Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Margaret Buñol. Here. Erin Jacobson. Here. Gina Medea.

Here.

Julia Nolan. Here. Scott Reiser. Here. Angela Rosman. Here. Ronnie Rutherford.

Here.

All right. So for tonight, right now the way the agenda order goes has our study session first and then the public hearing. And I'm going to propose that we swap those so that folks here don't have to hang out all evening if they don't want to. I don't think we need to... Do we need to... As long as no one on the commission disagrees. All right. We're all good? Okay. So we're going to swap that for...

So wait, you only need one?

Thanks. So if there's anyone here specifically to talk about the public hearing portion, we will have our general audience comments first, and then we will go straight into the public hearing where we'll get presentation from staff, and then that will be time for comments for the public hearing. Make it clear for everyone. But if anyone is here to have any commentary on not the public hearing, again, the public hearing is on the 85th Street Station Area Plan zoning code amendments. But then we also have a study session to conclude the planning work program. So if anyone is here to talk about the planning work program or anything else, this would be your time. SEEING NO ONE, I AM GOING TO PASS IT OFF TO STAFF FOR THE STAFF PRESENTATION FOR THE PUBLIC HEARING.

CAN WE JUST MAKE IT CLEAR THAT THE HEARING IS OPEN? YES, AND OPEN THE PUBLIC HEARING. THANK YOU. SO TONIGHT WE HAVE THE Public hearing for a few kind of activation code amendments for the station area plan These ones are there's three of them. They're very targeted We have not given Planning Commission a full briefing on these but I have talked you through these a couple different times and got Commission's agreement to bring this straight to public hearing so to walk you through those tonight. We have Leandra Baker Lewis I'll hand it over to her

Thank you. Good evening, Chair, Vice Chair, and Planning Commissioners. I am here to walk you through the North 85th Street Station Area Activation Zoning Code Amendment Project. The agenda for this public hearing tonight will begin with a staff presentation. We'll spend some time on the background and overview of this code amendment project, just to get you familiar. We'll then examine the three draft code amendments in detail, and then allow time for any questions from the commission before we open up the public testimony or public comment period. And finally, we will move into planning commission deliberations. All right, for background, the comprehensive plan, the 2044 comprehensive plan asks us to focus growth in our urban centers, of which Kirkland has two designated by the Puget Sound Regional Council. One of the urban centers, as you probably know, is the Greater Downtown Regional Growth Center, which does include the station area. We know that these areas are well suited to accommodate future population and employment growth, and they also represent priority areas for federal transportation funding. So with that in mind, we've recently done a lot of work to update the zoning in the station area to support the transportation investments that are set to come online in 2027. But we haven't seen a notable amount of development that would help bolster those investments. So recognizing this, a task was added to the 2025-2027 planning work program that asks staff to study and carry out zoning code amendments that help catalyze projects in the station area that aligned with the mixed use active transit supportive vision for the sub area. That meant more specifically studying the concept of applying a minimum density, a minimum residential density within some or all of the regulating districts of the station area. And we took Those findings, when we studied the minimum density concept, we took findings from that analysis to the city council in October of last year. And at that meeting, we were directed to carry out some targeted code amendments that address station area catalyzation that we are bringing forward tonight for public input. That's a little bit of how we got here. What the code amendments are, there's three of them. The draft code amendments can be found in attachment one on e-page 14 of your full meeting packet. Council has asked us to do a few things. One of them is to remove the limitations on development agreements in the station area, allowing them to consider heights and uses that would not otherwise be permitted. We've also been directed to prohibit lower intensity residential uses in the station area, so specifically detached and attached dwelling units. This would also include certain middle housing types such as cottages, townhomes, and multiplexes. And the third amendment requested was to extend the cutoff date for the affordable housing pioneer provisions, which grant projects in the station area some additional flexibility on affordable housing requirements. And I will elaborate more about that program in just a few slides. Those are the three that we were asked to bring forward. Diving in, the development agreement draft amendment on the table tonight is going to apply to chapter 57 of the Kirkland zoning code and this change strikes or deletes text within the zoning code that states that development agreements cannot authorize additional height above the bonus maximum height of a district or slash and they also cannot approve additional or they cannot allow a use that is otherwise not permitted in the district so by striking that language those Regulations would be allowed to be negotiated It's worth noting that development agreements are optional They are initiated by an applicant and the City Council can choose to engage in them or not and they require a public process with opportunity for future public input and Also in Chapter 57, we are proposing three amendments to three different tables which designate certain uses as prohibited, as primary uses. So to implement the council direction of prohibiting those lower intensity residential housing types, we are proposing to reclassify that list of uses as just generally prohibited. And we've added those low intensity or lower density housing types to the table. in order to capture them as prohibited. We also are proposing, so just for clarification, this is one of the amendments, but we're proposing it three different times within Chapter 57, and that's just to capture the prohibition in the neighborhood mixed-use zone, the civic mixed-use zone, and the urban flex zone, which are regulating districts of the station area. These uses can still be authorized through a negotiated development agreement if the previous amendment we just discussed is adopted. And finally, the third amendment applies to chapter 112 of the zoning code. We are proposing a minor change to push out that pioneer affordable housing provision to expire on the last day of 2029 instead of 2025, which as you know has passed. Because we are retaining the COMPLEMENTARY UNIT CAP OF 624 UNITS, THERE IS A POSSIBILITY THAT PROJECTS VESTED AFTER 2029 WILL STILL BE ABLE TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THOSE PIONEER PROVISIONS. AND JUST AS A NOTE, AS OF TODAY, WE'RE NOWHERE CLOSE TO REACHING THAT 624 UNIT THRESHOLD OR THAT UNIT CAP FOR THOSE PROVISIONS.

CAN I ASK, DO WE KNOW HOW MANY UNITS HAVE BEEN PERMITTED IN THE STATION AREA? I KNOW WE HAVEN'T SEEN ANY, LIKE, MIXED USE MULTIFAMILY, BUT HAVE WE SEEN ANYTHING

I think there's there's one project I'm thinking of that might have complete building permits in is less than ten.

Okay, thanks So the by extending the pioneer provisions projects will have some additional flexibility I did think it was Important to remind you of what those are so Just as a reminder, to start from the top of the slide, these are the baseline requirements for the inclusionary zoning in the station area for rent or occupied development. So in general, buildings over 65 feet must provide 15% of units as affordable to those making 50% AMI or less. And they have the option to flex 5% of that 15% of those required affordable units and use an AMI equivalent exchange ratio. Which makes it so they can provide more units or a greater number of units at a higher AMI threshold. So that's just the standard requirement and the pioneer provisions. offer some additional flexibility because the first 624 units that are vested or that come in and are deemed as a complete application only have to provide 10% of their units as affordable, so not 15. And they have the option to flex 5% of that 10% and use the equivalent AMI ratios. So that's just explaining the rent or occupied provisions. Again, the proposed code amendment on the table tonight is changing that date, that cutoff date from 2026 to end of year 2029. Very similarly, the owner-occupied units are held to a very similar model for affordable housing, but the AMI requirements are higher, as noted on the screen, going as deep as 80 percent, still having that flexibility for a portion of the required affordable units, and the flexible AMI equivalents can be between 90 and 100 percent of area median income. Importantly, we thought it would be good to talk about what these code amendments do and how did these specific changes get us closer to activating the station area? So just briefly these changes to the development agreement Text really open up possibilities for what can be proposed within the station area and allow City Council to work with property owners to tailor development regulations in a way that both parties are amenable to and Prohibiting town homes in the station area helps steer projects towards higher density housing types, which is part of the envisioned landscape for the station area. And by nature, when projects are proposed with more units, there will naturally be an increase in affordable housing provided through our inclusionary zoning requirements. And lastly, by extending that Pioneer affordable housing provision cutoff date, we are offering affordable housing flexibility for a longer period of time, which helps property owners and developers plan and predict project costs with more certainty. So we have, since the packet was published, we have received a few public comments which are summarized on screen. A comment was received indicating general support for the changes as a way to support development while also preventing outcomes that may not be in total alignment with the adopted station area plan vision. And we also received a comment from a group actively developing in the station area requesting that their project be exempted from having to comply with prohibited uses, that prohibited use code amendment that prohibits town homes. And I believe a representative from that group is present tonight. So thanks for taking time and I'm sure you'll be likely to hear more about that request in just a moment. And then finally this morning the Commission also received a comment letter from the same group suggesting an additional amendment that would improve clarity of the code language surrounding development agreements in the station area and We can go through that if the Commission would like to And with that I'll pass it back to you chair Commissioner Nolan

So I was curious, it was mentioned that we've seen very minimal residential invest or additional residential investment in the 85th station area. I was curious if we have any thoughts as to why that might be.

think sorry I was looking down at something else when you asked your question Commissioner Nolan yeah we think there's a lot of reasons I think there's a lot of market forces at play right now that are making kind of all development everywhere difficult especially for larger scale projects so where we've continued to see investment in some of our middle housing projects throughout the city we have seen a lot of our mixed-use and larger scale residential projects stall or kind of have permits expire and the like. So I think that's one of the bigger things. And then council has specifically asked us to start identifying, are there code things getting in the way, which is sort of the impetus for us looking at this, particularly extending that pioneer provision for affordable housing. And then I'll look over at Adam if there's anything else he wants to mention.

Commissioner Rutherford.

I was wondering about the four acre limit for the development agreements. Projects on sites greater than four acres are encouraged to apply for and negotiate development agreement. And I'm wondering what was the thinking behind that being the threshold given that the city, it sounds like it's under the city's option anyways to accept the opportunity to pursue that. And so I'm wondering why that is a threshold.

Yeah. So overall, staff maintains a kind of neutral position on the request to amend that highlighted portion of chapter 57 shown on screen. When the station area zoning regulations were written, We sought to make clear that development agreements are expressly encouraged for larger parcels or larger properties, as there's usually more possibilities on larger parcels with more space to work with. So I wasn't a part of that personally, but I've come to learn that we wanted to make it very clear that development agreements are not only on the table, but welcomed for those larger properties. But this language doesn't preclude any or any development agreements for smaller parcels as well.

Thanks for clarifying that.

It sounds like there's no magic four-acre decision.

I can jump in on that just because I was around. What we found when we started looking at writing that form-based code for the station area, as Leandra mentioned, was that it's really difficult to write code that works for some of those larger sites when you start trying to figure out what's going to happen on them and can we write a code that is in every case going to work for a four-acre site. So the four acres was kind of surveying all of the properties in the station area and seeing that there were certainly some larger and four acres was sort of the cutoff AS WE STARTED LOOKING AT KIND OF WHAT EXISTED AND WHAT THE CURRENT LIKE PARCEL CONFIGURATIONS WERE.

COMMISSIONER RICER.

OKAY. MY QUESTION ON THAT WAS FOUR ACRES IS A HECK OF A LOT OF PROPERTY. AND HOW MANY PROPERTIES REALLY BESIDES THE LEE JOHNSON SITE WERE THERE THAT ACTUALLY HAD FOUR ACRES? MAYBE THE CRESCENT SITE, BUT IT SEEMS LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE IS, YOU KNOW, THE PETCO SITE. It is just a handful. Why wouldn't we take it down to three or two just to encourage people to do development agreements?

Yeah, good question. So, and just to make it clear, right, development agreements are allowed for any property. I think the four acres, there aren't a lot of existing properties that are four acres, but parcels could be combined to be subject property. Especially, I think, as you get further east down 85th Street, there's not a lot of very large properties, but through parcel aggregation, there could be. And so we felt like the code does a pretty good job at addressing those smaller sites. Someone can try to apply the form-based code as written to a larger property, but those larger properties are really where we think it does make sense to look at more of a custom fit for that project that's negotiated based on kind of what public benefits are going to be produced by it and then what code would apply to it. So... Again, someone with a two-acre parcel or one-acre, half-acre parcel could propose a development agreement, but four acres was where we thought it really would be better to look at it more kind of in a tailored way. Commissioner Mendea?

Thank you. So for the development agreements, I get that being exempt from height and use is not otherwise permitted. And I think, you know, if not there, where it makes sense in that area in particular to entertain those options. But so just to be clear, it would be in the stationary, the urban flex zone and where else? Potentially, was it just those two?

Yes, I will pull up the map. I feel like that might be the most helpful. So the changes would apply to the urban flex district, which is in the kind of left quadrant of the station area shown in purple, the neighborhood mixed use zone, which is on both sides of 405 is shown in yellow and the civic mixed use zone, which is down in the blue to the south.

That's like Washington High School across the street is the church and a multi families in there. They're in the neighborhood mixed use. Sorry, I don't know what's happening with my voice. It must be the salsa. So if a development agreement for a different area were to be proffered, would these same things apply in terms of potentially prohibited uses?

As drafted, no. The code amendments apply just to those three districts. If someone was to initiate a development agreement, say, in the commercial mixed-use zone where we don't allow residential development, then they wouldn't be allowed to proceed with those changes.

Okay, and then real quick on the prohibited uses, like I'm not really sure how I feel about that, right, because that can cut both ways. I understand why in this context that makes sense in terms of trying to achieve the type of housing we're looking for, but I just worry if that then it can cut both ways, so.

Anyone else have any other questions right now before we get public comment and then go into deliberation? Commissioner Nolan?

I had just a very odd one, but I was curious, and this may not even be relevant, but I was curious about the ban on ADUs, middle housing, if that would prohibit somebody who might have a single family home in this area from being able to put an adu on their property i don't know if there really are even any of these so this might be irrelevant i'm just kind of curious yeah i can hop in on that one commissioner nolan's good question um so currently i think

The station area districts really cover parcels that already have existing commercial or mixed uses on them. There might be, I'm thinking of maybe like two or three properties that have a single family home, which would be legally non-conforming for the time being. But this prohibition as drafted could prohibit additional detached or attached dwelling units in that way, but not stacked. But I think the application of it is very, very limited at the moment.

Anyone have any other questions? In that case, I'm going to open to public comment, starting with Kim Faust. And, Kim, did you need more than three minutes, or do you think you're good at this? I think I'm going to be close. Okay. A little over page. All right. But also, you're staying if we have questions. Yes. Okay. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Kim Faust. I'm the co-president of Main Street Property Group. Main Street's local Kirkland-based developer has permitted and constructed thousands of housing units in Kirkland and the Eastside over the past 15 years. We are one of the few developers who permit both townhomes and mixed-use buildings. product some products work in one neighborhood and not in another and we found that across the east side we found that this flexibility is key to encouraging housing production today main street is the only developer to receive design review and lsm approval for a housing project in the station area We strongly support the city's desire to modify the stationary to catalyze development. The existing station area regulations are challenging and modifications are necessary. Today I'm asking to make two targeted modifications to the draft code before you. So the first one you guys have talked about, we have a project called Slate Peak that's a mixed-use project, mixed-use, not townhomes, in the station area. It will bring about 165 multifamily units, family-size rental housing is what we're really targeting, to the Norkirk neighborhood in the urban flex zone of the station area. OUR CURRENT PROPOSAL HAS 160 UNITS, COMMERCIAL SPACE ON THE GROUND FLOOR, FRONTING SEVENTH AND EIGHTH, AND LARGER UNITS. SO WE'RE TARGETING LIKE TWO AND THREE BEDROOM UNITS. 10% OF THESE WOULD BE AFFORDABLE TO FAMILIES. Well, whoever wants to live in two and three bedrooms. I shouldn't say families. We believe the draft code is too ambiguous on whether a sub-four-acre site can apply for a development agreement. So I understand that you're saying it can, but I would like it to be crystal clear that something under four acres, which I think are parcels a little under two acres, can apply for a development agreement. We want to amend the code so that it's clear that sites under four acres can use a development agreement. With this clarification, we can work with the city council on the two deviations that we need to allow this project to move forward. One is height. I can tell you that one is height because we're in a zone that the current height is 45 feet. We need to be higher than that to make this a mixed use project viable. The second one is we need limits on commercial requirements. We understand and will provide commercial along the frontages, but we can't have commercial in the middle of our building on the ground floor. There's a number of reasons for that, which we'll get into if we can get into that detail. But those are the two modifications we need. A development agreement can solve both those, but we need the clarity that we can utilize a development agreement.

Okay.

Sorry. I'm going to be more than three minutes. Okay. Sorry. Okay. Rose Hill Townhomes. I think most of you guys are aware of our Rose Hill Townhome project, which has a lot of approvals in place, land use, design review, and an LSM permit. Unfortunately, we are not currently vested due to the fact that we do not have building permits that a complete application has been submitted for.

Can I pause you for one second? Everybody good to have Kim finish her?

Okay, go ahead. So we are the first project in the station area. We spent a lot of time and money, both the city and Main Street. We've had an appeal from the neighbor successfully. We've been under contract to sell it. We're now under contract again. And because we're not vested yet, we could have all our permits. We could basically lose any of that project. unless which we're going to also do we hustle and get our building permits and invested um so we we ask that you enact the code with a revision that allows um you know townhomes can be prohibited moving forward but we would like that uh we have the opportunity to vest with a building permit application prior to the end of the year so an exception put into into the into the code for projects that already have design review land use and lsm permits or however you guys want to want to modify that um one other thing in talking to a few other members of the council um independently that that might make sense is like a eastern extent of in western extent of a townhome uh detached housing prohibition so you know does it really make sense for this to be the entire you know all of this the station area in these zones or could we have an eastern boundary be 126th avenue that would be another opportunity that would allow our project to move forward with townhomes So ultimately, our request is just about the fundamentals of being able to provide housing. We have two projects in the near term ready to move forward. We need some minor modifications to make those happen.

Thank you. Thank you. Before you leave, does anyone have any questions for Kim right now? And you're going to stay through the public hearing if we have questions later? Yes. Okay.

Commissioner Medea? So I guess my question would be for how long have you been involved in the processes for both Slate Peak and Rose Hill townhomes?

Well, so Slate Peak's a relatively new property that we have under contract. So that's, you know, I've been at Main Street for 15 years. So on Rose Hill, I've worked on that for four years, five years, and then Slate Peak since the beginning.

Any comfortable sharing about how much money has been invested up to this point?

On Rose Hill? I don't want to give exact amounts, but yeah, it's well over $25 million. Thank you.

Thank you. And now we're going to switch to remote testimony. I see Susan Davis and if anyone else would like to give comment, please make sure to raise your virtual hand. Thanks.

Hi there. Am I able to start my testimony?

Yes, please do. And if you could introduce yourself also, even though it says your name.

Yep. Hi, my name is Susan Davis, and I've lived on North Rose Hill for over.

Oh, we lost you. Regarding Hello. Hi, you cut out Hello. I we all we heard is that you lived on.

Can you still hear me?

I'm sorry we can hear you now. Can you hear us? Oh.

Um? We're making sure that. Miss Davis is still in the meeting, OK? OK.

I'm sorry, can you hear?

Yes, we can hear you. I'm sorry.

I cannot hear you guys. Someone was trying to call on my phone or something. So anyways, I live in the neighborhood.

Can you hear us now?

Yes, I can.

Okay, well, we'll start over.

I'm sorry.

You're good.

Okay.

So I've lived in the neighborhood for 22 years and I've been very involved in helping the community and our neighborhood. And I just want to make a few points. You know, I was speaking with some neighbors about this and our concern with this is, you know, 2015, we went over kind of the North South Rose Hill neighborhood plan, 2018 as well. And then we got the stationary plan during, you know, like COVID. Right. And the main thing is, is we 100 percent support those 91 townhomes at the old Crescent fighting Baskin Robbins. And I just want to remind some of you that might not have been around back then, even though the bus station is all the way on 405, their whole thing was as they were like at 124th and 85th. That was a cutoff for density, right? Because they were like, you know, people aren't going to want to walk two miles, you know, to go catch the bus or whatever. And then there was another break off of, I think, like 128th, right? And then from 128th until 132nd, there was going to be like different zoning, like RH8 or whatever. It was going to be getting less intense the farther you move down because they wanted the taller buildings closer to 405th. I support residential that's not apartments or high density that you guys are trying to take away now from certain areas because, again, would you want 91 townhomes or nothing there? And I know that some of the city council members, bless their heart, they want, you know, very dense apartments all along 85th. That's not happening. It hasn't been happening yet. Petco parcel went away. It's going to come back. My concern there is it's 85 feet. And I know it's probably four acres, even though this whole four acre comment in the zoning obviously is confusing lots of people. I think that should be removed. But also public benefit. That is such a vague term. I could see at that Petco parcel 15 stories getting built there and it being a nightmare. Getting to Costco, 85th is going to have 30,000 to 40,000 cars every day on it. That's not going away. So when the planning commissioner tells us that he wants 85th to be walkable and pedestrian oriented, it's never going to be. And we know it's not because they're making that interchange to be a lot more efficient. And if anything, more traffic is going to be coming through. So we really need to be aware of all of this. And I don't want my neighborhood ruined by having a 15-story building on 85th. I really hope we could try to keep to the 85-foot height and a little bit of bonus. But this is going to be opening up, I feel like, a Pandora's box where we need to have to, as community members, stay now online. the planning commission's, you know, emails and stuff to figure out if there's going to be some zoning change because there's going to be a new developer agreement because now the developer's saying, I don't get the correct ROI. I need 15 stories now.

Thank you, Susan. Is there anyone else who would, oh, Stanley?

Thank you.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes.

You know, my name is Stanley Xu. I'm a real estate investor. I mean, I have some projects in Bellevue, but I have done some development deals with the city of Kirkland. I attended a conference this week, Tuesday, and they were talking about the future of Bellevue development. And then I heard several developers, multifamily developers, talking about where they want to put their money in the near future. And then I'm proud to tell you, they want to put money in Bellevue and Kirkland. So I'm a resident of Kirkland. I live in the Juanita area, Juanita Beach area. So I'm very proud of that. And then those developers give the reason why they like to invest the money in Bellevue and Kirkland. Two reasons, too many reasons. Number one, transparency. Number two, predictability. So I think that's very important. With my experience deal with the planning department of Kirkland, I think you people keep your words very well. I hope you continue doing that. And then also I have something I want to mention that in the city of Bellevue, they have incentive, FAR incentive for the affordable housing. they said we'll give you FARs, base FARs. But if you do something more about photo housing, I'll give you additional FARs. I don't know that whether City of Kirkland has a similar incentive or not, number one. Number two, City of Bellevue also give incentive of the close community. If your site is very close to the public transportation, for example, the railway station, they give you additional FARs. So I think if we talk about 85th Street Station, I really suggest city of Kirkland. take those two points into considerations. Give additional FVR to encourage more developer to provide affordable housing. Number two, give some additional FVR because they are closer to the station. I think those 85th Street station is a very big thing, and people are walking over there, taking the bus, taking public transportation. And then you should give developers some incentive to doing that. And then I have 30 seconds. I mean, I really strongly suggest support ministry this project. I think you should give them more flexibility. So I know we should, as residents of city of Kirkland, I think we should support reputable, local reputable developers like ministry to give them more flexibility so they can set examples and to attract more developer come to the development in Kirkland. I think the city does does a good job to attract more people come to develop. So my time is up, so thank you very much.

Thank you. Would anyone else like to make a public comment at this time? Virtual or in person, if you could raise your hand. Seeing none, I am going to close the public comment and open for deliberation. Do you have specific questions of us that we can put up on the screen?

I don't have a slide prepared. I'm sorry.

That's okay. I just always, it helps my brain to look at words.

Commissioner Bonial? So I guess I need a little clarification. So if we go with the prohibited uses, will that kill the project? Or is there language that would allow it to go forward?

Does that make sense? I think so. And I'll invite Adam and Allison to chime in as well. But as written, the draft code amendments don't specifically or technically prohibit a townhome project that is vested before these changes take place. If the project is vested, meaning it submits a complete building permit application after these take place and they're proposing townhomes, then it would. There's layers to that though because There is a situation where if you do move forward with these code amendments, the property owner or developer would have an opportunity to pursue prohibited housing types like a townhome project through a development agreement process, but they would not inherently be able to propose townhomes as an allowed or as a use.

So the only way Ms. Faust's project can move forward is they need to come in with a development agreement since there are no building permits that have vested the project at this point. Is that correct?

Correct. And the letter submitted by Kim was helpful in creating some initial draft language that maybe could help circumvent that and exempt their project from those prohibited regulations. So with Planning Commission direction, we could move forward with added language that would capture their project and include that in your recommendation to City Council for adoption and bring that forward as part of that. I might have it on a slide if you'd like to look at that.

I think realistically what they would have to do is rush through building permits to get vested and then at the time that the sale would take place and the new company would come in with their own ideas of exactly how it would look, they would have to make a whole bunch of revisions to the permits to then go forward, which is a lot of both staff time and money and time on the development side. I think we all can talk about it. not making an exception for this project isn't going to make an exception for it. It's just going to make it a lot more expensive and a lot more time on the city side going through like loops of the same thing. VICE CHAIR JACOBSON?

I WAS GOING TO SEE IF I COULD PUT A MOTION ON THE FLOOR. I WANT TO CHECK WITH STAFF ON WORDING. SO IF WE WANTED TO ENSURE THAT WE'RE NOT STOPPING THIS IN PROGRESS PROJECT, WOULD IT BE SUFFICIENT FOR US TO OR FOR A MOTION TO RECOMMEND THESE CODE AMENDMENTS AND DIRECT STAFF TO AMEND THEM FURTHER TO ENSURE THAT WE DON'T STOP THIS IN PROGRESS PROJECT?

Yes, so like with clear Planning Commission direction with your intent clearly stated, we can massage out some code language that exempts their project site and bring that to Council as part of your recommendation. We took an initial go at it and that's shown as a potential amendment on screen so you could reference this text within your motion. but with flexibility for staff to- Exactly.

Okay. Commissioner Reiser?

Okay. My question really is, can I ask Kim some questions?

Yeah.

Kim, I think- I apologize. I should have asked you when you were already up there. Okay. My area that I'm very- CONCERNED IN TRYING TO GET YOU THROUGH THE PROCESS UP ON ROSE HILL. THE NEW PROJECT, I HAVE LESS KNOWLEDGE ABOUT. I'M A LITTLE MORE HESITANT ON SO I NEED GREAT MORE INFORMATION BECAUSE, YOU KNOW, PART OF IT WAS CITY COUNCIL WAS TRYING TO PREVENT TOWN HOMES AND THE OTHER ONE IS NOT TOWN HOMES.

Okay, so it is- That's the two to three bedroom. They want more than 45 feet. Okay. Yeah, that one's mixed use. Yeah.

Okay, perfect. Thank you for that clarification. So I'm good now.

Okay. Commissioner Medea?

I know I am beating a dead horse, but I want to say it for the record. Mr. Stanley Zhu was talking about one of the things that people liked about Bellevue and Kirkland was the predictability, and what we, in my opinion, can't afford to do is allow Ms. Faust's project to die on the vine after the significant amount of money and time and energy that she has invested. That is the wrong thing to do. I am happy to see that there is some proposed language, and I would like to continue to work through that.

commissioner nolan so i have a question i believe that um ms faust mentioned that there were kind of two options for really allowing the townhouse houses either alternately that um kind of the boundary was slightly withdrawn so that it wouldn't necessarily be within the prohibited area, which it sounded like there was at least some other interest in, as well as there was also the possibility to kind of use more of the code language that's written here. And I was curious both for Ms. Faust as well as for staff if one of those recommendations would be substantially easier to implement, if there might be challenges or difficulties with Either one versus the other, just because I mean, I would agree with Commissioner Medea that it I would like to see the housing built, housing built versus housing not built as well as I think it is important to have predictability. But I don't know which one would be the better option.

Yeah, I can jump in. Commissioner Nolan, I think from a staff technical perspective, I think the preference if we're going to do something like this would be to have a very surgical focused vesting provision basically that allows this one particular project to move forward. I do think that you can build townhouses in a lot of the city, right? Actually, right now with our current housing code, you can build townhouses across most of the city. So what we have a rarity of is parts of the city where you can build apartments. So I think we want to try to be, our staff recommendation would be to try to be protective of the relatively scarce, you know, parts of the city that we have where you can build apartments, hence the more surgical approach.

And I suppose my other question would be just for Ms. Faust is, would you feel the same way? Do you have any strong preference or both from your perspective equivalent?

Both are equivalent. I actually think this, you know, this gives us exactly what we would need. But if there's just a desire, an easier way, if we think City Council would prefer the other option, I just want to make sure we have certainty either way.

Vice Chair Jacobson.

Question on this proposed language. This is contingent on design review board approval. If, for whatever reason, they had to change the exterior of the townhomes such that normally would trigger re-review from the design review board, would that potentially cause problems? I'm just thinking through this language and wondering if perhaps we should just give you the broad direction to figure out something, not necessarily this language, but similar to this language.

Yeah, thanks, Vice Chair Jacobson. I think that If it was something like that, like the facades and the architecture of the project we're changing, that would likely be a situation where we would retain the design review board approval and make an administrative modification. And we can confirm that, but I think that's our sense of it right now. So I don't think something like that would compromise the DRB approval.

I think maybe just making it clear that this is specifically that we want to protect the work done on this project and not opening it up necessarily elsewhere. I do want to reiterate some of the other comments about transparency and predictability. I think Regardless of how we feel about there being townhomes on 85th, you know, you have to make the decision on, you know, would you rather it just continue to be a round, you know, square of dirt for a while versus lower density than was maybe originally planned. But regardless of how you feel about that, I think it is extremely important that that we continue to be a trustworthy city that if somebody comes to develop in good faith that they can trust that once they are far down the project that they can trust that that's going to continue to be allowable. So I think that is like of the utmost importance because at the point that you basically teach development, both like local developers and national and international ones, once they learn that Kirkland is a place that they might have a project pulled out from under them, they're going to invest elsewhere. So... I feel like this is much bigger than this specific project as far as like making a statement that Kirkland is a place that you can trust that they're gonna work and be transparent with you. So it's the bigger picture on that. But I do want to ask folks, do we like this type of code addition or do we prefer, do we want to talk about the other concept that was brought up of potentially allowing townhomes after a certain cross street. I'm not certain where I land there, but I'd be curious where everyone lands. Yeah, Commissioner Reiser?

I like this much better. I think the cross street, because really we want this segment to be the one that we allow through and not extensions, well, everything past this is... game for lower density.

Vice Chair Jacobson.

I mean, I have my own opinions. I'm not a fan of the City Council's and the City's direction to ban specific uses like this and specific kinds of businesses. But I don't think that the City Council's game for anything but something that's more limited. So I think we should go ahead with that.

I guess along those same lines while we're talking about this, I really would like to see some stronger incentives before we start. I'm not opposed necessarily to minimum densities, but I would much rather see... Could someone please help with the reactions that are going on? They're really distracting.

We're working on it.

We're not sure if we can change that meeting. Thank you.

While we're in the meeting.

Okay, but folks who are attending online, if you could please refrain from reacting and commenting. It keeps popping up on the screen and being really distracting during conversation. Thank you. But what I was, where was I? Oh, yeah. Thank you. I would much rather see us focus on how do we incentivize what we want rather than, you know, if we had a bunch of development happening right now and we're like, oh, my gosh, this is not the path we want, let's try and... change direction. The idea of preventing more things and making it harder to build without doing a ton on the making it easier doesn't seem like it's actually getting us to where we want to go. I mean, I think we all have like really great visions of what 85th could be. But right now, you know, we've had 10 or fewer units permitted in the last five, I don't know, how many years?

The code for the commercial mixed-use district passed in 22, and the rest of the districts were in 23.

Okay, so it's been a good chunk of time, and, you know, I know that that's on the list of, like, let's look at that more, but I would say that's, to me, the bigger priority than prohibiting, because prohibiting isn't going to help us get what we want. So not necessarily opposed to minimum densities, but not where I want to focus time. Vice Chair Jacobson.

A question. We've talked a lot about the ban on townhomes and specific kinds of businesses. On the question of the four acres, I'm guessing staff is generally, you said you're neutral. I would imagine that technically speaking there are the city council is allowed to do development agreements on smaller sites but I can also see the developers perspective like I remember I wasn't on the Commission at this time but I do remember the conversations as I remember them it was primarily we want to we want to positively encourage over four acres not discourage anything else but again I recognize their concern so would it be fine for us to also include direction to amend the language to remove any ambiguity on that issue

yes yeah are we ready to make a motion we can always talk more too once the motions you want to go ahead okay wait oh sorry about that go ahead okay are we voting on the four acre at the same time i thought we were well we're gonna have a motion on the whole thing and then we can amend it okay if If you want to amend.

Okay. I do have one last question on the four acre. Okay. My question is, when we did the station area, Petco was in permit and it is at 85 feet. Would a development agreement allow them additional height?

So the Petco site was permitted prior to the effectiveness of the station area when the height limit on that property was 75 feet. currently Per the station area code the development agreement can be proposed But it specifically does not allow people to propose a different height or a height higher than than what the code says So as the code stands today We would not negotiate a development agreement for any height taller than 85 feet at that Petco site what this proposed code amendment would do is allow them to at least propose a taller height than 85 feet and that would be subject to council to decide whether or not to approve through that development agreement negotiation but it would allow them to propose it if this amendment goes through I well I'm I know we're in the question part so I don't want to

give my opinion yet.

No, no, we're in deliberation. Okay. Yeah, go ahead.

I thought it was stupid that this was the one site that we didn't have the same flexibility as all the other properties. So I am very much in favor. I wish that we could actually include this as we did the surrounding properties because it's lost opportunity.

I don't think I'm following. What do you mean by include it?

Well, I mean, I wish it had the same heights as the other property.

Can we go back to the map? And it does have the same height now. It's simply that their permits, they went through design review approval and building permits before we adopted the stationary code. They elected not to. We only increased the allowed height there by 10 feet with the stationary rezones. So they were already allowed 75 feet. They went through permitting up to 75 feet. They opted not to. redo their permits for an additional 10 feet at that time. But the property has been rezoned. It is a stationary district now. It does have an allowed height of 80,000. And then it's across the street from the 150. Correct.

Go ahead.

Motion. So I move that we recommend the staff recommended code amendments. and direct staff to amend those code amendments to ensure that we're not stopping the already in progress project. But I also want to give staff flexibility on exactly how to ensure that we don't stop that project. And I would like to also direct staff to remove any ambiguity on the question of whether development agreements are allowed on parcels smaller than four acres.

Second.

Anyone have any other commentary they would like to add at this point?

All right, go ahead. I just want to say that I'm generally not a fan of development agreements. I think it's much better for the city to just get the standard base zoning right the first time. But I think it's clear that the city has not gotten it right in the station area. And this seems like the least worst path to fix that. The I want to second the comments of it's really critically important that the city of Kirkland does not create a reputation of killing projects in progress, especially projects that seem to have been slowed down by our own processes, maybe. So WHILE I DO HAVE, I'M NOT REALLY A FAN OF THE BAN ON TOWN HOMES, THE BAN ON DIFFERENT KINDS OF BUSINESSES OR JUST HAVING TO HAVE DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENTS, IT SEEMS LIKE COUNCIL HAS SPOKEN AND I THINK IT'S IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO GET THE PIONEER PROVISION EXTENDED THAT WE GO FORWARD WITH THIS RECOMMENDATION.

COMMISSIONER RUTHERFORD.

I SHARE COMMISSIONER JACOBSON'S CONCERN ABOUT DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENTS BUT I ALSO see them as potentially a tool that we can use to help inform us of what are some of the changes that we should consider to codify in the future and reduce that uncertainty in the future. So I think it's important that we go ahead and allow that and then monitor it and come back to it and figure out how can we address the fixes to the underlying system further in the future. I think it sounds like it's kind of related to the same. Thank you.

And then I don't know if, like, this needs to be said or if we can clarify this, but, like, really I want, like, I know it's, like, stage two of this, but, and, like, it's in our work program and everything, but I really want to focus on, like, what incentives do we need? Like, it is really hard to build anywhere right now, but, like... There still are projects going forward in different places, just very, very few. And, you know, I would like Kirkland to have some of those very few projects. So I don't know if we need more clarity here or if that is already on the table. But like, I want that to be like a strong recommendation to council that we want, you know, More than banning things, it's how do we incentivize what we actually want to see? So I don't know if that needs to be an amendment or if that's just clear from what we've said or... Yeah, Chair Rosman, I can respond.

We can definitely convey that sentiment to council. That's totally fine. We did talk to council at a retreat about... different options for incentivizing development i think there was interest among council i think there was also interest in you know letting the market play out for a couple more years um well after making these changes these initial changes and then seeing what happens and then potentially going forward and making some more changes so i think there's an expectation that these are meaningful changes that we're undertaking right now in terms of the extension of the pioneer provisions and the development agreement flexibility so forth so I think I think council is aware of the potential for more incentives and we can definitely convey the Opinion.

All right, then I would maybe propose an amendment to have a stronger Recommendation that You know waiting for another five years when things haven't happened for five years is not something that I love I think this is definitely the right direction, but I think wait and see is not a good policy at this point. I think we really want to be talking to especially local developers who are building maybe not in Kirkland but nearby or who are building in Kirkland and like this should be an iterative process not just one where we wait and see for another five years. I think we need to be a lot more proactive if we want to see something happen.

What I can mention, Chair Rosman, is that there's another kind of segment of stationary activation that's going on at the city right now, and that is a task that the city's economic development manager is heading up, and that is specifically working with many developers. So we actually held a developers' roundtable back in November and specifically brought many developers, both people that have developed in Kirkland and people that haven't developed in Kirkland together, or yeah, we brought them together and asked them, what is preventing you from developing specifically in the station area? So that was what the conversation was centered around. And we've been trying to implement the learnings from that. I believe there might be another round table getting put together right now. And then in addition to that, the economic development manager is working on some marketing for the station area. So that work is ongoing a little bit more under the city manager's office than the planning and building department.

Okay. I mean, I think we would all love to hear the outcome of that roundtable, especially if it happened in November. It feels like that's an important piece of the conversation we're having tonight.

We can definitely bring it back. Many of the things that were mentioned at the roundtable are in progress. One of the recommendations, for example, and this is a little bit from memory, was implement 5184 as soon as possible. You've already recommended that to city council and it's going in front of them for adoption on April 7th. So hit that. We always hear about affordable housing requirements. City council and planning commissioner are going to be talking in consideration of the work program and taking a look at affordable housing requirements citywide potentially. These code amendments were another thing that we think is responsive to what we heard at that roundtable in terms of opening up more flexibility for development agreements. So I think there are ways we're taking action, but definitely here that kind of hearing more comprehensively what happened at that roundtable and what other pieces of the city organization are working on this project would be helpful for the commission so we can get the economic development manager on one of your agendas coming up here. That would be great. Yeah.

Anyone have any other comments? I'm going to make a motion then to add a recommendation to this overarching one. Just reiterating the strength of our desire to see incentives and iterations as time goes on to encourage the sort of development we'd like to see in the station area.

I'M FINE WITH ACCEPTING THAT AS A FRIENDLY AMENDMENT, BUT I JUST WANT TO CLARIFY, IS THAT A VALID THING TO ADD TO THIS MOTION FOR RECOMMENDING CODE CHANGES? BASICALLY STATING THE PLANNING COMMISSION'S OPINION?

I THINK IT'S FAIR.

IN THAT CASE, I'LL SECOND IT.

Point of order.

Yeah.

I don't think we do friendly amendments. So I think we'd have to be retracted and restated if I remember correctly.

I'm fine with having a quick vote on it so that I don't have to restate the long motion with it.

Well, I mean, wouldn't we amend your motion? And isn't that what I did?

Rodney was reacting to my saying of accepting it as a friendly amendment, which we do not do.

Gotcha. Okay.

So now we have a motion and a second. I think we can...

Okay. Does anyone have any thoughts to that? Is everyone... It felt like people were mostly on that page. Okay. Commissioner Riker.

Can staff work it so it's just a little less wordy?

Oh, yes, please. I am really good at being wordy. So, yes. Succinct. I just really wanted to make sure that it was conveyed. I know we talked about it, but to me it feels important enough to have it be like an asterisk versus a Maybe it gets further down the memo kind of item. Okay, all in favor then? Aye. Opposed? All right, anyone have any other comments on the motion on the table from Vice Chair? Okay, and I will call the question, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. I don't think there's anything else you need from us for the public hearing.

Just to close it. All right.

Public hearing is now closed and we will move on to the study session on the hopefully final part of the planning work program.

All right. Thank you, Chair Rosman. So I We'll get this up for you. So we're bringing back the planning work program for a second touch with Planning Commission tonight. You did discuss this at your last meeting and your packet includes a revised draft planning work program for 26 to 28 and that does incorporate several changes based on the direction that we heard from Planning Commission at your last meeting. I'm going to keep my presentation very short tonight to get to the good stuff, which is your discussion. But I did just want to briefly go over what changes were made between the last time you saw the draft planning work program and the version you see tonight. You have printed copies at your seats as well. And so... First, this one's simple. We just extended the rough timeline for the project we're currently working on to expand housing opportunities on faith-based properties. As a quick reminder for you and community members tuning in, this is partially responsive to required state legislation that we have to implement locally as well. The second adjustment we made was we adjusted the description and shortened the timeline for the short-term rental policy. So the comments we heard were to potentially shorten the timeline for that project and just focus on what amendments our business licensing team might need to help with enforcement of unlicensed short-term rentals. And so those are the adjustments we made in that draft work program. And as a result, with less to do, we can probably get it done quicker. So that's reflected in the rough timeline. We did add a task, a new task in 2026 for what we talked about is kind of like a smaller bucket of middle housing optimization code amendments. At the last meeting, the planning or staff, sorry, suggested a few potential code amendments that we could explore with that more focused kind of smaller bite bucket for middle housing optimization. I have those still on a slide queued up for you if you'd like to look at them and then I think we'll have a commissioner amendment that Mentioned some specific tasks for that as well. So that's a new task that wasn't on the work program last time That is on the draft work program this time to be started this year We adjusted the description of the state legislation implementation task and that was specifically amended now that we know and what at least has passed legislature, what is pending governor's signature. We think the majority of that work in the coming year is going to be on SB 6026. That's the bill that requires us to expand residential uses allowed in all our commercial and mixed use areas where residential uses might not be allowed today. And then also to look at limiting the place, how much of the city we can require ground floor commercial with residential development. So that's kind of the biggest bill I think we have to focus on in the near term within that, under that umbrella of state legislation implementation. We have several other tasks that you know of that are ongoing right now to implement state legislation this year. We added a task for evaluation of citywide affordable housing requirements. So that one was mentioned by a couple council members the first time we talked to them. It sounded like there were a couple planning commissioners interested in that concept as well, and so we did add it as a potential task on the draft work program. As a result of some of the changes we made that I've already talked about, we did push the start date to 2027 for a project to look at low density residential zone consolidation. Um, we extended the rough timeline for the TOD bill implementation. So that was a question of, can you really get it done in six months? We thought about it. Probably not. Um, so that rough timeline is extended. And then lastly, um, as a result of the new task we added for middle housing, focused optimization in 2026 and then the push of the low density residential zone consolidation. We adjusted the name and the description for a broader optimization for middle housing with work to begin in 2028. So the intention of that is that we look at some near term adjustments that kind of take smaller bites on More incremental ways we could optimize middle housing in the near term and then in 2028 would look at are there other things we should do? Are there other increments that we should take or iterations that we should make to the middle housing code? So those are the changes since the last time you saw it. I do have, these are the same things that we talked about last time, potential things we could look at for those near-term middle housing adjustments. We talked through these last time, happy to answer questions if you have them. Just as a reminder, this work program does include identifying those policy levels for the work program tasks that we discussed last time. I won't make you listen to me again on that, but I'm happy to answer any questions. And with that, with a planning commission recommendation on the work program tonight, we are tentatively scheduled to take this to council for adoption at their April 21st meeting. We're not quite at the point where we have people waiting to know what they're working on next, but we are eager to get it adopted so we can continue kind of planning out staff resources for the year. With that, happy to take any questions. I have some backup slides of questions come up, but I will hand it over to Chair Rosman.

Vice Chair Jacobson.

Thank you. Would you prefer that I move the whole work program and then propose my amendment?

Yeah, let's do that.

Okay. I move that we adopt the staff recommendation on the planning work program update. Second.

Second.

And then I will also make a motion to amend specifically the text for the middle housing focused optimizations Allison, I believe you have a slide. Thank you So Would you like me to speak about it first or make the motion first? Okay, I move to amend the description for task number 15 Middle housing focused optimization as shown on screen. I Would you like the idea is to say things that we are not going to change. So as part of this project, we are not going to change heights, setbacks, affordable housing requirements, tree protection requirements, units per acre limits and stormwater mitigation requirements. There are other things we won't change. But those I think were key to making clear that we're not going to change them. And then adding some things to consider changing, which is floor area ratio, lot coverage, incentives for developments built for aging in place, and incentives for off street parking. I CAN SPEAK MORE TO IT.

NOW I WANT TO SECOND IT BECAUSE I LIKE THE SPECIFICITY.

SECOND. SO I REALLY APPRECIATE ALL THE DEVELOPERS WHO TOOK THE TIME TO TALK WITH ME. THEY WERE VERY HELPFUL. AND THIS LIST DOES NOT INCLUDE EVERYTHING THAT THEY ASKED FOR. SOME OF THE THINGS THAT WERE NOT CHANGING ARE THINGS THAT THEY ASKED FOR. BUT COUNCIL WAS CLEAR THAT THEY DON'T WANT TO DO A BROAD OPTIMIZATION WITH A LARGE RANGE OF TOPICS FOR MIDDLE HOUSING THIS YEAR. And so this, I think, will give council a real option to make a meaningful difference, but still a limited set of potential changes. I also learned that there's some confusion around exactly what the standards are for middle housing. through this process. But I really appreciate all the time that the developers took with my endless stream of questions. Specifically, the number one thing that really hampers middle housing is floor area ratio. We then also received comments talking about how It's not really feasible to build one floor homes in Kirkland because of the land values, especially if you're talking about in a single family area. But what we can do and what is more achievable is ensuring that new buildings are still built to make it easier to age in place, in particular by having, say, a main bedroom bathroom suite on the ground floor, but that doing so really is tied to the lot coverage, and so that feeds into the interest in both lot coverage and the incentives for aging in place. And then for off-street parking, given that we're talking about middle housing, I think one of the key issues is the question of overflow parking, and I think this is actually an opportunity for us to TO PROVIDE INCENTIVES FOR OFF STREET PARKING. THE STATE LIMITS HOW MUCH PARKING WE CAN REQUIRE IN THESE ZONES, BUT THE STATE DOES NOT REALLY LIMIT WHAT INCENTIVES WE CAN PROVIDE FOR THAT. HAPPY TO TAKE MORE QUESTIONS.

COMMISSIONER BUGNAL. I keep going back to the builder we had last time, and even though he talked about optimizing some of the minor tweaks to the middle housing, he said that he's been able to build middle housing in all the other jurisdictions. The one thing that stops him from building in Kirkland is that he's constantly outbid by the one-to-one builders. So I'm curious if that was mentioned when you talk with developers. Because on my street where I'm in South Juanita, I can walk within five minutes, and there's probably at least four to five middle housing things that have been constructed in the last two years. And so it makes me wonder how much the current middle housing code is really constraining them, or are they just kind of whining about it? you know, nitpicking things in there. I mean, I'm not sure that the changes they're proposing are going to move a needle for more permit submittals when the bottom line is they're getting outbid by the McMansion builders. And so it makes me wonder about this placement of this task on the planning work program. For me, I feel like the low density, the LDR consolidation gives us more bang for the buck than these tiny tweaks. So prove me wrong.

Yeah, so that was actually one of the developers that I spoke with. And I think it depends what part of Kirkland you're talking about when you're talking about large one-for-ones. And I haven't looked at the city's permitting database recently, but the city does process a lot of one-for-one replacements for single family. There's also a difference in different kinds of middle housing. So if you just ask about middle housing generally, one developer might say, well, I build a lot of ADUs, so middle housing is doing great. But cottages have also been doing pretty good, though I've heard rumors in my talking with developers that there's less and less interest in part because of one-for-one developers being able to outbid them on the land. But outside of ADUs and cottages, there is basically nothing for middle housing. And so... the, in terms of, I also talked with a number of, I actually brought up the idea of, well, should we do low density residential zone consolidation instead of this project? And kind of FOR THE DEVELOPERS THAT WE REALLY TALKED IN DEPTH ABOUT IT, IT BECAME CLEAR THAT THESE CHANGES ARE WAY, WAY MORE IMPORTANT THAN ZONE CONSOLIDATION BECAUSE ZONE CONSOLIDATION, WELL, WHAT ARE THE STANDARDS THAT WE'RE GOING TO SET AND THIS IS TALKING ABOUT WHAT THOSE STANDARDS ARE. I RECOGNIZE IT'S ALSO A DIFFERENCE IN FROM CITY STAFF IT MAKES PERFECT SENSE TO FOCUS ON THE NUMBER OF ZONES THAT WE HAVE AND IT'S A VERY A simple thing to talk about. We have 20 zones. We can maybe cut that down to five and still reflect a lot of the differences that we want in different parts of the city. But I think making these changes will make a big difference. If you look at nationally, cities that adopted middle housing similar to our code and similar to Minneapolis's code, where we didn't make these kinds of changes, they have seen very little uptick in middle housing WHEREAS CITIES THAT HAVE ADOPTED SOME OF THESE CHANGES AT THE SAME TIME AS ALLOWING MIDDLE HOUSING IN THE FIRST PLACE HAVE SEEN A LOT MORE GROWTH IN MIDDLE HOUSING.

COMMISSIONER NOLAN? SO I HAD A COUPLE OF QUESTIONS. THE EASY ONE IS JUST IT LOOKS LIKE WE'LL BE REVISITING THE MIDDLE HOUSING OPTIMIZATION IN 2028 AND I JUST WANTED TO Not that I know that we discuss all of these adjustments, but that will not include, I'm assuming it could come back then if for some reason any of these issues was a hot button topic, correct? Or is this?

Yes, it could come back. Like I said, some of these things that are on the, we're not going to talk about it as part of this project, developers did specifically ask for. There also were things that I just didn't think were, they were too complicated to do by the end of this year. that I don't think would be necessarily controversial, just nuanced, and it would take us a while to sort through it.

Makes perfect sense. And I mean, the second question, I guess, which is a follow-up, and you may have already answered it, is why are we exempting the units per acre limits? And I'm wondering if that's, is that just a complicated question that we don't want to get into, or is that more of a thing you've heard from the developers of this just isn't a topic that would push the needle?

The units per acre, as staff would call it, the density limits, though to laypersons, all of this is about density. HB 1110 requires Kirkland to allow four units per lot. I don't know that we've really accomplished that to a significant degree on any lot in Kirkland, and so that's not really the binding constraint. I think there are edge cases where that might be reasonable to consider, but when you start getting above four, or in the case of the areas around where the K line is coming, IT WILL HAVE TO BE SIX UNITS PER LOT BECAUSE THAT IS CLOSE TO A TRANSIT STOP. YOU REALLY HAVE TO START CONSIDERING WHERE DO YOU WANT IT. WHEREAS HP 1110 IS PRETTY CLEAR WE HAVE TO DO FOUR UNITS PER PARCEL EVERYWHERE. I JUST DON'T THINK WE SHOULD TOUCH THAT.

ANYONE ELSE HAVE COMMENTS ON THIS? COMMISSIONER MEDEA?

DEFINITELY A COMMENT, NOT A QUESTION. especially planning staff will recall that several years ago Kirkland was heralded as a pioneer in the space of middle housing. We were nationally recognized and to Commissioner Jacobson's point, for the cities that don't take advantage of tweaking elements that help incent and produce more of this, we're gonna fall behind and that will just be like an old relic on a coffee table. So I appreciate these recommendations and would definitely like to see more progress in this space.

I guess my one question on these is, what is the purpose of being this detailed with the recommendation?

Yeah, I think it's primarily because council was very clear that they do not want a broad middle housing project. And so they did ask staff for, they did ask generally for a set of options for what a focused middle housing option might look like. or even there was also some interest for what a low-density residential zone consolidation might look like. But I think this is probably the more important one to look at. And so I think that this will better address council's questions on what will this project do, what won't it do, hence the specificity.

Anyone else have questions? Okay. I'm going to call the question on this amendment. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Great. Does anyone have any other amendments or changes beyond that one? Can we go back to the slide that has the Like text on. The changes. Yeah.

Yeah. And I do also have the work program on slides as well if you want to see it. It didn't all fit on one slide, but I've got chunks of it on seven slides. Great.

I have a question.

Yeah.

Um, I believe I think it was council members pascal and arnold asked for options on how to speed up the totem lake southern industrial sub area plan phase two Um, I I think I forget how much we talked about this last time Uh, what would be the options for how to speed that up?

It's a it's a good question, um I have some thoughts so really right now Part of what we're doing is learning what that area wants to be, and I think that while initially the CAR, the Community Initiated Amendment Request, that sort of initiated the potential for a subarea plan, there was very focused on increasing residential capacity. I think as that project and the thought around that area has evolved, there's a little bit more nuance about is, in the question of, is this the right place for more residential density? If so, how much? And how much should we be protective of existing allowances for commercial and light industrial? And so I think the question has evolved a little bit, even since we adopted that policy. And I say that to note that the visioning work that we're doing right now and the stakeholder engagement that we're doing this year under that phase one task is really trying to get at understanding how that area functions today and then kind of call the question about So what do we need to study more? So I think the answer to some of the questions we're going to be asking this year relate to what we might do in phase two for the subarea plan. Additionally, the policy in the comprehensive plan that directs the subarea plan is quite detailed and it asks for a lot. meaning that it asks for types of analyses that require budget that we don't have at the moment. And so we need the outcome of the next biennial budget to know what we have to work with and what the timing is a bit. So I feel like phase two is a little up in the air. We're keeping it on the work program, but I do think that's a question we're going to have to ask again when we update the work program next year.

Thank you. I have, I mean, on the note of the biennial budget, there's also things in 2028, like broad middle housing optimization that I think could do with some budget, especially on public engagement and analysis. But so it sounds to me like when the question was, how do we speed this up? It sounds like we need budget to even do it this fast. And also this fast is contingent on maybe not doing the full request for the full original request for housing.

Yeah, I think, I mean, I think, yeah, Vice Chair Jacobson, I think that's right. I think the things that would take a long time, right, to create a subarea plan for this area, or if we are wanting to accommodate a ton of housing and then need to do, say, all the studies that we did for the station area plan in the southern industrial area, so like a comprehensive traffic analysis and transportation analysis and a comprehensive analysis of infrastructure needs. So I do think, yeah, I agree with what Ali said in that the scope of how much housing is like a critical question to answer before we figure out how long this southern industrial area is going to take. If it really is a relatively housing light plan that focuses more on you know, supporting existing businesses and making it a better place to have light industrial uses and similar uses. That's a different type of plan that we can probably do faster with the work that we're doing now than a plan that has thousands and thousands and thousands of new housing units where I have to figure out the infrastructure question as well.

So if we were to do the original cart would probably take longer, whereas if we do very little, if not, if no and maybe even no housing at all, that might take shorter.

That's that's roughly right. Yeah. Yeah.

OK. I also just want to note that that comprehensive plan policy was adopted without going before the Planning Commission. And I feel like it might have benefited from some discussion on the implications around that. But that's a done deal now.

Anyone have anything else that they would like to propose or change compared to what is on the screen? Is everybody generally good with it? All right. Being no other commentary, I'm going to call the question. All those in favor of approving the planning work program as amended, please say aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. We have a planning work program. I mean, it still has to be approved by council, but it is out of our hands now.

Thank you for your comments.

I DON'T THINK WE HAVE ANY MINUTES THIS TIME. PUBLIC MEETING CALENDAR UPDATE, ANY OTHER COUNCIL ACTION REPORTS?

SO QUICK CALENDAR UPDATE AT YOUR NEXT MEETING ON APRIL 9th. SORRY, I'M JUST DOUBLE CHECKING MY DATES HERE. APRIL 7th, SORRY, APRIL 7th.

PLEASE DON'T COME HERE ON A SATURDAY. NO, I DON'T THINK THAT'S RIGHT. Oh, it is the 9th. Yeah.

May 7th is also on a Thursday, which I just mixed up. So April 9th is your next meeting on a Thursday. And what we're bringing to you at that meeting is your first briefing on the urban forest management plan update. So that is like mostly a policy document and a strategic plan. But I think a lot of. great questions that we'll have for the Planning Commission, a lot of space for Planning Commission direction on that. We have given Council a first briefing on it to get that project scoped. They gave us direction to kind of do what we presented to them as a middle option, so Not doing a complete scratch and redo of the urban forest management plan But using the existing urban forest management plan and updating it so it hasn't been updated since we adopted the sustainability strategic plan and and the 2044 comp plan. So there's a lot of places where we need to carry through the strategies and the policies that we've adopted into that urban forest management plan. So we're excited to bring that to you. That will also come to you with an update on like the state of Kirkland's urban forest. So we have a lot of data that we've gathered in the last few years that I hope you'll find interesting. So that is your only item on April 9th. Right now, we don't have any items yet for April 23rd, but I'll keep you posted. I would encourage us to have something if possible. What I can ask about is the potential of getting our economic development manager to come do that stationary activation. That would be wonderful.

That would be a great thing for April 23rd. Okay.

Commissioner Buñuel. This is something I talked with Allison and probably some of you as individuals, but being the newbie on this panel and learning about the OPMA, I have a frustration with not being able to talk with you individually to find out what your thoughts are on a lot of the things we deliberate on. I have my viewpoint, but I really want to know what you're thinking because my mind can be changed and you will have viewpoints that I won't necessarily have. I don't know if there's a process that we can informally, occasionally, maybe a couple times a year or when there's a big issue in front of us that we can just sit down and chat. We can invite the whole city if we want, but just have the opportunity to have that discussion because when I make decisions, I like to consider all viewpoints, and I don't think I... AT LEAST ON THE SIX MONTHS I'VE BEEN HERE, I DON'T THINK I'VE HAD THAT OPPORTUNITY TO DO THAT. AND IF I MAKE A DECISION IN REPRESENTING THE COMMUNITY, I WANT TO MAKE SURE I MAKE THE BEST DECISION THAT I CAN. AND I THINK MOST OF YOU WOULD FEEL THE SAME WAY. SO WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT EARLIER THIS WEEK AND THERE.

I ALMOST WONDER IF, LIKE, AN OPEN JUST 20 MINUTES AT THE END OF ESPECIALLY OUR SHORTER MEETINGS, JUST A, YOU KNOW, OPEN FORUM, ANYTHING on your brain, not on topic for the evening? Would that be helpful, do you think? Because, yeah, the OPMA issue is, we're kind of stuck there, but like, maybe even just baking it into like we expect this is going to be a less than two hour meeting. So we're gonna hold the last 20 or 30 minutes for any general discussion. I don't know if that quite is it.

I'm open to anything that's more detailed than what we're doing now. I would, I want it to be, where people feel free to say what they're really thinking. Like, a lot of times when we're up here, we're kind of on our best behavior, as opposed to, you know, when we're in the back room, we talk a little bit more freely, not about, you know, stuff we're not supposed to, but I just want it to be a relaxed conversation where, you know, you can just kind of throw stuff out and see what sticks on the wall.

In the spirit of relaxed conversation, I'll just start here. You know, I'm a big fan of trying to figure out how to nurture this more fluid conversation across the commission. And it's been on my mind for a very long time since, you know, around the, you know, similar timing after I joined the commission. And I was like, ah, this is driving me wild. You know, how can we nurture more fluid conversation across the commission in full view of the public? and also anticipating that if we do this in full view of the public and some are watching, we'll also get feedback from them on maybe our minds go exploring something and someone says, oh, consider these aspects too. Those are really important bits of feedback for us to get as well by having a way to have discussions like that in the open. For some time I've been PULLING TOGETHER SOME MORE GENERAL THOUGHTS ON WHAT ARE SOME WAYS THAT WE COULD COMPLY WITH, YOU KNOW, AT LEAST THE SPIRIT OF AND HOPEFULLY SOME WAY THE WRITTEN RULE OF THE OPEN PUBLIC MEETINGS ACT. AND I HAVE A DOCUMENT THAT I'M HAPPY TO SHARE WITH ANYONE. IT'S PUBLICLY AVAILABLE. I JUST NEED TO SHARE THE LINK. I sent it off to and this is not like something that we're going to be making decision about as Commission like so I don't think it's something that is you know falls into the jurisdiction of you know, I don't think I don't think would violate open public meetings rules to you know Share this and knowing that I will make this available to anyone. It's already public link.

So It sounds like Allison has a comment.

Yeah I Yeah, not specifically on what Rodney's talking about, but I just did want to offer as staff that another option to foster more of this communication that I think staff could help with is the idea of a retreat. And so the last few years, I think we've, for retreats, we've really, They're not that retreat-y. We've tried to bring to you either interesting information that isn't necessarily a business item, so we've brought you speakers, assuming everyone likes nerding out on planning things, or staff has spent a long time talking to you about things. We hope they've been interesting, but they haven't been super focused on just conversation. We have done a couple tours that planning commissions have been invited to, and when we are going to have a quorum, we have publicly noticed those. So I would say that, you know, especially if there's not a big desire for staff to provide or prepare a lot of information ahead of time, we could consider the idea of a planning commission retreat that's really focused on Planning Commission conversing with each other. That's open to the public. We would notice it. The requirements to broadcast and record those retreats are a little bit different. So we could do it outside of chambers in another publicly accessible space.

Could we do it outside if the weather's nice?

I believe so. I'd have to double check whether or not it has to, but yeah, I think we could.

I was just thinking about tonight was so lovely and we're all in here in the room with no windows.

And they give you no windows, yeah. So anyways, if that's of interest, I think staff would be happy to support that idea and we could start talking about when that might work for commissioners.

Vice Chair Jacobson?

Yeah, that was definitely a shock when I first joined the commission as well. The crazy idea, I mean, I would also be interested in having more free-flowing conversation with the public as well. It is a very awkward system that we have to follow. WHERE WE CAN'T REALLY HAVE AS MUCH BACK AND FORTH, AND I THINK THAT'S REALLY VALUABLE. SO I WOULD BE INTERESTED, LIKE A RETREAT, BUT A RETREAT THAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE ALSO INVITED AND IT DOESN'T NEED TO BE JUST ONE CONVERSATION WITH A BIG GROUP OF PEOPLE. SO DEFINITELY YES AND ALSO I THINK WE SHOULD CONSIDER THAT AS WELL.

HEARING THE INTEREST, PERHAPS THE STAFF CAN WORK WITH THE CHAIR AND VICE CHAIR TO put some concepts together and circle it around?

I don't know that there are any other council updates for us today.

Yeah, I can give a quick one, Chair Rosman. The only thing of interest that I mentioned, this is from the March 17th meeting. The council member, Prem, specifically asked us to prepare a legislative review memo on artificial intelligence as applied to permitting. And so we came up with a couple of options for Council to consider. We've actually been thinking and learning about AI as applied to permitting quite a bit over the last year and a half or so. We started actually talking to consultants who are in the AI permitting space at the end of 2024, and we've followed through with that in all of 2025 and are continuing that work in 2026. So, yeah, I presented a couple of options to council for how our AI work and permitting work could continue in the future. It's obviously of critical importance, right? We hear all the time, and we agree as well as staff, we know you agree as planning commissioners that the permitting process could be made better, right? And AI is, you know, not the only tool, but one of the important tools that I haven't made available over the last relatively recent history to make that process better. Council did consider the legislative review memo. You can take a look at it. It's in the council agenda for March 17th. Basically, the guidance was to continue our existing work on AI, to continue learning more about AI. AI and permitting, also to explore applying AI tools for permitting regionally through our eCityGov alliance that operates my building permit. So that's sort of a summary of what was discussed at council and happy to answer questions about that legislative review memo as well.

Seeing no other comments. I'm going to open it back up to public comment to close out the meeting. So if anyone would like to speak, if you're online, please raise your hand. If you're in person, if you would like to speak. In which case, I am going to call this meeting adjourned.