Kirkland Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right. Let's call this meeting to order. Before the roll call, I've been told by city staff that we are using multiple microphones in this room. So please keep your side conversations to a minimum. The microphones will pick them up and then confuse everyone online. So now can we have the roll call?

Margaret Bunyan. Here. And you should reach Audrey. I'm here. Aaron Jacobson.

Here.

Gina Medea. Here. Julia Nolan. Here. Scott Reiser.

Here.

Ronnie Rutherford.

Here. All right. And now we move to items from the audience. This is a time in our meeting when anyone can speak on any topic not subject to a public hearing. So if you would like to speak on anything that is not the public hearing for code cleanup amendments for state mandated parking reform or affordable housing on faith-owned lands, now's the time to speak. I see we have one person signed up, Bean Neon. If you could sit at the end of the table. That's going to be my next question.

Tell me where to go, which I don't often offer to people.

All right. You have three minutes whenever you're ready.

Thank you very much. Good evening, Planning Commission, and thank you for this opportunity to speak. For those of you I have not met, my name is Bea Nayon. I'm about a 30-year resident of downtown Kirkland. And one of the things I love about living in downtown Kirkland is that I can walk to many goods and services. And I'm excited that you're going to start exploring having more neighborhood goods and services available in residential neighborhoods. And you're going to hear about various things that are great about that, and you're going to be hearing about concerns that people have. I want to bring to you a concern you may not be hearing much about, and that has to do with land use policy issues. 4.6 and complying with it because it says develop standards that allow small scale neighborhood oriented commercial uses within residential areas, including corner stores and commercial uses, et cetera, to meet local needs and reduce reliance on vehicle trips to meet daily needs. That's great. But here's the thing. Just because a business is walking distance from my home doesn't mean that I can walk there. doesn't mean that a lot of people can walk there. We have people with all sorts of accessibility issues. They could be visual. They could be auditory. They could be sensory. They could just be mobility. And especially in residential neighborhoods, we have sloping driveways up and sloping driveways down. And we have pathways that are uneven and incomplete sidewalks and unlevel sidewalks and doorways that aren't necessarily wide enough. And even when you get to the doorway, there may be stairs without a railing. you're going to hear from staff most likely that this is all addressed in our building code. And our building code is woefully shy of doing what needs to be done. If you're going to have that neighborhood business where I can go and get a cup of coffee and an egg salad sandwich, if I can do that, if I can't walk there, I can't go there. Our standards are really lacking because unless you need a building permit, Nothing needs to be done. So if there's no electrical work, if there's no plumbing work, they don't even need a building permit. I assume they don't need to deal with it. They don't need a building permit and they don't have to deal with accessibility. And even if they do have a building permit, our standards say that we can require no more than 20% of their expenditures to be used for accessibility. Let's look at what other cities are doing. Seattle is an example when they just implemented These similar rules, they put in more accessibility standards. We can do better than what's in our building code. And just because it's in the building code and not the zoning code doesn't mean that you can't bring that to the city councils and the staff's attention. Thank you for your attention to this. It's really important to so many of our citizens so that if we're going to do this in our neighborhoods, more and more people could get there and enjoy it.

Thank you. If you are on Zoom and would like to speak, please raise your hand. Anyone here in person would like to speak? No, all right. One more time on Zoom, if you would like to speak about anything that is not subject to a public hearing tonight as the time, please raise your hand if you would like to speak. All right. We will move on to the study session for neighborhood stores and services code amendments.

All right, thank you, Chair Jacobson. So tonight is Planning Commission's first study session or briefing on neighborhood stores and services. We touched base with council a couple of weeks ago. With you tonight to give you your presentation is a senior planner, Leandra Baker Lewis. And she has some of our other staff and I'll let her introduce them. But excited to get into this one with you. We're not looking for any, you're not making any final decisions tonight, but really looking to kind of tease out where the planning commission is leaning on things. And Leander has a lot of great questions for you. So I'll hand it over to her.

Thank you. Good evening, commissioners chair and vice chair. I am here tonight and excited to present on the neighborhood source and services code amendment project. Hopping right in. Let me make sure I can control. Okay, there we go. On the agenda tonight, I'll start with a project overview, kind of remind you what we're doing and what we're studying, including the project phasing and intended milestones. We will review some of the council feedback that we got at the end of July. We'll take a dive through what we currently regulate in the city as far as development standards that are regulated through our zoning code, as well as other provisions in our municipal code that apply and could apply to the concept of neighborhood commercial and home occupations. We will then. further dive into the existing home occupation allowances that the code currently houses. We'll talk about the concept of neighborhood serving commercial uses. I will review with you attachment one of your packet and that is our community engagement plan for this project. go over what the next meeting should entail from a staff perspective, and then open it up for a healthy discussion. And throughout this agenda, we might pause for discussion. I implore the chair and vice chair to let me know if you'd like to pause for discussion before we move on to a different subject. All right, hopping right in. So this project serves to complete task 12 of our planning work program, which directs the update of Kirkland's rules for, again, home occupations and an exploration of a new concept to allow small scale neighborhoods serving commercial uses within our residential areas. And this work implements policy and the comprehensive plan that asks us to plan for communities that better support small businesses all over the city, not just in our commercial areas. It's a twofold approach. So we'll be including the study and update of our existing home occupation allowances and studying that new concept of neighborhood commercial. These are two distinct regulation topics, but they serve to achieve similar goals. They lower common barriers that entrepreneurs face when starting businesses. They help to provide accessible goods and services, and they seek to reduce dependence on cartridge to meet our daily needs. An important facet of both of those concepts is that the regulations should seek to minimize adverse impacts to the people living in the residential areas that we're studying. There's three phases that staff has kind of organized this project around. Phase one includes research and prioritization. We're starting with that first phase with you tonight. A primary goal for staff tonight is to learn of the planning commission priorities. We're doing some awesome legwork in the community to understand their priorities through our outreach and engagement, which we'll go over. And after understanding those, we will start to identify and narrow some options that respond to those regulatory requirements. regulatory priorities that we've set out. We'll make sure to evaluate unintended consequences that may arise from certain directions that we go in. And the second phase will kind of show that work that we did in phase one through the production of a draft code ordinance, which uses collected input from the community and from the planning commission produce a draft code. We will hold a public hearing for that draft code to collect public testimony. And then the third phase takes place after city council adoption. And that will be an important step that goes beyond allowing commercial and residential areas and starts to raise awareness about any new allowances we decide and support staff throughout the training process for these new regulations. Regarding what we heard in July, we took some policy assumptions that we put together through multiple sources, through past engagement, through comprehensive plan policy and general planning best practices, as well as state guidance on this subject. And we formed some staff policy assumptions that we got confirmation from council to move forward with. quite loaded some of them and they can go different ways and they each have sort of branches off of them. But just to review, we did assume that we will focus on neighborhood serving uses and a big part of your job and our job is to really identify what that means for the communities here in Kirkland. We are gonna identify and restrict any incompatible uses for neighborhood serving commercial. We'll explore neighborhood commercial citywide, but potentially to varying degrees, recognizing that starting wide and narrowing down is typically a good approach as needed. We'll factor in any environmental constraints such as critical areas. We'll expand allowances for home occupations where it's appropriate to do so. And we're gonna try to align this, or we will keep the aligning the scale of any commercial businesses with the scale of residential. So we're not looking to increase heights or major development standards, major building envelopes, changes for this project. Regarding parking, we assume that we will be following our parking regulations that were currently updated through requirements from the state, which means that we won't require off-street parking for small businesses under a certain square footage, which through this project, we will likely limit commercial square footage to below that threshold. And then neighborhood-wide curb management regulations will be assessed as a separate project in 2027. So those were all approved by council. Some other guidance that they gave us that we didn't necessarily reach consensus or they didn't... reach consensus on. But what we heard was that there is some interest in reviewing the findings from the planning commission with the council before or after a public hearing. There is some interest in relaxed regulations given economic feasibility of small businesses. And then no matter what we do, strong attention should be paid to those unintended consequences that may arise from whatever direction we go in. So that was the general feel from council there. And now we're going to talk about some existing regulations. This corresponds with a page eight in your packet. But this section goes over all of the ways that our municipal code and our zoning code regulate aspects of all types of development, not just residential, not just commercial. Liam is here with me. He's a planner in the current planning division of our department. And he works to review development permits daily. He works with the community. And he has the knowledge and experience in applying these code sections. So I invite Liam to walk you through these now. All right.

So again, my name is Liam. Nice to meet you all. Yes, I'll be going over some of our existing regs and how we view and regulate commercial buildings and uses in the city currently, particularly focused on the residential zones, which is where this project is focused. Obviously, the big one is that residential zones largely either prohibit commercial uses or require a...

I have trouble hearing you.

Okay, I will try to speak up. Is that better?

Yes.

Okay. Awesome. For the most part, the low density zones do not either prohibit commercial uses or they will require a lengthy or expensive land use approval process. So there's one significant barrier there. The KMC, the municipal code, requires permits to be obtained for most changes to buildings. So whether that's structural alterations or additions. And then as well, prohibits parking and loading and unloading in common use areas. some of the more general or miscellaneous zoning code regulations that apply to commercial and residential development. The street code chapter 95 establishes regulations to maintain land use buffers between uses of different intensities to try to mitigate impacts between them. Chapter 100 establishes regulations for signs that is obviously relevant here because New commercial businesses will want signage. Currently, detached dwelling units are allowed two square feet for non-electrical signs, and our current home occupation regulations apply a similar regulation. Developments that are mixed use generally will allow electrical signs only in the commercial portion of it. The chapter 105 also goes over pedestrian access. So there's different additional improvements that are required for commercial uses. Detestable units and middle housing are exempt from these. As well, there are certain right-of-way improvements. So depending on the cost of the scope of work, there may be certain improvements to public space that are required. Loading areas are regulated, so they have to be screened or located in a location that's not visible from the right-of-way. Garbage and recycling receptacles and storage areas similarly also need to be screened and outside of setbacks. um however those requirements are not required for a detached dwelling unit or middle housing uses um additionally there are some general like nuisance related uh regulations so glare and lighting air quality and odor noise these are all intended to mitigate or to limit uh potential impacts of these sort of nuisance effects that that can come from different uses being in proximity to each other happy to go into more detail on some of those things. But for example, with air quality and odor, the code stays pretty general and kind of subjective, kind of just describing if the emissions or odor annoys, injures, endangers, et cetera, then it's considered a violation of the code. We also have regulations on outdoor uses, so fencing, dimensional restrictions. And many of these standards can be modified through a process one director decision. And then additionally, we have a section about marijuana retail, which restricts the location of those businesses from certain other types of uses, such as elementary schools, playgrounds, and childcare facilities. Moving into home occupations more specifically as we regulate them now, they're very limited. The intent is generally to preserve the existing neighborhood character and essentially to kind of hide the commercial as much as possible. And so there are limits on who can operate the commercial space. how much the structures, the buildings on site can be altered. And for home occupations, usually that requires no alteration to the interior or exterior of the structure. There are limitations on pickups and deliveries and number of customers served per day, as well as size limitations on the overall gross floor area. So yeah, that covers my portion. Happy to answer any questions as we continue.

Thanks, Liam. Cool. So Kirkland currently has over 4,000 home-based business license holders. That's quite a few. And those are governed by the section that Liam just went over. When comparing our approach to home occupation regulation to other regional cities, the standards that are regulated are very similar. So each city across jurisdictions pretty much regulates the same thing, just to different degrees. And that's noted in your packet. I won't reiterate all of the comparisons we made, but the overall message I think from these is that there are some areas where Kirkland is stricter or a little bit tighter in their home occupation regulations. And then there are places where we are more lenient or more liberal in what we allow in comparison to places like Bellevue and Bothell and even Redmond. Those include customer maximum or excuse me, mostly employee maximums. And Bellevue is pretty strict with their delivery pickups as well. But all to say, we all regulate similarly just to varying degrees.

Any questions?

Since we've been regulating home occupations for a while, we do have cases that come up where home occupations do exceed or violate the code as written. When talking to our code enforcement team, I did learn that this is a very minor portion of our total code enforcement cases. It doesn't come up very often, especially recently. They did. The code enforcement officers relayed that sometimes it's a bit difficult to assess noncompliance or to prove the purpose of a certain visit to a home occupation because it is also a residence. And in residential uses, we don't regulate how many deliveries you get, for example, or how many visitors you have per hour or per day. So our code enforcement team has struggled in the past to kind of prove that when it's complained on. When it does come up, the most frequent concerns include those excessive visits, exterior storage violations, meaning people storing business-related materials outside in plain view, Noise generated, especially after hours, that's one that came up a couple times. And then modifications to a driveway or a yard to accommodate excessive vehicles, business-related items, things of that nature. So that's what I learned from our code enforcement team. And it gives you an idea of, while they might not be very common, they do cause impacts. or the code enforcement cases, while they aren't common, they do assess for those types of impacts. All right now the fun stuff so as we go through this project there's going to be questions that come up that. I wanted to at least raise with the Commission before asking you to answer them So these are just questions that I want the Commission to eventually be able to answer by the end of this but. Nothing you should focus on giving input on necessarily tonight. But there are certain decisions that we'll have to make regarding this before we can draft a code that responds to our priorities. So questions regarding expanding business opportunity for home occupations is one. How much should a home occupation regulation set evolve? How much do we need to change our home occupations? Maybe we find that it's pretty solid and we don't need to change at all. I find that outreach to home-based business owners will help inform this question a lot. Hearing from the home-based business owners who are regulated by these rules today and how they affect their business could inform your decision on that. Another one is what should the benchmark for evaluating home occupations be? Should it be the standards we have on the books or should it be the range of activity that commonly occur at a residence? So getting back to that fact that we don't regulate certain portions or certain aspects of residential uses such as deliveries and visits per day, but should we continue to do so for home occupations? Enforcement is another one. Harking back to what I learned from our code enforcement team, maybe there's an opportunity to reform or revise the regulations so they can realistically be enforced upon and there's less ambiguity, they're more objective, they're more measurable. I think that that would go a long way for our code enforcement team. So that's something we should think about throughout this process. The modification criteria that's in the packet is... as old as the the regulations themselves so an opportunity now with this project could be to assess that modification criteria see what should be modifiable and what the process should be for modifying um those those kind of deviations from the standard code And then lastly, scale and activity. What's the appropriate level of activity for a successful home occupation before it no longer feels residential? So again, as Liam mentioned, home occupations are clearly incidental to a residential use. They're there to provide an avenue for small businesses to operate at a low cost in a low risk environment. but they shouldn't be commercial. And I think that's something that we're looking to find that line and that'll then inform what we decide for neighborhood serving commercial, which is kind of the next intensity up from home occupations, if that makes sense. So lots for you to think about and dwell on, but nothing you have to answer tonight. Any questions on these questions?

I mean, to me, and some of this might be more into when we're really getting to the neighborhood sovereign commercial, but some of it really is kind of the goal of what is really the purpose of expanding this. Because I believe earlier on, there was some thought of, you know, we really want to save these extra car trips. We want to save this extra driving. But when I look at things that really are probably going to make a real difference in that. The only one I can see that like these home-based businesses are really serving at the moment is childcare. For most other things, like let's be honest, I don't get a massage. I don't go to the chiropractor. I don't get my hair cut so frequently that I think it would make, you know, that having somebody in my neighborhood, having a home-based business would dramatically change my behavior. Whereas, you know, when I look at things that are really like, that would save a lot of trips, it might be things like I take an exercise class in my neighbor's living room, or somebody is operating a coffee shop where I get my daily coffee from, or they have a small corner shop where when I run out of, you know, sugar or milk or whatever, I can go there versus the store. So I guess to me, the question is really, what are we trying to drive? Because clearly, the restrictions are going to need to be loosened a lot more for those applications than they are at the moment. But that's also going to change the character of my neighborhood a lot more than just saying, okay, we've got somebody down here who accepts three clients a day to do, you know, chiropractor or something.

Yeah. Yeah. Yes, Commissioner Nolan, you're raising a good point. And that's kind of the crux of this whole project. It's like separating the concepts in ways that make sense and that are enforceable and that really do actually benefit the entire community.

Before we move on, I think.

Thank you. My tactic here. Thank you, Leandra and staff and to One of my questions that might be a precursor to Commissioner Nolan's is to understand what might be useful in this work. There was some reference in our e-packet to feedback from the community. Is that part of what we'll be going through? So, um, specific use types that they're saying, this would be awesome if we could do this here.

That's what we're working hard to learn from the community. It's not something I'm ready to share tonight since we're still doing outreach and engagement, but the next meeting will be very, um, engagement heavy and we'll, we'll do some analysis on what the community says is most serving to them.

Um, Kind of continuing on that, one of the things you said is reaching out to the 4,000 small businesses that are currently, I think that would be more telltale like how are the current codes affecting them? And what complaints have they had from neighbors? And then also how do we capitalize? I know probably 10 in my neighborhood alone, people doing services, yet it's not registered. So part of this was to try to make an avenue for those people to be legitimate get a license through kirkland we collect sales tax you know and the community does benefit from it so i kind of would like to see the feedback you know how because we're asking questions and i don't know really it's hard to tell from all these businesses that we currently have How would this benefit them? And how would they maybe fear less, oh, I'm doing something that's illegal and I'm going to get caught? And then how do we capitalize on the people that are already cutting hair or doing some of these things that are, and they're not registered?

Right, yeah, we do have some feelers out to the home-based business community. I've scheduled about two dozen interviews with home-based business owners over the next couple of weeks. So we'll be learning a lot from them and that's what I'll plan to report back next. But yeah, good point.

Well, one of the things, too, that I looking at all the different cities and how they have their regulations and it went all from, you know, limiting the square footage to something that I don't think is a business could do because my office, you know, is more than 20 by 20. So it is interesting. the square footage was so limiting, but then Seattle had no regulation on square footage. So, um, it seems like there's such a huge amount of difference in the way different cities are, you know, it's not whether they're more lenient than Kirkland or less lenient than Kirkland is, that's a huge difference. And also some of the, looking at some of the, well, if you're gonna have a business, you have to have a, in one case, I think it said 50 foot buffer. that would be impossible in most lots um i mean it and i may be saying am i wrong in one of the cities in the buffers that you had to have a fairly sizable buffer um that seems very difficult in most for the neighborhood commercial um so those are the things that i look at and i go well that's so restrictive that you know um that would scare a lot of people who are even thinking about. So, I mean, those are the things that I think we have to kind of look at is, okay, what are the barriers to actually even starting a small business?

Yeah. What's the balance between minimizing impacts and making the rules unworkable? Because at a certain point, if you overregulate, it becomes economically infeasible or for other reasons, logistically infeasible. So, yeah, there's a balance.

And I think in our society, too, in the last 10 years, deliveries have changed. My neighbors and myself included, that Amazon and UPS and FedEx truck are on the street multiple times. I mean, my FedEx or my UPS driver brings my dog treats, knows him by name. And, you know, it is the delivery thing is kind of difficult because you can't. We all get deliveries now. And I understand, well, maybe not a semi unloading, but I don't think most small businesses get actual semis coming in and unloading with a forklift.

Right, and that gets back to what can we measure and what can we, like, so for example, the interior square footage, unless there's a complaint, we wouldn't really be able to know as a department how much square footage you're dedicating in your home to your home occupation. And maybe that's why Seattle doesn't regulate it because it's not observable from the outside. It's not measurable. So yeah, keeping that lens of like, what can we enforce realistically is a big part of that.

I was wondering, do we have a record of applications that have been received but denied and the reasons for that that we can go back and evaluate?

Applications for?

Oh, you know, like business licenses or like that. Presumably, I'm assuming that people have to file for approval for their home-based business. They can't just set it up. And I mean, at least through... business licensing, or is that maybe I'm misinterpreting? Yeah, yeah.

Explain.

So in general, with home occupations especially, Planning doesn't actually review an application for those. It mostly goes through business licensing. And then the way that we end up enforcing all the regulations is if we get a complaint and it goes through code enforcement. So that's sort of the current setup right now is where we have the set of regulations. They're not verified at the business license stage. Commissioner Goodneil?

As I said, when I was a planner here, we reviewed all the business licenses. And I don't know if the business license people still route them through planning, but we cut a lot that way. And it wasn't just home occupations. You could catch a lot of businesses that went into zones that didn't belong there in the first place. So, I don't know. I'm not sure if we don't have the staff to start doing that again, but it was a quick way to kind of give the business owner a heads up before they invested a lot of money in doing something that Enforcer was going to have to make them get rid of down the road. But as you all, as I talk to you, I've probably talked to everybody in Kirkland about this. A minimum of 10 people, countless commissioners, former planners, you name it, But I'm glad that it's been separated into sort of two distinct projects. I mean, it could have also almost have been two separate planning work program items. I think expanding the home occupation one is less onerous than the other one. The commercial business, shoot, this topic has been around since I was a young sprout in the 90s, and it's never really quite come to fruition for one reason or another, just because I think there are more impacts and nuisances essentially possibly associated with that. But what I wanted to ask, you guys have a neighborhood services survey out for people to respond to. And I think the deadline date to respond is like September 28th. And I'm wondering that that timeline, is there enough timeline to compile the responses and is it going to make it to our next meeting to be able to evaluate what some of those responses are. It seemed to me that it might be concluded, I guess, a little bit too further down the the pipeline.

Yeah, we, we originally set the cutoff date for, I think the 14th or the 18th of September, but recognizing there was some really kind of a big community events towards the end of September conversation with council. We have city all for all, we wanted to keep it open and collect as much information and feedback from community members through those avenues and events. So we decided to close it at the end of September and, Having said that, there's preemptive work that we can do as staff to begin analyzing the responses that have come in already. We have almost 400 responses. And so as the deadline for the survey closes, we can kind of begin to analyze and then feed in the responses that come in near the end. So we wouldn't be waiting necessarily for the responses. The survey to close before starting that work. And then that'll help us get in before the deadline. You're right. It would be a little bit close, especially if we are aiming for that October 8th planning commission meeting. But if I don't know, I don't get to decide when the next meeting is. So I'll leave that to the big guys.

Because I think commissioner Jacobson brought it up at the last meeting that the timeline shown on the work program is kind of aggressive. I yeah. I don't see it getting finished by the end of December just because of limited number of meetings and maybe the home occupation portion of it. But the other one has just too many what ifs that need to be sifted out and talked about and sorted through that it might be a, I don't know if you could have pwp 12 a 12 be but maybe 12 be gets punted to 2000 you know 27 or whatever just I'm concerned that on that neighborhood commercial that because we're trying to keep a deadline that we're not giving it enough time to really sift through and I don't want to just get something on the books because we want something on the books I want it to be thought that out. Millions of times before.

I think we'll continue to take planning commission feedback on that. And if at some point it becomes prudent or a desire of the commission to split it, I think we can discuss that and I can coordinate with the chair.

Yeah, just a thought.

Vice Chairman Day.

Commissioner Nolan have her hand up for I was just going to say what Commissioner when you all said just less eloquently.

Well, I won't be eloquent, but I think I think it's fair that we're sort of flying blind without some input from the actual people who would be either impacted by this or want to understand how they could benefit from these changes. So is it and I want you to be able to leave today with some information from us. So it sounds like it might be helpful that we start answering some of those questions, even if we recognize that our input might take shape and evolve differently once we get that additional data.

I don't think there's any harm in discussing like initial reads.

Yeah.

Who has some initial thoughts? And this is, sorry, this is specific for home occupation. We have a separate slide with a list of policy questions specific to neighborhood commercial, and we'll get there. But maybe to inform that discussion and talk about these questions if you'd like, the next slide, is an explanation of how we might use your feedback from tonight. So I think this would be helpful to go over. So this is a table that just describes possible or possibilities for what we might hear from you, themes of feedback. So for example, we hear, input about what's acceptable scale and intensity for home occupation. We might use that to figure out what's the right number of employees to limit or the right customer amounts to visit. Another example is if a commissioner gives input on their perceived threshold between what's a residential activity and a business activity, if we can get some of that read from you guys that could help us establish criteria for the the cutoff between home occupations and a potential neighborhood serving commercial use another one businesses and business operation activities that may affect nearby residents so if we start to talk about what the commission feels might impact the community we can then take that and consider modifying the standards related to those impacts where possible so things like hours of operation noise vehicle activity customer activity etc input on what the commission feels is compatible with residential buildings can help us uh help could help inform exterior standards so what we allow or require for alterations for signage for storage things like that so i hope this is helpful this is just kind of a an initial um

get your brain going kind of slide to help you understand how we might use your feedback tonight do we want to split the conversation at least tonight between home occupation and neighborhood commercial to better organize our discussion okay so feedback do you mind going back to the previous slide so feedback on from occupations Well, everyone else has had a chance to speak. So I want to plus one Commissioner Reiser's comments on bringing people in from the dark and getting people to go legitimate. I do think that is a very important goal for this project. I don't want to forget that. I think there's a lot of opportunity to modernize the regulations for home occupations, especially reflecting what we're actually capable of enforcing. Um, I think, uh, a lot of, and this blends into neighborhood commercial, but I think in terms of answering the question for the line is, um, at least for my initial thoughts, it's like, do you need to really seriously change the layout of a building? So that would trigger a building permit that feels like a good dividing line, um, As well as more sort of office kind of work stuff that you could just do in a home office that doesn't seem to cross into neighborhood commercial but if you get into like a retail kind of thing that feels to be that feels to me to be crossing the line. And I mean, a lot of it, like, especially on scale and activity level, I think, for a home occupation, especially really does fall under what's enforceable and then what is even expected for a residential use. We expect quite a lot of visitors and I don't think anyone's really gonna, like, that's not a violation of the residential use to have friends over for a party.

Just one more question. The friends of the party. I mean, I'm thinking of a number of uses that you might arguably say you don't need to really change the layout of the building, but it might still be like, you know, the question would be, is it like a friends over for a party? Like, let's say I had a large living room and every Saturday I taught a yoga class there for pay or whatever. I knew some friends who I'm quite sure this was not entirely above board with the city, but they would throw these large kind of viewing parties where they might charge everyone $40, but then provide them with food and whatever. So clearly there was a business aspect for it because they were collecting money. But on the other hand, how different is that from just a very large party? And I'm curious, I guess, where that would fall in and straddle the line between the two, because you could argue, how different is this than... Just having a bunch of friends over every Saturday morning to, you know, to take yoga together versus to what extent is this a commercial operation that should be regulated? And I don't really know.

Not all interior alterations would trigger a building permit. It's only when there's structural alterations or there's a threshold change. in the building code and electrical and mechanical permits are not going to trigger these ADA requirements. Those are separate permits, separate code.

Anyone have other thoughts on home occupation? Go ahead.

It just seems like it kind of comes down to especially with like noise and activity. Well, is that any different than I have, you know, the house across from me has three 18 year olds. Well, let me tell you, it's a lot of cars and a lot of activity, which is great. I have no complaints. I really actually enjoy it because it's active and fun and it has made everybody in my street more tolerant, which is great. We were pretty prissy. So, I look at it as, yes, I think the way this seems to be going, because when we originally talked, we actually talked about a cafe or a, I don't see that it's going in that direction. Emmy, you can guide me, tell me if I'm wrong.

Do you mean by it, do you mean the home occupation allowance?

Yeah, we originally talked about, I mean, some of the iterations that we talked about was like, you know, would we allow someone to have a microbrewery or something like that? And it doesn't seem like in this iteration, we are going along that lines. That was a far-fetched, you know, even when we first start talking. But, you know, I don't know, maybe doors should be left open. Not that we would allow it right now, but just so that we're not doing this now and then not looking at it again for another 10 years, which is very likely. So I don't know. I think I would like to make sure that we we allow for modifications in the future very easily so that if we are a little tighter right now that they can be eased up.

I'm new here, so I have a question. So for cafes or microbreweries, you know, like a food establishment, there was, I think the number was, the customer number was six. Now to run a business, if I only allow six customers in a day, then I will not make a profit in my business. So I feel like for certain businesses, probably that number works for food or beverage. We probably, and also we need to think if this is a business, that person might want to scale up. So for future, we may have to think, okay, now probably six, maybe two years, four years later. As things change in larger scale, maybe that allows to 10. Again, I'm new, so I saw that. I just thought about that.

No, I mean, and you hit the nail on the head why we're looking at these guidelines right now, because six is repressive for... a business and it should be more on the flow. How many people are there at a single time? How are you impacting your neighborhood? Um, because you could easily have, you know, three people there an hour and still not impact your neighborhood. And it, you know, but if you had a fussy neighbor that said and was actually taking license plates, and I think that's more like what code enforcement officers have to deal with is, um, complaints where they're presented with, okay, this number of people visited this house in a certain period of time. And it should be more along the lines is, is that business actually impacting or changing the scope of the neighborhood or the feel of the neighborhood? Or are they doing anything that a normal person wouldn't be doing at the same time, even though they're running their business out of their house?

So I want to pause here because it feels like we're shifting more towards the neighborhood commercial conversation. But I think we're, it seems like everyone said their piece on the home occupation. I think we're broadly aligned that we're I think we're probably open to changes across the board for home occupation. Where I think there's going to be a lot more discussion is going to be the neighborhood commercial. Okay, so we can move on to the neighborhood commercial. Before I go again, does anyone else have thoughts they'd like to share on neighborhood commercials specifically?

And just to clarify, I think that's kind of what you two were sort of taking towards is the name of the commercial thought, which goes beyond like the six persons or six customer.

Good segue. Okay. Let's get into it. Neighborhood serving commercial uses. So as has been alluded to, this is kind of, at least right now it's being seen by staff as like the evolution after a home-based business or the continuation of the home-based business where a home-based business owner is growing, is graduating, is gaining experience. a following perhaps is scaling up but they don't have the capital or the resources to occupy a expensive commercial storefront in a commercial district there's a big gap and the packet talks a little bit about that that middle rung of the ladder that is just non-existent especially here in kirkland so that's what this section of the the project seeks to address um Regarding commercial, we included in the packet and on the screen commonly regulated commercial uses. It's a long list and they all have their own definitions, but as you can see, there's a wide variety of allowed commercial uses that we typically see in our office and commercial zones. The third bullet, the grocery store, drugstore, laundromat, dry cleaner, barbershop, shoe repair shop, it is a use that is allowed in our medium and high density residential zones. It's very specific, but I think it's seeking to capture what maybe we once considered neighborhood serving commercial, low impact, small scale neighborhood serving services. businesses right now if you wanted to do that you couldn't do it in a low density zone as liam mentioned you could only do that in medium and high residential zones under a process that is open to the public and it's uh appealable it's a process to a i believe and oh sorry here hearing examiner decision so Pretty cumbersome, pretty involved. It has some criteria that the business would have to prove it complies with. Other than that, we see in our commercial zones, retail, private lodges, community facilities, entertainment, office and restaurant as our main ones. Alluding or getting back to what I had touched on before, the missing middle of commercial spaces is just an acknowledgement that smaller businesses do face barriers to operating from vacant spaces in traditional commercial shopping areas. I will say from the outreach that we have conducted, there's a lot of community input about, well, why don't we just put the businesses in the vacant storefronts that we see all around town? Like those are perfect for them, but it's a little bit more complex than that. There's high startup costs, it's limited availability, and there are some pretty stringent requirements that private property owners of those buildings may just prefer chains for various reasons and economic reasons. There's a lot of competition with large corporations. And as Commissioner Bunyal alluded to, or mentioned, there's risks that are associated when you start a business and moving to a commercial storefront would be a higher risk situation than maybe expanding your your ADU and starting there. So that is the recognition of what the small business owners are up against. And then neighborhood serving commercial uses kind of provides that intermediate step for a home occupation before individual storefront might be more realistic for them. So it's intended to serve the immediate residential community, hyper local, intended to support neighborhood cohesion and local support, local economy support, reducing reliance on big chain stores for the Kirkland economy. And then it facilitates a more diverse business landscape where we're seeing small and emerging business owners having some more success. But we're recognizing that there's a big... with that list of commercial, you can see there's a wide range of what a commercial use is. And something that staff has recognized is really important is to identify what is neighborhood serving? What actually would best serve the community? What would people want to walk to? What would they want to live next to? What would be most convenient, most accessible for people who have to bear the impacts of a higher intensity commercial use next to them? Preliminary strategies that we are thinking about as staff is to really, really focus on the use and the allowed uses as well as the prohibited uses. So focusing on business types that meet reoccurring everyday needs of most of the community. And we're hearing a lot from our survey and from our outreach and from our engagement of what people what people really want or need closer to them. And another strategy is to allow uses that encourage repeat visits and frequent visits, noting that as Commissioner Chowdhury kind of mentioned, you need a consistent business or you need a consistent customer base. So if a business is encouraging repeat visits and frequent visits, but also shorter shopping times, You don't have to rely on big crowds or large groups of people at once. You kind of have a steady drip of customers that will sustain your business and also reduce impacts on the community around you. And then prioritizing uses whose customer base is spread across many small trips rather than large gatherings. So I think I mentioned that. So that's kind of how we might be able to regulate the business types, but recognizing that businesses evolve and new uses might come to be in a couple of years, we can't identify every neighborhood serving use. So it'll also be important to regulate development and performance standards to make sure whatever business decides to operate there is operating as we intend, which is to limit those adverse impacts. So we can do that by limiting the size of businesses. Naturally, a 500 square foot or 800 square foot cafe is going to have a much different business model and much different business needs than say a 2,000 square foot restaurant or a 3,000 square foot restaurant. And that's just the reality of the sizing. That's a kind of natural limiter for these businesses. And it echoes into the the potential for fewer impacts to the neighborhood. And limiting hours of operation and outdoor activities is another way to make sure that these businesses have minimal impacts to the community around them. Limiting vehicle-oriented improvements, this one's a little tricky, but I think that it's I think it's known that if you provide a bunch of parking, people are gonna drive to a spot because they know there's parking. So therefore not providing a ton of vehicle oriented infrastructure and improvements would ideally facilitate the ability for people to walk in, roll to the spot or to this shop rather, or business. As the public comment earlier, we heard from B, It'll also be very important to make sure that people can get there by foot. And part of the outreach that we're doing is identifying where that is the toughest in the city, where that infrastructure is lacking. And that's one of the key findings we're looking forward to learning from our engagement. Requiring or encouraging pedestrian orientation. Again, it will be... Nice if every neighborhood-serving business had to install a sidewalk, but that does bring unintended consequences of economic feasibility for the business. So where's that threshold or where's that tipping point? That's something we might be able to explore. And then considering on-site residency requirements. So maybe it's not... allowed as a primary standalone commercial use, but maybe we require some degree of someone living on site so it's not just a store that is vacant at night and it kind of retains some of that domestic essence or residential character to it. Those are just some ideas that we have so far, so far. Pictures for you. We've done some research to figure out who's doing these, where are they, what they could look like. So a neighborhood serving commercial location or business could be a primary use. Here are some examples, both in Tacoma on the left and then Spokane on the right. It could be a small house-sized building that operates in the community. It could be attached to a residential use. We have a garage coffee cafe on the left and then Volunteer Park Cafe in Seattle on the right. That's a coffee shop with, I believe, a residence above, a two-story building, pretty iconic in Seattle. So it could be something where the, it could be a scenario where the commercial is attached in some way to the residential use. it could be detached from the residential use, but still accessory to or incidental to. So an example on the left is a hair salon gadu in the backyard where there's a home that faces the street and this is a hair salon where someone could Come to get services and then on the right there's a clearly a single family home with a some sort of business front fronted detached. store structure on the right, so it could be still accessory to but detached from the dwelling unit as well. Or it could be temporary. It could be mobile. Something that I've learned through my interview so far is that something that's kind of trendy right now is like a porch pickup bakery where you just come and you had coordinated with the business owner and you bought your bread and then they leave it out for you and you pick it up. Or another scenario might be a small vehicle-like structure, temporary mobile truck that's parked in a driveway or on private property that still serves the immediate community on a temporary or cyclical basis. So those are just some examples about what neighborhood commercial could be. Your packet talks a lot about how other cities have approached this. These are a few slides that relay that same information. I'm not going to read them off to you, but the permitted uses across the five cities we studied are pretty consistent, and they align with kind of the strategy staff mentioned earlier of hyperlocal, neighborhood surveying, grab-and-go, short-trip type practices. everyday uses that are still useful for most of the community. So food and beverage, small groceries, repairs is another one. We hear a lot about hardware stores in our outreach and engagement. And those are different ways that the peer cities have assessed what is neighborhood serving to them. Prohibited uses are also very consistent, again, limiting businesses that bring cars or bring a lot of vehicle traffic. Burien has also taken a few more steps and have prohibited marijuana producers in retail, religious facilities, storage and sale of building materials is another one. So there's a lot that you can prohibit through your studies. where they're located or where they're allowed rather in cities is also varied. Some approaches take or some cities take the approach of regulating it based on street type or based on orientation to the rest of the block. So for example, only on corner lots to increase vehicle on site, or excuse me, on street parking and visibility. Some areas, or for example, Seattle mandates it on the ground floor or the basement. So it's regulated based on where it's at in the structure. And then a couple of cities do prohibit these types of neighborhoods serving commercial uses on dead end streets or cul-de-sacs for which Kirkland has many so. Maximum size is also pretty varied, ranging from 1,000 feet for outdoor seating, but 1,500 square feet all the way up to 50% of the gross floor area on the ground floor of a structure. So depending on how big the house is, that could be sizable. Yeah, lots of range there. You could regulate it by square foot or by percentage of total gross floor area. Setbacks, again, a few cities have opted to just align with what they require out of residential uses, and then some have allowed a reduced setback of two feet to, I think, encourage that pedestrian orientation, get it closer to the public right-of-way, make it a little bit more accessible for people. Parking is pretty consistent as well with the recent state parking reform. A lot of these cities, and Kirkland included, have eliminated parking requirements or parking minimum requirements, and that is reflected in their neighbor and commercial ordinances. Bicycle parking was considered by the city of Berrien, and they also require screening for any of their parking. Hours of operation vary, but range from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Some cities regulate weekdays and weekends differently. And then finally, land use buffers. So this is a separation between a subject business and their neighbors, and there's different standards. And as Liam reviewed with you, we also have these for our uses as well. So we would likely implement something similar. All right, here's that policy question list that I wanted to share with you regarding neighborhoods commercials specifically. This one, or these are meant to just get you thinking, but we should at some point, come to a general consensus on what the purpose is of these allowances. I think that we've all kind of gathered around that idea already, but what makes a neighborhood business or what makes a business neighborhood serving? What does the community need and how should these allowances seek to address those needs? Where should these be concentrated? If anywhere, maybe they shouldn't be concentrated, maybe they should be dispersed. That's a policy question we'll have to answer one of these days. What characteristics make a site feel appropriate for a neighborhood commercial activity? That's something we'll be exploring. Scale is also a big part of this. What should these businesses look like in relation to the neighborhood? And should privacy and separation be prioritized over integration with the neighborhood? There's pros and cons to both of those ideas. And then regarding benefits impacts and trade offs will need to assess what Community benefits should be prioritized and what potential adverse impacts are most important to avoid. And then one more slide for neighborhood commercial. This is that again, theme of feedback. So if you told us your definition or characterization of a neighborhood serving commercial use, that helps us identify which business types should be prohibited or allowed. If you let us know how you feel about scale and intensity, that can help us establish limits and thresholds for sizing, square footage, hours of operation, or other different methods for measuring intensity. And then priorities for both development feasibility and neighborhood impacts. Hearing those can help us kind of calibrate what's what barriers should be reduced if possible, and what measurable impacts such as noise, traffic, and outdoor activity can be easily managed with these regulations. And then lastly, the public benefits and intended community outcomes. So if the commission has specific ideas on what they're looking for these businesses to to produce for the community or what their intended outcomes are for these allowances, that can help us prioritize the different aspects of the development standards, such as access, walkability, or community gathering opportunities, things like that. So I hop back to this slide.

I just have one question. Sure. Those other jurisdictions you showed, Do they allow these commercial uses as standalone uses or is there a requirement there be some sort of homeowner occupancy with them? These are all permitted uses, permitted primary uses by right.

So there's no special approval process and they can be standalone. The city of Renton was exploring the idea of requiring residency on site, but they haven't passed their final ordinance. So I'm not sure if they're following through on that.

Right.

Okay.

And all of those pictures you showed us were so beautiful. I kind of want to see the ones that would maybe be borderline difficult. Sure. I don't mean to, but see, I would love any one of those, maybe not the Volunteer Park Cafe next door, but all the rest of them, I would, if a neighbor did that, I would be, oh, that's great. That's kind of fun. I kind of want to see what is pushing the limit of, okay, this has caused problems.

Yeah. They're out there.

I, I, you know, I don't know, guys, I don't want to, uh, because when we talk about noise and we had that list there, well, we had taverns on there and I think that's where, what Kirkland's probably neighbors are afraid of is, you know, okay, if we, okay, certain things, could it be put into my neighborhood? And, You know, and all of those businesses that I saw up there, I think would fit nicely on a Kirkland Street. And I think if you limited cul-de-sacs, we would limit too much of Kirkland. So it should be something that we could put on any street in Kirkland instead of having those types of limitations. I'd rather, you know, kind of limit the, you know, scale and... desirability, I guess. But I mean, those were kind of exciting and that's kind of what I wanted to see in like a corner business.

Yeah, through the research I've done, there's also some not good examples that I can provide you with if you're interested or maybe next time because it's all on the table. You can't control what your neighbor will do with these allowances. So it's good to review everything. Okay.

Kind of just feeding into that, I mean, as well as kind of discussing like which of these regulations would make sense. An awful lot of, again, these cute, super desirable businesses like coffee shops, little tiny bodegas, whatever. It seems as though limiting the number of people to see them, you know. to be there per hour is going to absolutely wreck them. Like, I can't imagine saying you can only have five people per hour come into your coffee shop. I don't think you could sell anywhere enough of coffee to make that viable. But I am thinking as far as limiting the bad, it seems like particularly looking at hours of operation might be a really good thing because, you know, even if it's a very raucous tavern, if it shuts down by 8 p.m., I'm probably okay with it. Whereas You know, the idea of having drunk people wandering down my front yard singing at 2 a.m. in the morning is, needless to say, not very appealing.

That was my fear, too. Yes. Some wino asleep in my backyard.

So I'm curious, in reading the packet, I don't recall any of the allowed uses being daycare. And I know that's a whole separate licensing thing anyway, but so is... The thing when you wash your hair and you cut it, right? Beauty salon, right? So, you know, but when you ask the question, what would be a good example of a neighborhood commercial serving entity? Like that comes to mind for me, even though my children are older, but I would have loved that. You know, I could work late and two blocks away, my kids are. So I would want to consider that as a use just initially. From a location perspective, I'm glad you brought up the cul-de-sac thing. I live in a cul-de-sac, you're right. They're pretty... prolific in Kirkland, I think that those should be allowed. But I think depending on the type of entity, if it is a tavern that closes at eight, which is fine because that's my bedtime, that might need to be more on an arterial, right? So the use cases might look different depending on the location. And we haven't gotten there yet, but we should look through that lens. And then random question, as I think about a neighboring cul-de-sac near me, there's an HOA. So to what degree do homeowners and HOAs and CCNRs prohibit what we might be able to do?

Yeah, that is a factor. I've done some outreach to some HOAs in Kingsgate. There's a good amount of them up there and learning from their CCNRs and their bylaws that a lot of them do prohibit any use besides single family residential. The city doesn't enforce upon CCNRs, but it is a factor that would likely limit the location of some of these

I wanted to clarify real quick to that. We already allow daycares in residential areas. Most of them are permitted as like family childcare homes where someone is on site and they're licensed through the state. So it's kind of different, but they are allowed. And the state recently upped the maximum number of students that can attend those. And we've updated our cookbook knowledge that problem solved. Thank you.

Actually going for something adjacent to daycares. I'm curious what the regulations are or are not about pets, because again, that's another thing a lot of people love, but also I'm not sure how much I would either love my neighbors to have 40 unruly dogs staying in their backyard at all hours of the night. Yeah.

That's a potentially prohibited use. I think I've seen a couple of cities consider that too. We agree.

We don't want gun sales or marijuana sales anywhere. Done. See? There you go. That's a takeaway. Thank you.

Wait.

I know you've wanted to shoot those 18-year-olds, but it sounds like you've come to enjoy them.

Something I've mentioned before is, and not to be an indie about this, but allowing uses that make noises above and beyond... what your neighbor would typically do. Like if you have a cafe or a restaurant or a wine bar next door, they're going to be making noise potentially seven days a week, 12 hours a day, which your neighbor hopefully isn't doing that. But also some of these uses have sort of ancillary things like dumpsters and employees. And I've worked in the food service industry and that can be loud. It isn't a noise you would normally hear from your neighbors, hopefully, in a residential area. And I have concerns. An example I've seen, I think they're in one of the sort of light industrials. But Daru, when they first started out, was very, very small. But it's expanded. And I'm sure it's all legal, but I would sure hate to be their neighbors because of all the traffic and the noise that is on that street that wasn't there 10, 15 years ago. And as much as Kirkland loves that restaurant, that's another one of those unintended consequences that might be out there.

I have a long list of things to go through, so any other thoughts before I get into that?

I liked the light and glare portion. I think it's really important because as we have gotten more and more of those Costco string lights, my neighbors have all put them up and, you know, and then we've actually had to have a conversation with them. You need to put them on a timer because after midnight, it's absolutely ridiculous. So I think light and glare is really important.

Any other comments? Okay. So when I think about this, one of the big goals for me is making businesses that are not possible in Kirkland today because they cannot find the real estate because we have a limited supply of square footage for commercial uses in our neighborhood centers. And often, partially because our zoning encourages it, but often they're quite large commercial spaces in the range of one, 2,000 or more square feet. And that's not feasible for someone starting out. When this was a conversation in the comprehensive plan, like I even heard some interest and I would hope that we check in with the Kirkland Chamber because I know that there are a lot of business owners there that have, they may currently be located in a neighborhood center or in downtown Orchardham Lake, but like they understand how difficult it is to start a business. they would have appreciated it being easier to start it. And so when I think about the impacts, I think it's largely hours of operations that can address a lot of it. And then also size. I think the square footage that we allow for it can address a lot of the concerns around the concurrent number of customers. And kind of based on Rex, Scott, and Tanushree's comments, I think we might even want to consider like, rather than limit a number of customers per day but a limit of concurrent customers at the same time that might be a more flexible um or maybe not maybe it's not that enforceable but that's just a thought from listening to them um and so like when i think about it like i think a good limit in terms of what we allow city-wide would be 500 square feet that's roughly the size of a two-car garage I'm not that worried about a lot of disruptive impacts at 500 square feet. And I could even be persuaded to go lower than that. Like at 250 square feet, you're talking about one parking space. I don't know that you can get that disruptive with one parking space. And one of the reasons why I think about that is because I actually think that there are some businesses that would be nice and would make the neighborhood better that are not daily needs. So if I have a record store, I might have a few customers at a time. But if it's in the... disrupting the neighborhood all that much. And I think we would be losing out to prohibit that because we aren't thinking comprehensively enough on it. And so for me, I think there's really, there's the citywide conversation. Anywhere in the city, I think you should be able to start your business in a garage if it's not a disruptive kind of business to build off of. Gina's comments, I don't think we should, I don't think you should sell alcohol, weed, firearms, tobacco in this tier of uses. But I think there should be a second tier in part because we have alcohol is difficult because it's obviously going to be very disruptive. But on the other hand, if you if you can only get drunk by driving somewhere, that's kind of the biggest policy lever we can pull to encourage drunk driving. And so I don't want this whole project to die on that. And I'm willing to let it go. But I do think we should be thinking about maybe limited hours of operations and only in specific areas. Because right now, most people in Kirkland have to drive to go to a bar. And we're kind of asking them to do that drunk on the way home. In terms of like a second tier, I could see that as like only along arterial principal or minor arterials or collector streets. Those are already going to be noisier streets just because they have more traffic. So that's a possible option that wouldn't be as disruptive based relative to what the current baseline. And then I also think that, well, we can limit if it's if the source of alcohol, if it's a bar, we could probably still limited to 500 square feet. But in those areas, I think we could even go up to maybe 1200 square feet. And I use that as a that's our limit for accessory dwelling units. And that feels like. Good threshold. Additionally, based on what I've said, if you are above 500 square feet. You're you have to build to the international building code, not the international residential codes. That's already going to be a sizable. That's like, that's a new development. And you've got to pay different contractors. They get paid more because there's more certifications. And so that's where I think we can really start to address the comments on accessibility because I'm less concerned about the business impact on feasibility if they're already going to be paying quite a bit for the development of it in the first place. Whereas if it's someone just starting in their garage, they're on a nice edge. I don't want to necessarily push them one way or the other. Those are the big things. And then I also, and you'll note that the square footage is, I think all of our neighboring cities are going way too big on those square footages. I'm not interested in a whole home. I'm not really interested in a standalone principal use. But I think that we can, I think that there's some amount of square footage. And also on the comment of do we want to delay it, I actually don't think we should split this item. I think, I think the home occupation conversation is going to be largely wrapped up and not that complicated. And I think this is what the, this topic is what the meat of this work item is going to be and I don't want to delay it. And I think I might be missing one or two things, but we can come back.

Mr. Rutherford. build on the topic of timing there, and this is an approach that I like to encourage anyways, is perhaps we could identify what is a fairly conservative initial implementation of a neighborhood survey commercial that we could do this year, and then also create a way for us to gain feedback on what people would like to do that isn't currently viable because currently you know, those future regulations, and then using that to inform and guide our follow-on conversations at this point that we don't really have a sense of what would people really like to be able to do. And maybe that would also be like a subsequent round of community outreaches, a survey around like what kind of business would you like to be interested in? What would you be interested in opening in the community? I wouldn't... want to hold back our initial adjustments for that. But I think that could be a nice sort of follow-on refinement. I'm not under any sort of illusion that we will get everything right on our first attempt. So that's what I would. And I'm sure there's other complications around like, you know, scheduling staff time. Hopefully we can.

There's also at least part of me that thanks kind of just to echo, I guess, Commissioner Rutherford, that starting more conservative and expanding seems a lot more fair to somebody who might be considering this than starting more liberal and then trying to contract. Because the last thing on earth I want to do is to say, oh, yes, of course, you can open your 2000 square foot tavern that's open until 2 a.m. in the morning and then say, no, no, no, it's terrible.

and then you know force closures so i i think there is at least some logic kind of slowly scaling up what we're willing to allow missionary racing um i had a couple notes on that the uh first of all when we our neighborhoods are afraid of alcohol and and i think With good reason. So I don't know. I just think that we need to, in those cases, have maybe a few more regulations than the other. Yes, we need to make sure we follow, of course, all the state codes, but it just seems that is going to be one of the greatest fears that we have. But on the other side of it, I don't want to limit... When we say alcohol, there are categories within that. I've known people that started wineries and garages, and that I kind of want to promote. So I think serving alcohol has to be a different category. If you're like a winemaker, I think it's great. So I would like to make sure that we don't blanket categories that could be desirable. Um, and I, I, um, I would be open to bigger square footage and because it is 500 square feet is very limiting, having other ways to kind of limit size. And I maybe even categories can have different sizes. Um, Hmm. But once you get, if you have inventory and you're saying that inventory has to be in that 500 square feet, you're getting these tiny.

Other comments?

I'll just take the time to plus one Commissioner Rice's comments on, I think, let's just make sure we separate the alcohol conversation because I think I don't want that to drag everything else down.

I was thinking, depending on what businesses and what's the need, and based on the zoning and based on the arterial road and inner roads, the businesses can be separated. You know, like there can be as, you know, in cul-de-sacs, you know, we may not have a tavern or we may not have a coffee shop, but we can have a beauty parlor or a hair salon or something. Whereas a tavern can be kind of, you know, like on a arterial or main street or somewhere, although it's still in a residential area. So depending on where the location of the business is, it can be.

Other comments? We do have other topics to get to tonight. I think we're going past your time. Staff, do you feel like you have what you need for press tonight?

Yeah, yeah. So the rest was just, we went over community engagement that was following next meeting. As we kind of talked about, I will summarize some outreach and engagement findings, find common points of agreement and common points of concern between the community and the commission. We're also going to provide some staff analysis on how we might respond to those points of agreement. An important part will be identifying diverging opinions and discussing how to maybe reconcile those and then reviewing a refined set of regulatory options that assess or at least consider those unintended consequences. That's the plan for our next meeting. Those are some questions. We pretty much addressed a lot of them, so I feel good about the feedback. Thank you all.

Thank you. All right.

I believe next we're on to our public hearings. So I need to open the public hearing for the parking cleanup amendments. First a staff presentation and then public comment and then discussion.

All right. Thank you, Chair Jacobson. So we're going to reconfigure staff a little bit here. So as a quick reminder, we have Martha Rhubark here tonight to give you this presentation. This is sort of the second phase of the quick action ordinance that Council adopted earlier this year so that we could do early implementation of the state's parking bill that drastically reduced parking requirements. So this is all the cleanup work that had to be done and that we promised in that initial quick action coordinate. So I'll hand it over to Martha to walk you through it. Great.

Thank you. Good evening, Planning Commission. So I will be covering phase two of the Senate Bill 5184 parking implementation project. So as Allison mentioned, phase one was focused on quickly adopting the minimum requirements under Senate Bill 5184 for minimum parking. And phase two has been kind of more of the bulk of the work, cleaning up all the zoning code to make it all make sense with the early action ordinance.

Thank you.

So the agenda for tonight's public hearing, I'll give this presentation and cover what we did under phase two and the scope or under phase one and the scope of phase two, and I'll review the proposed code amendments. And then we'll receive public testimony on the amendments and planning commission can deliberate and make a recommendation to council. So starting with a refresher on phase one, the early action ordinance included two new zoning code sections in chapter 105, which is the parking and vehicle access chapter. The first section, 105.22, is focused on vehicle parking and contains all minimum vehicle parking requirements for all uses in all zones. And it implemented the minimum requirements under Senate Bill 5184 for commercial and residential and then maintained the previously existing parking requirements for industrial and institutional uses and then some other special uses. And this section also exempts all of the station area zones from all minimum vehicle parking requirements, which was a policy decision that council made to incentivize development in that area. The second new section under phase one was for bicycle parking. We revisited bicycle parking because the previous code tied bicycle parking requirements to the vehicle parking requirements and because those requirements were substantially decreasing. We want to make sure that bicycle parking wouldn't be impacted. And so this new section 10530 established those requirements applicable to all uses in all zones, except for the station area and the Goodwill site in BC1, since those areas already had their own bicycle parking regulations specific to them. And those regulations that we adopted in 105 are equivalent to those in the station area. So we took the station area regulations, if you remember, and made one small change to long term bicycle parking rate for multifamily residential units, we reduce that down to a half a space per unit rather than one space. And this was all adopted in April of this year. So for phase two, we identified the scope as primarily the zoning code cleanup to remove the vehicle and bicycle parking regulations in all of the zoning code chapters. And then also to amend bicycle parking regulations as necessary since we had a little more time to research them. And then also to research options to update ADA parking space requirements. And I will start with the last bullet, ADA accessible parking. So staff's recommendation is to maintain the existing application of the state building code ADA parking requirements instead of developing new regulations in the zoning code and removing those regulations in Kirkland's building code. While we understand the concern, our research kind of made us think that it doesn't make sense to create ADA parking standards in the zoning code at this time and in this project because we learned that the State Building Code Council has been tasked to research and update the ADA space requirements. based on current data on drivers with disabilities. And that's set to begin in 2027. So pretty soon we'll have a better understanding if they will update the state building code and then we would adopt those regulations and they would stay in the building code. And also, there are some future city projects that could address accessibility generally. The Universal Design Regulations Project and the Curb Management Policy Project, which are both slated to begin in 2027 as well. And so with that recommendation, The existing ADA parking standards and the building code, which I've copied here, would continue to apply. And these regulations are based on the total provided parking spaces in a project rather than the required. And so it's possible that the total provided will not decrease substantially in the city. So getting into the code amendments, as I mentioned, the majority of them are a lot of cleanup. You probably noticed the packet was very long with a lot of existing regulations that we struck through in all of the use zone charts. And so I will not go through all of those, but I do want to note some specific ones that either are important to call out or kind of go beyond that cleanup scope. I also wanted to note that since this packet was published, we got some legal direction that we should not include the co-living regulation kind of add-on that we added to each of the zones that it applies to, since that's a different subject. And so Moving forward with the ordinance that those little regulations will not be included. So starting with Chapter 5, the definitions, we amended four definitions. First, the transit-oriented development. That's just kind of a clarification cleanup item. Industrial use and commercial use. We amended both of these use definitions to... provide more clarity and specificity about kind of what uses fall under those categories, because with the new vehicle parking section, we rely heavily on kind of the four broad categories of residential, commercial, industrial, and institutional. And so planners, when applying this code, will be looking at these definitions quite a bit. So That's for clarification. And then we also added a new definition for senior housing unit because Senate Bill 5184 requires senior housing to be exempt from parking and we didn't have a use that fit that definition. And so we created one and then added it as an exemption for vehicle parking. And then chapter 115, the miscellaneous development standards chapter, there's quite a bit of cleanup in that, but there is one new regulation that I want to touch on, which is a new allowance to allow bicycle parking to be located within the setbacks for all uses except single family and middle housing, kind of the low density residential uses. And this was added because we currently allow vehicle parking to be located in setbacks, and this would allow more flexibility to fit bike parking on a site. We did add that height limit for 10 feet for the structure, so that would allow for the bike parking to be covered, but wouldn't be too abrasive within the setback. And then also the structures would have to comply with all other applicable regulations. So lot coverage, land use buffers, site distance regulations, they would all have to comply. The next chapter I wanted to touch on is chapter 162, non-conformances. So this chapter regulates when a non-conformance must be brought into conformance with the code. And so we amended the vehicle parking section and then added a new section for bicycle parking So for vehicle parking, there's two scenarios where conformance would be required or additional parking would be required to be provided. Those two scenarios are a change of use where the end use is more intensive than the initial use and then increase of gross floor area or number of beds and so for those scenarios we would require kind of the net increase of parking requirements to be provided on site so there's no no increase in the non-conformance and then for bike parking we added this section and have three scenarios where the additional number of bike parking spaces would be provided Those first two are the same change of use and increasing gross floor area or number of units. And then also the cost threshold. If the project exceeds 50% of the replacement cost of the improvement, then the additional number of bike parking spaces would need to be provided. And for bike parking, we also added a waiver option for the planning official. If there isn't enough space on site or it's not feasible to fit bike parking, then we have the ability to adjust and modify to what makes sense. Chapter 105 is kind of the bulk of the amendments. So starting with the vehicle parking requirements, that new section that was adopted with the Early Action Ordinance 10522, we reformatted that into a table form for easier readability and then added some general regulations to clarify exactly how parking should be calculated for mixed-use projects, accessory uses, and areas that are ancillary. And on the next slide, I have kind of an example of the table format so you can see what it looks like. The next section I want to touch on is 105.25. And this is the section that regulates uses that don't have a specified number or specified vehicle parking rate. And this requires a parking study to be provided to show what the demand is for the use. And so we made some clarifying amendments. This was in collaboration with the public works transportation team on what is required for the parking demand study to kind of better match what they have been requiring and to be more specific. We also added an allowance for the planning official to use existing data in lieu of requiring a new study. So kind of the example that sparked this was a school requires 105.25, so it requires a parking demand study to be provided. So we often get, you know, additions to schools and they can be pretty minor. But with each of those additions, we would have to require a new parking study. And so this would allow us to look at the previous parking study and just apply that same rate for the same school. And then also added a new section for bicycle parking because institutional uses don't have a set bike parking rate.

So this clarifies what would be required to be provided for that study.

And then the last section in 105 that I want to touch on is the modifications. This was also in collaboration with the Public Works Transportation team to remove the requirement for multifamily parking modifications outside of the Totem Lake Urban Center to increase the parking rate by 15%. So the method that we used to establish the previous parking requirements, we just added a 15% increase And so this is just left over from that, and we would recommend removing it now that the parking regulations have been updated. We also made a change to apply the requirement of a transportation management plan to apply to all multifamily parking modifications. And kind of the reasoning behind this is to make it consistent across the board and because the parking regulations or the parking requirements are are so low, that if a project was able to qualify for a modification, the requirements would be even lower and a transportation management plan would kind of allow us to manage those stalls better. And then we also added a modification option for bicycle parking. So applicants have that option. Okay. Here's just kind of a snippet of the parking tables. So the first table is kind of the four broad categories, residential, commercial, industrial, and institutional. And these apply the minimum requirements under Senate Bill 5184. and then maintain existing requirements for industrial and institutional. And so most uses, you kind of just got a glimpse of all the uses that we have with Leandra's project. We have a lot of them that would like fall under commercial, for example. And so most uses would have this table applied, but then we also have a separate table for the kind of especially regulated uses that either don't easily fit into these categories or have a separate regulation either existing or, yeah, previously existing in the code that we want to maintain. So as you can see, for example, kennel would meet the definition of commercial, but we didn't want to increase the parking requirement for kennels, so we maintained that one space per 1,000 square feet in the specially regulated uses table. The last subject is bicycle parking. HAB-Masyn Moyer- um so here i've shown the changes that staff is proposing to what was previously adopted under phase one. HAB-Masyn Moyer- The first change is. HAB-Masyn Moyer- To exempt. HAB-Masyn Moyer- accessory dwelling units and attached dwelling units from bicycle parking requirements attached one units are like the town homes, and so they have ground floor access, they can easily. store their bike in their unit. The second is to add a threshold for when both short-term and long-term bike parking is required for apartments, for the multifamily apartment buildings. And so for short-term, that threshold would be 20 units, and long-term, we set it at six. Um, for general commercial, when we were running these numbers through various projects to kind of make sure that the numbers made sense and also comparing to other jurisdictions, um, We found that the long-term bike parking rate for general commercial, um, was pretty high for that use type. Um, since kind of the density of employees for your general commercial versus your office is lower than employees that would be using the long-term. And so we're proposing reducing that down to 0.1 instead of 0.33 for 1,000 square feet. And then the last amendment is a change to the shower requirement to require the showers or a minimum of one shower when 10 or more long-term bike spaces are required. This is only applicable to commercial uses rather than 20. And so... And that just came from kind of running the numbers. Actually, Nick over here did this for me. Thanks, Nick. So that would mean that an office project that has over 30,000 square feet would be required to provide a shower. And a general commercial project that has over 100,000 square feet would be required to provide a shower.

That's with the 10.

And as I mentioned earlier, The station area and the Goodwill site already have existing bike parking regulations specific to those sites and zones. And so an option that Planning Commission could consider is either to maintain those regulations specific to those zones or apply the proposed bicycle parking code amendments in 10530 citywide. And that option would require a planning commission amendment. And so I have kind of a side by side here. You can see what would be changing if we did get rid of the station area bike parking and Goodwill site bike parking regulations. Generally, when staff was reviewing this, we didn't identify anything important to keep for the station area and the Goodwill site. For the Goodwill site, there are some design standards for bike parking that we would recommend keeping if you choose to go with option two. But that is something that we could draft into the ordinance. And with that, I'll pass it back to the chair for any questions. Questions. Before we go to public comment.

Mr. Brunel.

The question is different than a comment, right?

Yep. Don't share your opinion. Just ask questions.

Yep. If you have a comment, I'll save it for later.

Questions. Mr. Rutherford. Are there adjustments for buildings that allow bicycles to be taken into, say, a residential unit? Does that bring about a potential exemption if I was thinking back to when I was living in an apartment, I was allowed to bring my bike into my unit, but that was a special building too. So I don't know if that's just so unusual now that it's not considered.

Under the code, that would not be considered a bike parking space. I'd have to double check because the design standards and locational standards are regulated by a public works policy. So I'd have to double check whether or not that document has an allowance for in-unit storage. I think that it might, but I am not 100% sure about that.

And the other questions I have were more about the accessibility of bike parking. But I don't know if that's beyond the intended scope of this. It sounds like that's part of what's more addressed in the stationary plans. implementation of bike parking requirements. Is that, or maybe I should talk more about what I'm getting at there?

the accessibility, like where, like taking your bike to the storage?

Yeah. Well, and making sure, for example, if you have an e-bike that you don't have to like lift it up or that there's, there are a number, enough places for people who are like have a trike bike or an e-bike so that it's not like all of the places you have to like lift your bike into position. But I don't know if this is something that's beyond the intended scope of This adjustment.

So, um, the public works policy has a lot of requirements in terms of the design. So, um, I know like no more than 50% of the long-term spaces can be vertical. They have to be, you know, on the ground horizontal. So you can just easily pull your bike to it. Um, I think there's also like some spacing requirements. and proximity to electrical outlets. They have kind of a robust set of design regulations.

Okay, and like egress requirements and requirements to be able to like lock with U-lock and that sort of thing. I imagine that's all addressed in their space, not in ours.

Yes, correct.

Thanks.

Other questions? Master builders submitted a letter. Is there a staff response? But because they generally agree with it, but they made a couple extra suggestions. I know it just came right before the meeting, so you don't have a chance to respond to that. Did they address bicycle parking?

No.

Okay.

I think Allison is trying to pull it up.

It's at the very end of their letter.

Do you remember if it was a request? If I remember correctly, some of their letter was... versus what the code should be.

I don't remember exactly.

Yeah, when I took a read through, I saw just general support for the code amendments and for kind of simplifying and cleaning it up.

I didn't see anything specific that was... That's kind of what I saw too, but I thought you could interpret it a little bit to... that they wanted some sort of tweaking in there?

Yeah, if I could. And so I think that one of the bigger things that I know has come up on specific case examples and something I see mentioned is making sure that we're reconciling this change in parking requirements with any past or ongoing parking modifications. And that has been something that we've been talking about administratively and something that we can um try to streamline administratively and so that's one of the comments i see in there that it makes sense i can think of the project they're probably they probably have in mind and we've been talking about that at the staff level um and then i think some of their comments are probably not directly relevant to this parking cleanup case but talking about if we're reducing some barriers to development not adding more layers on elsewhere.

That's a generalized comment I think that gets copied and pasted to a lot of their letters.

Yeah, but I think that's what I'm seeing.

Other questions? Can you go back a slide to the bike parking question for us? So can you help me understand what the differences for the two options are? I can see some differences in the parking rates. Is one of them in general lower, one of them in general higher?

Generally, both station area and Goodwill site are slightly higher. So for long-term and short-term residential multifamily, Both of those are higher. And I think that's mostly because of that change that we made under the early action ordinance of reducing it down to half a space per unit rather than one. The Goodwill site has slightly more short-term bike parking requirements for multifamily. as well as more short-term for assisted living facilities and convalescent centers, so generally the residential group.

And then did you say something about design standards for the parking for the Goodwill site? Can you explain that?

Yes. I have it here on this slide. So there are these five additional bike parking regulations for the Goodwill site. Number one is already in chapter 105, so that wouldn't need to be retained. Two and three, or no, three and four. Two is a regulation that's copied and pasted into 105 and in the station area. Three and four are specific to the Goodwill site for signage requirements, as well as kind of the design of the bike parking to match the design of the building. And so staff would recommend maintaining those two. And then number five is also just kind of typical language that is copied into chapter 105.

If I could jump in with just a little bit of context on that. Three and four that Martha mentioned were added into the code for the Goodwill site as they were considered a type of public benefit that we were requesting in exchange for the development capacity that was being granted. So that was one of the sort of trade-offs was trying to provide a more robust environment. writing their likes to the site. Which is why we're recommending retaining them as they were one of the things we kind of exchanged.

And then given that there are different options, do you have a text for commissioners to read to make a motion that would include these different options? Are we going to be playing it a little bit on the fly, depending on how people feel about making a motion?

It would be a little bit on the fly. The code that was included, the option two code that was included in the packet is not quite accurate because it does delete all of these requirements. So I would not recommend

Making that motion that we can clarify, we can work on the exact language when we get there. That's good. Thank you. Any other questions? All right.

It makes no difference whatsoever. Have we ever required showers before?

We do in the station area. That is kind of where that requirement came from. And the idea is to incentivize biking to work, right? And providing that amenity to make people more likely to do that. And so that regulation, I think, started in the station area. Then it was applied citywide through the early action ordinance. And then we're proposing an amendment to that.

Any other questions? All right. We now go to public comment. If you are online, please raise your hand if you're in the room. I don't think we have any people who signed up. If anyone would like to give public comment, now is the time for the parking cleanup bill. I'm looking online. No hands raised. Seems like nobody in person. All right. Then I... John Potter, Then I will close this portion of the public hearing for public comments and we move on to deliberation. John Potter, Discussion. John Potter, I should know.

I just have one comment. And I think I had emailed it to you just for more ease of use for those that may be first time. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Developers or whatever that most people don't know that the Ada requirements for parking or in the building code and if there was just a little maybe italicize something in there that refers that to it. HAB-Masyn Moyer- shoot I was in the department for years and I, I had to ask my husband, who was a building inspector where the Ada regulations, I have no idea. HAB-Masyn Moyer- that's my comment.

That is something that we could implement. It's, it's not something I've seen in the zoning code before kind of referring out to the building code, but it is municipal code.

Yeah, it certainly wouldn't hurt.

Yeah. We could take that as an amendment. Oh, okay.

Can we pull up the slide with the two options? just trying to help for making the motion. So if I remember correctly, option two, this would reduce the parking, this would be reducing the bike parking requirements in general to the 0.5 that we did in phase one, with some of these asterisks also being removed. And then staff's recommendation, if we want to go with option two, is to then include those five points. Am I understanding that right?

include two of them, three and four.

Three and four.

Yeah.

Okay. Would someone like to work on a motion?

Chair, I'd offer that you could also make an initial motion on the staff recommendation and then offer amendments. Okay. Many opportunities for motions and amendments.

Okay.

Well, then I'll move to adopt the initial amendments as articulated in the staff memo.

Recommended by staff?

Recommended by staff, and then we'll talk about that as a discussion.

Is there a second? Second.

Discussion? I recommend an amendment.

So you would say, I move to amend it's to blah, blah, blah.

I want to say blah, blah, blah. I move to amend chapter 105 to include a blurb, a reference to the building code, I guess.

For the ADA parking.

Yeah, for the ADA parking. I'll second that.

has been moved and seconded. Would anyone like to discuss it further? I think this is fine. Yeah. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? All those abstaining? Motion passes seven zero. So now we're back to the base motion. So as I understand this motion includes the staff recommendation, which does not include the point five bike parking spaces. Is that correct?

The amendments drafted by staff maintain the Goodwill site and the station area site, bicycle parking regulations. Correct.

So if if the commission wanted to lower those, we would need to to align with the city wide standards, we would need to amend the motion.

Correct.

Does someone want to make a motion on that?

And this would help us achieve consistency in all zones, correct?

Correct. I move to amend the motion to change with station area and the Goodwill site parking to meet those of the overall city standards.

Is that well formed enough for staff?

Yes.

Okay.

we're clarifying you're talking about the part the bike parking the bike parking requirements yes my apologies and then did you staff you were also making points about uh bullet points three and four right maybe include that in the motion to maintain the design standards yeah thanks so and to include the design standards for bullet points three and four okay is that good enough for city staff

Yeah, I'll repeat just to make sure we're all clear. And so the motion is to amend staff's recommendation to lower the bike parking ratios in the station area and at the Goodwill site, which is the BC1 zone, to match the citywide standards while retaining the specific design requirements for bike parking at the Goodwill site. Well done. Yes, well done.

Is there a second? Second. That was Commissioner Brunel. Discussion? Discussion?

i think mr ricer i'm going to play devil's advocate on this i know it's much more confusing for codes and staff and everything but these are sites that i think we should have more bike parking so my vote would be to retain the bike parking for the discussion

I kind of just have a question as to whether we're typically seeing the bike parking that we have at the moment, you know, what is typically the capacity? Because at some level, I will agree that these are areas where we're really expecting people to use bikes more frequently than normal. But if we're seeing at most 50% capacity in places where we even have what we consider to be normal amounts of bike parking, we may go, yeah, okay, consistency is really great. And let's be honest, it's unlikely that we're going to be. you know, every one of the, every apartment will have like two bikes anyway. I guess if that makes any sense. Further discussion?

I'm kind of, I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

I'm kind of concerned about changing the goodwill requirement because isn't it kind of tied to the density bonuses that were kind of approved for goodwill? So isn't it kind of, I'm afraid what council, when council sees that, they're going to say that those two We're linked together that it was a trade off you get more you provide more bicycle parking and then you could you can have more density and it kind of lessons that it's incentive to do that are less of a of a public benefit that we were looking for at the at the goodwill site. But then commissioner Nolan if but that's today, you know we don't know the future of what by usage might be but HAB-Masyn Moyer- want to keep an unrealistic high level when it's not getting. HAB-Masyn Moyer- used to its maximum capacity, I don't i'm kind of I can go either way on that, but.

HAB-Michael Leccese, I just see the future with a bikes it's opening up biking. HAB-Michael Leccese, I. I'll tell you, I have three bikes in my garage. And I wouldn't unless there had been an e-bike invented. So older people are using e-bikes like crazy. I think it's opening doors and the future is going to be more demanding.

Other comments? I will speak in favor of the motion. I bike a lot. I have two e-bikes now. My apartment building has bike storage. I think a lot of people use it, but I think realistically maybe less than 10 people out of the 30 people who put bikes there actually use them with any regularity. I will note on e-bikes, it's actually quite common for people, even when there is community bike storage, to specifically want to keep it in their apartment because of concerns around theft. Um, and this is, and like, this has played out in Seattle and debates that are on bike parking as well, where a lot of the time, like, especially with an e-bike, which could be a thousand, 2000 plus dollars. If people can fit it in their unit, they will want to keep it in their unit. Let alone if it's like a cargo bike where it doesn't make sense. Like you're not getting the benefit of a cargo bike to bring it to a community storage to then have to unload it and then carry everything up. So I will be voting in favor of this motion. I understand the desire to incentivize more biking, but I think that will be primarily done by building more bike infrastructure rather than requiring bike parking when there's not enough bike infrastructure. Other comments?

I have a couple examples, if that helps kind of show you the actual number of spaces that would be required for like a typical development. So I think the two of the more important differences are the long term. multifamily or long-term bike spaces for multifamily. And then also the long-term commercial, general commercial difference that is an amendment with this phase two. So for... think i think this i forget where the safeway was but there's a safeway in kirkland um that has about 54 000 square feet of general commercial and under the 105 standards as drafted that would require 28 um short term and then six long-term spaces to be provided um and under the station area and the goodwill site um that long-term requirement would be um more than tripled and so you'd go from six to um more than 18 long-term bike spaces that would be required for that safeway um So that's one big difference. The other that I can speak on is, um, the multifamily half a space to one space. Um, I mean, this is a little more straightforward, but say there's, um, there's 136 unit multifamily development that would require 68 long-term spaces under the one Oh five section, and it would require 136 spaces. and the station area requirements. So just some numbers to think about.

Thank you. Other Commissioner comments?

And those numbers are under current standards? Under the proposed 105 standards that would apply citywide that you're considering also applying to the station area and Goodwill.

And the attached units like townhomes don't require I'm not only asking because we did that thing at Goodwill where we could build townhomes, right?

So under the proposed 105 amendments, we're proposing to exempt townhomes from all bicycle parking requirements for the station area. We have it as non-applicable for the Goodwill site. And so that would not require it, but... the station area, they would be regulated the same as multifamily. So the one long-term space per.

I was trying to reconcile Commissioner Reiser's concerns last vision for increased bike activity, vis-a-vis perhaps a limit on parking spaces, but if there already is an expectation that there wouldn't be one for any of the attached IE townhome ones where we're doing that in goodwill, we're doing that in station area, we might, we might be okay. I wish I could predict the future. I hear you. I hear you. I think some of that stuff's already exempt, and likely that they'll park it inside anyway.

Or discussion. So the question is on the motion to summarize, it would be voting. Yes. We'll lower the bike parking requirements and voting. No, we'll increase the bike parking requirements. Am I understanding that right? On the motion to say that again, we started with staff baseline recommendation. We're now amending it to align with the option to, to enact the city, the same standard citywide at, as I understand 0.5 per unit with some other D with some other changes. And we're arguing about the 0.5 versus one in the stationary and goodwill. And so voting yes on this motion will align it is voting for the 0.5 voting. No is voting for one.

Yeah.

Okay. All those in favor. I think we might want to raise hands rather than do a voice vote just for ease of tracking. So all those in favor of this motion. All those opposed. All those abstaining? Was that six to one? Okay. So we've now done that amendment. We now have the base motion.

Okay.

So this is to any further discussion? I think we've thoroughly discussed this. So the question on the motion, whether to recommend these changes to bike and general parking standards. All those in favor?

Aye. All right.

All those opposed, all those abstaining, carries unanimously. And we are done with that public hearing. So I'll close that one and open the next public hearing for affordable housing on faith-owned violence. Thank you.

I'm guessing this is what you guys are here for. I'm going to bet on that.

Well, that and selling tobacco and firearms. That's right.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So we last briefed you on this a bit ago. It felt like before summer started and who can remember anything before then. So when we first briefed you on this, we talked to you after we did some initial scoping with city council at that time. Planning Commission gave us some general guidance and told us, come bring it straight to public hearing with you. In the interim, City Council did request one more check-in with us before the item came for public hearing. So we've completed that. Our senior planner, Scott Guder, is going to go over some of the feedback that we heard from them. So I will hand it over to Scott for your presentation.

All right, thank you, Allison. And thank you, everyone, for sticking around and for some of you staying past your bedtime for this particular topic. I'm here with Nick Lucero. He's our graduate intern who helped with this project. So if you haven't met him, here he is right here. So I'm here to present for the public hearing on the zoning code amendments for affordable housing on faith-owned land. As a reminder, this is part of the 2026 to 2028 planning work program scheduled to be completed this year and is intended to implement state requirements, code requirements. As a reminder, tonight you'll be receiving a staff briefing summarizing the proposed code amendments. You'll hold public hearing and collect public testimony, then deliberate and provide a recommendation to city council. So as Allison described, we last saw you back in May for a project scoping briefing where, more specifically, you were given a lot of background material. TAB, Mark McIntyre, namely than the number of of faith faith owned properties that are in the city Kirkland. TAB, Mark McIntyre, The. TAB, Mark McIntyre, The the. TAB, Mark McIntyre, um. the what other cities are doing to regulate them and then some best industry best practices that we shared with you. We also provided you with what the guidance that we received from city council, namely that they were looking for staff to draft code that was going to be a by right approval, like in a, you know, administrative approval process. And then Planning Commission iterated on that, requesting that staff bring forward a straightforward code amendments that were modest, incremental, really focused on less on density and more on building form and what we're going to be what we would encourage as the density bonus and really make sure that we pay attention to the surrounding areas and making sure that there's not that much impact, especially in low density residential zones. Since that time, we've done quite a bit of outreach to both faith organizations and affordable housing developers. when we're here in the audience right here. And we've also been working closely with Arch to work on specifically on some of the exchange ratios that we'll be presenting to you tonight. These are These are really trying to address project feasibility, something that is really important for projects that are providing a high level of income-restricted affordable housing units. Andrew Bjorn is right here from ARCH.

He's back there.

Thank you for coming. I didn't ask him to come, but he came anyway. There's a lot of support here. So what we've heard... pretty much when we've kind of reached out to both of these stakeholders with some draft code amendments and stuff that the faith organizations really do appreciate the straightforward manner in which we've presented our code amendments. They are also reminding us all the time that they are not housing developers. They do not know what they're doing. And please help us with some additional support. And I think we're going to be able to touch on that a little bit later on some programmatic solutions that we've developed. cities coming up come up with and as arch is uh prepared to offer um also with the affordable housing developers we really heard a lot of common things that you hear broadly from development uh the development community they're really looking for like something that's also very straightforward easy streamlined and um uh doesn't have a lot of um process barriers associated with it so um um and they also really appreciated being really flexible with the affordable housing set asides with our exchange ratio um concepts so for a step into the to the code amendments themselves um here is a reminder there's a pretty much a familiar map here it kind of uh shows the landscape of of uh affordable housing of foreign sorry faith-owned properties in the city of Kirkland today. We have about 37 organizations comprising of 64 parcels with a total of 160 acres. Some of these parcels are quite large, being over two acres in size. And then many of those parcels are also collectively owned by a single faith organization. So they can get quite large in aggregate. Most of the properties are located in low density residential zones. with a handful that are in medium and high density zones. And then another big portion, about 40%, are in areas that we already allow for higher residential capacity, namely in our office, our commercial, institutional, and TOD zones. Also of note is that many of these properties also contain critical areas, a factor that all developers need to take into consideration when they're considering developing on their properties. These are things you cannot avoid. We have really strict regulations on on our critical areas and so code needs to be flexible enough to allow for development around those areas so when we brought this to city council we brought a couple of couple of flavors, let's say, a couple of flavors of code. We start off with just the base requirements here. And as a reminder, the base requirements are really kind of starting off with what is it makes a project eligible. And a project is eligible if they provide affordable housing that is at least, you know, you know, 50 percent of the units at 80 percent are as 80 percent of area median income, or they provide 20 percent of those units at 50 percent of the area median income. And as a reminder, when it comes to just the market rate development, we don't even come close to these numbers here. We only ask for 10 percent at 50 percent of the area median income. So this is asking at least twice that. So quite a lot of ask here. And so what are we proposing we're going to give for that? So taking Planning Commission's recommendation to make our adjustments modest and really adjust levers that are associated with building capacity, we look primarily at building height. um and uh made some adjustments to some lot coverage so these are these are the the two primary pieces that we we really looked at we did touch required yards and and others but we wanted to focus here on this slide on those two right here and what we did was we applied just an incremental kind of upsell So if you're in a low-density zone, we took an average of the average allowed building heights in low-density zones, and we applied an incremental up zone to the average building heights in medium-density zones. Here it's additional five feet. And we did the same thing in medium-density zones where the average height was 35, and we bumped it up to 40. And then for all other zones, we just added an additional 15 feet of building height. Those would be in those TOD zones, the commercial zones, the ZAPA zones, all of those other zones. So that's what we started off with. The law coverages are all based on what is existing there on the site itself. They already have faith operations on there that are already granted 70 to 80% of law coverage. And what we're doing with law coverage is just in terms of flexibility is we're allowing those existing faith-based facilities remain, if they retain those, they are exempt from that area, the area of the footprint of that is exempt from lock coverage if they choose to put residential units on it. So basically, you're kind of like, hopefully it's a wash in that sense. They're not adding a lot of lock coverage. Maybe they're putting it on there. Maybe they're putting it in an area that that is on the parking lot or something, but maybe they put in an additional area. But we're really trying to encourage those with that particular requirement or particular standard. We're really trying to encourage faith operations that are retaining their existing faith facilities. So here's a familiar tool that we use already in Chapter 112. It's an exchange ratio. Originally, staff brought this to city council as an additional option, something that could be, you know, an optional add-on. They favored applying this as part of the base requirement, so instead of requiring 20% at 50% AMI, they could choose a different affordability level and a different exchange ratio here. Yes, Erin, I do know that there's a typo, and I know you're going to point it out, and I've already taken care of it. So, yeah, this is something that we commonly employ in the station area, and we've also recently used the same tool in the Juanita cars that recently came through. And I would have to note on these exchange ratios that we are still working on fine-tuning these. These are the ones that we use in the station area, but I am working closely with Andrew over here that's helping with making sure that we kind of fine-tune these a little bit more to make sure that projects remain feasible. So here's some additional pieces of the bonus standards. We also have been trying to peel back some of the regulatory layers. In particular, the design view exemptions, you know, would be a very, you know, quick way to reduce the time frame and add a cost of having a project go through a lengthy approval process. I would note that since, again, most of these projects are in low density residential zones, those areas are already exempt from design review. So this certainly only impacts the few areas that have design standards on them. We took the Planning Commission's advice and really kind of focused on building mass and less on density. So we stripped density away from it. So really the only thing that's limiting the number of units that can be achieved is the massing standards that are given with the extra building height and maybe some of the setback flexibilities and lot coverage possibilities. We've already gone through the lot coverage. And the flexibility in the required yards, this is really common in multifamily zones. They just allow for attached units to have zero lot lines. If this was to be a fee simple project, then they can have attached units easily. This also allows for us to move the project or the building around to avoid critical areas. um and just allows for a lot more um a lot more flexibility when putting um affordable housing on a property um and uh so and here here's another couple other things that we've also done we've you know understand that you know we've heard a lot from the the development community that there's always we can't always account for everything in our in our zoning code We can't, you know, look into the future and say, okay, for this site, we're going to be able to like, you know, make specific regulations for this. So we do allow for minor deviations to occur. And they are approved, can be approved administratively through the planning director. And we also heard in our last council briefing that additional flexibility would also be nice as well. So we've kind of put another familiar tool from the station area that we've used, which is allowing for a development agreement that the city council could approve. uh and it has very similar language that we use in the station area for that that type of um discretionary approval so that will go through the city council and again uh you know uh council broadly like like these um these these code um amendments uh so um kind of like pass them. So here's the last piece that we presented to the city council as kind of, you know, this additional hype bonus idea so that we can, you know, gets some additional housing affordable housing and um we originally uh proposed this with some you know kind of loose criteria of entry uh we didn't you know have like really clear language here um at this point in time so council really wanted us to like really work on the qualifying criteria for this one so what we Since that time, we've adjusted these to add an eligibility of any Any project that is proposing 5 percent greater than the base allowed would be eligible to receive these height bonuses. And the bonus maximums really allow them to achieve, like, an additional floor above what we're already allowing on the base. So, this is pretty much the way we're kind of aligning these. Oh, and one point here about these is that with any additional height that goes up, they go up beyond the base allowed, they are required to add some additional setback. for the building. So this is a way for us to mitigate from any additional impact from higher buildings. And those kick in after they go above the height limit for any particular zone. So if a project is within a low density zone, the setbacks will start to kick in after 35 feet. And if they have multiple different zones uh they apply to this uh to the property uh in which the adjacent property and their zoning so if there's low densities at their medium density zone property but their neighbor is a low density zone we apply the the lower stand and the lower standard threshold so if the adjacent property Being a low-density zone, above 35 feet, we would start to require a setback. Anything that is, you know, medium-density zone, is adjacent to or within a medium-density zone, the setback requirements start after 40 feet. So that's the code amendments. We had some proposed services that kind of respond a lot to the, uh, to the, uh, what we heard from both the affordable housing developers and, uh, the faith, uh, faith, uh, faith operations. Um, they, uh, include adding services, city services that, uh, include like, let's say a pre a free pre-submittal meeting, um, and, uh, uh, expedited permit review. Um, In addition to that, ARCH has a position that helps, you know, faith operations and affordable housing developers to really kind of go through project, to help with assisting in project due diligence and feasibility. They also have access to other resources that they can connect potential applicants through so they can get them the kind of resources that they need, additional resources they need. And this is a position, this position is funded, is permanently funded with ARCHA at this point in time and will be a really valuable asset for helping bridge the uh information gap uh for uh those who are just beginning to uh in this development um activity with that that's that's what i have i'm bringing it back to the chair for questions mr reiser

Just a clarifying question. The setbacks are upper story stairbacks. They're not entire building setbacks, are they?

They're entire building setbacks.

So you would make the entire building? The way, yes. You're not starting at the floor and that is the floor is steered back. You're making the whole building?

Yeah, the whole building goes back. Other questions.

The Brady Nordstrom letter that came in today, they had two additional comments, I think it was more towards detached units. And I was just wondering, they weren't one of two things added, I was kind of curious that that's feasible.

not do you know the letter i'm referring to i i did not look at it yet sorry yeah no it's my job to put you on the spot no it's fine i i should have seen that letter but i didn't yeah i mean he was generally supportive but then he had two additional concerns or suggestions

See if I can find it too. I think if we can, we can also address that during your deliberation.

Other questions?

I was happy to see that that ARCH position is funded because that was a need expressed by the faith organizations that are interested in pursuing this. You said for now, of course, my concern is, is it Could that be at risk in the future? And are we already thinking ahead to how we might maintain that important position?

Oh, that is a good question. I know maybe Andrew might have an answer. I just work here. That's a good question, and I can work on getting an answer for you.

I didn't necessarily expect you might have an answer tonight, but I think with all the funding challenges we're experiencing, it would be a shame that that doesn't continue to get that funding support, given that, as our folks have mentioned, this isn't their day job. My other question, though, is related to some of the benefits, the expedited permit review, what does that mean? Does that mean that, you know, when someone does start developing in the station area and their permits in the queue, does that get bumped for this to be expedited? Or is it just that the review process is so much more streamlined, it will take less time?

Yeah, we basically do a lot of hurry up permit review with these particular ones. And yes, it can Generally, we have a good enough – we have staff that are really working on different types of projects. And, you know, whether they're smaller – you know, specific staff working on smaller projects and staff that might be working on bigger projects. But generally, when we get an expedited permit review, we really work hard to just – build that in to our system, look for the available staff that can review that, and really just kind of put that in the media queue so that they have plenty of time to look at it. Sometimes in building permit reviews, Permits can come in and you already got a queue already and you're just like, I don't get to it for three weeks. And then you're one week out or something like that from the actual timeframe. So this really puts them on notice to start that review right away. And generally, yeah, this is generally how that works. I don't know, Allison, if you had any other kind of...

Yeah, I wouldn't expect offering expedited permit review for these projects to displace other projects, even if there are other projects we're expediting because of our available staff at different levels of review. And also, I think the amount of these that we'd expect, which is pretty low. I'd also say that one of the other program requirements we're offering is free pre-submittal meetings. And so what we imagine, which is what we do with a lot of larger projects, is that we work pretty closely with applicants even before we get those building permits. I think this is a new program and a new type of development. So I would certainly see us forming an early partnership to make sure we're also getting a good application in that we can...

more easily expedite it's a good point yeah and this yeah and more to to what allison is saying is once they go into a preset you've almost you really got your assigned development service team so those are the generally those are the people that you sit in that first room with and you're you're going over the project with they're going to become the permit reviewers for that so they really have a good understanding of the project even before it gets into permanent Other questions?

Mr. Rutherford. I was trying to find where the setbacks are addressed, the setback adjustments are addressed in the draft code. And I was having trouble finding it. And in particular, I was trying to make sure that there's wording in there that would only apply it to the perimeter of the faith-owned land, and not like if they were to subdivide a portion of it off, that the setbacks wouldn't end up being applied within the current bounds.

Yeah, so property lines have their own definition, and those definitions are related to, you know, either the adjacents, if it's adjacent to a street or not, if it's, you know, and if that is, you know, if it is opposite of a street, it becomes a rear, all that kind of fun stuff. And most of, in these projects, they'll largely, if they got subdivided off, let's say, would apply those but there's a lot of flexibility within within this even to reduce even a front yard if if the right design is applied if they activate the front with you know porches and activation and stuff like that that allows them to encroach a little bit further and then it also allows for you know uh existing attached units to you know have zero setbacks And so this is generally how we operate right now with that. So if something got divided out and becomes somewhat internal to the site, let's say, and was accessed through an access easement, the planner would basically apply a lot of side yard setbacks and then only a front yard at the access point and things like that. So there's it's generally around the perimeter that we're really looking at of the subject property. Is that, I think, is that the- That's what I would expect.

I just wouldn't want the perimeter to then be redefined if they carve off part of it or, and like tangentially, Is it possible that lots of divisions could be executed within this too? And so that might be a cleaner way for them to.

There's a lot of possibilities. Now that we have all the lots of division code provisions, there's a lot of options now for designing a project in a way that can actually result in like home, you know, affordable home ownership opportunities, potentially, there's also, you know, okay, I think that probably addresses it probably more elegantly addresses.

Yeah. Any other questions?

That also, I can respond to Commissioner bunials question. briefly. And so the letter from the Housing Development Consortium had two additional suggestions. One was to make it clear that affordable home ownership opportunities are also eligible for this, and they are. And so we can confirm that, in fact, they have their own separate exchange ratios. So confirming that it's very clear to us in the code. And then the second item was that we ensure that if a faith-owned landowner sold their property to an affordable housing developer, that as long as the units were under covenant, that would still be allowed and they would still be eligible for the bonus. I would say that That is something that's been brought up to us previously that we're looking into how we might be able to address that in the code in a way that still meets the intent. I think we initially scoped this project very specifically to faith-owned properties, but if Planning Commission, and I think we can clarify this in deliberation, if Planning Commission agrees with that you want to make sure that's possible, we'd ask for some flexibility so that we can continue working with our city attorney's office to figure out how to make it so in the code, but it's a fairly recent comment for us. And so we we need to do some digging. We don't have language prepared. But I think we could meet the intent if you want to add that into your motion.

Thank you. No more questions. So now we'll go to public comment. How many of you want to get public comment? One, two, nope, okay. Online, if you would like to give public comment, please raise your hand in the Zoom. For now, let's start with you.

And if you want to learn about this and I do so I could learn from you, but you are a man of the clock.

So you have to tell me where I stand.

If you can sit at the end of the table. Great.

The microphones are in the ceiling, so they will detect you.

And I have 35 minutes. My name is Michael Ryan. I'm a resident of Kirkland. I live on 9309 Northeast 128th Lane in Kirkland. I'm the rector of St. John's Episcopal Church. I believe we are the most downtown church of all the communities. And I've been I came in late but i've been sitting here for a good long while and I want to say thank you for the hard work that you all do. And thank you staff for the hard work that you all do. The um. the church has a different understanding of land. At its best, we have a different understanding. And that is that it is not simply a type of an asset to be exploited and monetized. It's actually the foundation for community. And the work that you all are doing in the planning commission is you are, in this regard, you're creating the possibility for communities to exist that otherwise couldn't exist. The goal of our parish is to be the irresistible, indispensable institution for the neighborhood. And giving us the tools to actually develop our properties in ways that lead to human flourishing, in ways that break down barriers of economy, of opportunity, just creates a possibility for human flourishing. And this is I think the thing that we are most excited about. And I know I don't speak for the other churches. I wish I could, but I don't. But I know that a lot of the conversations, particularly these churches called the Greater Kirkland Ecumenical Parish, group of covenanted churches, typically mainline and also the Roman Catholic Church, are really committed to this idea of human flourishing and using our properties for that purpose. So I'm delighted to be here. I'm really, as I say, I'm really grateful for the service that you do for us and for I'll be quiet.

Thank you for your comments.

Thank you.

Well, that's a tough act to follow. Chair Jacobson and members of the Commission, I'm here for two reasons tonight. One is to introduce myself. My name is Alicia Ruiz. I am currently the advocacy and policy manager of the Habitat for Humanity Seattle King Kittitas counties. And I am new to the east side. and I'm new to affordable housing, but I'm not new to land use. I represented the master builders in Seattle for almost five years. So I'm back in town and I'm ready to jump back in. So a pleasure to meet all of you and I look forward to working with you in the future. So I'd like to start by thanking city staff for their hard work and dedication for getting this legislation right. We sincerely appreciate the outreach that staff has done, making it clear that feedback from Habitat for Humanity and other community stakeholders is both valued and worthy of consideration. Because of this collaborative process, these code amendments create meaningful incentives to build homes that Kirkland families can actually afford. Habitat's mission is home ownership, which means permanently affordable homes that build equity and stability for working families. Many faith-owned parcels in Kirkland are modestly sized, which makes them a natural fit for homeownership rather than large rental developments. We'd ask the commission to ensure the final code is explicit that homeownership qualifies under this incentive structure and that when a faith community chooses to sell rather than develop, those same benefits can transfer to a mission-aligned developer like Habitat. with affordability locked in permanently through deed restriction, covenant, or like our land trust model. To demonstrate the importance of getting the language right, I'll tell you about Orchard Gardens. Orchard Gardens is a habitat project in Bellevue where we are currently building 25 three bedrooms, two bathroom homes. Bellevue's code didn't explicitly say that incentives apply to the land after it is purchased by an affordable housing developer. So we were forced to wait until the permits were vested before we were able to close on the land and take ownership. This came with tremendous risk and caused a delay of nearly two years. This is the real world example of unintended consequences. As a result, I urge the commission to ask staff to address this issue in the final bill and faith communities are not developers and most don't want to be. The building capacity and expertise needed to use these tools in this legislation will take real support and Habitat is ready to be a partner in that work. Thank you for your dedication and for creating pathways for communities to turn land into lasting.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak online, please raise your hand on zoom if you would like to speak. Seeing none, I will close this portion of the public hearing for public comment and we move on to deliberations. Would anyone like to make a motion to recommend the staff recommendation to get us started? We can make an amendment to it afterwards. I'll move to adopt the staff recommendation. I'll second. The motion has been moved and seconded.

And I would like to amend it to make sure that there is that, I guess it's two provisions to make sure that there's an opportunity for home ownership and that the transfer of rights or intent is allowed. I will second that.

Is that clear enough for staff? Or would you like to read it back to us?

I think that was quite clear. And like I said, we'll continue to work with our city attorney's office to try to recognize that intent in the code.

All right. Anyone have any remarks on that motion to amend the main motion? I will just say that, yeah, I think it makes sense. They don't want to have to carry the land any longer than they need to. And on a lawyer, maybe we can work out a covenant that can be placed on the sale of the property that is recognized by the city, but obviously the city staff are going to be best qualified to answer that.

I guess just to add to that, I mean, I feel as though, as is true with any of these things, if we want it done, we need to make it clear, easy, and doable. So to the extent that we can do that, I am all for it. Right.

All those in favor?

Aye.

All those opposed? All those abstaining? Motion carries unanimously. That was, we had one more vote. Any other discussion? Right. Now we are on the main motion to adopt the staff recommendation with the amendment. All those in favor?

Aye.

All those opposed?

Aye.

All those abstaining? Motion carries unanimously. And with that, I will close the public hearing.

I'll just stop.

We might get out before 10. All right.

I believe we have no minutes to approve. We are on to administrative reports and planning commission discussion.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So a couple of thank you. Thank you again.

Thank you.

A couple quick calendar updates. Your September meetings are looking a little light, in fact, due to some delays because of a project that we've been working on that isn't on the work program, which is code amendments related to detention facilities. It looks like we're going to need to bump the public hearing for miscellaneous code amendments from your September 10th to your September 24th meeting, and I apologize that that's kind of late-breaking. And then just wanted to mention logistically, your next meeting will be back in council chambers. So I apologize if you prefer this room. We're going back upstairs next week. And then just wanted to note for your interest that the next council meeting is a pretty planning heavy meeting. So wanted to mention to you that we're taking some time a briefing to council on municipal code amendments related to short-term rentals. And so those don't touch the zoning code. They're more related to our business licensing requirements and short-term rentals. I do think you might be interested. We have a couple related amendments that we're going to run through our miscellaneous code amendments packages or some definition tweaks. So you'll see a piece of that, but we're briefing city council on the muni code amendments next Tuesday. City council is also expected to. Take up the table motion again on whether or not to increase the square footage exemption threshold for affordable housing fees and low density residential zones. So that 1 has. Been seen by council a few times now. That's the 1 where they had a vote the vote tied and then it's gone out a little bit. And so we do we'll have a. packet in the next council meeting packet. It might be of interest to you. There's a lot of good data about the square footage we're seeing get built for townhomes and single family homes. So if you want to nerd out on some data, I would check out the council packet and then they should vote on that on Tuesday. And lastly, we are expecting them to, they will hold a public hearing and we're expecting potential adoption of code amendments related to detention facilities in the city. So That was one that got added on through a legislative review memo, and it wasn't on the work program. It has taken a little bit of staff time to get back to the regularly scheduled program. So those were the updates from each year.

All right. I meant to mention this during the public hearings, but I want to thank staff for the work they did. And I think the length of the parking code amendments packet, I think is a very persuasive argument for the need to consolidate our zoning code. And it is a mess. And I can only imagine how much time you have to spend digging through all of it. So I want to thank city staff on that.

Thank you.

I had a lot of help with other staff members too, so thanks to them. Well, thanks.

That poor intern.

Any planning commissioner discussion?

I just have a question, and Adam's not here. The activity map is not working on the website again, again. Mm-hmm. Any idea when it's going to come back on? And I also found that the crime mapping tool is not working on the website. So there's some shady vendors out there.

I'm declining to comment on the crime activity map. On the activity map, we have noted that. I don't have an ETA, but I'd be happy to follow up with the commission when I get an update on that.

Well, I'm sure Adam will let me know too, but I was just not getting a big, just a little man.

Yeah, I thought it was a crime activity map. Any other discussion?

You can't find out what's happening right now.

We do have one more time for items from the audience. So anyone who would like to give comments on anything on the agenda, please raise your hand on Zoom or indicate that you would like to in person. Seeing none. We can move on to the next item in our agenda, which is adjournment.

We're done.