Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

This is the Planning Commission meeting for City Of Kirkland, Thursday, 03/13/2025. Let's get started with a roll call.

Bria Hyser? Here. Aaron Jacobson?

Here.

Gina Medea? Here. Scott Reiser?

Here.

Justin Robbins? Here. Angela Rosman? Here. Brittany Rutherford?

Here. All right. With majority of the commissioners present, we have a quorum and can conduct business. The next item on the agenda is comments from the audience. Is there anyone from the audience who would like to speak?

This is a time if you would like to speak about anything that is not related to the public hearing, which is the rezone of or the proposed rezones of the former Houghton Park And Ride and acquired Finn Hill parcels to become park zoned. Seeing no one either in the room or in on the online room wishing to speak, then we'll move on to the next item on the agenda. It appears we have no special presentations, so we will move straight into the public hearing.

Mr. Chair? Yes. Could we pause for just a moment? I think Commissioner Medea is not able to hear us.

I am now, but it took a beat after I said, yes, I'm here. I saw lips moving, but I'm back now. So, Carrie, thank you.

Thank you. Sorry to interrupt.

All right. Okay. I don't think you missed anything substantial other than me looking for people to comment from the audience. We are now on item number five for public hearings, rezone of the former Park and Ride former Houghton Park and Ride and acquired Fin Hill parcels to Park Zone. Would the staff like to

Yeah, and I'm sorry. Could we just take one more beat? As I understood it, I think we might have some folks that want to we were expecting that some of the virtual attendees might want to speak on others that are not related to the Houghton Park And Ride or Fin Hill Park rezones?

Yeah. And I did not explain the process for raising their hand, which I should probably do that before I just skip over that. Thank you for for that. So I will go ahead and give the introduction to this. So this portion is a portion of the meeting where we hear in items from the audience we hear from the public about items that are not scheduled for the public hearing. In order to hear from as many people as possible tonight, we

are allowing any individual wishing to provide comments to speak for a maximum of three minutes. The timer on the lectern will flash a yellow light when thirty seconds remain and a red light when your time has ended. To be fair to all speakers, we will adhere strictly to the three minute limit.

The Commission wants to hear from as many different views and opinions as possible. If you have already heard another speaker say your comment, please consider not repeating the comment and instead provide a comment or perspective that is unique to you. In making your comments, we ask that you please direct them to the Commission. This is not a time for give and take with the commission. Obscene, profane, threatening, harassing, or abusive language toward the commission, city staff, or those in the audience are not allowed.

As audience members, please refrain from any demonstrative agreement or disagreement with a speaker, such as clapping, cheering, or booing. These actions are not only disruptive, they may also intimidate or have the effect of excluding others in the community whose views may differ. I will begin with items from the audience. And when I call your name, please approach your dais. Or online audience members may indicate that you wish to speak by raising your hand in the Zoom meeting now. When it is your turn to speak, we'll admit you into the virtual room as a panelist. Please remain muted until I call your name, and then you may unmute to address the commission and introduce yourself. Alright. With that, I see, Alison Warner. Let's admit.

And then I get, Jessica Rowe staged for to speak after that.

You should have Alison Okay. In the room

Great. Go ahead.

Apologies. I wasn't able to hear who you guys called first to speak. This is Alison Warner.

Yes. Go ahead, Alison. Okay.

Thank

you. Good evening, chair Rutherford and and commissioners, and thanks for letting me speak tonight. My name is Allison Warner. I'm with Balboa Retail Partners. We are the owner of the property at the corner of Northeast 130 Second And 1 Hundredth Avenue, commonly known as the Goodwill Property within the Juanita neighborhood.

Just wanna start with a thank you to the city and the staff and say how much we appreciate all the hard work that went into the Juanita neighborhood plan update. As we understand it, it was approved with the policy j 20, which specifically encouraged redevelopment at the site that we own, the goodwill site. So we're looking forward to continuing our work with staff and with the city as we make this policy more of a reality. So to that note, we also very much support proceeding with the Juanita zoning code amendment update. While our property is currently very early in the process of developing conceptual designs, we are looking at multiple different concepts that will meet various aspects of the market realities of today.

As we proceed through developing those concepts, we'll definitely be sharing them with with staff and with planning commission, you know, as this process continues to unfold. I just wanted to mention a few quick bullet points, that would be relevant to the zoning code changes, in order to sort of effectuate any sort of redevelopment, at at our property. I'll start with kind of increasing the height limit. We have been asking for a height limit of 75 feet, and we are asking for that largely to help accommodate anywhere from the 500 to 600 units potentially in a variety of different housing types to appropriately respond to the neighborhood and, like I said, the market. We also are looking at, you know, a variety of different ways to activate the street front.

We really think that, you know, 10 to 15,000 square feet of ground floor retail would support the project, activate that corner leading into, the rest of of the Juanita kind of commercial area that this could potentially be the catalyst and the gateway to. And just quickly wanna touch on you know, we agree with with Michael's, support for affordable housing at their site as well as being applicable to this site. Again, we're really excited to start this process, and our only request would be should staff and planning commission choose to move forward with a broader study of the BC 1 zoning analysis. We would really encourage and like to request that our property could proceed separately, if not in parallel, but separately from that process. It potentially could help inform that process.

We could, you know, really see how the changes to our site could help be a catalyst for the the broader BC 1 zoning. So again, thank you, and have a good evening.

Thank you, Allison. Next is Jessica Rowe. I think we're waiting to have you moved in as a panelist, assuming your hand is still intended to be raised.

Thank you, chair and commissioners. And I actually raised my hand as a placeholder in case my client wasn't logged on. Do you I and I don't wanna be repetitive. Do you see Carl Peterson logged in? And if not, I'll speak.

We see Jessica, this is Allison. Zike, we see a phone number ending in 4734, but no names.

Okay. Why don't I do high bullet points? And if he's able to raise his hand, he will. I was just trying to avoid double. So if that's okay, Cher, I'll go ahead. Yes.

Go ahead.

Okay. Thank you. Good evening. We wanted to thank you all for your work. I'm Jessica Roe with McCullough Hill.

I represent Carl Peterson, the owner of the Michaels site. Really appreciate your hard work last year on the amendment request and your approval of policy j 16. We submitted our letter, which I you have in your packet, so I won't reiterate it. But for the purposes of tonight, I I would just remind the commissioners, again, this isn't a site that's right on the shoreline, and it's also a really constrained site. It's relatively, you know, narrow after you consider wetlands, a possible access easement, and just how the site needs to be laid out for transportation and other things.

And so that is the reason behind us asking for 75 feet just to make it feasible for multifamily to happen. And we are excited to be able to contribute towards that housing goal and have this site be, a mixed use site with pedestrian improvements and all and all of the nice things that we support happening on the site, including affordable, and some open space, but the 75 feet is what we think makes all of that possible. And beyond that, also a reminder that we're asking for a parking reduction from the current code. We're asking you to consider something closer to, like, 5.5 spaces per unit and happy to provide more information about that. So otherwise, thank you very much for your work, and happy to provide more details as the process proceeds.

Thank you, Jessica. Is there anyone else who would like to speak in items with audience? Seeing none, I will jump back to resume to where I had prematurely jumped to earlier, the public hearings. And staff, would you like to go ahead and introduce this?

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And if we could request that the public hearing is opened.

All right. I hereby open I just declare it, right? Yes. I should know this by now, but I declare this public meeting a public hearing is open.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And it has been a while since your last public hearing, so we're all a little rusty. So tonight, we have a quick public hearing for you on a couple of rezone projects. We have briefed you on these. They've been light briefings since these are fairly routine type rezonings, and our senior planner, Lindsey Levine, is going to walk you through them.

Alright. Sorry about that. Good evening, commissioners. My name is Lindsey Levine. I'm a senior planner in the planning and building department.

Can you all see the presentation or not on your screens? One moment. I'll just start with giving the beginning of the presentation a little bit of overview background. So our agenda for tonight is going to be the staff presentation, and then we'll have a chance for public testimony, any Planning Commission questions, and Planning Commission deliberation and recommendation.

Go to the next.

Got it. Okay. So since we haven't done a rezone in a while, I wanted to provide a little refresher. Oops. I want to provide a little refresher on rezonings and a couple of other topics related to it.

A land use designation is a policy level designation. It is the main use appropriate for an area, and it's shown in the city's land use map, and it doesn't establish development standards for specific uses whereas zoning is the division of land into use zones. Each use zone has a land use regulation and development standards like maximum allowed height, and that differs from other zoning types. Zoning designations for land within the city are shown in the zoning map, and tonight we're proposing rezones from low density residential to the park zone. So that changes the name and the color on the map and the associated development standards for those properties and that's why a rezone is also known as a zoning map amendment.

I just wanted to note that while most zoning types have specific development standards, the park zone development standards are developed on a case by case basis by the park's director, and that allows for flexibility since each park and community center is unique. The park zone is also used for all parks and recreation facilities and community centers throughout the city. So the first subject property is the former Houghton Park And Ride site. The city is proposing to rezone this property from low density residential to park. The city bought this property back in 2023 and intended for it to become a community aquatic center, but since the ballot measure to make that happen failed, the city has been trying to figure out what to do with property.

In 2023, the land use designation was amended to transit oriented development, also known as TOD, in order to be flexible with whatever could happen at the site. That land use designation and the park zone are compatible, and zoning districts associated with the TOD land use allow a wide range of uses like recreational, civic uses, residential, and commercial. Since last year, the property has been used as a temporary park known as a Houghton Park And Play. Also last year, the Seattle Kraken approached the city to propose an ice plex, which includes a portion of the building to be used as a community center for the city. It's important to note that that project, the Kraken proposal, is separate from this proposed rezone, and the council will continue to evaluate the future of the site and the Kraken proposal.

So any recommendation by the commission tonight does not equal a recommendation for the Kraken proposal. And in the future, the city could consider rezoning the north portion of the property once the State Department of Transportation easements are removed. Next, we have the Finhill parcels, which the city proposes to rezone from low density residential to park zone. The five parcels that make up the property are forested, and only one of the parcels is publicly accessible, and that is via Ninetieth Ave Northeast. The city purchased these properties last year, and it would be added to Juanita Heights Park, which you can see to the north of the parcels.

And though the city is not in the planning phase at this time to develop the property into a park the public can access, there is community interest in creating a trail through the parcels to connect to the main portion of Juanita Heights Park. I'll have some more info and visual on the next slide. So the community members advocating for this trail envision that the trail could connect, like I said, on the north side to Juanita Heights Park and then south to Northeast 1 Seventeenth Place through an adjacent city owned property, which is marked here in the red star. And just worth noting that the this additional city owned property is already zoned as a park. We did receive some public comments related to the proposed rezones.

We received about 20 emails supporting the rezone of the Finhill parcels. We didn't receive any so far about the Houghton Park And Ride site. And tonight, we'll be opening up to public testimony shortly. Planning Commission will deliberate and then form a recommendation to forward to the council and if these rezones are recommended I'll be bringing this to council for adoption in late April or early May. Now I'd like to open it up to any questions from the commission.

Any questions before we open up to public testimony? Commissioner Jacobson?

You mentioned that the specific development standards for park zones are determined by the parks director. Do those standards go before the Parks Board, the Planning Commission, or the City Council or any other public authority before they are in effect, or does the whatever the planning whatever the parks director say just goes?

I believe the City Council, but I will pass it to Adam in case they have anything else to add to that.

Typically parks master plans go before council and they're adopted by council so that's usually the venue that the standards would be reviewed. Okay, thank you.

Commissioner Reiser?

So in City Council meeting talking about the Houghton Park And Ride, one of the things they said was that the Kraken was also looking at another site. What happens then if there is no Kraken proposal? Do we have to come does it have to come back and rezone it again?

Right. So the council would need to figure out what they would want to do at the site if it does not become the ice plex. Right now, it is still being used as that temporary park and changing it to the park land the park zoning is flexible at this point, but, yeah, we could absolutely rezone it in the future. Right now, it is zoned as residential, so it doesn't quite align with even its current use as a park right now. That's why we are certainly proposing to rezone it, at this time even though the the future is not entirely clear.

But, again, with having the ice plex, that would be consistent with the park zone. So it would work either way, whether it's an ice plex or continues to be used as a temporary park.

And then if I could just jump in with just a tiny bit of additional background, Lindsay's absolutely right. And then, in addition to that, just to remind the Planning Commission, the city actually purchased the property partially with park impact fees. And prior to considering the Kraken proposal, this was the site being considered for a potential aquatics and recreation center. And so the idea of this site as a sort of a recreational hub has been part of the bigger vision for the site, sort of independent of the proposal being considered right now.

All right. Commissioner Medea.

Thank you. So could you remind me and perhaps the rest of the Commission what those easements are on this lot area that you indicated would be released by the city at some future date? Is there anything that we need to be mindful of with regard to that?

Yeah, can take that one, Commissioner Medea. Thanks for the question. So a pretty large portion of that sort of northern part of the property is covered by a washout easement, so Washington State Department of Transportation easement. I believe that easement is in place for kind of a safekeeping for potential reconfiguration that is unlikely to happen. And so I think we feel pretty confident that we'll be able to get it released at some point. But as of right now, for the foreseeable future, while that easement is there, nothing can be really permanently built there.

Also clarify, that's in the northern portion. So with the current proposal, which there is much more information online for the Kraken ice plucks, that's on the southern half of the property.

And is the easement roughly from the continuation of Northeast Seventieth if it was to be a straight line across and north of that, or does it extend a bit to the south?

It's it's most of that northern kind of triangle looking parcel that you see. Yeah.

Any further questions from commissioners? Seeing none, I think it's time to open up for public testimony. Is there a sign in sheet? While I'm waiting for the sign in sheet, I'm thinking we could go ahead and call Scott Morris since he has his hand raised. Is there further instruction that I should give at this point for mostly the same rules apply that I spoke to earlier about items from the audience. And but, yeah, let me know if there's anything I I should clarify beyond that.

That covers that, mister chair, and you do not have anyone signed up for your in person public testimony.

Alright. Then Scott Morris, go ahead, and you may start your your testimony.

Well, thank you. Good evening, chair Rutherford and planning commissioners. First of all, can you hear me?

Yes. Very well.

Oh, great. I'm Scott Morris. I'm the board of the Finhill Neighborhood Alliance. We just wanted to take this opportunity to thank the city very briefly for acquiring the parcels that are to be rezoned on Finhill. The intent is to include them as part of the Fin Hill Green Loop, which is part of the Fin Hill neighborhood plan. It's something that the alliance has been working with the city on for over ten years. So it's very nice to see this acquisition and then the accompanying rezoning occur. And we just want to say thank you for doing that. That's it. Thank you.

Great. Thank you, Scott. Is there any further testimony either online or anyone wishing to speak either online or in the room? Waiting for the uncomfortable silence. And seeing none, I think it's time for me to close testimony.

So testimony is closed, and now we can proceed on to deliberation. Anyone like to open deliberation? And I think our custom is to allow everyone to speak before making a motion. Commissioner Rossman?

I mean, I think this is a pretty easy straightforward one compared to a lot of what we've been talking about lately. So I mean, I'm happy to just go with the staff recommendation. My only thought is, you know, do we really have to do the Houghton rezone right now? Or, like, is there any other than doing it at the same time as the Highlands rezone, Like, does it really matter at this point that we're doing it right now? Yeah, I'd say that's a question.

I think, yeah, again, it's a good question, Commissioner Rosman. I don't know if there is it's incredibly urgent right now, but, you know, the Kraken is interested. And then as Lindsey mentioned, the site is currently being used for park uses. And the work has been done to allow for the rezoning to move forward if that's something that the Planning Commission wishes to recommend. We've done environmental review on it. We've done noticing, etcetera. So does it absolutely need to happen right now? Like, prob probably not right now, but it's it's consistent with the current use, and and we've done the work to allow it to happen if that's the planning commission's desire.

All right. Does anyone else on the Commission want to speak before making a motion? Then I guess we'll entertain a motion. Vice Chair.

I motion that we take staff's recommendation regarding the rezoning.

Second.

Right. Any further discussion on the motion? Seeing no discussion, all those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? That appears to be unanimous approval.

Thank you very much, Planning Commission. And then if we could close the record on the hearing, please.

All right. The record on the public hearing is closed. And that is the end of public hearing, I believe, right? Alright. Next item on the agenda is the study session for JBD IV zoning amendment. Let's see. So I think yeah. Is that right?

That's correct.

Alright. Great. Yeah. Go ahead.

Alright. Thank you, mister chair. So tonight, we have a study session. This is your first study session related to some implementation of comprehensive plan policies in the Juanita Neighborhood Plan. We are looking for some kind of high level direction from the Planning Commission tonight. Our senior planner, Leandra Baker Lewis, is here to present both some background on the project and let you know what we're asking from you tonight. So with that, I'll hand it over to Leandra.

Thank you. Good evening, Planning Commission. My name is Leandra Baker Lewis. I'm a senior planner in the Planning and Building Department and I'm here tonight to give an overview for the Juanita Zoning Code amendments. That gets pulled up, there it is. Great. Oh, there it is. Okay. So tonight for the agenda, I wanted to take a second and describe the overall zoning code amendment process and the request from which the zoning code amendments stem. As you've heard from the applicants for the community initiated amendment requests earlier, that is the genesis of these zoning code amendments.

I'll give a little bit of comprehensive plan background because that is also another important point to make regarding how we got here, how we have arrived to zoning code amendments. We'll discuss the staff recommended approach to zoning, including some site specific considerations for the Commission. We'll go over our public engagement plan and have a kind of broader neighborhood centered discussion before discussing next steps and opening it up for input. So just to describe the overview of the process, threw a couple points together. So the community initiated amendment requests are subject to a two phase review pursuant to Kirkland zoning code Chapter 140.

They must be reviewed at a biphasal approach. The Phase two includes a final decision on the zoning code amendments, which must be consistent with the applicable provisions of the comprehensive plan. They should bear a substantial relation to public health, safety or welfare. They should be in the best interest of the residents in Kirkland and, when applicable, the proposed amendments should be consistent with the Shoreline Management Act and the city's oh, I left some words adopted shoreline management plan. All right.

Hopping into each request, I'll start with the Michaels site. This was a community initiated amendment request that was submitted by property owner Carl Peterson in 2021 initially. It was deferred at that time by the Planning Commission to be studied within the context of the Juanita neighborhood plan process that was yet to be initiated. That neighborhood planning process did begin in 2023, and it was completed at the end of last year. When it was revisited, the Planning Commission also recommended that we expand or broaden the study area to include the other singular parcel within the JBD-four zone, which is the site or the parcel directly to the south that currently is being used as a restaurant for the Kothikali restaurant.

The property owner for that site is also in support of zoning code changes. So with that, we have plugged studying up to 300 units across both sites. This was studied in the comprehensive plan capacity analysis and other modeling for the comprehensive plan as well. One thing to note as kind of alluded to by the applicant is that the site is largely encumbered by a critical area and its associated buffer. So the buildable land is limited.

Although we don't know at the time the full extent of those restrictions, they haven't been confirmed. Typically, a critical area or wetland and stream delineation report would be where we understand the full extent of the buffer, which is a step that is taken during development review. The second request is for three aggregated parcels under common ownership, the Goodwill site, as it is commonly coined. This proposal includes a 4.2 acre property when those parcels are combined. They're requesting an increase in height up to 75 feet, density allowances to accommodate 500 to 600 feet or excuse me, 600 residential units, including affordable units and then about 10,000 to 15,000 square feet of commercial space.

I realized I didn't go over the numbers for the Michaels site, so I'll go back and just read it off. Six feet is what is currently allowed, but we're looking to study 70 or 75 feet there as well. The request includes density allowances to accommodate 170 residential units on the site, but as I mentioned, we'll be studying the full 300 across both sites. Give us just one moment.

And

again, moving on and the Michael site, the request includes about 4,000 to 5,000 square feet of commercial space. Sorry about that. So both of the projects, as I mentioned, are included within the city's analysis and modeling of future growth that we conducted with the comprehensive plan, And the numbers were also plugged in for our strategic transportation strategic plan modeling and other infrastructure planning so that the growth at the full requested at the full request could be studied and considered. So physical copies of the two Juanita neighborhood plan policies were provided to each commissioner at your desk or online. I have those for you, but we also decided to summarize each of them here, which makes it a little easier to see some of the key themes or asks of each policy.

So it's clear from the policies that we should be looking to increase capacity to enable a mixed use site at both locations. We should be encouraging parcel consolidation. We should be looking at how we can enhance pedestrian experiences, whether that be coming to the site or even staying at the site. And then both policies also call for design review as a requirement. So what we heard so far was pretty extensive.

As mentioned, we did a lot of outreach for the comprehensive plan to form those policies. Some of the themes, not all, of course, that we've heard as far as public feedback are shown on screen. I won't read them all, but some of the ones that stick out regarding massing, the community is pretty adamant that neither site should have high seven story boxes, and we think we can address that concern through zoning by really being thoughtful about the massing standards that apply to each site, so things like upper storey step backs, maximum facade widths and building set backs will be important to address that concern. We've also heard about support for indoor and outdoor public gathering spaces, which we'll be eager to explore with each site. We've also heard that the city should involve other neighborhoods besides Juanita.

And our public engagement plan, which I will go over in just a moment, has factored that feedback in and we are pretty confident that we are able to capture all interested voices aside from just the Juanita residents. More to come on that in a moment. Here we are visually depicting the process of how comprehensive plan policies kind of come to life in the built environment In order for a permit to be approved and for construction to begin, there are many, many steps that take place. I have highlighted the zoning code amendment portion of the process for tonight's purposes, but it should also be emphasized that development review is a really crucial step in the process as well, and that will include things like project specific analysis, mitigation requirements and, of course, zoning compliance. For zoning amendment considerations, these are some of the regulatory aspects we'll be looking to amend.

Will be looking at the uses at a regional level and even national level. Maybe cities are seeing vacant commercial spaces at an increasing rate and the markets are not necessarily favoring apartments being built at this moment. So we, as staff, support the idea of allowing flexibility through the uses on both sites and the use regulations. For things like setbacks, our practice is to make sure that our development standards address differences between zones, so using strategies such as bulk and massing strategies, landscape buffer requirements and transitions, which were discussed thoroughly, most recently, I think, at the for the stationary plan process. Those are some of the strategies we'll be looking to use to make sure that the uses are compatible and cohesive.

And then we will also be maybe considering high performing building standards. Those could be a requirement. They are required in the Bridal Trail Shopping Center that was recently amended for high performing building standards to be required at that site, we could do something similar for either of these projects. And then the review process, we'll also be looking to apply design review to the appropriate uses at each site. And so as we move forward, unless directed otherwise, staff's position and approach is to review these requests at their full capacity.

As I mentioned, they were modeled that way for our comprehensive planning purposes and the areas are also deemed appropriate and desired for growth within the comprehensive plan. We have a lot of supportive policies that ask us to look at how we can increase residential capacity within our neighborhood centers and our urban centers. Some site specific considerations include for the Michael site, the JBD-four zoning amendments. Obviously, that critical area is going to constrain what's possible on-site, so we'll be looking to understand that better and kind of navigate the implications that might have. Access challenges were brought up throughout the public engagement process, and the site itself isn't too large, and it's along one of our major intersections surrounded by three principal arterials.

So we'll be looking at how to address those access challenges through our zoning. We'll be really interested in potential public benefits, so one of the key themes, I think, that came out of the Juanita Neighborhood Plan is exploring how to create a park to park connection between Juanita Beach Park and Juanita Bay Park. That's been kind of a longtime goal and wish for the community. So this is an important segment within that area between the parks, so we'll be looking at how to maybe make that dream a reality eventually, not completely through the site, but maybe as a foundational initial piece. We'll also be looking at some possibilities for enhanced frontage improvements to the intersection sidewalk, and the gateway feature was identified as a strong desire by the Juanita community during the neighborhood plan process.

So we'll be looking at how to maybe encourage that through design guidelines or through zoning. For North Waneta, this is now in reference to the goodwill site. The zoning implications we'll be taking a look at what zoning implications exist for this nearby elementary school, high school as well as the Fire Station twenty four that's right next door, keeping those in mind and especially as they relate to access. The policy calls for safe and efficient ingress and egress, so that will be a top priority. The slope of the site isn't extreme, but it is noteworthy.

I will say that the grade change may result in taller buildings when viewed from the lower portion of the site, but also pretty dramatic lower seeming buildings or shorter seeming buildings when viewed from the higher portion of the site. I have a screen grab that we can take a look at, but behind the site, there's a residential area that's low density and it's about 30 feet above the grate of the Goodwill site, so that massing will be considerably different or it will appear different to those folks. Our public engagement plan is kind of divvied up into a two phase approach. The initial push is happening now, very much active in our community, getting the word out, informing and educating our neighbors and interested parties about the zoning code amendment project. And then we plan to do another push of engagement using similar tools, some of which are shown on screen, to advertise for the public hearing.

The public hearing will be your chance to accept formal testimony about these zoning code amendments, so we'll want to make sure that people know how to provide those to you. Broadening the conversation just a little bit and as your packet kind of describes, this study of the goodwill site is it could be an opportunity to take a look at the entire zoning for the North Waneta Neighborhood Center. As of now, the BC1 zoning allows for only 35 feet as a maximum height regardless of use. It does include Fire Station 24 and it should be noted that any potential rezone or zoning code amendments may require additional SEPA analysis than what would maybe be required for this zoning code or the study area currently, which is just those three aggregated parcels. And a rezone of the entire neighborhood center would require additional engagement to all those affected property owners.

That's what I have to share but really interested in hearing from the Commission. These are the questions in your packet but I'm also happy to take questions as well looking for information or what additional information would assist in further study of the code amendments, interested to see if the Planning Commission has any preliminary direction or priorities for the drafted code that I'll bring to you next time, if there are any changes to our public engagement plan or amendment approach that we can take note of. And then lastly, that discussion of the Neighborhood Center and the expanded study area potential expanded study area. Thank you.

Thank you, Leandro. Is there anyone on the Commission who would like to ask questions? Commissioner Drager oh, I'll ask Commissioner Medea first.

Ladies first. Thank you. Thank you, staff, for the detailed memo and recommendations. First of all, I'm excited that we're finally rolling up our sleeves and starting to hopefully do some things that are consistent with our comprehensive plan. And I agree that both of those sites are all those things.

I hesitate a little bit on the Michaels site with regard to mass and scale, because we've heard it over and over again about the challenging intersection that exists today. And I'm not entirely positive that we're going to be able to ameliorate those concerns in the future as we talk about potentially and now I've got to go by my notes as I was taking notes total number of units that we might plan for there. So I might be curious to understand if we do both the Michael site and the restaurant to the south together, if I heard Leandra's presentation correct, could accommodate up to 300. My what I'm curious about is if we scaled back on the height there, but maximized the 600 potential ability at goodwill so that a net count is somewhat even across those sites. But I again, I'm going to reiterate, I'm very concerned about the traffic congestion and access challenges that the Michael site in particular proposes.

Commissioner Jacobson?

So since we're on the topic of potentially scaling down projects, I'll start with my comments on that. You mentioned that we used we modeled the full request for the comprehensive plan, and part of that was complying with HB twelve twenty affordable housing targets. As I understand, we also used the full request for the Southern Industrial Subarea despite the fact that we did not move forward the full request on that. Are we then potentially out of compliance with our affordable housing targets and our affordable housing requirements if we don't move forward the full request for the Michaels site?

Thanks for the question. It's a really good question. And so our comprehensive plan is currently in review with PSRC for certification, so that's the Puget Sound Regional Council. We are, I would say and I'm going to ask Adam to tag in if he has more information than I might have we don't have a clear sense of when the State will be kind of checking in with us on the actual capacity that we're doing through implementation. And so we have concerns that we would not be in compliance.

There are a couple other, you know, so we might have to bring you other options for implementation in terms of moving forward other comprehensive plan policies to find some more of that apartment capacity, which I think is what Commissioner Jacobson is referring to, using that apartment capacity to meet our housing capacity needs at the lower ranges of affordability.

I also wanted to jump back to Commissioner Medea's and give staff a chance to address any of the points that she raised, one in particular that I think and Commissioner Vedea, feel free to jump in and add any points that maybe were overlooked because I forgot to give him a chance to respond. The parking other, the vehicular circulation concerns on that site. That had been something that had also been on my mind, and I was trying to figure out how would the how would this site be significantly different from, say, vehicular flows that you'd see on a gas station that's also commonly on the corner of an intersection like this, such as across a street, which have, I would say, very high vehicular flows compared to, you know, given the size and configuration of the site. Is that something that we should be concerned about?

I think it's worth being concerned about. I will say that the development review phase of the process does include traffic impact assessments and studies to see how the development will affect roads, intersections and sidewalks, not specific to the internal circulation but kind of how it meets the right of way. So for major developments, the mitigation would be required before occupancy and things like pedestrian improvements, transit improvements and signals and things of that nature are all assessed under project level SEPA as well as our concurrency management processes.

So

that's kind of where it gets addressed, and the traffic impact analysis will be really important to show the levels of service for that intersection. I believe that the public works engineers do a review of access requirements and things of that nature. I will let anyone else hop in if you have additional input.

I'll just jump on this as well since we're on the topic. Is there I imagine that the amount of parking that is planned on the site would impact the level of the degree to which improvements would be required or the degree to which development might be possible on the site. I'm guessing that parking would be a primary driver of that.

Yeah. So the traffic impact analysis is based more on the volume of trips than of the parking spaces on-site, and I'd have to defer to a traffic engineer as to, like, if the parking provided on-site factors in at all to the number of trips generated, but as far as I'm aware, trips generated is based on square footage and type of use.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I could definitely understand that. Like a retail use would have much more turnover than, like, residential use. Right? Okay. And and the parking associated with each, I imagine, would

Correct. And then additionally, kind of the peak times of those trips are different too, and those are all factors when our transportation engineers are reviewing projects.

Okay. Okay. So we'd also want to be careful to not box in the project unnecessarily with higher parking requirements that might make it more challenging to meet the concurrency requirements? Is that a fair consideration? Or should we not? Is that not not something we should worry about?

I guess I'm I might need a little bit more clarity on the question unless Adam has an answer.

I mean, there's probably a point it's a good it's a good question. Chair Rutherford, I think there's probably a point at which there's so much parking that there's some sort of induced demand. Right? I think that's maybe what you're talking about, that it generates additional trips that would then compromise concurrency. But I think that any good traffic engineer would tell you that there is a margin of error, right, in their analysis.

Right? So there's a little bit of give, I think, and we do some sort of only sort of quantitative calculation of numbers of trips generated usually by square footage. So I think it's I think we're probably, like in this situation where there's decent transit but not phenomenal transit and it's still a little bit auto oriented, it's probably that issue of induced demand is probably not huge, I would would think.

Okay. And and be more driven by by the land uses, which is another you know, it could potentially get boxed in if the if the retail or the commercial requirements are higher than are high enough that it might impact viability of development. Right. Commissioner Riser?

I have a couple questions here. And I don't know if it was just I heard it wrong, but before when we were having public comment, the representative from the Michael site said 75 feet, and then in the packet, it said 70. Was that just a are they asking for 75 feet, or is it only, right now, looking at 70 feet?

Yes. Great question. I haven't had a chance to connect with the applicant directly. When we received the request back in 2023, it was 70 at the time. I think that staff would be open to exploring 75 as well if that is truly what the applicant has maybe amended their request. We can take a look at what the difference is on that and the impacts of that. But I'll have to connect with the applicant to let you know for sure what they it sounds like 75, given the time that's passed and market changes and whatnot, that might be a little bit more in line with what they need And in their

I just to comment on really, we're losing, a 20,000 square foot Michaels and another very large retail. I think what you have down here is for retail is not that big considering what we lost. I would hate to see it reduced any further because you're adding too many people to these locations and not providing goods and services to them. And yes, maybe they're going to have to be a little bit more creative and have shared spaces or pop up retail something, but I just think you need to have the goods and services. I would also like to see on the goodwill site, especially in the lower portion that does back up to the neighborhoods that are pretty much one level homes, I would just like to see views from that neighborhood with just maybe blocking of the buildings if they reached 75 feet at the property setbacks that you're proposing.

I would like to see, are they going to shade the neighborhoods? How much overpowering are they going to be if it is built out to the extreme? And I think that will give us at least something to look at if we want to do step back or modify at all.

Can I respond to that quickly before Yeah? You move Thank you so much, Commissioner Reiser. So agreed it's going to be good to see that type of modeling. I did, at the last minute, throw in a pretty informal Google Street screenshot of what exists today. So as you can see, up on Northeast 130 Third Place, the two story single family home that is currently in a low density zone almost overlooks the existing goodwill building, which is a tall commercial building. So I wanted to add that to give a little context of what exists today. Granted, of course, 70 feet is going to be a lot higher, and we can work with the applicant to produce that type of imaging for you for our next meeting.

I would also like to see north of the buildings because those were the neighbors we heard from when this came through the first time.

This is North.

This is North?

This is behind the goodwill. So yes, as you travel up one hundredth.

Okay, great.

But yes, agreed and I received that request. Regarding your comment on access to services at Michaels and the loss of a large commercial area and a very beloved Michael's store.

Well, and goodwill. I mean they're both retail centers right now. So I just I think we need to balance some. We're not putting in back in that much retail. And I do hear that the trend is we have retailer or we have strip malls that are empty right now. The Bartels in downtown and the Bartels that was up in Kingsgate have been sitting empty for months and months. So I realize that. I just think putting that density of a population into a residential or a commercial center, you do have to have retail servicing them.

Thank you. Yes. Yeah, the point I was hoping to make with the Michaels site is that as it sits, the Michaels building is noncompliant with critical area buffers. And given what might be a pretty large buffer area that is essentially unbuildable land, that just shrinks what's possible. And the 4,000 to 5,000 square footage of commercial request or proposal by the applicant, we can work that into the zoning or try to, you know, support that amount of square footage and then hopefully being able to still allow flexibility for the applicant and for the market to do what it may.

And the last one. I do have concerns on parking minimums at specifically the Michaels site for several reasons. That property is almost an island. It's very difficult unless you are getting onto a bus, but it's not like, oh, overflow traffic can park in a neighborhood close by. You know, is no on street parking.

So I would have to be really convinced in large reductions of parking because it's so impossible to get to that specific site. It is enclosed. You know, you have a major street on one side, a, you know, urban center across the street. You have Columbia Athletic Club, and then, you know, any neighborhood parking would be or blocks away.

Anything further from staff? No?

Okay. And I'm not saying that I'm not open to it. I just would like to see how it would work, and especially for visitors coming to that location. And Goodwill is a different site completely. I just see that the Michaels is a little bit more on its own, and it's difficult to access the site.

Vice Chair Heiser, did you did I see your hand

earlier? Yes. Okay.

Yeah, I would say I would also agree with Commissioner Reiser's thoughts on the parking minimum. Full request seemed to be less than you know it was half of of one parking space per unit my concern there is that yes there is no residential parking on the street there is parking at the baseball fields and at the park and it's not a community benefit for us to have people parking in those spots when the rest of the neighborhoods you know people from from the neighborhood or outside of the neighborhood want to go use a park and have to drive there and park a vehicle there. So that's the concern that I I see. I do think our parking minimum requirements are a little high, and I think that there probably could be a balance between the two, but I think this is a little low. I have concerns about this being a big massing there because the Weidner Building next to it is four stories?

It's kind of hard to tell

because It's 49 feet, about 52 feet with the parapets.

The grade. Yeah. Because there's grade and yeah. So, you know, I am a little concerned about that. I am also a little concerned about the 5,000 square feet of retail space is not much, marrying everything that commissioner Reisser said. And then I was confused too because I've been seeing 170 units, but in the ask from the letter from the owner, it said something about allowing up to 300 units on the property. Is that the property

with an

adjacent property? Because there's no way that 300 units would fit. Micro units would be very small. I did the calculations. It was like 50 units per per floor. It didn't seem correct. But, yeah, so there there was an ask in that letter that said allowing up to 300 units on the property.

Right. So the initial request that we got was for up to 300 units, and that was for the subject property. We expanded so for the purposes of modeling for the comprehensive plan, we took that 300 and assumed it would be applied across both of those properties rather than on just one property, because I agree it might be a lot of units for that one property. We took that number and said, Okay, well, let's model if there's 300 units combined on the two properties in the JBD-four zone. Then I think subsequent clarification we got from the applicant is looking to accommodate more like 170 units on just the Michaels property.

So I think that's sort of the evolution of it. And by modeling perhaps something on the high end of the units at those sites, it allows us to plug more trips in, so it gives us a more kind of conservative modeling for the transportation improvements that might be required there, and so we thought that was sort of the safer bet, is assuming potentially more trips rather than less so that we make sure we're capturing what transportation improvements could be needed there.

Okay. Well, that's fine, but the letter that we received on March 4 does say, We also request that you consider changes to the zoning which would allow for up to 300 units on the property. So it's the packet.

Sure, sure.

No letter.

So maybe there's some confusion on the property owner's part, but that probably needs to be clarified.

Yeah, and to be fair, Vice Chair, there could be confusion on my part there. And so we do have the applicant's representation on the line raising her hand, if you'd like clarification from the applicant at Sure. This

Yeah, that sounds fine. Okay. Remote Jessica.

Yeah, I'm happy to have her speak.

Okay. Thank you for that.

Commissioners, yeah, thank you. This is Jessica. I appreciate the question, and I apologize. I do think that was me. I helped draft that letter, and I was reflecting what was in the staff report without clarifying that that was gonna be across the zone. We our initial request was to go high on that number just to allow for modeling just because we aren't at the project level review stage yet, and so we don't know exactly what will result. So I'm I apologize for that confusion, and we'll make it clear in our next communication to the commission how many units we're seeing as feasible on the site after we consult with the architects. But thank you for raising it.

Thank you, Jessica.

I just have one other question. So was there any retail requirements or suggested set aside for retail on the goodwill site? What does that look like?

Yes, so in their proposal it included about 10,000 to 15,000 square feet of commercial space.

Yeah, I assumed it was. I just wasn't yeah, that's right. Okay, we saw that. Okay. And that that's a small that's not gonna be grocery or market. What are the asks for the requirements on parking there? Were there any additional asks for that? I don't remember seeing it on any letters.

Yeah. I think, in general, what the applicant initially requested was just a general reduction in requirements. They asked maybe to align it with something similar to Chapter 57, which regulates the station area. Similar reductions there is what we had about when they first submitted the request. And that's all I know at the time. I don't have a specific number from them on what they think might be most feasible for them, but I can get that.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It's just, you know, there's not really a lot of there's definitely not a lot of amenities in the area. So, you know, I know sometimes we've got to get some building in there to get some of the amenities, but, you know, there's going to be a heavy reliance on cars as well. So we've got to really balance that. And I I do think it's a good situation, a lucky situation. The neighborhood to the north seems to be 15 or 16 feet above the site somehow, which obviously wasn't natural creating. I don't know how that happened, but that's kind of a lucky situation there in terms of still having some sunlight. So that's the good part of the whole situation, I

would say.

I'll be interested to see the Massey and stuff when we talk more about this. That's it.

Commissioner Rosman.

So I just want

to comment a little bit on the parking piece on the Michaels site. And I would actually say the fact that there is no neighborhood parking and no easy street parking nearby means that I am actually more likely to want to see a lower parking requirement and let whoever is developing the site decide how much parking they need for their property. Because, like you said, there's nowhere else for cars to park nearby. And if they screw up and can't fill units because they don't have parking spots, like, you know, they're going to have to figure that out. And I would rather on the side of letting them figure out how much parking they need.

And there is no real neighborhood spillover concern here. So I would say, if anything, to me, that's an argument to go with what they're asking for because there's no negative impact to the neighborhood to begin with. But the park has timed parking that is regularly enforced, as is all of the parking in the center. So there really is no street parking for somebody who's parking a car all day or all night. So to me, that is a very low risk and it is a much bigger risk for the person that's going to be building the site and making sure they have enough parking to have for their residents.

So I would say if they have a number, I'm very happy to trust them that they're not going to under park and then not be able to lease units because they don't have parking.

That's a good interesting point about the parking enforcement in the park. That was one of the things that I was wondering about as well. I recall that there are signs there, and I've heard about parking enforcement across the street at Winita Village site. But I don't know if staff has any insights on the level of existing parking enforcement in the park, like the regularity of that, or if that would need to be increased if parking requirements were reduced?

I will say that I have met with our Parks Department and they do have note that the Juanita Beach is our most famous and our most popular park in the whole city. It does face challenges at the busy seasons and peaks of the year to make sure that parking and that the staff that clean up the parks can get in and out of that parking lot. I didn't receive any clear direction that this site would have definite or would cause definite concerns for our Parks Department, although they did mention that the baseball lot up to the north is often is crowded as well and that they are looking to do some improvements to the Baseball Diamond, but they won't be able to expand that parking given some surface water and other constraints. So there is not going to be any additional parking available and it does get tight at times is what I was told.

Yeah. Was curious more about like the parking management rather than the amount of

parking. Okay.

Making sure that parking is in fact available for people who are intending to go to the park and not being there are precautions put in place to prevent for abuse of what is intended for the parking parking for the park.

Yeah, can touch base with them and let you all know when we get to the parking regulations that staff drafts. I'll have that information for you from the other departments.

I think one of the most effective parking management tools at that park and all of our waterfront parks is the gate as well, right? There's a gate at night, so you literally can't get your car out at night if you park your car there. Maybe that would work for some people, but for others it might not.

Good point. Yeah. Let's see. Think Commissioner Robbins.

Yeah. I want to say that I like the addition of housing stock that both of these projects present. I do have a couple of concerns about access to services on the both of those streets being as busy as they are. And the question that I have is, has any thought or consideration been given to school capacity with adding this many units in those areas and there really only being one elementary school in that proximity?

Yes. Thank you, Commissioner Robbins. That's a great question. Yes, so I have been in contact with the Lake Washington School District to better understand their capacity as well as some site specific transportation aspects of especially the Juanita Elementary. And I was able to get in contact with their transportation division.

I will have some specific stats for you that I can follow-up with. But it does seem based on what I've learned that since we gave them these numbers through the comprehensive plan policy or process, they know what we are intending for these sites and they have taken that to mean what it means for them and have, I assume, planned for that additional growth. It's also worth noting that I have the statistic, but a single family home in their I forget what the school district's plan is called. CFP, capital facilities plan. But in that plan, they do mention that when a single family home is built, they count that as maybe like 0.56 children, whereas apartments are counted as 0.05 children, so not even 0.1 children for these apartments, recognizing that oftentimes single family homes have more children.

Thank you. And the other question I have is regarding affordability. I know in the Michaels site, they're supportive of a 10% set aside at 80% AMI, but we encourage you consider 90% or 100% AMI. How would that factor into the state mandated housing stock at that AMI?

Yeah. So that's definitely more than kind of our standard requirement. So our standard requirement for rental units that are required to be affordable, so

our

current requirement is that there is a 10% set aside and those if they are rentals, those apartments are available to households making no more than 50% of AMI. So the place where we need the income bracket where we need the most units are 80% AMI and below.

Thank you.

I all Commissioners have had a chance to speak now. I may have seen a hand from I see a hand from Commissioner Medea, if she'd like to speak.

Thank you. That last question about expanding the study scope to the other zone up in Juanita. Two, I believe it was Allison's point of hope at the beginning. Can that still be done without curtailing progress on the other? Because I think that does need to be looked at. I don't want to lose sight of that, but I don't want to stop progress elsewhere. Anybody?

Yes. Sorry, we were conferring. So in terms of timing and by the other Commissioner Medea, I just want to clarify that you are talking about just the progress, say, on just the goodwill portion, or are you also talking about progress towards the Michaels site?

My understanding was it was only going to potentially put to a halt the goodwill site, unless I misinterpreted. Okay. Yeah.

So we do think that if we were to expand for the North Juanita neighborhood center, if we were to expand our study and look at potential rezones for not just the goodwill site but the entire neighborhood center, that it would take us more time. So we haven't done specific outreach to those property owners in the vein of we are thinking about making changes to the zoning for your property. We did do some door knocking and a lot of general outreach during the neighborhood plan update process to people in that area and to businesses in that area, but it wasn't in the spirit of and now we are actually looking at specific zoning code amendments. So we do think additional outreach and engagement would be necessary. We also didn't model up zones there outside of the goodwill property, and so we do think it's likely we would need to do additional environmental analysis to make sure that we have got the numbers right for those and that those are getting adequately and appropriately integrated into any transportation modeling So we do think it would take more time.

Oh, but could they be separated? So certainly we could move forward with Goodwill because we have studied that. It's in our comprehensive plan modeling. It's in our capacity analysis. We have supportive policies for it.

What we what you also have in the adopted land use element of the comprehensive plan is a policy that would direct work in the future to look at all of our neighborhood center zoning. So there's a policy that says identify and amend regulatory barriers to redevelopment in our neighborhood centers, of which this is one. And so we don't have it on the draft work program as of now, but it is a project that the Commission could ask us to look at in the future on more of a citywide basis that would perhaps result in a little more consistency across all the neighborhood centers. So I think we have, you know, a potential program we could or task we could talk about in future years. And as a reminder, we do update that work program annually, so you could take a cut at it perhaps around this time next year if you desired.

Thank you.

All

right. Commissioner Jacobson. Thank you for letting me finish my comments. I do want to before I I do want to talk about the scoping and letting not letting things get bogged down, but I do want to make a comment on how we're how staff are providing summaries of public feedback to the Planning Commission. When you say that there was that the community doesn't want seven story seven story boxes, I know some people who are on the Juanita neighborhood working group, and that opinion is in contradiction with what I know their opinion is.

And so I don't it is not useful or, at least, myself to be given oversimplifications of public feedback. And I would be hopeful that we could get something more like the raw notes so that we could see where there is conflict and differences of opinion in the community. Because we know that on things like this, there are very strongly held opinions. And sometimes people on one side will focus on one issue and the other side won't focus on that issue. That doesn't mean the other side agrees with them.

But rather, I would want to be able to see all of the comments, like when we had the public hearings where we got all of the emails and also with the oftentimes, if you look back at previous environmental analyses, that when people submit comments, we get all of those comments in, like, a big PDF. I personally find that much more useful, it becomes easier to see what the actual problems are rather than overall questions of do we want housing or not, given that our comprehensive plan states that this is where we want housing. So I would be hopeful that you guys could provide that going forward.

Thank you for the feedback. We'll definitely look at how to better summarize and provide comments as the process continues.

Thank you. And then on the note of looking at the whole BC1 zone versus just the goodwill zone, I do not like the idea of holding up the goodwill project for the sake of the whole neighborhood center. I think looking at the whole neighborhood center is really ideally would be a question that we would pose in the planning work program process because that is a massive increase in scope. I sent a lot of e mails to staff, I appreciate you answering all my questions on that. My guess is looking at the whole Neighborhood Center would probably require a supplemental EIS for which, as I understand, there is no budget for.

And so the only way to get the budget for it would be through a mid biennium budget request, which happens from time to time and would start this year. Would that money even be available partway through the year? Or would we have to wait until the mid biennium budget adjustment at the end of that to get the money for that study, thus extending the project even further if we look at the whole neighborhood center?

That's possible. Commissioner Jacobson, that, yeah, you're totally correct. The budget is not allocated yet, so we need to find some budget for that. Generally speaking, you know, we do put things on the work program that don't necessarily have budget allocated for it. So that is something that we could do to show at least the intent to work on that and then try to figure out how to get budget. But, yeah, you're right. There is not an identified budget source for that right now.

Given that, I would prefer that we streamline the community engagement process on both the Michaels and Goodwill site sites but pose the question, essentially, to the City Council, The City Council has not made their decision on the planning work program yet, but we could create a recommendation to say, Hey, let's look at the whole neighborhood center. But in order to do that, the Council should be making the decision because the Council's also making the decision on the budget. And if we I think if we streamline the community engagement and policymaking process for these two sites, we will still be we may still be able to start the neighborhood center rezone if the council decides that's the direction they want to go. And so I don't know if this should be in a motion, but I'll first describe my thought process on streamlining these two policy projects. We had a lot of community engagement on these projects.

We've had it for years at this point. I think that the tentative schedule, which I don't know if you have in the presentation, I know it was in the staff memo, I think is essentially providing an opportunity for us to just ask the again, ask the question of do we want housing here? I would prefer if we had a more streamlined process, which I sent an e mail to Adam and Allison, but I'll the gist of it. I would want staff to bring, back a menu of zoning code amendment options. We had a slide where there's all these different policy issues.

I would want staff to bring back sort of a high end and a low end of the options that we could have and bring that bring a first draft version of that to the next study session on this issue, which, ideally, April 24 is what I put in my notes. That meeting could then allow the Planning Commission and the public to comment on those options, allow us to develop those that menu of options further, and then a refined set of those options could be brought back at a public hearing, ideally in our second meeting in May, so May 22. And at the public hearing is when the Planning Commission, after taking in public feedback, could mix and match what policy options we want with knowing that there's a council briefing on this issue on that Tuesday, May 20. And if we can come to a recommendation in that first public hearing, then counsel could adopt when it fits their schedule. I know I've talked with you two about this.

My understanding is it's a tight timeline, but it is potentially doable if we decide that's what we want to do. Is that right?

Yeah. I think it is feasible. Right? It's it's really, like, about crafting the zoning regulations, starting with some options, a high high end and a low end, right, and then getting direction from the Planning Commission. I think two things I think we want to call out about that approach. One is, yes, it's feasible. Two sorry, three things. Two is that it would not leave a lot of time at all for public engagement. And it's totally correct. We spent a lot of time talking with the community about high level policy issues surrounding these sites.

But we have not spent a lot of time talking with the community about the zoning regulations, the development standards for them. Right? So how buildings step back step down, how the open space is used, the parking requirements, things like that. So that is something that, you know, would we'd have to forego probably to a large extent if under an abbreviated process. And then see, the last the last point I was gonna make is about the fact that we would really need clear direction from the planning commission as well.

Right? So, you know, in the past, the planning commission has spent this is not a bad thing at all, but the Planning Commission has spent quite a bit of time talking about things like building transitions, for instance, building height transitions from one zone to the next for the bridal trails project for the stationary plan. So under this approach, we would bring options. You would give us very specific direction on those options, and then we'd really just bring back zoning code for you to consider adoption of. So that's what that more consolidated process would look like. So you should take those factors into account in figuring out whether you wanna do that process.

I I think this process would be difficult to do for the whole neighborhood center, which is why I wanna focus this process on the two on the two community amendment requests in their original form. I think that will be a lot easier to deal with the height and transition policies, given that they're basically just two buildings. Would you want, like, a motion to this effect? I I imagine my other planning commissioners will have opinions as well.

Yeah. Yeah.

We that would probably be helpful, a motion.

Would you like me to make a motion now or let people respond? I think well

It's probably good also, to get I think sorry to interrupt, Chair Rutherford, but, you know, it's also possible counsel might have strong opinions about that topic as well, so it's probably something we would wanna run by them as well.

Regardless of our our recommendation, we would want to run it by we we would have our recommendation for a we could potentially have a a recommendation for a expedited process, But then that would be subject to the council's agreement.

In the sense that I think we haven't taken the work program to counsel yet. We have plans to do that on April 1. I do think that specifically sort of cutting off or not doing further community engagement on this project, we should point that out to counsel that that is what it would take to achieve the timeline. If the Commission recommends that, I think it would we should be noting that to counsel.

I think I recall Commissioner Jacobson mentioning suggesting the May 22. That is a day before a half day of Lake Washington School District that precedes a three day weekend for Memorial Day. So that I don't know if that might be a scheduling concern for entering public involvement accessibility. So I'll leave it to you if you want to pose a motion or not. Everyone's at least had a chance to speak, or we could proceed with more bouncing around with the idea.

Commissioner Osman?

So I really like the idea of us looking at the whole area. However, I'm understanding a little better that it sounds like that that's a much bigger, longer endeavor. I don't want to not do it, I would say, is my biggest concern. I don't have an issue with putting forward a couple of parcels because clearly these folks have been waiting on us to make these zoning changes for years now. And we've been talking about them for years now.

So I think it is appropriate to finish the process that started, I don't know, a number of years ago at this point. But I just want to really make sure that we don't, you know, by doing just the goodwill site, I don't want us to then not look at the whole neighborhood center for, like, three more years. Like, that's that's my biggest concern. I'm I'm happy to to really focus and and get these couple of parcels through, but I don't want to do it at the expense of looking at the whole neighborhood center because I think that's an important conversation that should happen sooner rather than later.

As follow-up on that, do you think that the existence of these proposals should bring up prioritization of the consideration of this neighborhood center above others? Or should we prioritize before considering others? Or that we should maybe consider a what are the criteria we use to figure out which neighborhood center to focus on first?

Yeah. I mean, I think that's where how do you prioritize them all? I think they all really need some love. So it's more I don't want this one to somehow get kicked to the end of the line because we already did it. So basically, like, let's not have this impact when we're going to look at the whole thing. Is that clear? Yeah.

Vice Chair Heiser?

I think those are good points, Commissioner Rasman. The other thing, though, there's no community initiated amendment requests on anywhere in the rest of the neighborhood center, right? So it's not a pressing issue right this very moment that someone's dying to redevelop the area.

There's no formal request to do so outside of the goodwill study area.

Yeah. So I mean, I think in that case we can rush to do this, but if that's still going to remain an undeveloped area for a little while, maybe we just focus on these two cars, get those through as we usually do, and then I think that that would be handling this different than we usually handle cars. Right?

I mean, this is yeah. We're in the phase of rezoning. Right? So it's sort of different than, like, the two phase amendment request analysis, right? Yeah. Is that what you're asking?

I I guess, have we ever held up any cars because we wanted to rezone the entire neighborhood and work on that at the same

time. Yes. Go ahead, Leandrea.

The Parmac request is probably a good example of that, how we, through the comprehensive plan, opted to defer it to after a time where we could do a sub area plan. That might be a good example because they did request that formally through the CAR process.

Yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, that's a little bit different of a location, though, because of the zero amenities in entire area. So, yeah, I I think we should just move ahead with the two items on our plate here, and then maybe make it a know, it's not on our work program, right? Where does it land on our work program right now?

So there's no task, and right now we're at there's a Planning Commission recommendation on an update to the work program that hasn't been adopted by counsel, so just to remind everyone where that's at. But there's not a program to look at the broader North Juanita neighborhood center, center, nor is there a project right now that would implement the land use policy that I mentioned to look at potential regulatory barriers in all of the neighborhood centers. So that's that's not anywhere on the draft work program right now. What I was suggesting earlier was Planning Commission could add that as a future task on the work program, something like a task to look at all the neighborhood centers and potential zoning code amendments associated with those.

When this is brought to when our work program is brought to council, maybe could that just be an asterisk and just brought up at the time and say, like, this is of concern to us. We wanna see what the council's feedback is on that?

Certainly, yeah. We can definitely include that in the transmittal, and then I believe the Chair and Vice Chair will be joining us that night with Council, so it can definitely be part of the conversation. Council could even perhaps choose to add it onto the work program somewhere.

Does that satisfy the rest of the Commission? Because that's happening very quickly.

Yeah.

Commissioner Reiser?

Because these two projects are have been in front of us for quite a while, I am definitely in favor of looking at them without doing the whole because those other areas don't really want to redevelop right now. But also, I think this is a good project for us to experiment. And we keep saying, hey. Let's take a section and work on it and see what we can come up with. Saying that, I'm not really in favor of streamlining it to let's get this done in a month because you are negating all the community outreach, and it's almost saying to the public, we don't wanna hear what you're saying.

And when we get so much public feedback, I didn't even know it was up. I I'm just very uncomfortable with that, And I'm uncomfortable with staff saying, well, yeah, maybe we could do that, but that's really tight. I wanna get this right. And if it takes us a month or two longer, that's better in the scope of this project and also that these are the projects that are going to affect Juanita District as a whole. Because probably what we do here is what we're gonna see as we expand the boundary into the other commercial centers of Waneta.

So I do like the idea of it being on our table right here, right now, but I'm not really in favor of the streamlined timeline. It feels too pushed. I want to hear from both the community and also what these developers are telling us because I would love to hear what the developers are telling us on parking. If they have grounds to say, hey. We're gonna set a section of these buildings that, no.

You can't have a car, you know, and that's why we're gonna come up with the parking plan that we have. Great. I wanna hear that. I wanna I wanna see how these buildings can have the massing and blend in. So I those are the grounds that I'm I'm not really in favor of doing it in a month.

Commissioner Robbins, do you have anything before I go on toward the third round of comments?

I think that keeping the scope narrow to those two properties is is ideal. I do think that studying the entire BC 1 zone there is also important. And it would be nice if we could get to that at a later date and not push it too far into the future. I did have concerns as I was reading through about public engagement, with regards to what these actual properties will look like when they're finished and the public not necessarily knowing where we are in the process. And so streamlining it, while it's great that we would be able to get these things done faster and that we'd be able to bring housing stock to the market, I do have concerns about how the public would feel about that and what that would, mean for City Council and the Commission.

Commissioner Medea.

Thank you. I think we keep saying we want housing like ASAP. So I think what Commissioner Jacobson is proposing will allow us to make some headway more quickly. I do hear the fellow commissioners' concerns about the public engagement. But to Commissioner Jacobson's point, it's been pretty public that we are focused on these two sites.

And so I would be interested in exploring a way to streamline that process because I think the comments tend to be pretty consistent. I don't want to leave anybody's voice out, but are there other ways that we can obtain that input sooner rather than later, our presence at neighborhood meetings, etcetera. But I think I'm mostly in support of what Commissioner Jacobson is recommending. Ultimately, of course, this would be something that the council would have to weigh in on.

I'd like to make a proposal, thinking that we don't I don't think we really need to decide this tonight. We could aim for to try to target for an expedited decision. But we can get to the next study session and decide at that point if we're ready to move to a public hearing at that point or if we need further refinement. Is that a fair assessment?

I think so. I'll just mention that March has been a busy month with outreach for staff. We have met with the Juanita Neighborhood Association as well as Kirkland Alliance of Neighborhoods to give them an overview of the process. We will be meeting with the Finhill Neighborhood Alliance as well towards the March. So I neglected to mention kind of where we are at with public engagement during my presentation.

So I think that might be helpful for the Commission to understand. And then the other elements of our public engagement plan include targeted outreach with our continuing to work with the Lake Washington School District, postcards, social media messaging and things of that nature, which are all pretty quick turnarounds and whatnot. Maybe just a little more to consider based on where staff is at now.

Yes. Sounds good. On the school question, following up on Commissioner Robbins' earlier point, I was looking at the the school boundary map, and I noticed that there's it's almost all within the walk area. The boundaries are almost covered entirely by their walk area except for, like, a couple of fringe areas at the north and the south. And so that leads me to think, like, if we if there were to be more students at that site, and they're also right across the street from from the elementary school, that could actually pose a simplification of the transportation situation at the elementary school and entirely eliminate the need for school buses.

I was able to learn a little bit about their transportation status at the elementary school. So I learned from their transportation division that about 76% of students at Juanita Elementary live within walking distance of the school and conversely about only 4% use direct transportation of buses. So basically just supporting your comment.

Let's see. Commissioner Jacobson? I

would like to dig in more. I am skeptical that we can delay this decision given that it is essentially a decision on what the rest of the process looks like. I have a feeling that what will come at the study session will look different, and I think we could essentially, I think that if we don't make this decision tonight, I am skeptical we will be ready to that what comes to the study session will be enough for us to be ready for a public hearing. Whereas I think if we go down this direction, will be clear that we will have enough to go to the public hearing at the subsequent meeting.

Yeah. And to be clear, think what I intended to recommend was exactly that. We can aim for being prepared for that faster path, but we can, at the next point, you know, determine based on feedback from counsel and feedback from, you know, what our sense is at that point, we could extend it. But I don't see any harm in aiming the tighter timeline for now. Whereas sticking with the relaxed timeline at this point doesn't even give us the option.

So then I'm guessing staff would want us if that's the plan, staff would want us to make a motion on that, to give them direction tonight, knowing that we can give a different direction at that subsequent meeting if we find it necessary. But I would guess that you would want us to give you that that direction in the form of a motion tonight.

In terms of and I just wanna make sure that we're clear on what what the it is. And so right now, you know, we're hearing that there's a desire for something close to a full draft code but with high and low options for the bigger components. I think that that's pretty close to what we were already planning for your next study session. The additional study session or the second kind of code study session that you saw was more planning on iterating and maybe following up with some of the smaller pieces where there might not be a high and a low. It might be a draft. So something like a high performing buildings requirement. Should we require it? Should we not? There's not necessarily a high low. So that's not that different than what we were planning on bringing you already to that next session.

I think internally it expedites some of our work and research on a couple of these items, but I think that we can probably aim for that. And I I don't think we necessarily need a motion for for that if I got that correct.

I mean, I'm encouraged by that, but I'm still I worry that it will slip. Back in November when we had our first meeting up about the middle housing state compliance project, I had made a comment about streamlining that engagement and policy making process, and that flew out the window. And we ended up having an exercise session. And so I I hope you can understand why I'm a little skeptical. But if you if staff are willing to take the direction without a motion, having heard from all the Planning Commissioners, and if that's the direction that you're going to take to come prepared to the next study session with everything that we we would need to go to the public hearing, including those smaller items, then I'm fine with that.

Yeah. I think I mean, I think the next yeah. When we bring back the high and the low options at that meeting, I think that'll be a really good time to figure out whether this is actually achievable or not. I mean, I think if we can get really, really clear direction from the planning commission at that point, Again, like, we can term we can come back and bring draft code. And I think we would also still like a little bit of guidance on whatever you want us to do with additional public outreach beyond that point.

But if that is the case, like, we can get really clear direction from all of you that night, I think there is a good chance that we could wrap it up pretty quickly thereafter. So that that next that next meeting where we bring back the code options, that might be a better sort of decision pivot point for that issue. But it's a good, like, I think we appreciate the conversation. I think it's a good thing to think about. Like, are we being efficient?

Are we being effective with this code? How much can we leverage the public outreach that we did before? And generally speaking, at this stage of the process where you're talking about things like building transitions and parking, we generally tend to receive less public feedback, right, on these really, really technical issues. It's not to say that people in the community are not interested in those issues because they certainly are. But a lot of those technical decisions have been guided, to a large extent, by the policy that was already baked into the comp plan.

More generally, and I was thinking about I might bring this up later in the discussion section of our meeting, I'm interested in exploring how we arrange public comment on changes like this. There's this pattern of we do this at the end once we've mostly formed everything. And I'd be interested in getting public comment earlier in the process. I think that this I wouldn't see it as rushing into the hearing, but more like if we accelerate towards the public hearing, and if it turns out that with that public hearing there's some more things we have to refine as like what happened with the comprehensive plan, then that would give us a bit more buffer to be responsive and address that things that we maybe had missed up to that point and minimize the further disruption on the timeline overall. Any other commissioners have comments?

Seeing none, what's next from staff?

I think we've touched Commissioner Madea has her hand up.

Oh, yeah.

Sorry. I know I'm really vocal tonight. Not related to the topic we just sort of closed out for the interim, but earlier in the week, Councilmember Tim Chisholm had sent an email reflecting back on a practice that used to be common about sending surrogate from Planning Commission to provide a minority report with a summary of the conversation and what the commissioners had decided and why as a precursor to anything that staff might present in that session. So is that something that we can talk about? Does that need a motion? It sounds like it was a practice that had worked well in the past.

Is intended to be specific to this? Or is it general?

General.

Okay. Yeah. I think we should probably talk about that in the Commissioner Discussion section the agenda. But yes, I agree that's something that we should address tonight.

I

have one question for the Commission, if you don't mind. Given the general consensus to try to get draft code for multiple or most of the, if not all, of those aspects of the zoning amendments, is there anything you're specifically looking to learn from the community between now and then? Is there anything I can ask specifically to the next couple meetings I'm attending that would maybe help form your decisions or recommendations on draft code?

Anyone have comments on that?

Commissioner Jacobson? I would just say to focus you had the slide that's like every policy issue. I assume that's what you'd already go to. I think that works just fine focus on. This is a very comprehensive list.

Okay. But, yeah, just asking what community thoughts are on these topics as a general, nothing too Okay. Kind of

Well, if you have the draft code at the time that you talk with them, then that would be fine or that would be great if could. But I understand that the timing of that depends on when you talk with them.

There there have been some materials I've read about improving public outreach, but I unfortunately do not have the, you know, thoughts on how I would apply those principles in this particular circumstance. And I think it's probably beyond the scope of what we can reasonably do in in the timeline that that we have. So I I think yeah. I don't have any specific guidance. Commissioner Reiser?

I would like to add to this list, considering that the Michael site is up against close to park and wetlands. I would like to see what the community passage, you know, is through these properties because especially with the Goodwill site being such a large site, is there a public access path through these properties?

Like a desired?

Yes. Well, or a desire or, you know, we've looked at especially when we did Totem Lake, okay, what is the public, you know, pathways through these

processes? Circulation, kind of?

Yes. So that it's not just a giant block of buildings that so I'm not saying that the public needs access to these buildings by any means. But what is, you know, especially children going to the school, is there a cut through? Is there

Yeah. I will point out just to that specific question. There is a walk route directly to the I think that would be west of the fire station. There is a public access path for both Juanita High School and Juanita Elementary and so specific zoning considerations for the Goodwill study area would include ways to support that. They are not directly connected to the site but I'm sure ways that we could bolster that path that exists and is paved and is safe would be beneficial.

Great. I would just say anything that, I don't know, serves the public and especially with large projects like this that and not even to say that they have to have it, especially on the Michael site. But if all of that is built out on that corner, you know, I'm sure the public's gonna say something about, you know, public access to the parks.

I was just quickly checking the transportation connections map, and I don't see anything proposed at this point. But, you know, sometimes those just don't exist because people don't see the opportunity when we update the map. Although I think this was updated was this updated as part of the comprehensive plan?

It was not. No, it was created in 2019 and hasn't been updated since.

So, yeah, that's a fair point. And I think that also speaks to something that was added to the section of the comprehensive plan addressing these sites in particular let me see if I can actually, it's right here in front of me. And it's something that was added to the plan after we reviewed it as a planning commission. And it was oh, where was this? About of course now I oh, it's up here.

New standards should encourage consolidation of parcels to achieve a more integrated development and circulation plan, which I think is in particular, to achieve a more integrated development circulation plan, personally, don't think that consolidation of parcels is necessary to achieve that. I think that there are ways that we can do that. And I see some other risks of encouraging consolidation of parcels, so that kind of surprised me to find that addition there. But, you know, it's what we have to work with. So but, yeah, I think that that would be in line with what's at least the purpose of that in the comprehensive plan.

Any further comments from commissioners? Any from staff? All right.

I think we have everything for me that we need to continue. So thank you very much for all your input. It really does help us kind of take our next steps, which speaking of this might change. This next slide, this is our staff recommended and tentative next steps where we had identified a couple more study sessions with the group as well as not on the slide, we would be briefing counsel sometime in May. These are all subject to change, of course, so we'll be working towards that April 24 study session as a definite go and kind of see where we land after that is my understanding of the direction that we received tonight.

That's the next steps and that's all I had. So thank you very much.

Thank you. All right. The next item on our agenda is usually reading and approval of minutes, but we have none, it seems. Then administrative reports and Planning Commission discussions. So after administrative reports, then we can dig into the question about how we can better represent the Commission at City Council meetings. So starting off with administrative reports.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a couple quick calendar updates. These are all in your packet, but at your next meeting on March 27, we do have another study session on the middle housing code amendments.

The April 10 date remains open on your calendar, but a big meeting, as Leandra kind of previewed for you, on April 24 to have a discussion about these code amendments that we just talked about tonight. Also, your first briefing on the Critical Area Ordinance update, and that is another State required project that we're working on right now. It touches geohazard regulations, which I think you've gotten some input on from the community, so that's part of the Critical Area Ordinance update. We're excited to talk to you about that one. And I think it looks like this is not on your calendar.

There will also be a small public hearing on the night of the twenty fourth to look at a zoning text amendment to enable development agreement citywide. And so we've talked to you about that one a couple times. We actually thought it was going to come to you tonight. We had to correct a noticing, a public noticing for that hearing, and so it's going to get pushed to that April 24 meeting. I'll stop there and hand it back to you, Mr. Chair. Oh, sorry. Adam has a question and update for you.

Yeah, great. Yeah, if this

is too hard to do in real time, we can you can provide feedback later. But this relates a little bit to what we were talking about for what we were calling a retreat for the Planning Commission, but it's being converted into more of a staff and potentially Planning Commission training. It still involves going out to the Beacon Hill neighborhood in Seattle, meeting with an affordable housing developer, and looking at the project. And he's a good person to ask questions about, for instance, like how inclusionary zoning has impacted him and how financing is affecting his projects and things like that. So it'd be totally optional.

You can come if you want. If you don't, that's okay, too. Staff would be joining as well since it's sort of a training session. We're tentatively trying to get a date on a Friday in May. And so if any of you who might be interested in something like this, if you have any guidance for us on either Fridays in May that do work or Fridays in May that don't work, that would be great to hear. If it's too hard to do that in real time, you know, you're welcome to send feedback via email. But if anything pops out at you right now as in terms of good dates or bad dates, that would be helpful to know just so we can get the dates scheduled and get it on people's calendars.

Mr. Rossman?

Does it have to be a Friday?

It kind of has to be a Friday just because of the developers' constraints.

Okay. Well, then my comments don't matter because I likely won't be able to attend.

It's impossible. Yeah. Okay. What what are good days? Just just Not

Fridays.

Not Fridays. Okay. Okay.

Fridays are my good day. So

I'm happy to follow-up with an email to the commission as well.

Okay. Yeah. The only one that sort of stands out to me, but I don't know if this is an actual constraint or not, is that Friday before Memorial Day weekend. I don't know if anyone might have plans that could potentially conflict with that. I don't don't think I do at this point. Okay. We'll follow-up

with you in an email. We'll we'll look at other if there's the the potential for other days of the week, and we'll try to get one that works for the most people. So thanks.

Alright. Now for Planning Commission discussion, Commissioner Medea, do you want to speak further to to the point that you raised, or should I carry it from from where you left off?

You you can carry it

from where I left off. Thank you. Okay.

Alright. So, yes, there's I've I've heard a a request that after each of our recommendations to the city council in particular, it would be useful to identify who on the commission should be there to represent the commission's opinions or recommendations or even any minority opinions. I would say that, you know, this shouldn't necessarily default to the chair. I think that there's many occasions where others on the commission might be in a better position to represent the decision of the commission. So but I wanted to open that too for the discussion with the rest of you if you have thoughts on that practice.

Or, you know, for that matter, anything else. It's it's discussion time. So

Commissioner Ryser? I was wondering. I read, you know, John's email, and it kind of just seemed like he wanted briefings basically after we meet because I was like, okay. What are you actually asking us to talk to you about? Is it just the major things that we vote on? Or is this, you know, a monthly update on what we did and what we are working on?

I had the chance to talk with John and it sounded like it was mostly he wanted to hear more directly from representatives of the commission rather than having our recommendations interpreted through staff. And so especially where there are recommendations, and it might not even be like a formal decision, but you know, it could even be like where are we leaning on something. So like potentially even with the the recommendation for a expedited Like that's that's something where like and but whoever takes that to the council would have to make it clear that, you know, we aren't you know, this isn't like a a unanimous position. It's not a formal decision. It's just something that there is interest in seeing what are the ways that we could potentially expedite it.

Does that make sense? At least that's my interpretation. Any other comments?

Commissioner Jacobson? Since you brought it up, do we want to have a, one or two to represent both sides of the discussion, one or two members of the Planning Commission to talk about the streamlined or expedited process? Is there interest in that? I would be fine. I would be fine with someone else explaining it. I would be fine with someone explaining the other side as well.

I think that, for example, if we had Commissioner Jacobson go, it would be really useful to have someone from bringing a different perspective since I know he, you know, he's clearly on one side, and I wouldn't want that side to be necessarily overly represented because it's it's not a formal decision of the, you know, it's not necessarily representing us at this point. So if there is a second person you'd like to go who would be willing to bring some balance to to the perspective, it might be.

I think we want to be careful about overly worrying about this. I think for actual decisions and bigger conversations, like especially since this isn't a decision, this is more like let's see how it goes. I don't know. We really need a person to do an update. If someone really wants to listen to the part of tonight's meeting where it's discussed, it's a ten minute snippet.

But think it is important for Planning Commissioners to update counsel when we've had something big, but I would not consider this a I mean, if somebody wants to go and talk, I don't know that it's ever an issue. But to me, it feels like let's focus on making sure that when we have an actual decision that we have somebody there. And I wouldn't say, you know, the public hearing tonight, I think staff can just update on that. But if there's something that has a lot more discussion, I think that's where it makes sense for planning commissioners to show up.

Yeah. Commissioner Orser? Well, also, when we do have a heavier topic like our last meeting, you know, I saw in the watching our meeting was council members. So I know John and Amy were watching our meetings. So it's not like they're not monitoring. So that's why I think on some of our smaller things, like the night, maybe the staff can relay it very well.

Would would anyone oh, yeah. I guess this is comes down to, like, yeah, how how do we decide if someone should represent that urging to counsel

I think we've heard from all of the commission, the majority of the commission, that this isn't something that we need to come to in front of city council for. Their docket is very full. So this item, I I don't think there's interest in doing this item. I don't also wanna take up the city council's time in their meetings to talk about things that the city council hasn't asked us to talk about. So I would say no to this one, and if there's a big decision that's going to be a citywide decision that we're asking for, say, affordable housing requirements that are very progressive or something that's really gonna have a real super huge impact on the rest of the city, yes, we need to be need to be presenting to city council what our decisions were, and if there needs to be a minority, yes, that that as well, but not not for something like this.

It's a suggestion from a Commissioner. Don't think we need

to do that. Thank you.

All right. Alright. So I guess only for is is that like a general consensus? We don't need other than for major decisions?

I think we'll know it when we come across it.

Well, and I was gonna I was gonna say is there was there a any guidance given from counsel on what topics are of concern for them?

Or is it just any decision that we make they would like to understand why? I I think any it's not like any decision where especially our position might diverge significantly from staff recommendation. That's my interpretation.

Yeah. Rereading the email, it specifically said decision. So I'm agreeing with the general feeling of the group that kind of like it's pornography, you know it when you see it. We'll know.

Which You're welcome.

Glad I'm not the only one who heard that.

We'll know when we feel like that level of synopsis and perhaps a minority report would would merit our presence. Because I agree with, commissioner Heiser. Right. Heiser, that we don't wanna constantly be taking up ten minutes of their meeting every every time.

Yeah. And I I don't think that it's a matter of the I don't see us as requiring the or, you know, expecting the council to listen to us, but more just if they would like to hear our perspective, we're at least available to present. And if there are even commissioners in the audience at one of their meetings that perhaps even be ready to be called to convey your understanding. All right. Sound good?

Sounds great. As an example, Chair Rutherford and Vice Chair Heizer are coming with staff to the April 1 council meeting to deliver the Commission's recommendations on the planning work program. We do have the practice, and I think Commission has spoken up in the past when you have wanted to attend. And then council in the last year has also requested those joint study sessions. So you've had more of those than normal in the past year. We have a couple examples of it and we're happy to support however the Commission decides to move forward as you know the instances when you see them.

All

right. So that brings us to our last item before adjournment, which is comments from the audience. Is there anyone either in the room or online who would like to speak to the Commission before we adjourn? As always, I'll wait for the uncomfortable silence to give everyone a chance. But seeing none, we have reached the end of our agenda, and this meeting is adjourned.