some other apps and proprietary data sources that they can tap into to give us some other pictures to cut through the white noise. So, I saw the jump from 2020 to 2022, I was like, duh, that's not surprising. Like, when you look up the makeup of the industries in downtown, it's heartbreaking, but it doesn't surprise me. And so, while we hear, you know, overall, as a city, we're bouncing back and things are happening, it's not necessarily happening equally everywhere.

And so, to me, that's an indicator that's saying certain parts of the city are recovering in different ways or have experienced opportunities that downtown may not be experiencing. But we don't have that last two years to know if we fully recovered. Dan and Bill do things like track listings in downtown by month and vacancies. They have all these things that they're doing that they're going to help supplement some of this information. The other thing I was going to say, there's a question about data, is some of this is also again, it's the best that we have.

And so, this isn't necessarily disqualifying us from being certified. It's just we have to tell the full story of what we've observed is happening right now.

Any other questions? Thank you. Oh, yeah, go ahead.

I have problem. All right, it is a question. I'll put my microphone on. I was just looking at the what we heard in the frustration section with the lane and road reductions, especially for bike lanes. And I know on social media, I see those comments a lot because I follow the city's Facebook page, and people do seem to be extremely passionate in their hatred of bike lanes. Yeah. I personally love them, but but what is the response to that? I know that that's a big part of planning for future transportation options for people. Is that something that's going to be removed from the plans? Or like what happens to the ones that are already built?

So we are not public works, and public works is the group that's responsible for that. I think internally, the conversations we're having is that there are some really strong opinions about bike lanes, especially when they are narrowing the road and reducing the number of lanes so that you can add a bike lane instead of car travel and or vehicle travel. And so that's something that's an ongoing conversation. I think sometimes we synonymously say bike lane, lane reduction, pedestrian improvements, they're all one and the same. But I think there's different treatments, and I think the way that this has been rolled out by the city with the bike lanes especially, we've heard from the community pretty clearly on certain things.

We've also heard people love them, but that is a voice that is much less pronounced. And so, I think it's making us pause and think about what does this look like in the future, because there are some things where we don't have full the full it's happening in layers, So, Meeker has happened in phases. The different changes to the I Line coming in for bus rapid transit coming into downtown, It's coming in two years, but it's not here yet. So, when they hit the streets literally and what's happening have been a little bit interesting for us. And so, it has given the city pause to say what are we trying to achieve, what's the aim, and then what are the impacts, especially on the local businesses that are there.

And so, I'll say this isn't an anti bike lane plan, it's also not a put bike lanes everywhere plan. We're trying to strike that balance and really be receptive. I think what we heard really loudly is connections to the inner urban trail and to certain sites are really important for the community and they value that. And then, the walking experience has a lot of opportunity. So, I can't say we're tearing anything out or we're going to completely nicks or we're going to completely still go one way or the other.

I think that's something that Public Works is having a larger conversation and we're informing and working with them on this data. But, I do know there's been conversations of hearing what the community has said, and social media, you know, that's one way that the community also loudly communicates with us.

Brian, go ahead. The concept of converting traffic lanes to bike lanes, part of the drive of this is to get people out of their cars and have them use bicycles. And, I'm curious because it seems like I know Seattle's been doing this for ten, fifteen years. Seems to me we ought to have some data at this point of is it actually working that way? Cause, I'm skeptical.

We are assessing.

Very tactful.

I'm not sure if that's the main reason that they want to people use bikes instead of car. I think one main reason is to slow down the traffic. So, you slow down to traffic, you have a safer street. That's probably the better reason, I think. Not necessarily everybody give up their car and

Same question, is it working?

It's also a state mandate though, unfortunately. Yeah. It's not something that we get to pick. It's our state mandating it and at least bike lanes.

Yeah.

There are a number of grants that are controlled by CCA funding that requires it to have some pedestrian areas. So I do or bike lanes. So I do think that Kent is the stronghold. Unfortunately, it's being stronghold by other mandates too out there.

Other questions? Thank you so much Carolyn. Great first presentation.

Thank you.

Okay. If there are no objections from the board members at this time, we are ready for the twenty twenty four fourth quarter numbers for economic and community development.

Staff, you may begin. Good evening. The report is before you. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. I did want to note that there are some staffing changes that have happened in ECD. The permit center has hired a new front counter greeter and admin support. Our plan sorry, questions?

Sorry.

It might be something that we need to fix on the minutes. So, item eight says quarter four twenty twenty four.

Oh, that should be 2025.

Thank

you. You're welcome. I was like, wait a minute.

Yes. It should be oh,

I did say 2024. It should

be quarter two twenty twenty five.

Perfect.

Does the I'll have to we'll talk.

Date says 2025.

So you're good on

that. Okay.

It's just everything else does not.

Okay. Thanks. Quarter two twenty twenty five. So, yes, we have had some staffing changes in our planning techs. They had a retirement and someone left for another job opportunity. So, Tanya has been busy supporting training of the new planning techs, as well as keeping up with all of her other duties. So, shout out to Tonya on that work. She's on our team, but the planning techs have some shared responsibilities as well. And then you will note our I mean, for long range planning, our most noted achievement was the phase one of Recode Kent. We are already rolling into phase two for the housing code options.

You'll have a little bit of it this year, and then we'll pick it up again with some more substantive efforts for code cleanups in the start of the new year. So that's really what we have going on. If you have any questions, we're still continuing the transition from an outdated permit system into our new permit system, but happy to answer any questions you may have. The new permit system is called Amanda, and it does not stand for anything. It's just what the name of the system is. Amanda? Amanda. Like a name.

Kristen, is it common and I'm more just curious than anything. Is it common for intake permits to be so low, like, in quarter two generally? Or like, is that not?

So I think there's some historical data in that image. I would predict that a lot of times intake permits happen to be ready for summer. So, that's some of it. The second thing is for the intake for the long range permits that you see in your chart specifically, there's just a lot of uncertainty in the market right now. And so, a lot of things I was just talking with a colleague in another city, and he was reflecting the same thing.

Overall, permit levels are pretty steady, but the land use permits for bigger projects right now. A lot of people are kind of putting projects on ice and saying they're not sure what can pencil financially, and so they're not ready to really put in for an entitlement in a permitting process because the factors may change in terms of what they want to construct and what they think they can get occupancy for. So I think you're probably seeing a little bit of both reflected in that.

Any other questions? All right, where's my script? Is there any further business to bring before the board? Nope. Fabulous. Since there's no further business, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you for your attendance, everybody. Thank you all.