Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Do we have anyone who would like to make public comment?

Good evening, planning commissioners and staff. I wanted to make some comment about the discussion around reducing parking requirements with Senate Bill 5184, your primary topic for the evening. I do applaud the goals of increasing economic development, yes, reducing the cost of housing, yes. I want to put in a vote, a plug for please can we spend some time planning how we're going to accommodate more people and more vehicles due to those changes. It's interesting, the memo mentions that we have empty parking lots around town and that's correct. I tend to see those empty parking lots in older developments where there's not very many businesses or some of the businesses are closed or there's not a lot of housing. Yes, there's a big surface lot and not very busy. However, with the newer developments that have gone in, I'm seeing full parking lots. The Village at Totem Lake, the Google offices at Kirkland Urban, now that there's a back to office mandate, those parking garage spots are full and they're spilling over into the retail lots. And another interesting issue, I have a good friend who lives at the Pine Apartments, the new apartments up off Forbes Creek. And she's a single mom, works two jobs, has young kids. And she often can't get her kids and groceries out of the car. because the spaces are so small that they can't open their doors. So they have some parking spaces, but they're small. And all those developments I just mentioned were built with the current rules and the SB 5184 that would decrease the requirements for parking quite significantly. That would have been a whole different story beyond what we're even seeing today with these developments under the old rules. So we are gonna reduce the requirements, because that's the state law, and we just have to get really serious about finding ways that we can accommodate more people, more vehicles. It can be walkable neighborhoods, it can be multimodal transportation, it can be more transit. All of those are great. They take time and they take money. Our transportation strategic plan and future plan is full of unfunded projects that we'd love to have them. But somehow we have to figure out how we're going to accommodate the density and the increase. So thank you so much. Look forward to the evening.

Thank you. Anyone else like to speak? If you're online, you can raise your hand. Otherwise, I think we're good to head on into the study session.

All right. Thank you, Chair Rosman. So tonight, we have a study session for you on our implementation task to implement the state parking bill. We did talk to council about this last week. and we're going to talk to you about what direction council gave us. Not asking for any decisions from the planning commission tonight, but we do have a few questions for you to help us finalize the draft code amendments. With you tonight to walk you through it all is our senior planner, Martha Rhubark.

Great, thank you. Good evening, commissioners. I'll be presenting tonight on the parking requirements under Senate Bill 5184 that the city is required to comply with. Feel free to interrupt me with any questions and I will have some questions in the slides as we go. So I'll pause for discussion on each topic. Just one moment here. Great, thank you. Okay, here we go. So tonight I'll start with an overview of the Senate Bill 5184 requirements, and then I'll go into covering what we currently require for parking, and the project scope and timeline of this, and then the topics that we are seeking feedback from Planning Commission on tonight, which is the station area, commercial space, ADU, and bicycle parking. And then I'll touch on the topics needing more research, the public outreach plan, and I'll end with staff's questions.

Thank you.

So starting with the bill itself, this was passed in 2025 and it limits the onsite parking that cities may require for commercial and residential uses. This is the first set of requirements limiting the spaces for single family and multifamily developments and the spaces for all commercial spaces. And here's the list of uses that the bill says that cities may not require any minimum parking for So it's pretty extensive And something to make clear is that this does not set limitations on the number of parking spaces that a project can provide it just sets The limitations on what a city may require what we may require for them and the deadline for this is January 2027 So our existing parking regulations require a minimum number of parking spaces based on the land use, on the square footage, the number of bedrooms in a unit, or in some cases, based on a parking study. Here I've copied kind of what we typically require for single-family, multi-family, and for commercial uses. And then, like I mentioned, there are some land uses where we require a parking study to show what the actual demand is for the use. So those uses are daycares, schools, recreational facilities. And council has adopted the 5184 parking rates already for middle housing, co-living housing, and the Juanita community initiated amendment request locations. So those locations and uses are in compliance already, but the rest will need to be amended to be brought up to compliance. We also currently have a parking modification process that projects and applicants can opt to go through to reduce the number of parking spaces that they're required to provide. Um, this process requires a parking demand study prepared by a traffic engineer. Um, and it goes through public noticing and it's appealable to the hearing examiner. And so this process can add a lot of cost and time and uncertainty to developments, um, but is used pretty often, um, because our parking rates, um, are somewhat high. Oh, and there's a table in the packet that shows some examples of parking modifications. And it also shows the levels that the 5184 bill would require for those projects. And it shows that with 5184, those projects would not have needed to go through the modification process. This table shows a range of example projects to kind of show you what will be changing with 5184. The right two columns show what is currently required under existing code and then what would be required under 5184. And you can see that there's quite a drastic change. specifically for mixed-use projects because for mixed-use projects 5184 doesn't have any parking requirements for the ground floor commercial space and then residential units that are under 1,200 square feet would also not have any parking requirements. This table also shows that many developments are providing more parking than is currently required by code. So the village at Totem Lake is an example, the Google building is an example, and then the Jade Residences as well. So we brought this project to city council last week on February 17th and received direction on the scope and the timeline. Council was interested in an early minimum compliance with 5184 before the January deadline. And they were also interested in adding on two pieces. The first is to eliminate parking within the station area boundaries or a portion thereof to help catalyze development there and remove any parking related barriers to development. And then the second add-on is to allow for commercial spaces to expand without having to provide parking for that expansion. And this will allow flexibility for new or relocating businesses to expand their floor area to better suit their needs, which has been an issue for many businesses, particularly in the central business district where there isn't space to provide on-site parking. Council was interested in adopting an early action ordinance for this project which would make these parking changes for minimum compliance with 5184 plus those two add-ons as soon as possible and so create an ordinance that kind of slaps on those regulations and then do the zoning code cleanup after the fact and so We're gonna move forward with two phases for this project. The first is the early action ordinance, which we have a planning commission public hearing scheduled for two weeks from today on March 12th, and then a tentative city council adoption date of April 7th. And then after that, we'll go back and do the zoning code cleanup and any additional research topics with these updates. So I have four questions for you all tonight, and I'll go through each of them. They are all on the topics of station area, commercial space expansion allowance, ADU parking, and bicycle parking, which are really the topics that we're figuring out right now in phase one.

A quick question. Did you mean ADA parking, Americans with Disabilities?

No, I mean ADU, accessory dwelling units. OK. Yeah. Yeah, I'll get into that in a slide, yeah. So first, starting with the station area, council was interested in removing parking minimums altogether within the 85th Street station area boundaries. There was some interest in limiting that area that the parking minimums would be removed from. So staff is looking for feedback from Planning Commission if you all have any tonight. for whether to move forward with removing parking minimums from the entire station area or just a portion thereof. So we could select certain zones to remove it from and then whatever is not selected, the 5184 parking rates would apply to. So yeah, if you all have any feedback. Do we want to go through each of these slides and come back?

Yeah. Could we go through and then come back?

Yeah, definitely. The second topic we're looking for feedback on is the commercial space expansions add-on that I mentioned. So we've drafted up some code for this, which I've copied on this slide. So we would not require any additional off-street parking for the following scenarios. The first is already covered by 5184, so changes of use to a commercial use. So any change of use where the new use is a commercial use, parking will not be required. Any additional parking would not be required for that use. And then the two bullets that are in bold are what would be the add-on to 5184 and allow for that expansion of commercial space. So the first is commercial space expansions within the existing building envelope. So that's just adding a mezzanine level within the building that we would not require additional parking for that gross floor area. And then the second is to allow for a one-time commercial space expansion per property up to 3,000 square feet or 10% of the existing gross floor area, whichever is greater. So yeah, staff is seeking feedback on this language if you all have any before we move forward. I think, yeah. Yeah, I'll keep going. So as we were doing research on this, the one use that kind of is a little bit tricky with the 5184 implementation is accessory dwelling units. So I'm going to walk you through kind of what this tricky situation is and then what our staff recommendation is given the situation. So the maximum ADU size is 1,200 square feet. except there is a scenario where an ADU can be above 1,200 square feet. If it's an existing residence where they are going to convert one floor to an ADU, and that floor is more than 1,200 square feet, and it would make sense to just have the whole floor be an ADU. So it could be 1,500 square feet, just given the existing Floor and constraints and that can be approved with directors approval and we don't see that very often, but it is built into the code right now. And then 5184 exempts all residential units under 1200 square feet from parking requirements and so that leaves. An ADU that is exactly 1,200 square feet, so pretty much just a difference of one square foot, which could really come down to human error of measuring on a plan. And the scenario where they're doing a conversion to an ADU within an existing house. with director's approval. And so for those two scenarios, under minimum compliance of 5184, we would apply our existing ADU regulations, which are pretty nuanced, and only apply off-street parking requirements if two ADUs are provided on site and if the property is outside of proximity to transit and street parking. So given that complexity, the staff recommendation would be to exempt ADUs from minimum parking regulations, just to avoid the complexity. And we believe the change would only be to a very select number of ADUs, if that. So. Yeah, we're seeking feedback on that.

Quick question. How much parking would that 1,200 square foot ADU be required to provide? Would it be like 0.5 parking spots or one? Or is an ADU considered multifamily for the purpose of 5184?

I would have to double check that. That's a good question. It would either be a half a space or one space, depending on if it's single family or multifamily.

So we're talking about one space over one square foot, which, like you said, could be down to a measurement error or the games that people like to play with what gets counted as a square foot or not.

Right.

OK. Thank you.

How many ADUs have we had permitted over 1,200 square feet? recently. Do we have any data on that? I'm curious if we have any or more than like one a year permitted at that.

Yeah, I can take a crack at that. I don't have any great data. But it's based on my recollection, it's like probably one or two a year. And yeah, it's exactly what Martha was describing. Somebody has a house with 1300 square foot, first floor, they want to make that into an ADU, we're not going to make them carve off 100 square feet and wall it off from the rest of the ADU. It happens very infrequently.

OK. Thanks. Any other questions on this? OK. Oh.

OK. When you have a 0.5 parking space, how do you ever do that?

It would round up to one. OK. Yeah. So we're going to build the rounding provisions into the code. And that's existing, too. So with the initial phase of implementation, phase one, We have identified that bicycle parking regulations will be impacted because our existing regulations for bike spaces are tied to the number of required vehicle parking spaces. And so if the number of required spaces will drastically reduce with 5184, that in turn means that the bicycle parking regulations or requirements would reduce. unintentionally. So because we're moving quickly with this ordinance, an option would be to implement the bicycle regulation ratios that were developed for the station area to apply citywide. And so I've copied them here. They are tied to the uses square footage and or the number of units. But this would be a topic that staff is looking for feedback on. It's also something that could be implemented at this phase and then adjusted later on once we have more time for research.

Just a few clarification questions on the bike parking. What exactly is the difference between short-term and long-term bicycle parking, according to the study?

Excuse me. I can take that one. Thanks for the question, Vice Chair. So really the way that we think about it is like long-term bicycle parking is resident parking. If we're talking about residential and short-term bicycle parking is like visitor parking. So the station area code does have some kind of guidance about what that should look like where we say that short-term bicycle parking can be in like a bike rack and it can be outside it should actually be near the entrances where it makes it easy for someone to wheel up park their bike and go in and grab groceries or something and then that long-term bicycle parking should be sheltered and provide kind of security some type of security for those bikes so that's what we have in the station area we intentionally Um, because that's within a form based code, it's kind of flexible and then our public works official. So the public works reviewer would be the one approving the design of that final bike parking.

Okay, thanks. So then it doesn't have anything to do with whether it's like a staple rack that's just very simple on the ground or a hook that's on a wall that you have to lift your bike up onto. That's not addressed by this.

Correct. The type of, especially for long-term, the type of like apparatus isn't mentioned. So people could propose different things. It could just be like a cage. I don't know if our public works official would approve that specifically. One of the other things we talked about was just, we know we're going to have to adjust this a little bit over time, even when we were doing the stationary standards, because We figure that the amount of e-bikes are going to be increasing, and at some point we might even want to add a standard that there has to be charging infrastructure available as a minimum requirement. We don't have it right now, but it's just an example of one of the ways that we're going to have to kind of evolve.

Okay. Thank you.

So we've identified some continued research topics for this project that will be addressed in the phase two cleanup phase of the project. And so these are ADA parking and EV charging parking requirements. Both of those come from the building code. So we apply the building code standards and they are tied to the number of provided parking spaces. And so those will not be impacted to the degree that bicycle parking will be impacted since it's tied to provided rather than required parking spaces. The affordable housing parking, we're having continued discussions about kind of the implications of exempting affordable housing from parking requirements which is required under 5184 and then temporary or time-restricted parking 5184 says that cities may require like drop-off parking spaces for certain uses and so we currently apply that for daycare uses and Um, we are planning to include that in the draft code to continue to apply that requirement. Um, but there may be other uses that we want to apply that to. And so we can research that in the second phase. And then, um, also maybe taking a look at the process for parking modifications and shared parking agreements. We can revisit that now that the, um, with 51 84, the parking regulations would be reduced. And that's it for my presentation.

Can we go back to the first one then? I think the next slide, the stationary one. OK, stationary first. Commissioner Nolan.

Yeah, so I mean kind of, this is actually more of the last one, but I don't think we need to go through the slides. But just as far as ADA goes, I definitely want to encourage as much as possible to make sure that at least needs for people who might have mobility issues are addressed. Because to me that is a really real concern that if ADA parking spaces are currently tied over all parking spaces and we relax the number of parking spaces that are needed, that may mean in some cases we literally have nowhere for somebody who has a mobility issue. to park, which I think can be hugely detrimental because in these cases we're not just saying, hey, just, you know, you can park like four blocks over and walk. Well, that's great if you don't have a mobility issue, but a bit harrowing if you do. So, I mean, I do understand the laws, the law, but to the extent that we can Find some sort of workaround, which might be even as simple as just having, you know, requiring drop off zones in commercial areas. I'd like to encourage that. I also want to continue encouraging looking at how to handle EV charging in some of these areas, because certainly if we want people in multifamily houses to have EVs, Having ways for them to charge them is probably necessary, because if you can't charge your EV at home, you're probably not going to get one. As far as my question, though, it was back to the stationary parking. And my main question here is, how much of a concern do we have? I mean, do we have any studies at all, or any just thoughts as to the risks of people sort of maybe on these boundary zones kind of having to spill over? That I guess to me, I can at least see. a shady apartment complex being built with a thought of the manager going, oh, don't worry that there's no parking here. You can just park in that little neighborhood just down the street. And I like to think that wouldn't happen. I think certainly when you're getting kind of to the more core zones, that's not super likely. But I just do wonder if that is a concern, if anyone has any thoughts or experience with that. Just as that, to me at least, would be my only real concern about kind of not just saying, okay, yeah, get the whole area. Apartment complexes that think people need to drive will build lots. Apartment complexes that think everyone's going to be using transportation will just do that.

At least at this point, it's really hard to get financing that way. So, you know, in the future, that may not be true. But right now, I would say that the financing piece is more restrictive than like the 5184 rules. Yeah, because the people that are financing projects don't want projects that get built and then can't fill them because people don't have parking. Yeah. Vice Chair Jacobson.

Thank you. I definitely agree that with Commissioner Nolan, and I think it was mentioned in the memo, at least one of the council members, that I don't know that we want to get rid of parking requirements entirely in the station area. I think, I mean, I think 5184, the requirements are already going to be well below what the amount of parking that you need to get by in the station area, especially today. So I look at like the urban flex district, an area that DOES NOT HAVE AS GOOD OF TRANSIT CONNECTION, WON'T HAVE AS GOOD OF TRANSIT CONNECTION AS AN AREA WHERE I'M OPEN TO KEEP GOING WITH MINIMUM COMPLIANCE RATHER THAN FULLY REMOVING PARKING REQUIREMENTS.

I'M GOING TO AGREE THERE. I HATE HAVING AN AREA OF THE STATION AREA THAT IS DIFFERENT AND HAVING HIGHER REQUIREMENTS, BUT IT SEEMS LIKE MAYBE If we do have the relaxed requirements in a certain area and see how successful it is, and then we can incorporate in the whole area. But the problem is I hate having areas that don't get developed because the cost is higher. But I would like to see where it can be very effective first and Have it expanded to the whole area. And I'm gonna tag on that. The city will probably have to do some kind of zone parking up there in those neighborhoods that are gonna be affected. Because there will be overflow parking. You can't help it. You're gonna put a high density up there. And that's a lot of cars, that's a lot of visitors.

city will have to make some changes to the way they operate in the Rose Hill area I think it's no secret that I am generally in favor of at least proposing eliminating parking minimums with a realization that we also need to be prepared now to also address the need for ADA parking, as well as be prepared to plan for active management of curb space. Because that is, will, you know, even if we adopt this immediately, it'll set in gradually the increased utilization of street parking space and we'll need to have a plan and be prepared for actively monitoring the utilization of street parking space and making sure that it is appropriately managed for the best public benefit. Other than that, I know there's also some concerns that we should plan to address in the future, not as part of this first phase, to keep in mind how do we help property owners with existing parking lots more effectively manage their parking lots so that they don't end up handling overflow parking from walk-off uses. And then I think there are probably a number of other changes we should be thinking about for how do we make sure that this is more broadly successful. I think there are some changes we should be considering with how do we more effectively arrange our curb space? How do we think about driveways? How do we think about setbacks? This opens the door for realizing a more effective use of our, you know, our frontages. And it's a much bigger conversation than we will be going into now, but I think we need to be at least, you know, have it on our horizon of we need to be prepared to talk about this before it becomes a either a problem or a lost opportunity. Let's see, I think this is my last point. Bike parking also, I think, you know, we'll probably end up digging into this more in the future as well, but beyond just, you know, I think the number of bike parking requirements we could stick with the station area as the proposal for now, but we should be thinking about how do we ensure that these are built to accommodate a diversity of bikes. E-bikes were mentioned, but there's also trikes, for people who maybe don't have the balance for a conventional bike or cargo bikes or for hauling kids around or whatnot. And both to ensure accessibility, not requiring great strength to have to lift the bike into position, as well as access to charging, which might also mean having lockers next to the racks so that you have a place to put your charger and have a cord in the wall and a cord to bring into the bike without worrying that your charter is going to walk off. I think that's admittedly things that we can think about in the next phase, but things that I just want to put a tack on that. And I think that covers everything. Thanks.

Commissioner Buñuel? I want to say I agree with everything about the ADA. Having been a caregiver to someone that had practically no mobility, Finding a place to even drop a person off is impossible. The current ADA regulations for parking under the building code are minimal. And I recall several times that I had to give up going to places and head out to a mall to do the same thing because there was more room to maneuver those sort of vehicles. And Kirkland has a pretty large senior population and it seems a lot of the regulations I always feel kind of deal with younger residents and the seniors kind of get ignored. I was wondering if maybe when you're doing your research if you could reach out to the members of the senior council and see what they have to say and what challenges they have or even to the assisted living communities that do have independent people there too, just to kind of make sure we're not making it worse for them than it already is. And then I had a question. Are shared parking agreements still allowed in Kirkland? Yes, they are. We do have regulations around them. And will those be affected? I mean, that can kind of sometimes make up for some of the loss in parking when you can You know, uses have peak times at different times. Like I know the Overlake, it's not Overlake Christian Church, hasn't been that forever. Whatever that church is up there, I know there's a lot of parking mixtures that happen up there. And I think it solves a lot of problems allowing that to happen. So I just want to make sure that that doesn't go away or is prohibited under this bill.

Could I respond to that real quick, Commissioner Buñuel? I think we haven't contemplated at all getting rid of the allowance for shared parking agreements. I think that what's more likely to happen is that right now, in most cases, the city in a way initiates them because in reviewing parking, we find someone doesn't have adequate parking and might give them the suggestion, you should pursue a shared parking agreement, and then we're reviewing it to make sure that that kind of giving parking property has the surplus basis. What I imagine might happen is that people might still, whether formally or informally, have these shared parking agreements, but we just might not be as involved because we're not the one triggering the requirement since the parking requirements will be much lower. But we haven't contemplated, like we've talked about so far, keeping that allowance in the code so that we can see how it goes.

Back to the station area slide. I generally agree with what's been said here, though I think that Commissioner Reiser had a good point about it would be nice to have the same rules for the whole station area. And with where 5184 is at, I'm not certain that we really are getting anything different by having requirements in the station area because the number of, especially for residential, the number of units over 1200 square feet is going to be vanishingly small and those units are generally going to be, you know, the big luxury ones that are going to require parking. So I am okay if we feel the need to keep it to $51.84 in some places, but I don't know how much that's really doing anything other than lip service saying that we're not getting rid of parking minimums. I think in practice, it's not going to make a difference. So the only reason why I think the idea of having no minimum parking requirements here at all is just to simplify the process, both for the applicant and staff. But I honestly do not think that pretty much any project that gets built is going to see any difference in parking, whether we go with the 50-184 requirements or something different than that. Do we want to talk about where folks are at as far as, like, because we need to give a recommendation on, I think maybe we go one by one. How much are folks, like, anyone have specific thoughts on, like, what you would like to recommend when it comes to the stationery? I feel like we talked about a bunch of different but similar thoughts.

Commissioner Nolan? Having heard what you had to say, Commissioner Rosman, I think I'd probably echo just the thought that probably the vast majority of the units that are going to be built in the station area are going to be exempt from parking requirements anyway under this bill. And I always like the simplest possible option because I think it's easier for our planners, I think it's easier for developers. And I do agree that when we're looking at these over 1,200 square foot units that would have parking requirements, the chances that the developers will not be building parking anyway are vanishingly small. So I kind of echo your recommendation, but I'm open to other opinions too.

I would say if there's a way to asterisk about the ADA parking, I like the idea of it not being tied to the number of stalls built, that even if a project didn't have any or very few, still requiring some number of ADA seems reasonable, depending on what we're legally allowed to do there.

I do have a slide that's showing the existing... requirements from the building code here. So it shows, yeah, if you're providing one to 25 spaces, you provide one ADA space and goes up from there.

Yeah, and I could see maybe that, you know, this is probably a phase two or something. But you know, having a table like this being based on number of units versus parking stalls, potentially. Okay, we can look into it. Vice Chair Jacobson.

Thank you. I second the comment on figuring out a way to basically maintain the same amount of ADA parking that's being required. so that it's based on units rather than provided parking spaces. I'm going to disagree on the general recommendation on parking requirements in the station area. I do think that there are going to be a decent number of circumstances where when a developer is building commercial space that the difference between 5184 minimum compliance and zero is going to be more significant than for residential units. And that's why I'm more interested in keeping it in the urban and keep going with minimum compliance in the urban flex district.

Could there be a way where we just do away for residential and leave 5184 for commercial? Is that? Yeah, that is something we could build in. I don't know which would be simpler for staff. keeping them in urban flex versus just saying exempting residential and keeping minimum compliance with 5184 for commercial.

It would probably just include like a separate line item for the urban flex zone and specify what the parking regulations are.

So I'm wondering which is simpler, saying 5184 for urban flex or 5184 just for commercial across the station area. I'm not tied to it, but I get the point on commercial.

I think my opinion would be that it would probably be simpler to just have either areas of 5184 or known parking minimums rather than creating an in between.

Okay. So you'd go with just excluding urban flex basically.

I would say that if you're wanting the simplest option for review, that would be what it would be. But adding like an in-between just for the urban flex, I mean, it wouldn't be like that different.

I don't mean in-between for the urban flex. I meant in-between overall versus. Oh, I see. That was more my question, was like saying commercial sticks with 5184 across station area versus carving out urban flex from the station area.

If the question is which is simpler, I think I agree with what Martha said, that it's kind of all or nothing, no parking requirements or the 5184 requirements is simpler. So just treating the districts differently and not the uses differently would be the simplest. Okay.

The other thing I'd add, Chair Rosman, I'm having, at least in this specific market, I'm having trouble seeing how, I just tend to think it's unlikely that urban flex is going to get developed with purely commercial buildings, although that's something that we would really love to see. Maybe that will happen in the future. The current requirement is that there's street level, we call it street level commercial requirements in the urban flex. What we're seeing some interest in is, yes, some sort of like relatively minimal commercial on the street level floors and then residential above, meaning that they're all gonna be mixed use, right? So that commercial space will be exempt from parking requirements. So again, it's not to say that in the future that couldn't change, but it's just hard to envision a lot of purely commercial projects in the urban flex in the near future. If that helps.

Make a motion?

Sure. So would this be a motion to direct staff to draft language or...

Yeah, and I guess what I'd point out to the commission is we don't necessarily need a motion. I think what I'd suggest you think about is what you want to get the public input on, because this is what we'll draft for the public hearing. And so there's a couple different ways. We've heard a little bit of a mix. Based on what I've heard tonight, if I could make a recommendation that maybe we, based on what I've heard, maybe draft a code that eliminates parking minimums in every district but urban flex for the purpose of gathering public input. So that lets us provide notice to the public in the meeting packet, the idea of eliminating parking minimums in the station area, retaining the 5184 requirements in urban flex, and then you can decide after you hear what the public says.

Commissioner Reiser.

Okay, how does that affect commercial mixed use? Are they going to stay with 5184? I'm more along the lines of if it is a commercial.

You like my idea of the commercial part?

So I'm for trying to encourage as much housing be built without hurting that. The other item I'm really concerned about is I what kind of parking requirements are you going to put in place for deliveries so that these people are going to be getting a lot of deliveries and I'm concerned that I want to see a designated parking area because there will be more than one giant delivery van probably at a time in A lot of units. I know on my street, FedEx and UPS are there constantly at the same time, and they get stuck on our little tiny dead end. So how is it when there's not just five houses on a dead end?

I guess my thought on that is that it'd be even more efficient, right? A loading zone in a department building is a place that one Amazon truck or FedEx truck can park and deliver packages to multiple units at once instead of going house by house by house. And I think we do see those loading zones being built, and we have design standards for them in the station area form-based code. And so that's kind of the provision that we have in the station area specifically, but I do think that your concern is a good one and it's part of the broader kind of future conversation around phase two and talking about curb management and how we make sure that these buildings are also providing places for pickup, drop off, food pickup, ride share and delivery services adequately so that curb space is becoming more and more important.

So I wonder, is it a lot of work to show both ways of exempting urban flex versus keeping parking requirements just for commercial across the station area for the public hearing?

I think we could do it.

Because, I mean... I do kind of like the keeping commercial requirements throughout the zone a bit more than just keeping it in the urban flex. But again, I'm flexible.

I agree. Well, I think it's beneficial to the commercial uses too.

Okay. Any other thoughts on stationary or shall we move to bicycle?

I have one more. I will confess that I recognize there is also a financial incentive for the city to make sure that commercial areas remain accessible by cars because of property tax revenue and the unfortunate economic reality that that puts us under. So I'm willing to be flexible on that.

Okay. Let's speed along to bicycles then. Or now I guess commercial space is for bikes? Okay. You can go in whatever order you want. Oh, no. Whatever order. I just had them wrong in my head.

Vice Chair, I'll just say I'm supportive of these changes. I think it's important to support to support local businesses in Kirkland. And I think that's this was this is primarily just about that.

Everybody good on this one. All right. Everybody good on?

Yeah.

Okay.

I'm fine with going forward with this version. I do think we should have at some point either as part of this 5184 compliance before June or in a later project getting into the details of how do we deal with parking that is easy for e-bikes and cargo bikes and tricycles, et cetera. I'll also note that I just... I'm gonna need some convincing for the idea that we should require an electrical outlet every four feet or so that sounds absurdly expensive and fire hazard in and of itself so I don't know if I would be I honestly don't know exactly where I would come down on it, but I would want more information before requiring charging for e-bikes, because that's more outlets per square foot than car chargers, just because cars are bigger than bikes. So if we are going to go down that route, I'd want more information.

Commissioner Nolan?

This is a quick question. I'm assuming the biking requirements is more or less made to be in parity with what they were before. Just kind of saying, okay, well now that we're not requiring so many parking spaces. But I just kind of wanted to check on that to make sure that none of these were dramatically higher or lower than existing bike space permits.

Yeah, I can take that Commissioner Nolan. It's a good question. They are slightly higher than what we would expect citywide with the parity that you mentioned because they were calibrated for the station area where we expect a bit of a bigger mode split. So we expect more people might be biking or using other mobility devices versus driving here than outside of an urban center. So they are a little bit higher than like a parking requirement in a non-urban center would be. spit out the equation of the bike parking right now.

I do want to say, though, as someone who has built projects that most people don't drive, the one bike parking per unit is really, really high. And like there are no projects that come even close to that, not just ours, but others that I've toured, like even a point five per unit. is more than enough for pretty much every project so you know it's maybe less of an issue when you don't need as much parking or car parking but the one per unit is actually like really really high so i would actually be open to having a lower required for long-term parking i think it's a bigger issue to talk about having some amount of space for cargo bikes and trikes and that kind of thing than having one per unit because we're not seeing anywhere near that like not even 0.5 um a i feel like a bicycle heavy property has maybe like 0.3 rutherford

I agree. I see where we are coming from with that. One thing I would ask is perhaps allow for a smaller number now, but also require there to be a plan for how can that area grow in the future? that it shouldn't just be a box that cannot be flexible, but maybe you use it temporarily for the excess space. What is now would be excess space, use that for either storage or for parking spots where you can later then move a bike cage wall for a relatively low cost down the road when it turns out, oh, we need more space for bikes.

Thank you.

Thank you. On that note, I mean, I would even say that especially like in modern apartment buildings, they're already going to have a gate at the front. So like when I look at the building that I live in, I would be perfectly fine with being able to lock my bike in the normal garage and not have to go into a bike room. And for me, I'd consider that just as secure. And then I agree with Chair Rosman that one per unit is a lot, especially if it's going to, as I suspect, end up being one vertical bike hook spot per unit, and those just are not used very often. I would much rather have fewer bike parking spots that are more usable, that can fit a cargo bike or just an e-bike, and you don't have to lift it up. that I think is going to be much more valuable for the residents than a bike hook that is rarely used. And so I'd be open to a lower requirement that then allows us to get those.

I don't know if that's too complicated a feedback right now or...

I guess my follow-up question on that would be, would you want that to be implemented with phase one, or are we okay with these rates for phase one and then explore that with phase two?

I'm comfortable with these rates for phase one and then explore the more nuanced requirements as part of phase two.

Okay. Everybody good with that? Okay. Carry on. I think we're good on bikes. Those are the topics that we were seeking feedback on. I mean I think the ADA parking is probably the like when the packet goes out for the notice for the public hearing I would love for that to be like notable at kind of the top not as a like afterthought noting that this is like a really important piece of potentially eliminating parking minimums in some or all of the station area is that the ada parking piece is like a key component rather than a you know at the end commissioner nolan

Well, and just to add to that, I really would love any work that staff can do. And again, I know there are these requirements and that they may preclude our optimal ADA solution, if you will. With that said, to the extent that there's any wiggle room at all in making sure that some of the most vulnerable members of our community are at least in some way included within it, I think is really important. And if we truly want to say you belong here, we need to mean people who can't cycle long distances, who can't walk long distances, who may really need either these parking spaces or some sort of accommodation that allows them to visit their friends, to visit their relatives who might be sick, to go shopping, to just go to restaurants and enjoy life. Because it really sucks having a mobility issue. And your world closes in. And to the extent that we can at least keep a few doors open, I think that's really critical.

Anything else you need from us? Not on this item. Okay. So we'll see you on this on March 12th. Yeah. Okay. Public calendar update and any other council, etc. reports?

Yes, just a couple. So Marth gave you part of your calendar update. We are coming back to you on March 12th with a public hearing on this item. And I appreciate the comments and the feedback tonight. Very helpful to us. Thank you. The other item that we'll be bringing to you on March 12th is an update on the planning work program. So we discussed this at the last meeting you had. and gave you kind of a status update and where we were at. We are holding a study session with council at their meeting on Tuesday, March 3rd, to discuss the planning work program update. We are including a very rough draft of the planning work program for them to react to in that packet. So that'll be published tomorrow. We're gonna come to you on March 12th with their guidance. And if you're ready, we can get a recommendation from you on that evening. And then on March 26th, this was penciled in, I believe, after we published the packet. But the other item that we've been working on under council guidance is code amendments to activate the station area. And so we've been talking about more than parking in the station area with city council. We briefed them on the idea of minimum density back in fall. And so now we're following through on their guidance to us Which was to work on some station area code amendments that in the near term consider prohibiting townhomes in the station area the potential of expanding flexibility in what a development agreement can negotiate and then the potential of extending the pioneer provision for affordable housing and so those three items we plan to bring to you for a public hearing and on March 26th before we take it back to council. And so you'll be seeing the packet for that. And then I'm just looking forward to April. April is just a little bit up in the air, but we think that we'll start working with you on residential lot splitting, which is a state requirement in April. And so that's the calendar updates for now. Thank you.

Thank you. On the planning work program update discussion, as I understand, there's going to be quite a bit of movement just because of, especially with pending state legislation that may or may not pass by the time we get to that meeting. I'm kind of skeptical that we would be able to make a recommendation on the 12th. So I would want us to just pencil in also discussing it on the 26th, both for ourselves in terms of planning and for the benefit of the public to know that the discussion will also be on the 26th.

Yep, we're happy to do that.

If we have anyone from the audience who wishes to speak either in person or online, if you could raise your hand. Seeing none, I will close tonight's meeting.