Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Try that again. This meeting of the Kirkland Planning Commission is called to order. Let's start with a roll call.

Ria Heiser. Aaron Jacobson.

Here.

Gina Medea.

Here.

Scott Reiser?

Here.

Justin Robbins?

Here.

Angela Rosman? Here. Rodney Rutherford?

Here. And with a quorum with majority of the commissioners present, have a quorum. So next is comments from the audience.

Can I Yes? Say something really quick? Just for anyone who is commenting not on the public hearing but potentially talking about parking, I just wanted to bring notice to everyone that the state has passed a couple of parking bills this year that would limit parking requirements to 0.5 per unit and none for under 1,200 square feet. So if that is part of what you want to say, I just wanted to give you a heads up and let you focus on the stuff that we can take into advisement. You're welcome to talk about parking.

I just wanted to give you heads up. So if you wanted to spend your time talking about other things, you can do so.

Thank you, Commissioner Rosman. All right. With that, I will introduce the next item on our agenda is yes. I'm about to introduce that item. It it is items items from the audience. This is the portion of the meeting when we hear from the public about items that are not scheduled for public hearing. Tonight's public hearing is for proposed zone zoning code amendments to codify the city's ability to adopt development agreements. In order to hear from as many so this will not be covering that section. We'll cover that later. This is for any other topic.

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 state your comment, please consider not repeating that 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, but this is not a time for give and take with the Commission. Obscene, profane, threatening, harassing, abusive language towards the Commission, city staff, or those in the audience is 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. We'll begin items in the audience with a list of people here in person that have signed up to speak.

When I call your name, please approach the dais to address us. 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 will admit you into the virtual room as a panelist, so please remain muted until I call your name, and then you may unmute to address the commission. So the first signed in tonight is and only for for in person comments is Kate Conant. And after that, we'll have Brady Nordstrom the online.

Thank you for this opportunity, and thank you for your hard work on behalf of our Kirkland community. My name is Kate Conant, and I live in the Juanita neighborhood of Kirkland. I'm commenting on attachment number two, the JBD4 rezone of the MichaelsKathKali sites. My focus is on the development standards of public benefits, pedestrian access, walkways. Attachment number two recommends improving the walkways along the busy intersection at the Juanita at the intersection of Juanita Drive and 1 Hundredth Avenue.

I'm thankful for these improved sidewalk recommendations. However, the pedestrian access recommendations do not go far enough. We need improved sidewalks on the southwest corner and a version of option A, a through block pathway, which is, I believe, the term you're using between Juanita Beach and Juanita Bay Parks. The citizens of Kirkland need a greenway path at the site, allowing them to move between the parks surrounded by the unique natural features of this lakeside environment. I don't need to tell you that Kirkland citizens value their connected green space, parks, lakeshore.

It's in the Juanita Neighborhood Plan vision statement and throughout the Neighborhood Plan policies. Those of you who attended the Kirkland Communities Foundation's recent For the Love of Kirkland event also heard an outpouring of love for our parks, trails, the lakeshore, the lake, water, natural views, and nature. The rezone is a small window in time to grant future citizens something that will bind their love to the city of Kirkland. As more future citizens of Kirkland live in high rises and inhabit increasingly dense neighborhoods, open space and recreation opportunities must also expand. There's an existing shoreline path that's currently underutilized, also dubbed the Path to Nowhere.

This pathway goes through the Juanita Shores condos property and follows the lake shore along the water where it dead ends at the Kathakali property line. An easement through the Lower Kathakali property should be part of this plan for pedestrian access benefits. An eastbound path would parallel the shoreline, starting at the existing Juanita Shores condo segment, go across the Kath Kali property on an easement, and then pass through natural city owned lakeshore property connecting to the Juanita Bay Causeway. My email to the Planning Commission shows illustrations of this proposal, as well as another alternative proposal. In attachment number two, option A mentions that there are challenges to creating a through block pathway connecting the parks.

For the love of Kirkland and for the future of Kirkland, don't dismiss this option just because there are challenges. No matter how well designed the sidewalks, the nature loving citizens of Kirkland deserve more than a sidewalk. We need an easement, and we need to connect the parks. Thank you again for your hard work for a livable future, Kirkland.

Thank you, Kate. Next is Brady Nordstrom on online. You can go ahead.

Hi there. Greetings. My name is Brady Nordstrom, and I'm here to comment, on the housing opportunity in Juanita through the rezones and the study session item a. I'm I'm here talking as, the housing development consortium, which is a nonprofit with a mission to ensure that everyone in King County has a safe, stable, and affordable place to call home. And we have hundreds of members in King County that build, design, and operate affordable housing and members that provide vital services to people in crisis.

And this includes organizations that provide housing and services in Kirkland. And so as part of my, affordable housing policy work, HCC builds partnerships like the Eastside Housing Roundtable where community and affordable housing voices are joined by unlikely partners from the business and private development community in areas of agreement. And one of the core areas of agreement is enabling sufficient housing capacity, and this is really meant to be a tool that is necessary for affordability, economic stability, and then just stable community. And there's a reason that housing prices in Kirkland have been going up so rapidly over the preceding decades, and there's a reason that so many adult children find it harder to come home and, as their parents age. And there's a reason that many people who work in Kirkland do not live in Kirkland and add vehicles to the rush hour traffic that excuse me.

So so Kirkland has not been growing to meet minimal housing targets that all cities in Washington are responsible to meet. So, and this is because housing growth is about more than just sufficient capacity. It's also about what prevents housing on individual parcels. So this could be economic conditions, the age of existing buildings, concerns about change, and there's also well intentioned development standards and processes that go awry. So I'm not here really to say anything about specific development standards, but I am here to ask for outcomes.

These parcels in in these neighborhood centers are ideal places for housing growth that can, that can help meet Kirkland's housing and affordability goal, goals. These goals were the result of extensive community engagement. So it's it's more about just asking you to keep the solutions oriented mindset and thanking you for taking these important rezones, And then just ensuring that whatever recommendations you advance, that you there'll be real results that meet Kirkland's housing goals and affordable housing needs. And with the inclusionary zoning that exists in Kirkland's, a portion of any of the housing that goes in will be affordable to retail workers, young professionals, and other people in the community. So, concerns about traffic and change and all these other things are very real, but change is also an opportunity to bring forward the things that we care about most while leaving behind what no longer serves us.

So thank you again for thinking about affordable housing, as you're talking about these rezones in Juanita.

Thank you, Brady. Is there anyone else online or in the room who would like to speak? Go ahead and come up, Liz, and introduce yourself.

Hi, Commission and staff. Liz Hunt, Kirkland resident. Sorry, it's tough to get here by 06:00, so I didn't get signed up. I also want to speak to the zoning amendments being proposed for the Juanita areas. And I just have a couple topics that I wanted to touch on.

The first of those is transportation and transportation concurrency. That was very forward looking of the transportation folks to, in the 2024 concurrency report, to include the requested increases that are being discussed here. So the report says that it includes those potential growth that potential growth. But I note that in that plan, it only adds one mitigation as being something to put in the transportation plan for that growth, and it is adding one northbound turn lane on 90 Eighth Avenue at the intersection with Juanita Drive and 100 Sixteenth, so right by the Michaels property. So the one mitigation project in there is to add an additional left turn going northbound.

And that may or may not be sufficient to deal with the growth, which that's already an almost failing intersection as it is at PM Peak. So something to consider. The second item that I wanted to mention is the transit in that area. There is a mention in the staff report that there is daily, you know, there is bus service going through that area. But I would like to note the distinction between what is in the bus schedule and what runs actually occur for those buses.

I live near that area, and constantly during the day I'm getting notifications, Bing! This bus run is not running today. And three others, you know, Bing! This bus run is not running today either. So schedule is one thing. Actual buses that occur is another thing. So something to be considered. And I believe I have a third item to mention, if I can find it. Oh, I know what it was. The attachments that are in the packet showing the tables of proposed development standards, very thorough, impossible to read.

They're very wide, very large, and I would request a different formatting in the future because trying to make my screen bigger and trying to print, it was very difficult to read them. So thank you very much. I look forward to the discussion.

Thank you, Liz. Yep. Go ahead and come up to the mic and introduce yourself.

I've never done this before. I'm just coming here today because I live

on want

introduce yourself first, though. Tell us who you are.

What's your name? I'm Kathy Schmahal. I live in Kirkland on 1 Hundredth And 100 And Sixteenth. So I experience, like, traffic. Every day, it's backed up 116, almost like six, seven, eight blocks from four to 05:30, 06:00.

And I can't imagine putting 7 Story where Michaels is right now and having that many people live there. Because if anybody lives there, it's like a one way turn in. And you can't turn in where you have to get in a center lane to turn into it. And coming out, it's a one way going the other way. And unless you go down around a building, and really backed up.

And I can't think that this is a good place to put a building with seven stories with that many people, because around Market Street, going from like that Kathala restaurant all the way to Winnetia Bay where they walk. That thing is backed up and up the hill and up Market Street. I just came here to this meeting, and it's all the way around backed up, all the way up the street to the light in front of Winnetah Bay. And I would think they'd be able to find a place a little bit better than where it's just going to be a cluster. Every day, it's like that.

And it just seems like it's going to take away from the environment, too, right there on the beach. I don't know. Thank you for listening. And hopefully, you guys take a drive over there before you decide, because you're going to be stuck in traffic around this time every day in the mornings, in the afternoons. It's just like to turn in, it's unreal. So thank you.

Thank you, Kathy. Any others who would like to address the commission in items from the audience? Seeing none, we'll proceed to the next item on the agenda, special presentations of which there is none. So we will move into our public hearing on zoning code amendments to codify the ability to adopt development agreements. Should I go ahead and open the public hearing?

Please.

Alright. I open the public hearing. Staff, would you like to go ahead and introduce the hearing?

Yes please. Thank you Mr. Chair. So tonight we have a brief public hearing for you. We've mentioned this item to you a couple times previously and with you for the public hearing is our senior planner Lindsey Levine.

All right, good evening commissioners and audience members. Tonight I'm here to talk about zoning code amendments to codify the city's ability to adopt development agreements. This is a public hearing so we will have the staff presentation first and then we'll have an opportunity for members of the audience to testify and then the Planning Commission will deliberate and give a recommendation for council. So to give some context development agreements or DAs are between a jurisdiction so city and a property owner and their way for developers to get assurance about the applicable development standards, but they could also be used by cities to guarantee specified public benefits. The city has adopted DAs in the past.

Probably the the best known examples are some of our favorite places in Kirkland, like the village at Totem Lake and Kirkland Urban. And the city is expecting to negotiate a DA with the Seattle Kraken if council moves that proposal forward. So definitely worth noting that DAs are typically for large scale projects, not for everyday type of stuff. And the city believes it would be useful to codify the procedures to negotiate DAs to formalize the approval process and the expectations for DAs. So the zoning code amendments themselves consist of a new short chapter, chapter 164 to codify those procedures around development agreements.

And I want to highlight a provision that for DAs for property that's located within a quarter mile four zero five, the DA may approve uses and development standards for the property that are different than those that currently exist aka the city's current development regulations for that specific site and this is only for when the council approves of it and when the council finds that the project provides more public benefits than a proposal that would strictly comply with those applicable development regulations. And with this I really want to emphasize that it would not be granted for all DAs proposed within a quarter mile of four zero five the developer would really need to prove the purpose of the deviation and provide significant public benefits that the City Council with that need to agree to and approve of. Also as part of the code amendments there is information about the public process for that which includes a public hearing that would either be at City Council or they could decide that they want the Planning Commission to hold that public hearing. And then the City Council is the ultimate decision maker. They either approve or deny the development agreement So they are not obligated by any means to approve a development agreement just because they're entering negotiations.

And we have one pretty small amendment to the draft KZC since the packet was published. And that is what you see underlined up here and the one word that was stricken here. And so this is an amendment to the staff recommendation and the purpose is to clarify that the city isn't obligated to negotiate and enter into a development agreement if the city is approached and again just specifying that the standards below are what the city and the developer would need to adhere to So we just got a couple public comments. Two of them came in via email, generally supportive. They had a couple questions.

One question, the one at the very top is the one that I'm going to talk about because it might be of interest to the commissioners. So that question is about why the code has a provision for differing development standards for sites that could be suitable for transit oriented development and or within a quarter mile of four zero five and not just around the future bus rapid transit stations. And that is because staff believes that there may be sites that could be suitable for transit oriented development that are close to four zero five but are outside of the immediate future BRT stations. And Planning Commission or Council are able to amend that provision. You guys are definitely welcome to talk about that and then motion amendment if you would like to if that's of interest.

And again just want to emphasize council would only approve of a development agreement that has those differing development standards if there are public benefits that could be realized that could not be realized if the site had the existing development standards. So next steps. The chair will be opening up to public testimony very shortly. Planning Commission will deliberate and then provide a recommendation. Once we get to that point, I have a slide that has some sample motions.

So just let me know and we will put that on the screen and then if the planning commission has a recommendation at the end of this this will go to council on May 6 for adoption And that is my last slide for this part of it, so I will turn it over to Chair Rutherford.

All right. And with that, we are ready to start public testimony. The same rules here apply basically as for items items from the audience other than the the topic is specifically what was just introduced. So the only name I have on the sign in sheet at this point is Liz Hunt. So let's go ahead and come on up. If there are others online who would like to testify, then please raise your hand and we can prepare opportunity for you to speak. Go ahead.

Okay. Hello again, commissioners and staff. On the subject of the zoning additions to codify development agreement process for the city, I think you might most of you have seen the comments I sent in today. I just want to touch on one of them, which Lindsay's also Ms. Levine has also mentioned just now, which is the statement in the new chapter, proposed chapter, that describes looking at 405 through Kirkland and a quarter mile on either side of 405 through Kirkland.

So that ends up being seven miles each direction. So you've got about 14 miles of property there. That's now being considered for transit oriented development, which would have to be described and justified and many great things. But that was kind of a surprise to me to see that much space being opened up for consideration for transit oriented development. We do need transit oriented development.

I'm not speaking against that. But we were we're only going to have two BRT stations on that seven mile stretch, and that's usually where transit oriented development would be occurring, is around those stations. And we already have less transit in Kirkland than we should for the density we have. That's a discussion for a whole another day. But that being the case, if we're creating some more intense development leveraging off of transit, I look forward to hearing some very creative solutions as to how we're going to do that with the limited transit that we have. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Liz. Is there anyone else who would like to speak on this topic from the public? Seeing none, I believe that marks the end of spoken testimony. And we proceed with deliberations by the commission. All right. Would anyone like to kick off deliberations? Commissioner, I think Jacobson runs

the I guess this is a question to staff. In reading, there will still be a public hearing before the development agreement can be adopted. Is that correct? It's just a question of the City Council can now choose whether that's before City Council or the Planning Commission?

Yes. That's correct.

Okay. So there will still be public engagement once the agreement terms are written and before actual adoption?

Absolutely. Yeah. Would probably expect there would be briefing as well and not just going straight to hearing. It's typically what's done for these types of things or usually for large projects.

Thank you.

Commissioner Rosman.

I think the amendments make sense, and I'm happy with staff's direction on this. I think, you know, the fact that we do have public hearings and public outreach, I'm good with the way it's written.

Commissioner Reiser?

The concerns I have, and it's not that I'm against this, it is that there's a lot of area along 405 that has very little access to public transportation, and that's a concern. So I would like some wording put in that just guarantees that there is adequate access to public transit. Just because I I can't foresee what city council is gonna do in the future or if planning commission is bypassed because city council just decides that I think this is a there should be a few checks and balances in it. So I'm not against it, but I would like to wordsmith this just a little bit, saying it is a requirement that there is adequate transit.

So if I'm I'd like to follow-up on that and get clarification from staff. I believe the wording was suitable for transit oriented development, which I think point that Commissioner Reisler is getting to is that there's some ambiguity between that and designating the land use of transit oriented development. Is the intention for these to be considered equal? Does that need to be clarified further? Or is there some other nuances that we should be considering?

I can take that one. Thanks for the question, Chair Rutherford. And thanks for the comment, Commissioner Reisser. So the intention is not that this action is is rezoning properties into transit oriented development it's really to identify a little bit what types of properties where the city might even be motivated to enter into negotiations for a development agreement so it takes two parties to come to the table, so to speak. So and we've also found in talking with the development community that that's a development agreement typically isn't their first option because it it requires them to take on some risk as well and some uncertainty because it is a negotiation.

And so I don't think the city would be very motivated to enter into negotiations unless there was an idea that we could get some type of extraordinary public benefit through that negotiation that we wouldn't otherwise get through the standard zoning. And just to give a little bit of an idea, it really opens up a project to quite a bit of scrutiny from the city. So the last development agreement that the city negotiated though it didn't come

to

fruition was that council did adopt a development agreement for Google, excuse me, at the Lee Johnson site And through those negotiations secured quite a bit of additional transportation network improvements around the site that we wouldn't have gotten through the city's CIP. It was specific to that negotiation and that specific project. So that was one of the public benefits that kind of went above and beyond what our code could require. And so appreciate in here the potential desire to add language, but also just wanted to note that it is something that could be examined through that negotiation.

So this the wording around transit oriented development could be applied to areas that are not designated as a transit oriented development land use. Is that correct?

I think the language does suggest that there might be some areas suitable for that type of development that aren't necessary. And we don't have a transit oriented development zone. It's a land use.

It's a land use, yes. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Commissioner Medea.

Hi. Thank you. Sorry, but I need to be refreshed on the amendment that did speak to the transit piece. Can you walk us back through that again so that I can frame my question appropriately, please?

Yes. Let me pull up that wording. I don't have it on a slide, but I can kind of read out.

I think there was something on the previous slide, no?

There was a question that might be a little bit helpful Okay. Related to a public comment.

I it was the underlying text that Commissioner Medei is referring to.

No, the may or the shall. I get that. No, it's the possible allowances. So I think I share Commissioner Roeser's concern about language, but the subsequent explanation about how it might be a better alternative to wait for the development proposal to come in, and that becomes part of the expectation or or the dialogue. So I I think I'm okay there.

But what I wanna be careful of, is not kind of backdooring or reopening the lu2.4 through this codification of the development agreement. So that that's that was what my concern was, just to make sure that this was a case by case thing when we were presented with a potential agreement, versus trying to reopen LU two point four at this juncture?

Steph, why

speak to that for a moment. Yeah. This is absolutely a case by case with it being development agreements that a developer would need to approach the city and we're talking about a quarter mile within 405 not all transit corridors in the city.

Well the development development agreements could be pursued beyond that corridor. It's just that the additional flexibility is within the areas identified specifically here.

That's correct. Yes. Thank you for that.

Alright. Oh, Commissioner Robbins.

Yeah. My question is in regards to the greater public benefit piece of it all. And is there any scoring system or criteria? I know it's case by case is how we evaluate it, but is there anything that the city uses to say, you know, this we we have this metric to determine that this is a a greater public benefit?

Thanks. Commissioner Robbins, I can take that one. There is not actually in either the state law that supports development agreements or in the language in the code. So we keep it sort of general so that the public benefits can be negotiated on a case by case basis similar to what we were talking about for the previous topic. I guess what I would say is that the comprehensive plan, which you all spent many, many hours on, provides a really good template and framework for negotiating public benefits, things like public open space access to that, affordable housing, bike and pedestrian amenities, things like that. So I think if there was a desire to create a little more structure on the public benefits, we would work with you to look at the comprehensive plan, identify specific things that are called for in different parts of the city.

Thank you.

Any further discussion? Alright.

Can I make a motion, and then we can figure out if anyone feels they need anything? Good.

Go for it.

I'm going to motion to approve the language as proposed by staff.

Second. Alright.

We have a motion seconded. And this is specifically the amended draft that was recommended by staff.

Mr. Chair. Yes. Technically, I believe we would need we would since this was not the version included in the the packet, the staff amendment came after the packet, we'd ask that there's a motion by the commission to amend the the draft code to incorporate the staff edit that we had up on the screen.

Uh-huh. That's why that bold

is So you need that specifically. So then I am motion to approve. You do. Retract. Okay. I will retract the original amendment or motion. And I motion to approve the suggested staff language, including the amended language as shown to us this evening.

Second.

Is that that work? Okay. Great. Any further discussion on the motion? All right. Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion?

Aye.

Any opposed? I believe that's passed unanimously. Is there anything further for us to consider before closing the public hearing?

Nothing from staff.

Okay. Sounds great. Then we here close the public hearing and move on to the next item in our agenda, which is a study session on zoning code amendments, briefing number two for the North Juanita Center zoning code. Steph, would you like to go ahead and introduce that?

Yes, please. Thank you, mister chair. So, we have quite a lot of information to get through with you tonight on the two potential rezones in the Juanita neighborhood. Leandra Baker Lewis, our senior planner is going to be walking you through those. This isn't a hearing so you're not deciding anything tonight but we are going to be asking you for quite a bit of guidance to help us complete a draft code for you to take to public hearings.

So we've got a lot of questions along the way. This is a little bit different format than we've maybe worked through zoning code amendments briefings with you before, and so Leandra's gonna do a great job of explaining, but please do let us know if we've lost any of you at any point. We're happy to provide clarification and some guidance along the way. So with that I'll hand it over to Leandra. Thanks so

much Allison and good evening Commission and Chair. I am happy to present on the Juanita zoning code amendment project that we've been working on with you since our initial briefing in March. While we get that pulled up, I wanted to go over a a pretty packed agenda. I'll start off with some meeting objectives just to kind of orient the group and then we'll reflect

on

some community engagement to date and some common themes of feedback that we're hearing from the community through our outreach. We'll also include a quick recap of our last meeting. I have some slides related to sections of our zoning code that we're not requesting to be amended but I think that they add some valuable context for the commissioners as well as the audience. We'll then jump into providing just about five or so minutes for each applicant of these rezone requests to speak and kind of address the commission themselves. And then we'll really just dive into the development standards that are outlined in attachment two and three of your packet.

I just wanted to also publicly apologize to the community and to the commissioners and anyone who had trouble reading those very information rich tables. We'll be working with our admin staff to better format something along those lines in the future. But hopping from that I'll close with oh then we'll go into the BC1 development standard options as well. Open it up for questions and discussion and then discuss next steps once we understand what those are. So I figured this slide would be really helpful just to again orient our brains.

So we heard at the last meeting some Planning Commission interest in streamlining the zoning amendment process given all the work that we've done through the comprehensive plan to really understand these requests. To do that we would need well tonight we'll need to establish what the Planning Commission preferred standards are and how we finalize those to bring those to a public hearing. So by the end of our time together tonight we should hopefully be able to come to a decision on a couple things. If we're ready to move to a public hearing or if another study session is warranted and it was also discussed at the last meeting an idea was floated that perhaps the public hearing is an arena to bring multiple options for development standards to. Normally we just produce one draft code for the commission and for the community to respond to and amend as they'd like.

But it is possible to bring a range of options for the public hearing. So we would just need to know which standards, if any, the Commission is interested in bringing ranges to for the public hearing when that occurs. Oh and then the note I added on screen is that any topics and draft codes that are taken to public hearing aren't final. The amendment process and other recommendations can be made to tailor the code before it's recommended to counsel. So I'm going to flash the questions before.

Obviously, we're not ready to answer these, but I just wanted you to know what we'll hopefully be able to answer by the end. We'll want to learn what your preferred options for development standards are for both sites. Again, we'll want to know if the commission is ready to move to a public hearing or if another briefing would be would be best. And then what, if any, alternate options for specific development standards should we present at the public hearing. So hopefully that makes sense.

All right. So hopping into community engagement, we've received a good amount of input on these projects. We did a big push for the comprehensive plan, but more specific to the zoning code amendments. We have presented at multiple neighborhood groups and had Q and A sessions with those folks. We have web pages for each study area launched with updated meeting information and announcements and we've advertised those web pages wherever we can.

We have a listserv that people can subscribe to and that currently has, last time I checked 92 interested community members. So we've been updating those 92 community members as the process goes on. We delivered about 2,500 postcards to nearby residents and businesses informing them of this meeting and of the general update process. And we've also worked to contact and communicate with neighboring institutional stakeholders, mainly the schools that are near the Goodwill site. All right.

So these are themes that we've heard thus far. This isn't a list that is meant to be all encompassing, but some repeated kind of themes that we've heard since the genesis of the zoning code amendment project. I won't read them all, but there are community concerns and there are some communities support that we've noticed. So traffic and vehicular congestion is a major concern for folks and what the implications are for a future development at these sites on our traffic grid. Infrastructure capacity, lack of traffic studies to date.

So usually we'll require those for project level review and we've heard concern around that. Some environmental impact concerns for the JBD 4 zone and then more generally how a perceived stall in population growth might affect our housing goals. Community support has generally focused around additional housing opportunities in the neighborhood, which is a theme that tracks from the Juanita neighborhood plant update that we conducted last year and the year before. People are excited about additional retail and shopping opportunities. We've received some support for the reduced parking minimums.

As we know, the state bill will have an effect or should it be passed as law, we should have that will affect how we regulate parking citywide. So there's been support for the parking minimum suggested by the applicants. We've heard support for modest height allowances in neighborhood centers, so maybe not the full request, but additional capacity in some form of height allowance. People are rallying around the idea of more common open space and community gathering opportunities and then specific to goodwill, the opportunity to advance the North Waneta neighborhood center and get some redevelopment going up there as well as some varied housing types. So townhomes have been expressed or have garnered support from some community members as a housing type that may be suitable for this the study area in North Juanita.

And we've had a really exciting kind of recent influx of public comments. So this is mainly coming from our Juanita neighbors, our Fin Hill neighbors and even beyond. But they provided some additional kind of more pointed feedback that I wanted to elevate and share with you all. Some are listed here for your consideration as we go through the ranges just for you to consider. Ones that differ a little bit from the themes we just went over are that the zoning changes should or the Commission should rather should be thoughtful and kind of transparent or very transparent about their decisions and explain their choices as we move through this process.

We've heard pointed kind of specific feedback about where the park to park connection could be. As as we've heard this evening from the public, there are opportunities outside of the intersection to make that a reality. And so we've heard support for exploring that. The North Juanita site could be a really cool place for public gathering as we've noted, but we also received feedback that since it's close to schools, should be a child friendly or teen friendly gathering opportunity for them as well. A lot of places are not as teen friendly.

So you either have to, you know, spend money or otherwise buy something they'd be there. So this would be a cool opportunity some have expressed for something like that. Another comment mentioned that we should also explore like ecological public benefits outside of our high performing building standards which really regulate how efficient a building is. I think that the comments that we've received regarding public benefits also explore more site wide sustainable efforts such as green infrastructure, rooftop gardens, additional green space with native vegetation, things like that. So later in the presentation, although it wasn't highlighted in your packet, we can obviously have that discussion as well when we talk about public benefits.

And then we've also heard that the sites should provide accessible affordable housing and varied housing types again in Juanita were supported. At your last meeting, the Commission had questions and kind of varying feedback on topics like public access and pedestrian connections. You were interested in seeing how people would maybe move through the site and access the site through all modes of transportation. We also heard that massing and visual impacts are kind of unknown at this point. So they would like or the commission some commissioners were asking to see massing, which we can go through.

And then vehicular traffic impacts and parking requirements were elevated as a place where we really need to kind of dig in a little further. All right. So these are the next few slides that cover some code that applies citywide to all development currently. I'm not where staff isn't requesting any amendments and this is more for informational to address both the Planning Commission unknowns that we just went over as well as some community concerns. So starting with the Chapter 105 of the Kirkland zoning code, this chapter regulates pedestrian access through a site and within a site and requires that our pedestrian movements be facilitated and supported in the areas listed on the screen for the project.

So we have to provide pedestrian walkways to connect through parking areas from buildings to sidewalks and to our transit facilities between uses on the subject property. These are all required and for all development. We typically don't use the zoning code to regulate access and where access happens and this is specific, a little bit more specific to the Michael site. So we don't use the zoning code to regulate where access occurs as in like where vehicles should enter or queue or leave the site. That information is better decided after the project receipt or the applicants for the development project would submit a traffic impact analysis and other documentation through the development review process and that helps our Public Works Department best regulate access on a site specific level as opposed to a zone specific level.

So that's why you won't see a lot of staff recommendations or many any for how people access the site vehicularly. Just wanted to elevate that. And then another note is that overhead weather protection on building facades is also regulated through this chapter. And in our design districts, both of these will become, the range is 75% to 100% of the building facade must be covered as a kind of way to enhance pedestrian access. Right.

Moving into our attempt to address the traffic concerns at a high level. I didn't I don't intend on this being a concurrency conversation, but it was a big portion of your packet and it doesn't impact the way that the project is received. So we wanted to just go over what concurrency is on a high level. So we've heard a lot from the community regarding vehicular traffic and congestion near both sites and this has been the case even since the comprehensive plan phase of the requests. As a reminder, these requests were factored into the growth modeling conducted for the 2044 comprehensive plan and for the recent update to our transportation strategic plan.

So they were studied for their environmental impacts through the SEIS that accompanied the comprehensive plan. And this also means that we're planning for these increases in density and have accounted for them in our impacts to our roads, sewer and water infrastructure to ensure that we don't overload those systems and that infrastructure. Because the TSP analysis identified that with no action, the intersection serving the sites would fall below the accepted levels of service acceptable levels of service, the TSP identifies projects, They're proposed and funded through our six year CIP or capital improvement program. And those projects address the intersections that serve both sites. It should be noted that the projects are subject to change.

So what's been identified as what could help with the degradation of levels of service, those projects are analyzed annually is my understanding and ensure that when it when the time comes the appropriate action to bring our bring our levels of service back up at the intersections are taken. And just a little bit more generally the TSP, the Transportation Strategic Plan, it prioritizes pedestrians, bicyclists, transit and motor vehicles in that order. The TSP calls for moves towards sustainability and equity, and the priority is given to projects serving to connect activity hubs and neighborhood centers. The priorities for the TSP such as bicycle and pedestrian movement, equity and sustainability, these are reflected through our multimodal levels of service. So we assess our transportation grid performance based on all levels of or all types of transportation, not just vehicular movement.

So that is something to know as well. Another major step in development, just for background, this is our traffic considerations that are made during development review. The developer ultimately, the slide is just describing that any developer doing a project of this size would need to supply a transportation impact analysis, a TIA. The TIA is where we really expect to learn of the anticipated impacts of the added traffic and explore mitigation measures and the timeframe for that implementation that needs to occur. So the TIA also takes into account current traffic volumes, peak at peak hours, crash data and other components to really inform what improvements or mitigation steps are necessary, and those must be in place or addressed prior to building occupancy.

All that to say, we use the TIA very strategically and we have a really great smart group of transportation engineers and planners who administer these checks and balances. And the process has been this way since our adopted levels of service changed in 2015. If the Planning Commission is interested, also wanted to offer we can maybe see about getting our transportation staff to provide the group with an overview or a refresher kind of course on these really complex topics. They're not something that the planning department administers, but we're open to providing you with that contextual knowledge. I think the last time they came was the comp plan.

So it's been a little minute, so let us know if you're interested in that. With that, I will turn it over to our applicants, aka the property owners for both study areas. We'll start with the Michael site, also known as the JBD4 zoning code amendment project. We have the property owner here, Carl Peterson, as well as his representatives as well. So we'll let him speak if if that's if that's okay. Thanks.

Hello. My name is Carl Peterson, and I own the property that is currently leased to Michaels. I would like to thank you for your support during the last year of j sixteen and also in your upcoming, support to implement this policy which supports housing opportunities. Michael's property located at the gateway to Waneta Village is outdated, ugly, and poorly maintained by a tenant that caters mostly to clients who come from outside of Kirkland. Additionally, it has a narrow sidewalk that does not confirm to current codes.

Residents and city planners are calling for better pedestrian experience linking Juanita Bay Park to Juanita Beach Park. And our team continues to work together with residents and city staff to meet these goals. A few years ago, I was here asking for an amendment to increase the height to four stories with the citizens amendment request. I completed phase one. Before phase two began, I learned of a wetland zoning change, which restricts building on a lot of the property, and it was no longer economically viable to pursue that.

So I withdrew my assessment request at that time. So now I'm here. I'm asking for seven stories. Is that is what would be necessary for this property to be developed? If we don't get this, what we've been talking about here, I've got another three and a half years left on the lease and then I'd be looking to sign a twenty year lease with a twenty year extension.

So any problems that plague this property and possible solutions would be kind of no longer up for discussion. So I really look forward to working with everybody on this. I believe that Kirkland is running out of opportunities to develop land, especially in an urban village, and needs for housing are only going to increase in the future. Additionally, redeveloping and adopting current code will improve the environmental impact of this property. So environmental concerns should be addressed.

I believe there's an outstanding opportunity here to realize a win for Kirkland in providing increased housing, improving pedestrian experience, and changing the gateway of Juanita from a dilapidated old building into a vibrant development that meets many more needs of the people of Kirkland. Residents living at this location would join the benefits of Juanita Bay and Juanita Beach Parks, as well as nearby mass transit and the amenities of Juanita Village. I'd like to please introduce our land use attorney, Jessica Rowe, to follow-up with some of these ideas, please. Thank you.

Yes. Go ahead, Jessica.

Thank you, Carl. Can I actually suggest, and I apologize? I forgot to coordinate this with Carl. Can I suggest our transportation engineer, Jeff Schram, comment, and then I'll finish if Jeff's there?

That's good. He's stepping up, yes. Yes,

good evening. My name is Jeff Schramm. I'm a traffic engineer, transportation professional. I have thirty years of experience in this field. Our company, 10W, actually has an office here in Kirkland, just up above Kirkland Urban.

And I've been in front of this commission before on this particular site and this property. And really what staff presented to you earlier was what I do as a professional and what my company does is do the TIA, the traffic study. In this case, because of the public comments and concerns about traffic access and in order to help inform the commissioners, Carl, Mr. Peterson hired our company to help try to provide some transportation information early, which I think is absolutely helpful. So I'm mostly here to answer questions if you have.

There's a lot of information that's been provided, but I would like to highlight a couple of things based on some of the public testimony I heard at other commission meetings, even heard tonight and maybe even maybe answer some of your questions you might have just want to hit on a couple topics one is access the site today has two access points. One, as you may or may not know, there's two driveways. One is very close to the intersection. And it's very limited in terms of the ability to get cars in and out. But what's important is there's an easement with the adjacent property, the widener property that allows cross easement and shared parking as well.

That becomes critical because a site like this with multifamily uses and many units would require better access. And so that our expectation is that with the property and with the redevelopment with the rezone, site would benefit from and continue to have that shared access. And that other driveway is shared onto Juanita Drive. That provides full turning movements in all directions. That becomes critical.

The second thing I'd like to mention is we hear a lot about traffic congestion. I'm not here really to talk about concurrency, but what's important to note and very relevant to this site is we've done some preliminary analysis or numbers. And as a transportation professional, I just want to share a little bit of not getting into too many details, but big picture. Something on the order of about 170 units which would fit within this rezone would generate a fair amount of traffic but what's important to notice how does that compare to the traffic that's generated today by the Michaels store. It's not a vacant site.

We're not just residents aren't just going to generate new trips to a system that does have some congestion levels at peak times. There's no doubt. That intersection carries a significant amount of traffic during peak hours in particular. But what's interesting is that the Michaels site as a retail use would actually currently generates more traffic per day than the 170 units would at its full build out. And that's based on hundreds of traffic studies of other similar uses.

Again, I can get into details if we need to. During the PM peak hour, which is the hour we talk about that has the most congestion, the site would generate fewer trips than the Michaels store currently does. It's not this case for the AM peak hour because the Michaels store I believe opens at nine so the site would generate more traffic during the morning peak hour. So I

just want to make sure

I establish that distinction. And wasn't intending to talk a lot about parking, but I can if there are questions. But the last thing I wanted to highlight is the improvements that would be anticipated. Sometimes we call them frontage improvements, but the enhancements that would happen at that corner. Right now we know that that corner is I'll just, for lack of an engineering term, we'll just call it tight.

The sidewalk is really minimal. The crosswalk and the curb ramp really eat into the sidewalk. The signal poles, poles that carry all the signal equipment are right in the middle of the sidewalk. And so it makes a pedestrian experience really not ideal. And so with the amount of pedestrian traffic that occurs there today at the park and it was is going to continue to grow and as this development occurs, we would expect that that corner gets built out to a better standard, not only to meet the city's minimum standard, but to really enhance the pedestrian experience.

Not only is a sidewalk narrow, there's a fence because there's a little bit of a grade drop between the sidewalk and the property. It just makes it feel very tight and not a lot of room for the type of kind of open pedestrian experience we want to see. So the project as it would develop and again this is stuff that we would do as part of a traffic study but I can tell you now knowing that we've done many of these. The sidewalk can be improved. I would expect as part of the city's capital project eventually as we heard from concurrency, that intersection is going to get modified and widened.

Those signal poles would be set back to a place where they get out of the sidewalk. So really what the project would do is probably work with staff to determine the best way to make that pedestrian experience, where those poles need to occur, how wide the sidewalk is, and just make that a more enhanced pedestrian experience. So really, those were the key things I wanted to mention. Jessica, before you speak, should I make myself available to staff questions now?

That's up to Leandra and commissioners if they have a preference there.

Sure. That sounds good to me. Commissioner Rosman?

I'm curious about the peak PM trips. You said it's less. What are we talking about as far as, like, what's current and what would be expected.

I

did bring some notes to make sure. Right now, the let's see here. Right now the the Michael store during the you're mostly worried or concerned about the PM peak hour, right? The Michael store Yeah.

Because that's really

Yeah. Generates approximately a little over 100 trips an hour during the PM peak hour. Again, we looked at this at 170 units, would generate about 70. So it's less than, not significantly less than, but it would be less than.

I mean 30% less.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you. What yeah, that was the question. Thank you.

Following on that, I was wondering let's see. Oh yeah, how does the mix between like the presence of retail, how does that within the site? Have you studied how that affects the PM peak?

Good question. Yeah, I haven't studied in a lot of detail. Again, I'm just trying to provide big picture. But what I can tell you in general is that a retail trips tend to be a little bit shorter because they serve a closer area. Again, I'm speaking very generally when it comes to a retail use, whereas residential trips tend to have longer, what we call, origins and destinations.

In this particular case and as part of the detailed traffic study we would do, we'd probably study that a little bit more because the Michaels use, I would say, is is definitely a retail use, but it's necessarily a local draw, although there's certainly some local trips. But it tends to draw from a little bit larger area. So yeah. And the trip making characteristics are a little bit different.

Okay. And what is the assumption for the amount of retail space that's used so far in your calculations? Is there any assumed?

There is no retail space assumed.

Okay.

Any further questions from the commission? Commissioner Riser?

In the no retail space assumed, are you asking for no retail to be put in the basement of the

Yeah. I'm going to I'll defer that to whether Jessica wants to handle that or Mr. Peterson.

No, we weren't. Commissioner, thanks for the question. And I'm happy to have I guess when we were speaking with Jeff planning his study, we're focused on the multifamily, but that was not meant to imply that we're requesting no retail. So I'm happy to work with Jeff to have some updated information if that's helpful addressing some amount of retail. But we don't have a specific amount of retail in mind yet, And so we're trying to strike the balance between studying overstudying too early for things.

Yeah. And when when we say retail, think what we're really getting at is any sort of, like, publicly useful active uses in the ground floor. And if there are ways in which the Commission should consider what we should be allowing, what we should be preparing to accommodate, then, you know, please, you know, I think that'd be really interesting to hear from the applicant. I know that's beyond Jeff's lane, but

Understood. Yeah. We've been hearing the desire for ground floor commercial, and I think that's understood that some amount is desired by the commission, and we're not asking that that not be the case by any means. But we can Jeff, you and I can circle up with Carl and provide some additional information on that piece.

Oh, I'm does this follow-up? Yeah. I just think that that should be part of the traffic study too if there is even if it's public space, if it is retail space, that should be included in the traffic study.

Yeah. And I and what from what I understand, that would be included in a subsequent traffic study as part of the concurrency planning and the TIA.

That's correct. We would do a more detailed what I am willing to do a little bit off script here, Jessica I mean, I knew this was a question. Mean, the and so what I would say is without limiting ourselves to a certain amount of retail, I can tell you the numbers that I just shared a few minutes ago with the PM peak hour. I mean even a retail use on a Ground Floor that maybe plus or minus 5,000 square feet still wouldn't generate the level of traffic that would exceed with the 170 units about what the current Michael says. So plus or minus.

And again, even if that number of trips was slightly over, again, it doesn't mean that the traffic system can't handle it. It just means that we're talking about relatively a wash or a net sum difference of that's probably negligible.

Any further questions from commissioners?

I noticed you referenced 170 units. I seem to believe previously the number of units we were looking at for the site was larger. Is 170 what you'd be seeking there or is that just used for the traffic modeling?

I can answer part of that and Jessica feel free to chime in if you'd like. But the studies that were done for the comprehensive plan involved both parcels of the JBD4 zone. So we plugged in about 300 units across the zone for our purposes of our growth modeling. We anticipate an applicant's request includes about 170 units approximately for their requested density.

Are there any further questions from the Commission? I had one more. This builds on the statement from Commissioner Rosman at the start of tonight's meeting with the state limitations on parking requirements by cities. I don't know if your team has yet discussed how that might influence the amount of parking that you include and how that in turn might affect the projected trips to and from the site.

Yeah. I'm willing to share a couple pieces on that based on my experience. So traffic and parking are certainly relatable items. And the traffic generation numbers that we're using are based on an urban use as opposed to something that's a little bit more suburban. So it accounts for services in the area, transit, things like that.

Same for parking. What I would say how this site relates to the legislative bill that could be adopted that reduces to 0.5, this site would be a great candidate site for that. Right now the city's code isn't for parking. It doesn't really embrace, in my opinion, what would be necessary for a site like this, which has sort of limited ability to go into the ground for parking. But also this site is close to services, parks, transit service.

It qualifies for what the city defines and the state law defines as a frequent transit corridor. So those are the types of things that I think a site like this would be a reasonable candidate for parking reduction.

I just want to be clear. That bill is on the governor's desk.

I'm not suggesting it will be or

it has

been passed, but just my understanding is it's been, again, endorsed by both the Senate and

Right. Yeah. I well, I guess we can't say it's officially law at this point. You know, it's I would say it's pretty confident that, you know, now that it's at the governor's desk, I think we can talk in terms of what that means for this site, I think, at this point.

Great. Thank you. Thank you, Jeff. Anything else?

No. Mean, I just want to offer that I'll be here. I'm not sure if whatever Jessica wants to share, if it stirs up other questions, I'll just be right here. Thank you.

Sounds great. Yeah. Jessica, anything else you'd like to add?

Thank you. Yeah. I'll be brief and really we a lot of the questions we heard last time were focused around parking and access, so we wanted to make sure Jeff was available for questions and address those issues. The only other comment I'll make, we apologize our architect for the site couldn't be available tonight, but she I did wanna just reiterate the main thing. She and land use attorneys wish we could speak like architects about design and massing, but it's not gonna be quite the same.

But she did evaluate the site diligently as Carl talked about in terms of feasibility. And the reason why we are asking for 70 you know, seven stories is because the lower heights just weren't going to facilitate re redevelopment for housing. So we just wanted to reiterate that one more time. I know it's been heard by the commissioners, but it is it's a critical issue for this site. We know we're gonna have to do new site improvements, new stormwater.

The street improvements that Jeff was talking about are gonna be hopefully fantastic addition to the area, but those are complicated. It's gonna involve utilities and things we don't even know about yet that civil engineers need to look at, not not me, the land use attorney. A lot of unknowns there and but a lot of possibility, but it is why we are going for the seven stories. If there I don't believe there are more questions about it, but we wanted to reiterate that being an important point. And beyond that, I just wanna say higher level, really appreciate again all the time, and this is a, Leandra, I appreciated your complex table, being really diligent thinking through the options.

But one theme, you know, that I would offer for you, just a thought for you all, commissioners, is that this is one little site. It's pretty constrained, in the city of Kirkland. It may not be able to achieve all of the policy planning goals that we have as the city of Kirkland. We think it can achieve housing. We think it can offer some affordable housing.

We think it can do great pedestrian improvements, but it may not be able to do all of the things on the menu of the list. So just maintaining some flexibility to make sure the housing comes to fruition is what the theme that I'm thinking about and would offer for you all to think about. So, you know, the the pedestrian connection, I'd like to put a pin on that and provide get more information about where that would be and be able to provide some feedback on that. And the green building requirements to those we do have the most stringent or one of the most stringent energy codes now and building codes in the country here. So I would offer that that may be an added cost that could hinder housing development here.

So just wanna be careful and make sure we achieve the goal of housing if and that's the goal I've been hearing from commissioners and council members on this, but also willing to keep discussing what things mean for for the site. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Landry, would you like to proceed?

Yeah. Thank you. I'll introduce our next property owner speakers, Balboa Retail Partners. We have Alison Warner on behalf of Balboa, who I believe is available for screen share as well if you'd like. Go ahead, Alison. Thank you.

Thank you, Leandra. Good evening, chair Rutherford, former chair Weiser, and all the other commissioners. Appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight. And if you give me just a second, I have a presentation to share if I can just be sure to pick the right screen here. Can you guys see the

Yes.

Beautiful aerial of of wanting a goodwill.

Mhmm. Yes.

So my name is Allison Warner. I'm senior vice president of development and redevelopment at Balboa Retail Partners. And I'm sure I've introduced this many times before, but at Balboa, we invest, own, and operate retail shopping centers, mostly grocery and good retail shopping centers. And that's our business plan first and foremost. However, as we all understand the changing dynamics of retail as our retailers are going omnichannel and having more of online presences or delivery services, they aren't losing or completely eliminating their physical footprints and their brick and mortar locations, but their size requirements and their space requirements are certainly changing.

And so what we run into a lot is buying a 40,000 square foot former grocery store box that is largely obsolete for even today's grocery stores. I look a lot at demising retail space and upgrading facades and so on and so forth. And what what my primary job has actually turned into even after, you know, many, many years of focusing on retail development, I have become pretty well versed in converting commercial shopping centers into alternate uses. Commercial shopping center is very different than office buildings and residential buildings. The lease terms are different.

They're across the board for different types of uses. As mister Peterson said earlier, his Michael's lease, you know, if he renews that, he's locking his side up for another twenty plus years before having any potential for redevelopment. You know, banks and restaurants and so forth, they want five to ten years with options to have certainty in investing their own money in building out their space internally. And, also, those leases don't typically align and term out in alignment with each other. And so unlocking commercial retail space is actually pretty challenging.

And when you have opportunities like the Juanita Goodwill site and the Michaels site, presented you know, presenting near term opportunities to redevelop them into something better for the community, it's a really unique opportunity and and something not to be missed. So specific to goodwill, here's how we look at it. It really is anchoring, this larger commercial zone in the North Juanita area at the corner of 1 Hundredth And 130 Second. Goodwill has about three years left of term on its lease. US Bank recently, not recently.

US Bank also has the same amount of term. I believe they expire about the same time as the goodwill, and the corner location, is currently vacant, although I'm sure many of the residents buy their Christmas trees there and and other holiday specialties across the site. But what we, see as an opportunity is really to anchor this corner as a gateway to North Waneta and further strengthen this existing commercial corridor along the site. So a lot of the way that we approach mixed use in residential development is is from the retail on the ground up. We wanna make sure that we, continue to have successful retail and that if we're gonna convert from existing retail to mixed use, that it's leasable retail.

And there's a lot of sort of nuances in design that go into that that a lot of mixed use developers don't fully understand. So even if we're only talking about five to 10,000 square feet of ground floor retail, there's some key points that need to be thought about for the overall project that help bolster the success of the retail on the Ground Floor. So with that, I'll take, walk you through a little bit, not in too much detail as I submitted a letter that kinda walks through everything in detail. But our approach to looking at this site is very conceptual at this point. We've worked with a couple of different, architects.

We've brought Jeremy Acker on board as our land use attorney. We've engaged Transpo, which isn't typical to engage a transfer transportation engineer this early in the project, but we understand it's such a focus. We wanted to make sure that he got a good look at this from, early on and understanding how it might fit into the city's planning and so on and and then analyzing sort of the options of projects that that you see here. We've looked at this from a maximum capacity, which is scheme one, which is about 600 units over 10 to 12,000 square feet of retail. We, recognize there are challenges all around in that design.

There are challenges in the cost of construction in today's world. So scheme two is looking at what's called wrap. It's a less expensive option for a parking garage. However, you can see it kinda takes up quite a bit of site area, but that project still achieves almost 500 units. It's at about 480 units, so it's still creating significant housing opportunity, and it's over about 11,000 square feet of retail. And then we sort of looked at the other end and said, hey. What if this was a mix of housing uses? You know, j 20 really does policy j 20. Says that it's looking for housing variety. And as Leandra pointed out, the community is interested in housing variety.

And so what if we layered in townhomes, which is not a current allowable use with multifamily? And that project achieves about about 250 apartment units and about 70 townhomes, and it also has pros and cons and challenges. But we took each one of these forms and matching and programs and sort of applied all the various design guidelines and development regulations to see how they might work to achieve each in the each one of these options. Starting with the allowability of stacked and attached, Like I said, the first project, it it is pretty significant construction costs in today's market. You know, I'm sure everyone knows that the capital markets changed a couple years ago, making financing construction projects pretty difficult for the past two years or so.

And in today's world, we all know how much uncertainty doesn't help projects moving forward. We we don't know what tariffs will or won't impact these projects and so on and so forth. And so we landed on scheme three as sort of this way to say, well, what if it was a smaller vertical mixed use project that still allowed for strong density, a strong corner at one hundredth and one thirty second? But the for sale component of the project, which is significantly less construction costs, and and in today's market, more financeable, actually helps kind of finance and justify the vertical construction, which then allows for achieving the affordable housing goals and the building standards, that, you know, are are, often challenges to figure out how to make a project feasible when you're trying to meet, you know, such high standards. So that kind of explains the background of why we look at all looked at all three programs.

Moving to the ground floor active use, you know, I'd just quickly to note today's zoning would require 47,000 square feet of retail. And quite frankly, you you would just leave the project the way it is. If that's the case, it'd be very challenging, to lease 47,000 square feet of retail as part of a mixed use project, especially at this location. What makes retail successful is visibility, signage, and parking. And that can be, critical to the success of of a tenant.

Customers are looking for convenient access points, and convenient experiences when they go to a retail project. Also, as I touched on before, being on one hundredth corridor of existing retail, really anchoring that corridor at the intersection of 130 Second, we're recommending that any sort of retail requirement be focused on 1 Hundredth Avenue. Let the market drive and determine whether or not it wants to extend further down. Sorry. Yeah.

If it wants to extend further down 130 Second Street. But at least 60% of the frontage length should be an active commercial use. We're recommending that you actually require a minimum floor height of 15 feet, and a minimum depth of retail of 25 feet, as that just allows for a more approachable environment for the customer, a more comfortable environment for the customer. And we do feel that residential lobbies are important to the residential projects to have visibility as well and that many residential ancillary uses can be activating in a pedestrian street environment. So, you know, allow for some flexibility for that to maybe count as an out active ground floor use.

Along the lines of the ground floor height for commercial space being 15 feet, this really drives the need for the 75 feet to achieve the densities that we're talking about here. If you were to reduce it to 70 feet, for example, know, you would actually lose an entire floor of residential or reduce it down to 60, and you're losing up to two floors of residential at certain points across the site. So 15 feet ground floor plus, you know, five to six floors of residential above, you know, allows for that ground floor active use, the residential densities that you're achieving, and, just starts to kind of meet in the middle of all the goals that everyone's looking to achieve here. From a perceived height, bulk, and scale mitigation, my letter kinda outlines different ways to achieve that. But one of the things that that we've kind of noted is is a good way to approach this is sky exposure plans from existing property lines adjacent to single family homes.

It's a really good way to ensure that the the impact to the adjacent single family homes is mitigated, and allows for plenty of sunlight and sky exposure into their properties. The pedestrian oriented facades we think can be achieved, both with the Ground Floor active use on one hundredth, but on one thirty second, residential can be designed with really great front stoops and weather protection at the entrances, and we're fully in support of ample sidewalks and furnishing zones and landscaping buffers as that, you know, makes the pedestrian feel comfortable and safe. It makes the environment feel approachable. Retailers really appreciate that that space in that area in front of their store for cafes to spill out and so forth. And, you know, of course, we welcome the design review process to ensure that all these design guidelines are appropriately met no matter which residential use or type of project, is ultimately feasible, you know, when the market comes with time to build that project.

In regards to the transportation and parking, the only thing we we would really say is that putting a maximum number on parking limits would really be detrimental to the to the retail. As I mentioned, you know, we wanna make this feel accessible and comfortable for pedestrians and cyclists and people arriving by vehicle alike and, wanna reduce the amount of friction, that our customers experience. And so the bullet points that you see here listed for retail, restaurant, and residential use are what we expect the market to want to incorporate into this project and, understands that minimums might be less, but, you know, would ask that you don't, impose any maximum parking requirement at this project. Moving on just a little bit more detail of each scheme. We know that you had requested kind of massing and views to really understand what we're talking about.

This is the maximum 600 apartment conceptual project that includes about 11,000 square feet of retail on the Ground Floor all along one hundredth here with some residential lobby use, some good outdoor kind of parklet space, being planned along the commercial frontages, easily accessible, parking that's, you know, quote, unquote, at grade with the street access points, good open space internally for the residents. And then you can see it kind of steps down both in the massing picture here in in the section below. There's this red line that represents what our proposed sky exposure plane at 45 degrees would represent. It would require a project to, adjust its horizontal location or step down a level of units, in response to the single family residential being here. And you can see that, you know, this project is barely taller than the existing homes due to the existing grade differential between the two project sites.

Here's the example of the wrap. I think this image is a really good one that shows how it could be a good strong anchor for this corner, retail on the Ground Floor. Again, same massing from the single family homes behind. And then here's the townhome incorporated into the 250 units. You can still see commercial on the Ground Floor along one hundredth, you know, street trees and landscaping incorporated into the pedestrian, oriented sidewalks, and, you know, the townhomes being placed adjacent to the single family homes is is respectful to that use next door.

And then lastly, I'll just touch on, you know, what I mentioned earlier is we did have transfer groups submit a letter addressing, the the concerns around, you know, the increased traffic. And the only thing I really wanted to note on is in his conclusion, you know, where not only did he review the TSP and talk about the analyses that will be required of the formal project when that's submitted. But, you know, he also said that given the large amount of commercial space allowed to be constructed under the current zoning and the proposed change in zoning would result the trip generation associated with the proposed change in zoning, at the maximum project 600 units would be a nominal increase in the trip generation compared to what would be developed under today's zoning standards. So won't go into detail there. We have very conceptual projects, a lot more detailed studies to come, but I just wanted to touch on that, that we have started taking a look at it, and we are responding to the concerns and making sure that, you know, the project will go through all the studies and, processes as required.

I will leave it there with any questions. Jeremy Eckert, our land use attorney, is also on the line if there's anything more technical. But thank you for allowing me to present, and thank you again to Leandra, Allison, and staff. You guys have been great to work with, and, your table of the zoning options was actually really organized and helpful as we work through this project.

Great. Yeah. Should we, go around for a quick round of questions from commissioners? Anyone like to speak up? Commissioner Reisner? I just have

to compliment you on a great presentation. It did make things a lot clearer. The question I have is okay. So we have these three options that were kind of put in front of us. And I I kinda for staff, where do you want us to go from here? Are you looking at, do you want us to, go

for

the highest amount and then let them scale back as needed? What do you I'm looking for guidance here because I liked all three of their options that they gave us. I liked the fact that they had retail. I'm hoping that retail is included in all of these because not only does it serve Kirkland, but it serves the people who are going to be living there. And that's more of my concern is that retail kind of facilitates the residents so they're not getting in their car and making a trip.

So that is what I'm asking.

Yeah, I can take that one, Chair Riser. And I think related to both of the presentations that you just saw, we we wanted to give you an opportunity to learn a little bit more specifically about how the development community or the property owners to the site might look at them. So but we're we want to make it clear that we're not approving any of these proposals tonight. What we really want you to focus on is what's appropriate zoning for the site? How much flexibility do you want there to be in the zoning moving forward for each site?

Because I think especially with the options that you just saw, we don't know exactly what the market is going to be like when the property is ready to move forward with redevelopment. And so I think the thing for Planning Commission to consider is what do you want the potential options to be available or what options do you want to be available to the development community in the future at the site and then guide us towards crafting a zoning code that would accommodate that. So we feel we have some staff recommendations for you that Leandro's going to be walking through. We've focused those on the capacity that we studied for each site. But part of our conversation tonight is if you want to see anything metered down.

Any further questions from the question? I have a couple, a few maybe. So one of the things that I've noticed looking at this site is there are some significant visual opportunities in the approach from Winnie to Woodinville away. That corner seems like it's going to be very prominent. And so far, haven't seen anything.

It isn't like there's been really significant thought around how that might build a visual gravity to it that would become it has the potential to become a real visual icon for the identifier for the neighborhood. And I'm wondering if there are any and maybe you aren't ready to maybe you haven't thought about this yet, but I'd like to be thinking about, are there any special accommodations that we should be considering to enable you to really make that corner snap and be a visual icon for the neighborhood. I don't know if you have anything off the top of your head to say about that or just want to take that nugget and walk with it.

I I will certainly certainly think about that. I can't think of anything off the top of my head other than I think kind of those ground floor heights that that we talked about allow for the pedestrian level to to have some some substance to it and some unique design and architectural, components rather than a lot of times retail just get squished down on the bottom of a bunch of residential, and it's not the best experience. And then the other thing is I would sort of say that all three of the options that we looked at were to see if the zoning works for all three of those options and allows for any one of those to go forward. And we feel confident that with the recommendations we've made and a lot of staff's recommendations that that can happen and the Ground Floor active use on 1 Hundredth is another way to really anchor, you know, the the 1 Hundredth Avenue corridor, and get some gravitas that way.

Yeah. Yeah. I I agree that quite often it's the the pedestrian level that really needs the attention. But in this case, I I think that there's you know, it it's such a visual opportunity beyond the the Ground Floor level. This is one of the cases where I'm like, this kind of really is an interesting opportunity.

Second is I'm glad to see it looks like you're including plans for the East West Street at the north side of project. I was wondering if there is thought to any other through block connections, either walk bike and or potentially even an alleyway that's pedestrian oriented but perhaps provide some vehicular access. I'm a big fan of interfering in a fine grained street grid and the value of smaller blocks. And I just wonder if that's something that you're exploring or if that would throw a wrench into your concepts.

Couple thoughts in response to that. One, you know, through block connections for vehicles, would make it more challenging to achieve, you know, the density in the multifamily, only options. You know, as you could see in the townhome options, there's a few more. There there's clearly,

there's more

driveways. Other than that, it's challenging to think about adding additional circulation to give someone a path to nowhere, essentially. Because direction, it dead ends into the fence at the fire station. And in the north south direction, it dead ends into, you know, a 15 foot sloped rock retaining wall. And, again, for the the retail component, you actually kinda want your pedestrians to be out on 1 Hundredth and interacting with the ground floor active uses.

And so we actually think the focus should be on how to improve one hundredth and one thirty second to, facilitate that being the most comfortable and the most convenient access points for for pedestrians and cyclists.

Alright. Commissioner Rosman?

Could you give us a sense of what the square footage for the retail is for the three different options? Because I think that's of interest. Because I think the first option probably has a lot more square footage for retail than like, the second and third?

All three actually have about the same. Okay. The first option's at 11,000. The wrap option was at about 10,000, and the third was at 12,500. Again, I I didn't sorry.

I didn't go into too much detail on this. But rather than prescribing, like, just a percentage of the overall development square footage or a percentage of the site square footage, that's a little bit arbitrary for retail, and the market can't always respond to that. So what we're recommending is when the project is designed, we believe that at least 60% of the project frontage on one hundredth Avenue should be ground floor active uses. And then with the minimum depths of 25 feet, which, is in alignment with the apartments above, so it makes really efficient construction. Apartment depths are typically 30 to 35 feet in width, for a single row of units in a corridor.

And so your retail will typically align with that below, on the ground floor. It makes for efficient construction, and that then makes for good commercial space along the frontage where you want it. If you start applying additional square footages, you get a lot deeper commercial space that's too dark or not leasable. And, also, just to kinda touch on the applicant's, analysis earlier, retail does drive more traffic than residential uses. And so that balance of parking versus use is always a consideration.

All right. Thanks. Yeah. I've also noticed there's in other areas, like in Seattle, I've seen some very shallow retail frontages that work really well, like the convention center. They have a couple of like it's just a service window. And it's a very active frontage but very little depth. So I think there's a lot of opportunity for smaller scale active uses. I'll let Commissioner Medea go ahead, then I had a couple other points after that.

Well, if you're on a roll, I don't wanna ruin you.

I mean, you have something on your mind, so go ahead and speak up.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you for presenting the options. That's super helpful. And I did appreciate as well the your, expertise and opinion on points to consider to ensure, viability of a project site, so the visibility, the signage, and the parking.

Question for staff, because to her point, and we understand this, you know, the market being what it is, it's hard to sort of predict what might be the best option going forward. So even though we're not making decisions tonight, we are providing you recommendations on, zoning, changes. Is there an opportunity to ensure flexibility in that recommendation so that any one of those three options in the future could be chosen based on developer preference and what's happening in the market at that time?

Yeah. Thanks for the question, commissioner Medea. Yes. So like I said, I think that the staff recommendations and the options in front of you could accommodate up to the maximum amount requested. And if you don't do things like put caps or minimums, then it leaves the zoning code flexible in the future for multiple concepts to be explored. Because there could be other concepts, right? We don't have any construction permits submitted. There could be other concepts presented in the future.

All right. Another question about the courtyard spaces. What do you see as the benefit? Are those intended to be publicly accessible? Or would they be activated in some way? Or is that going to be fenced off and only intended for private use? And, you know, I'm thinking about these are things that we would probably want to consider. How do we approach this in the zoning code in terms of, like, what sort of frontage requirements or allowances there are?

Yeah. Great question. What's available and accessible to the public versus private for the residents is, again, a a balance that you wanna strike, you know, to be a benefit for all parties. And it really depends on the ultimate project that gets built and how it gets designed. What we've recommended and what we see on a lot of our other projects is determining a a total open space requirement for the whole project based on, like, a per unit requirement.

And then of that total open space requirement, there's an additional, you know, 25% of that has to be accessible to the public or or some percentage of the total open space must be accessible to the public. And then that ensures that it's gonna happen, but also allows flexibility to be designed where it's actually going to be used and most accessible.

Yep. And activate it and have. It's important to have eyes on it. Yes, great. You mentioned a bit, especially in the third proposal, about how it's easier to finance. And that's one of the things that I've been thinking about also is we're looking at a stationary plan. And I'm curious if there are things that we should consider to facilitate or if it would help the project to explore other ways to facilitate incremental development on large sites like this so that it doesn't all have to be built and financed at once. Is there anything that we should be considering on that front?

That's a great question, one that we're asking ourselves on a handful of projects. And what I'm hearing from development partners is large projects over 250 units are actually very difficult, if not impossible, to finance right now if they're not feasible. And so, you know, what they're looking for is the ability to construct something, lease or sell it, get some income that then supports the financing of the second phase before it starts construction. So, the easiest answer is the flexibility for phasing a project.

Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I think that's all that's on my mind. Any other commissioners have questions? Great. Go ahead and carry on.

Right. Well, big thank you to both teams. As Ali kind of alluded to, presentations did a really good job of helping us imagine what's possible. But taking it a step back, I wanted to zoom us out a little bit and remind the commission and the community that the task at hand again is to develop a zoning code that is really designed to unlock possibilities. It's not about approving one project or making a specific project work, but unlocking possibilities that achieve the vision and goals of our comprehensive plan and of the neighborhood plan that we worked on.

So with that, I wanted to start the process of going through the table. I'll explain a little bit how we set it up in presentation form and please jump in if you have any questions on format or process.

One quick question. At some point I imagine in the course of this we'll want to take a little break, I want to take a little sense among the commission to how are you doing. Keep going for now. Find a spot for a break later. Are you good? Alright. Let's go.

Alright. Get into it. This is okay. Great. So this is an example of what you're going to be seeing for the next a lot of slides, but the next few slides are going to look a lot like this. We'll start with each development standards intent. This is really just to describe the purpose of each development standard as it relates to the site. So you'll see some references to our comprehensive plan policies. It should be understood that our comprehensive plan has asked us to conduct this work. It's asked us to develop zoning code amendments for these sites.

So while there might be opposition to housing in general on the sites, we're really trying to move forward and just better describe and amend the zoning to figure out how to make those policies a reality. You'll see that certain standards, so we'll have an applicant request which you've heard a lot about already. We'll then provide a range of options. They're generally listed from most to least restrictive and they include a variety of requirements themselves, but then also a variety of methods for regulating. So there's kind of layers to it.

The certain let me go forward. Then we'll slides will contain a staff recommendation. So certain standards do hold most standards do hold a staff recommendation to best align with policy direction. There are some others where the applicant has a preferred option, which is noted in their request due to feasibility and you know optimized project performance. And so for some of those we've left the staff recommendation as undetermined.

I'll explain why for each of those as we go but mostly this is because either the options provided all options can accomplish the objective of the standard. So there's multiple ways to activate a ground floor for example or they might be left undetermined because we didn't receive or we didn't hear clearly a Planning Commission preference. So we are going to be looking to the commission to better understand like their approach to how they would like staff to regulate certain standards. Overall, we'll be looking for Planning Commission preference for all the standards. Moving forward, where there are no ranges provided some of them as you might have noticed in the table there aren't ranges provided.

So staff would use our recommendation for a draft code unless directed otherwise. So that's something to note as well. And we'll pause we plan to pause after each standard to give you all a chance to discuss and perhaps reach a consensus on a recommendation for the standard or perhaps move on. That'll be kind of up to you all to indicate. But a couple of the standards also have a question for the commission. Aside from what's your preferred option, there might be some clarifying questions that are sprinkled in and I'll elevate those as we go. Any questions?

No? All right. Go ahead.

I hear that our video team has asked us to take a break.

All right. We've reached the end of the first recording tape. Perhaps not. All right. We'll take a break and come back in a few.

What time?

I don't know.

08:00.

08:00? Alright. Sounds good.

Thank you.

Alright. And we are back to resume the Planning Commission meeting as we start to step through some of the options for recommendation. Leandra, would you like to?

Yes. Thank you so much. Yeah, hopping right back in. I think we've kind of captured what the next slides will look like. So moving on, I wanted to also provide you with an example use zone chart.

So for both sites, are going be recommending that a new use line is added to the zoning chapters to describe standards that are specific to mixed use development. So whatever we decide on and the standards that we compile, we're suggesting that they only apply to mixed use development specifically. That way standards for things like retail only and housing only aren't affected. The Planning Commission preferred options and the staff recommendations will ultimately be drafted into a chart that looks very similar to this. We plan on bringing, again, like one draft code to the public hearing for response and a draft use zone chart that looks very similar to this.

Again, we can work on creating, if there is certain standards that the Planning Commission wants to not decide a preference on and bring maybe a refined list of options to the public hearing, we can work on creating some sort of matrix hopefully with less words and less topics for legibility sake but that can accompany our draft code for the public hearing. I know we we heard from some of the commissioners that maybe the public hearing should reflect options for people to respond to. So that's an option. If there are certain standards, we'll want to be understanding which are needing more ranges. Okay.

Moving on, JBD IV development standards. The applicants both did a great job kind of explaining their requests, but just a quick overview for the JBD IV site. This is the Michael site specific applicant request, but it will apply to both parcels. Again, 75 foot maximum building height, density to accommodate about 170 residential units, 4,000 to 5,000 square feet about of commercial that fronts mainly Northeast Juanita Drive. They're also asking for reduced parking requirements, adjusted affordable housing requirements, which we'll get into a little bit, and then increased maximum lot coverage.

And overall, as you have heard tonight, flexible standards for making those potential projects work. I also wanted to highlight the critical area buffers that are impacting the site or that will impact the site. This is a very, very approximate graphic to show possible buffer locations based on our critical area codes. Just to give an idea to the commission and community how the site is really affected by our current critical area protection requirements. And you'll hear a lot more about those in just a bit from our senior planners, Anna and Jen, on how those standards work.

But these are wetland buffers, potential wetland buffers. You'll see 75, 110 and even up to two twenty five feet of buffer. There are very stringent requirements on what's allowed in the buffer and big mixed use structures aren't one of them. So keep that in mind when we assess what's possible outside the buffers. All right.

Hopping in, for uses, the intent of the use regulations, of course, are to promote mixed use development as is aligned with the policy J-sixteen. The applicant, as you heard, was requesting general flexibility for commercial use types, not requiring a certain commercial use to occupy the Ground Floor. So as I stated, we'll be recommending a new use line for developments that contain two or more of the following uses. And then I added the note that a development that does contain two or more of the uses may also include one or more of the other uses that are allowed in the zone. So it doesn't have to be any all of the uses listed in the use zone chart, but those will have to be a part of the project.

I think that's it for uses. So now I guess would be an appropriate time for the Commission to indicate if their preferred option differs at all from the staff recommendation.

I like the staff recommendation.

Great.

Any other viewpoints? Right. Thank

you. Ground floor requirements, we also heard a good amount about from our property owners. But the intent is obviously to activate the ground floor level of the development, use the high traffic location that is the JVD-four Zone to really enhance the pedestrian experience. We want to obviously also create viable commercial spaces that succeed and promote neighborhood serving retail. So we've added options for regulating how much commercial space is provided.

You'll see option one is to require a minimum linear frontage of a range of anywhere from 60% to 80% that could differ as well if the Commission desires. And then also applying a minimum or an average or both depth requirement. That is the applicant's request that aligns with the applicant's request rather. We also in other areas of the zoning code, we regulate commercial based on the percentage of the building's ground floor. So if that were to be the preferred option, we would recommend maybe 50 to 75.

Although we heard from the applicant on reasons why that might not be favorable. And then option C, to regulate ground floor loosely. We do this in the Juanita Village zoning code for JBD1 and it basically just asks us to predominate retail use along the bottom, but it doesn't provide any specific percentages or standards other than that. So those are the options that staff has recommended. The applicant's request is visible.

Our recommendation, we left it undetermined just to allow for you to advise based on what you've heard from the applicant and we do believe that heading back a little bit, we do believe that all of these will achieve the intent of activating the ground floor. So looking to understand from the Commission their preference there. Some considerations are that the site will likely require at grade parking due to environmental soil conditions and things that I'm not too aware of personally, scientifically. But they're requesting that we consider that the site would likely require at grade parking and then the design regulations in JBD zones, all JBD zones now currently require all buildings to front a right of way or a through block pathway. It doesn't mention that commercial uses need to front the street, but it mentions that the building should.

So that's something to keep in mind. The questions that are displayed on the screen are a little bit outside of the purview of the options here about how to regulate how much commercial space. It's also kind of getting to questions about where that commercial space should be required to, like which intersection or which street, excuse me, should those commercial requirements be applicable to? And then we're also curious if you have any strong opinions on, excuse me, the residential ancillary uses such as lobbies, fitness rooms, things that are only available to residents, but do create some sort of active environment if those should be allowed to occupy the Ground Floor. If so, to what extent?

It didn't make it on the slide, but in other zones we use like intervening commercial to separate residential ancillary uses from the front of the facade. So that's an option and we can get into that a little bit more if needed. But looking to understand your preference on how much commercial space as well as the answers here or excuse me, the questions here.

Any comments from commissioners? Commissioner Rosman?

Looking at the site, it seems like there's not a ton of frontage along 90 Eighth, and that really doesn't seem like it makes sense for retail use as far as, like, pedestrian experience and all that. So I think, honestly, the request from the applicant sounds very reasonable with the depth of commercial requirement and having it along One-eighty Drive.

I was thinking along similar lines, I'd even like kind of similar to what I was saying earlier, like a depth. Mean having some activation there would be great. I wouldn't even necessarily expect a depth of 20 feet just because it is a constrained site. There's probably going to be parking behind, you know, on the the lower floors behind the commercial. And it I don't I don't this isn't a great accessible site for the churn that retail could potentially create. So yeah, I'd be inclined to on the side of less requirements for commercial here.

I will also just interject to mention that these would apply to the Kafikali parcel as well. So if we have any interest in orienting commercial uses toward the front as we head south to the park, that's something to consider.

Want to get clarification. So option C allows for the applicant to dictate what and where the retail space is located on the site, right?

Yes, unless to an extent though because the JVD zones require all buildings to front the street. So they could theoretically design retail in the back but that wouldn't, I don't think makes sense.

Right. But it allows them the option to decide what and where relative to the site so that we're not necessarily telling them what to do. Is that correct?

Yes.

And with the constraints of the sites, it seems like option C, in my opinion, would probably be the one that would make the most sense. But maybe I'm missing something.

Commissioner Reiser?

My comments on this would be that, I mean, currently, the retail doesn't front on we need to drive. You have to go around the corner to get in the front door. So I think they should have, especially with the wetlands and every other aspect they have, but I think there needs to be a requirement that there is some retail on this site because it can service both the residents. And there's a lot of foot traffic going to the parks. So I think the flexibility sometimes I think the workout room on the First Floor is a total cop out because we've seen this with lots of developers.

They want to put their gym and say, oh, it's going to be so active. And then it's not. It's just a room with a lot of workout equipment. Just would rather there be a retail. And retail I don't think we should include the lobby into the active space for retail. It should be separate requirements.

Question. Looks like and then I'll get to Commissioner Medea. It looks like the frontage facing Juanita Drive is about 160 feet or so. Is that?

Yes. If you give me just a moment, I have my approximate mapped

length. And I'm imagining that there wouldn't be a driveway continuing facing the street at that point, the access vehicle or accident would primarily be on the backside most likely?

From my understanding, they plan to utilize the existing access points. Both. Both. Yes. And the approximate frontage of Northeast 28 to drive for just the Michaels parcel is about a 120 feet.

Okay. Okay. And then the driveway to the North Northwest, would that be covered by likely be covered by a building? I mean, I I know that's we're talking about a specific project, but

I'm not sure I can pull up the the site. Just one moment.

It's the driveway off of Winnetah Drive is what I'm speaking of that goes parallel to the building.

The right turn only?

Yeah, the right in, right out.

It's hard to say without a set of development plans. So I don't feel confident speaking to that.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. I was just thinking, like, if there's if there's no side setback requirements, you know, it's possible they would build out to the the edge of the site, and that wouldn't really be, you know, the really the only frontage is what's facing the street there and that's okay.

And we will see later. There are some other standards especially there are design reviews or design regulations that do require some space between even though there is no strict front yard or front setback or front required yard. You'll see our design regulations strongly suggest some communal open space near the between the sidewalk and the building.

That makes sense, yes. Commissioner Medea.

Thank you. I echo comments from Commissioner Reiso, but I'm having a challenge settling on a recommendation when I'm still not clear on how we've solved for the for the egress and ingress. We we talked a little bit about it just now. But as it stands, as you're heading westbound on Winnetah Drive and turn left into Michaels, you gotta do that weird thing through that property. I I'm not clear on how we're gonna get traffic in and out of there.

Is it part of the mitigation projects that are also outlined in the staff memo? Would it be part of what the developer has to include in their TIA? I'm not clear on that at all, and it's hard for me to make a recommendation without understanding that piece better.

Yeah. Thanks, Commissioner Medea. It's my understanding that the traffic impact analysis will also inform our transportation engineers on access. So they will use the findings, the traffic data, the safety and you know crash data as well to advise on access. I know that doesn't really explain it too much, but that's as much as I know as far as the zoning amendments are concerned. The deeper analysis does come a bit later. And if I could just jump in real quick, Commissioner Mardet.

I think so right now the left turn that you can take to get into the Michael site, so where you can turn and then go behind the Widener Building, that's the access easement that the applicants were mentioning earlier. Our understanding is that they would propose to continue to use that access point for their left turn entrance for people heading Northwest on Juanita Drive so we're that's the assumption we've been working on knowing that the more detailed analysis at Development Room might yield something slightly different. But that's the assumption we've been working on as we draft these codes, that most access will be coming from that driveway near the Widener Building.

Versus northbound on 90 Eighth approaching 1 Sixteenth taking a left, like, into what is now the Indian restaurant? Correct. Correct.

Commissioner

Jacobson. To get back to the Ground Floor retail requirements, I kind of agree with Commissioner Robbins. This is a tough site. I want make sure that we have flexibility. Thinking ahead, I don't want to give flexibility on affordable housing. I think that's a major city priority, and so I wanna give flexibility on ground floor retail requirements. I think it's in terms of requiring ground floor retail on 90 Eighth, I think I'm fine with requiring it for only one of the two streets for both of these properties. I think that's a way that we can make sure we still have the retail for this site and the retail for the Kothkali site if and when that redevelops. So I'm in favor of option c. And I am I don't know about gyms.

I'm open to it. I am definitely open to including residential lobbies as activating ground floor reviews.

I guess I'll just concur with both of those thoughts.

Sounds good. Do you like more formal guidance on this point before you continue? Yeah. Sounds good. What

I might recommend is that, if possible, we get a preferred option that we can plug into the draft code, but we could also move forward as alternative options to take to the public hearings that you get public feedback on it. Any other options that maybe other commissioners are interested in that don't fall into the majority. If that seems like a fair approach, that's what we could do on on each one.

Commissioner Reiser?

One of the problems I have, I I think that, yes, the Kafka site would definitely confront ninety eight. But the Michael site, I think we should grant them the flexibility of letting the applicant decide because it may be, that they face the same way that Michaels is currently facing and have the retail inward. I I think you're tying their hands if you say it has to face a street.

I might just point out, I think that sort of endorses option C.

Is anyone opposed to option C based on what I'm hearing so far? All right. I think it sounds like we're good on C then.

Okay, great. And then if we could get a little bit of a more formal preference on whether or not they the commercial uses should be required to front both streets? I think some of us have or some of you have touched on it. And then should the ancillary uses be allowed on Ground Floor? I think we just need a little bit more there if it's ready.

Option C does regulate how much retail is provided and we would probably draft something similar to Juanita Village where we say retail and restaurant and tavern and you know services selling goods should predominate the Ground Floor. But that doesn't address if they need to front a certain street. Bit of a nuanced question.

Yes, I'm also looking at you know seeing that the recommended or the option C indicates the majority of the Ground Floor be commercial use. I wonder if maybe a better approach would be the majority of any exposed frontage just because that would give the flexibility either way.

The only thing is if the Kuthakali site develops separately, that would mean that the majority of their frontage would also have to be commercial then, right, If we set it that way. And just a little concerned if that one develops by itself. You know, Cathcullis is, like, the one restaurant that's survived any length of time, knock on wood, that they stick around. But, like, there's a reason why that's been a revolving retail space. So I would be careful requiring anything down there, especially on its own, especially if there's no retail along a hundredth leading up to it, it's just kind of by itself.

Yeah. So maybe requiring it from the majority of Frontage Lawn, we need to drive leaving the option open for Frontage elsewhere. Is that fair?

We can draft something up like that for you to respond to.

And then that reduces the depth requirement, I think, too. Is there a sense of, like, reducing the depth requirement? I mean, like, 20 or 30 feet depth requirement? I think, like, majority of the floor, well, one, inhibits the makes the parking more expensive. And I'm not sure that there's really enough gravity to support large amount of retail. Commissioner Jacobson?

Yeah. I don't want to I don't want us to be requiring a majority of the Ground Floor to be commercial when it's probably going to have to be majority parking to make the project work.

And just to note, the option C doesn't have a minimum depth requirement attached to it.

Yeah. It's just a majority of the Ground floor is what's currently drafted. And I want to

make sure

that we don't especially with such with the what could be a narrow frontage lot, with that implying that the depth be so much greater. So I think that the flexibility of C, but even more flexibility acknowledging the unique limitations of this site. Some of the majority of exposed frontage, the majority of accessible frontage on Juanita is required, flexibility elsewhere.

Okay. Sounds good. Moving right along to the pedestrian oriented street standards. This is one of the standards that doesn't come with a range. We have identified the intent to promote safe and efficient pedestrian movement.

We've heard a lot about that corner and we're looking to enhance the connection between the development and the public realm and then also reinforce our human scale design principles in our neighborhood centers similar to Juanita Village. So staff is recommending to update our zoning code to include a plate, plate 34i. It already exists without that that red call out. It exists today. So we would just be extending that pedestrian oriented street designation down to the south.

This doesn't require commercial to front the rest of 90 Eighth, but it does imply that certain frontage improvements associated with pedestrian oriented streets like 10 foot sidewalks are a requirement now. So that is the main purpose of this designation is to capture those pedestrian oriented frontage improvements. Although, as we will discuss in just a couple of slides, we are interested in some additional public benefits that would include an enhanced right of way, so a little bit more than that 10 feet. And so those right of way improvements would be required through code and would supersede any of the pedestrian oriented standards for improving the frontage.

Commissioner Jacobson? I am fine with

the staff recommendation on this.

Any concerns? All right. Awesome.

Moving on to density, this is another one pretty straightforward. We had plans to remove the current density, which or the current minimum lot size, which is about 1,800 square feet or yes, that's the regulating regulation for density. It's not a minimum lot size per se, but it regulates how many units you're allowed to produce. So the staff recommendation is to remove that requirement of 1,800 square feet per unit and allow other development standards to govern the maximum capacity of the site. So things like setback and height would regulate the density as opposed to a specific number. And that's aligned with the policy.

Commissioner Jacobson. To move us along, support the staff recommendation.

See general nodding of heads. So sounds good. Oh. Oh. Did I miss I I I tried to wash it, but yeah. Okay. Alright. Yeah. Confirmed it. Go ahead.

To be fair, I raised my hand just as you were scanning the room and thinking we had consensus. Okay. So I have a lot to say about this and and the next one as well. So what we're being asked to do today is basically consider a veritable kaleidoscope of options, right, to yield hopefully a coherent outcome that adequately addresses the variety of concerns that we've heard repeatedly through public comment, public testimony, neighborhood meetings, emails, etcetera. So I know we're gonna do our best to try to come to that cohesive outcome, you know, with some due diligence and and thought.

Where I'm struggling has to do with concurrency. Right? So I know concurrency is supposed to go a long way to addressing the congestion, egress, vehicular and pedestrian safety concerns, all of that. And with all due respect to the experts in that space, I really, really am hopeful that those gains can be realized. But I I need help because as I look at this information, what I what I'm sure of is that concurrency ensures infrastructure, but do we really understand the true impact, of those projects?

Right? So do we have more information now? Because it sounds like we're relying a lot on a memo to counsel from 2024, and still need, from the developers the the TIA analysis. But even with that, are we certain that it's gonna solve for the the real queuing issues that are happening now, even if we assume based on the presentation today that the with reduced parking minimums, we could expect 70 trips, which is less than current. But if we added in the projections related to commercial usage or retail, we might net out.

So I am really looking for absolute assurance, and I know that's hard to give, that what looks good on paper in terms of the mitigation projects and all of that can actually come to fruition and can achieve the the ease that we're looking for, that the the release rather of that pressure valve at that intersection. And, you know, unless unless I feel really comfortable about that, I have a hard time wanting to push to max height. And then we can wrap all that in the other challenges with just the difficulty of that site overall. So I will go on mute and let you respond. But those are my concerns.

Yeah. Thank you, Commissioner Medea. They're valid and very common concerns that we're hearing city or from the community. So I will say that the level of detail you're looking for does come as I mentioned it comes at the project level of the review. The concurrency projects that are designed to mitigate any failures at the intersections are funded through our capital improvement program, which means in the next six years they should be implemented is my understanding.

And then we also will be using the TIA to answer a lot of those questions during development review. So and I think Adam has a couple comments as well, but I understand your concern as I mentioned earlier the level of analysis that you're looking for typically follows the zoning code amendments and just because we regulate height and we increase the height, they'll still be required to prove how the project will work through development review. So by granting the height that's saying, yes, you can build to this height as long as you comply with every other standard that we have. So just to offer that.

Think, Krishna Rosman?

Yes. So I want to specifically first speak to this piece. I think a lot of your concerns are actually on the next slide. This one is just saying specifically that we're not limiting density beyond height. I also wanna say that, you know, I think the transportation engineer was pretty clear that even a full build out of this site isn't going to have a greater impact than is currently on that site.

So I want to be really careful to require a property to take on a large burden that is not theirs. If we look at the total number of cars that go through that intersection per hour at peak PM, 100 cars is negligible compared to the number that go through that intersection every hour. So while it would be great to have those project improvements, it's not on this site to fix the entire intersection for all of the commuters that go through there in the evenings. Thanks.

Commissioner Reiser? Okay. One of

the concerns I have, especially when we looked at that little piece where we were improving the sidewalks and improving the pedestrian experience, what happens if the other property never redeveloped? Are we going to end up in that situation where we have all these new construction houses in old neighborhoods and there's a sidewalk right in front of their house that no one uses because no one else has a sidewalk on the street?

From what I understand, our code does require any frontage improvements connect in an accessible way to surrounding development. And the sidewalk does widen a little bit as you come farther south. It's the corner itself that's super constrained and can't even fit two wheelchairs passing. So as soon as you get past that, there's a little more space, but there would definitely be more requirements for Cothicoli once they redevelop and to expand that sidewalk. But they would be required to connect in a way that it's usable.

Commissioner Jacobson? I just want to go over a few things. We studied the amount of housing that was that's being proposed here as part of the comprehensive plan. We said that we were not going to do other ideas for more housing and said we would do projects like these. The idea of sacrificing housing at the at this site, I think, goes against our comprehensive plan. It goes against what we said to the people who engaged in the comprehensive planning process. I'm I just don't think we should be sacrificing affordable housing for a request that goes above and beyond the normal process when we have already received more information on these specific impacts than we would in the normal process.

To move us along from this slide, I am going to make a motion to recommend the staff recommendation as listed on this slide.

Second. Is that a motion helpful to staff? Yeah. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor of the motion?

Aye. Any

opposed? No. I think is that one no and the rest, yes?

Thank you.

Moving to building height, we heard from the property owners team about their perceived need for 75 as opposed to anything less. But with the intent of the policies we have adopted in the comprehensive plan, we've been asked to unlock vertical capacity within the zone to provide additional housing opportunities. We also want the building height to contribute to the vibrancy of the business district. That includes pedestrian oriented retail spaces, which often require a taller floor to ceiling height to succeed and attract tenants as we heard from the property owners as well. So we have provided a range of options.

Option A is in alignment more so with surrounding development. Option C is the applicant request and staff recommendation. And of course, you can choose anything in between if you feel so inclined. But our staff recommendation does align with the applicant's request for many of the reasons we've discussed. Some things to consider, there frankly is a minimum number of units that are needed to justify land and construction costs.

Heard that earlier. The site is pretty unique and it has some environmental constraints. That coupled with all of the required street improvements and public open space, These are all things that should be considered when assessing how to move a feasible project forward or how to create zoning that produces feasible projects. And then just as a little minor note, requirements for rooftop amenities and our rooftop common rooms and a pertinent supply, which basically just say you can go a certain amount above the request of the over the height limit for these for these types of improvements or additions to the structure. I'll hop back to this slide just to have the options available.

Commissioner Rosman?

I just want to second Commissioner Jacobson's comments on the comprehensive plan and all of the public outreach and conversations we had, we were very clearly told that the place that folks said that housing belongs is in our neighborhood centers. This is one of our neighborhood centers and very clearly fits exactly the conversation we've been having over the last year. And beyond that, the environmental setbacks because of the wetlands and the request for, you know, really great pedestrian space and a great, you know, human scale entrance to Juanita right here. I think, you know, if we are going to stick to what we have been talking about over the last year, option c is the only one that makes sense when we look at our city as a whole. Thanks.

Commissioner Medea.

Thank you. And just to be clear, I understand. We have some difficult issues to work through, and we did agree in the comprehensive plan where we would focus density. And I wish this site was just more feasible and conducive to achieving that vision. I just remain concerned that the challenges are quite steep, and I'm not convinced at this point that we're able to mitigate them. I hear you. I do. We also have an equal responsibility to address those concerns expressed by the community, in in a way that will fix, fix the problem. So you know where I stand. Thanks.

And commissioner Medei, just to clarify, that's, primarily concerns around traffic impacts?

Any and all of it. Traffic impacts, congestion traffic, egress, etcetera, pedestrian safety, access to the public spaces, in a way that's not going to upend that's that space. I'm not sure, especially with still ongoing needs to see additional traffic analyses, etcetera. We're asked we're we're being asked to make zoning recommendations and give direction to staff today. And, you know, I know that's how the process works, but it's it it's a big leap of faith on this particular parcel.

I have less concerns for the goodwill site. I wish this was a different parcel. I wish there were less issues.

Okay. Chair Rutherford? Yes. Could I is would it be okay if I just responded to the traffic concerns just one more time? Sure.

Think I should really just underscore something that Leandra said. I think they're, right, again, as the commissioners have mentioned, we did a very program level traffic analysis as part of the comprehensive plan, assuming the densities that we're talking about on these two sites, we felt like overall the transportation system could work. So the next thing that we're faced with is the site specific analysis, right, which is really dependent on where egress and ingress happens on the project site, right? For Commissioner Medea, I would say there is a scenario where the zoning is adopted and then an application is submitted for a specific development project. We do a transportation impact analysis, and we conclude ultimately that the project does not work, right?

That is actually a possibility, in which case the project would be denied at that point. In reality, what would happen is that there would be mitigation identified that would probably make the project work, and that might be different ways to access the project, different ways to leave the project, changes to the intersection, changes to the traffic signals, etcetera. So in almost every single case for a project of this scale and density, there would be a technical fix to make the project work. But I just want to acknowledge that if it really doesn't work from a traffic perspective, like if it simply does not meet our City Of Kirkland traffic standards, the permit would be denied. So I don't know if that gives you more comfort or less comfort, but just wanted to give a sense of how that might actually play out once we get to the actual development stage.

I appreciate that. Yeah.

Thanks for clarifying.

Commissioner Jacobson. Since it seems like Commissioner Medei wants to register her opinion, should I just make a motion so that we can take a vote and move on?

Go ahead. Yeah.

I move that we direct staff to a draft code aligning with the applicant's request.

Second.

Any further discussion? Although

I guess I'll say one more thing. You know part of the comprehensive plan and the number of units that we said that we were making room for including what you know was approved by PSRC with our housing numbers you know if if we're really concerned about a site that we had already said we were going to have housing on, we could talk about putting housing elsewhere. So if this is really not where people want, you know, if we want to talk some of the transit corridors as an alternate, you know, the point is is that we want to make sure that there is enough housing as, you know, we discussed as a city. I think this site makes sense, especially since it doesn't look like the traffic impact is going to be any greater than what it is today. But if it is that big of a concern, you know, I'm willing to talk about other locations where we could add more housing density as well.

Commissioner Reiser? I actually have no problem with the height. But with giving that height, I don't want the project to come back with, oh, we can't do retail in the basement, after we gave them a 15 foot first floor. So I am fine with that, but I think the public also deserves the other benefits.

Which we've already recommended. Okay. Any further discussion before we vote? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Nay.

All right. One no, the rest yes. And on to the next.

All right. Moving right along, similar kind of concepts here. So the hype transitions between the zones, the intent here for these regulations in general is just to support cohesion between more intense zones and less intense zones. We obviously or we always wanna avoid conflicts that may arise from contrasting uses. The options we provided to the Commission include using a transition strategy that we adopted through the Northeast 80 Fifth Street Station Area Plan, which is required when the allowed maximum height for the subject parcel is greater than 30 feet above the maximum allowed height for the parcels adjacent.

I have a slide from the station area zoning that kind of illustrates this. Basically, would be looking about 15 feet back from the common property line, establishing the maximum height from the lower intensity zone on that line going up to that height. And then from there, we would draw an angle at about 25 or 30 degrees depending on what's abutting. And then that would be the the kind of building envelope that they would be required to comply with. Since there's no height requirements for a park use, we would use the more restrictive angle of 30 degrees when it's 50 feet or more than 50 feet difference.

And so just to illustrate that, if we decide to adopt this transition strategy, it's because the JBD 5 zone has a permitted height of 26 feet, although the buildings on-site are much higher than that, they would be required to have a 25 degree transition along those common property lines. And then the purple dash line to the south abutting the park would be where the more stringent angle would apply. We have recommended that as an option.

It

is a as I think Alison Warner from Balboa mentioned, it's a strategy that makes sense and addresses community concerns and while also still allowing you know or attempting to prevent some overbearing buildings. So we're recommending that be an option. Oh, I think I might be missing an option where you don't have to. Option B would be to not employ this. And then some considerations to keep in your mind are that the height transitions don't apply to the facade facing the right of way.

So this wouldn't apply to the front of the building, just the back and the sides. And then a minimum 15 foot wide landscape strip would accompany these transition areas where our landscape buffer requirements kick in as well, unless the Planning Commission directs otherwise.

Any comments from the Commission? Mr. Reiser?

I think it sounds incredibly reasonable and especially if the applicant said it was okay.

I will say that I I haven't heard feedback either way from the Michaels team, I don't think, about this. But I'll I'll confer with them to make or to check if this is something they're amenable to. I didn't hear otherwise, but the goodwill team is the team that has their own kind of standard too. But, yes, understood.

The one question I had is on the side where the park is, I don't you know, the sun actually is I don't know if you need to go the 30 the the more stringent on that side because it's not going to affect it's not going to shade the park.

Does the daylight plane take a is that only with respect to the direction of the sun? Or is this, like, theoretical daylight that might come from any angle?

It's a sky exposure plane.

Sky exposure. Okay. Got it. Okay. Thank you for clarifying. Mister Jacobson?

I actually would be in support of no height transitions between these zones. We're talking about a neighborhood center. As was mentioned, the buildings in these cases are taller than the allowed heights. The I think there's a different conversation for the Goodwill site. And I think part of the reason why the we've heard from the Goodwill property owners that they're okay with it is because they've got a lot more space to work with. Yeah. This is a lot more space constrained site. This sort of requirement is gonna be a lot more penalizing for them. Should I make a motion or

I'm I'm not. I'm good with that.

Okay.

Any you can you're welcome to make a motion unless you want to hear more from others first.

I also agree with option b and would not want to put any further constraints on the development of the site as far as what the units might actually look like and the livability.

Right. Commissioner Jacobson, you want to make a motion then?

I move that we direct staff to draft code language in alignment with option B to require no height transitions between zones.

Second.

Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? I think is that unanimous then?

Great. Thank you. All right. So for the next couple of slides, I wanted to just take a second to talk about design regulations and design review and even a little bit further about our design districts and our design guidelines. So the design districts as they stand are listed on screen.

These are good use case examples showcasing the successes of our design review process thus far. These are places that employ really great design elements And we already use these regulation use our design regulations to foster development in these areas. The JBD Zone or the Juanita Business District is a part of that. So it's already a designated design district. Our DRB, our design review board is comfortable with these strategies and staff and builders are also familiar with them.

Design review is a broad term to encompass the processes for administering chapter 142 of our zoning code. That does include options for administrative design review which is conducted by staff. Our design board review or DBR is includes our design review board or DRB and then it also includes multiple public meetings although our efforts to streamline and objectify our design review process might affect how many public meetings or it will it will reduce it to one and public notice is also required so that's the distinction there however both processes will look to both our design regulations and our design guidelines to ensure that the product of the development is aligned with our standards. So design regulations include Chapter 92. I've listed a couple of section names.

So just things that get regulated through design regulations. These are objective and although there is flexibility and the ability for applicants to propose alternatives or to offer slight deviations, they're required to administer a portion of those requirements. The design guidelines, we have those for our pedestrian oriented business districts. These are intentionally flexible. They're non prescriptive.

They just kind of get at the intent of each element of design review. They do include tailored and unique provisions based on the design districts. So you'll see special considerations for the Central Business District or special considerations for the Bridal Trails Neighborhood Center. So what we can discuss that a little bit more when we talk about goodwill if that's the route Planning Commission wants to take. But there are already considerations for the Waneta Business District within the guidelines to support vibrant mixed use centers.

Having said that, the techniques to achieve architectural scale and human scale will affect how we regulate our vertical definition from the right of way as well as our horizontal modulation and facade length if you decide to take that route. So I wanted to just provide those lists. They're in your they're in the table. It's not very user friendly, so there are the techniques to achieve architectural scale listed here. Buildings three or more stories, which apply to both sites will likely apply to both sites.

They have to use two or more techniques to achieve that architectural scale. You'll see that three of these moderate vertical scale using different techniques while two of them moderate horizontal scale. So they can have an opportunity to choose which elements they incorporate and then the applicant may also propose other techniques as I mentioned elements or methods that achieve human scale that might not be listed. Those alternatives, they have to comply with applicable design guidelines and our comprehensive plan. So things like vertical modulation of the roofline and roof form articulation.

There is one about second stories or all stories above the second story must step back at least 10 feet. So while that's possible, there is a chance that an applicant can avoid that and reduce carve outs of the building by implementing perhaps option two and three instead. Just wanted to make that clear that if we decide to rely on design regulations that there is flexibility that doesn't ensure outcomes, but still gets at the essence of what the intent of design review is. This is a list of nine different techniques. If we want to go through them, we can.

They're here so you can better understand what those mean. But for vertical definition from the right of way in an attempt to achieve a consistent architectural and human scale within our design districts, we are suggesting that there are no added requirements to the zoning code that modulate the building. We're asking or recommending that the site rely on our design regulations and design review that I just walked you through to regulate those things. The other options include requiring specific upper story setbacks, which we have done in the past. And another option, less the least stringent option of them all, would be to not even require them to pick from that menu.

This sorry to flip back. But this menu, we could exempt them from having to do any of these if the Commission wishes. So hopping back. The applicant didn't have a specific request but the general request of flexibility through the design review process and offering adjustments or alternatives is was their request. So I guess it does align with option B a bit. Some considerations for option B that I that I already touched on are that they can select only horizontal or only vertical modulation strategies that's within their purview to do. And then the applicant has the ability again to offer different methods.

Mr. Jacobsen?

I want to start with a question and then I'll get into my Does administrative design review also offer the applicant flexibility in terms of how they comply with these regulations?

It does. Yes.

Okay. I think design review has made our housing more expensive, less sustainable, and actually worse from a pedestrian perspective. But I don't want to bog this conversation down in whether we should have design review or not. So I would offer a compromise that we allow the developers to go through either the the design review board in the new process that we don't know exactly what it will look like yet or through administrative design review and let them choose. And that that way we can also rely on our design guidelines to ensure horizontal and vertical modulation.

This is option b. Mostly?

This one specifically, yes, it's option b.

Further discussion? I hear any dissent. All right. I guess option B.

You want a motion? A motion to recommend option B.

Second.

Specific to the is that specific enough for you? Yep. Okay. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Very

similar question here because those chapters of our design regulations have methods for horizontal modulation kind of baked into that menu. We're requesting or excuse me, we're recommending the same approach to modulate horizontal scale and moderate horizontal scale, just relying on the applicant to choose methods that work best for them as it applies to the design regulations.

I think we go with option B.

I don't think we need a motion on this. Any dissent? Thank you.

All right. Parking, let me know how much time you would like to spend on this. Obviously, there's a lot going on at the state level, so this might be a moot discussion. But the applicant's request is, as we know, 0.5 parking spaces per unit regardless of size. They're asking for one parking space per thousand square feet of commercial gross floor area.

We can retain existing parking minimums. I have them on the next screen if we would like to review those ratios. We can employ the reduced ratios studied and adopted through the station area, which give some relaxed minimums for like things like affordable units and whatnot. Or we can grant the property owners full parking request. The commission should consider state bill 5,184.

I think we'll know by early next week whether or not that is official official, but it is pretty far in the process. Applicant has the applicant has expressed that option A and B would be largely unfeasible for the type of unit supply they'd like to provide. And then our current standards require 10% of all residential spaces to be required as guest parking. There's the current ratios. You can see that we require up to 1.8 spaces if it's a three bedroom dwelling.

Can I just pause us? Do we need to go through this at this point? HB eleven eighty three also has already been signed by the governor, which has some more extensive commentary on parking. I would rather focus on the stuff we have a say on. I don't mean to cut you off, but we've got a whole lot of slides left, I'd rather focus on the things that we have any say over at this point, which I would say we don't on the parking question.

The only other thing I would say about that is that we're not required to adopt fifty one eighty four for eighteen months from its effective date. So I tend to think that any developer would just wait until those standards are into our code and effective before applying for a permit with us. I do just wanna, in all transparency, say that we're not required to adopt them just yet. But if planning commission wants to direct us to just draft the draft this code with the state required parking minimums that will go into effect soon, I think we'd take we'd take that direction.

Okay. Then I will make a motion to direct staff to not wait the eighteen months and draft code per what's going to be state code. You know, if it's going to be anyway, let's not slow a project down to make them, you know, wait any amount of time for what's going to become reality anyway.

I second that motion. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

It appears to be unanimous.

Thank you. Yeah. I also added a slide just to let the community know that there are two major transit routes that serve this area, one frequent all day route scheduled, and then another route that is all day that goes to places like Bothell, Woodinvilles, Park And Ride, and all the way up to to the Brickyard Park And Ride as well. So there's that. There's the summary of the bill.

Sounds like we know about that. So the next couple slides are talking about public benefits and potential public benefits. In the packet, you'll see what we've studied and we ask for our recommendations include things that we feel are proportional to the up zone, but we haven't had time to fully explore other potential benefits, especially some that have been raised by our community members. So the Planning Commission should feel empowered to direct staff to draft code for other public benefits that you'd like to see things like sustainability benefits or native vegetation green space, other kind of public improvements that pertain to the public open space, things like that. But the intent here is to provide the public with increased access to connections within the Juanita business district.

So we can do that by requiring pedestrian access easements or through block connections waterward of the intersection similar to the public comment we received of moving the park to park connection back a bit. In addition to that, we could use the enhanced intersection improvements that we're thinking about to create the park to park connection with the active transportation focus. So bike lanes, shared use path, things like that. We're working with our transportation department to get you an exhibit on what that would look like and the specifics on that. But we're recommending that as an option.

If you chose not to employ any public benefits, there are some other regulations that we have to at least get some increased pedestrian oriented space. But we're recommending that we do move forward and fulfill the community's wish through the intersection improvements.

I support the staff recommendation. I am interested in some language. It doesn't need to I don't think it should be in the baseline draft that we'll make a motion on. But I am interested in some language, in particular looking at moving that park to park connection. I understand it might be complicated, but I'd be interested in that option.

Okay. So exploring something water word of the intersection as well as the intersection improvements?

Yes. That would be as our baseline.

Commissioner Reister? So

staff, can they put the park to park connection in the buffer zones?

We have minor allowances for walkways in critical area buffers. They're a little bit more expensive to build. They come with a little bit heavier requirements because we have to mitigate the impacts, but, we have seen it done. The boardwalk at Totem Lake is one example.

If they can flexibly put that in, I think that's also a good mitigation.

Commissioner Rosman?

On that note, since that would really be kind of like a city parks item, if it's more expensive and maybe if that's the reason why it would be hard to do feasibly for development, Are there city dollars to make that connection? Because if it really is a park item, it seems like I would hate to lose that as an option just because it doesn't work feasibly with the project if the city could maybe show up and use park dollars or something to make that connection happen. I don't know. But I'd love to at least explore that as an option.

I think we can I think we can do that? So we've we've had some conversations with other experts like our city attorneys here at City Hall to talk about what we can require, and we might need to calibrate the cost of constructing an improvement like that versus getting the easement with development and then looking at a potential city project or a partnership to actually build it. But getting an easement set aside would be one step and I think the time to do that probably would be with this project. So we can continue to explore that and I think we can bring it as an option.

Granted, I think potentially while they're building out the site they may be able to do it more cheaply than the city. So I'd like to keep our options open whether that's an easement or just a, you know, maybe it's a reduction in impact fees or something in trade for that construction.

Any further discussion before recommendation? Anyone want to make a recommendation?

Sure. I recommend option B with a note to study the option for a water word pathway and whether that is an easement or some sort of impact fee deferment or other city involvement. Not making that a strict requirement of the site, but let's, you know, make it happen if feasible.

Second.

That was long, sorry.

Is that captured as a question? All right. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? It seems to be unanimous.

Moving right along, similar but a little bit different. Public open space relates to how the private how the parcel itself provides public amenities by creating open space. So just to streamline this a little bit, I will relay the options. We can apply existing design regulations that already are adopted to require corner treatments and pedestrian serving improvements pedestrian serving improvements between the sidewalk and the building. That's what I alluded to earlier.

The specifics are in the development standard table on what those would look like. Didn't want to add them to the screen, but they include updates to our design regulation chapter to include the JBD 4 zone in those required areas where certain improvements would be required. So we could do that. And then so that would apply to building corners to provide the treatments and then improved pedestrian oriented street standards as well. So things like on-site lighting, paved walking services, and enhanced access from the sidewalk to the property.

There's another option to require through the zoning code rather than to rely on design regulations require a certain amount of publicly accessible space leaving it flexible to where that exists but it should extend into the public realm. It has to provide a transition between public and private spaces and there can be if you wish some minimum dimensions associated with that to prevent any narrow strips or alleys. You can also provide none of these options. We're recommending option A for flexibility and and utility. With that option, you can recommend alternatives to the square footage requirements if more or less is desired.

Oh, excuse me. I think that is supposed to be for option B. And then for option C, design regulations would still apply as written with some other sections of 92 requiring public gathering space towards the right of way. So even if we did nothing, we would get a little bit of open space. But with Option A, it's a stronger requirement and that guarantees the activation of the corner.

Commissioner Rosman?

I'm going to motion to recommend option A, which is staff's recommendation.

Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? No.

Right. Hopefully those are the meatier ones. I think the next few will go pretty swiftly. Land use buffer requirements, we require a 15 foot wide landscape strip with a six foot fence or screening of some sort. We could continue that regulation.

This is where it would apply. It would only apply to the portion bordering the park as they wouldn't be required to buffer from other JBD zones. We could also require an alternate buffer of the same size that's more open and more inviting and kind of connects to the park better rather than separating from the park and so we could omit the requirement for a fence. It should be noted that buffers can be modified through an established process in our code. So if we didn't require an alternative buffer, they could still propose that if they'd like in future development.

Commissioner Rysher.

I would be in favor of a more open, considering it is a natural park.

Commissioner Rick Jacobson. Agreed.

Like, require it.

Require the fence, I think.

Yes, yeah.

Well, I would almost say, do we need to require a buffer at all? I would almost go with an option c, which would be no buffering required, which is typical for the rest of JBD. I don't know where other folks are feeling, but, if we want to talk about cost to the site, I'd much rather focus on things like the Waterward connection and the pedestrian experience, etcetera, and not buffer for buffer's sake, especially because that would only be for the Cathcali site, not the Michaels one, which would be an even more, I think, onerous requirement on a smaller site. So I don't know where other people are at, but I'd be good with not requiring a buffer at all.

The park itself seems a buffer.

And buffer of the wetland, too. I will say that the Kothakali site is largely encumbered by what could be a potential buffer and the wetland itself. So right there where this cursor is, is approximately where the wetlands stop. And then if you add a buffer, like they're they're working with a minimal amount of space. And so it creates kind of a natural buffer by itself.

I was just wondering what was there and what would the property setback be so they wouldn't be building a building all the way to the property line, would they?

I don't think so. I don't think they'd be allowed to with our critical area requirements.

What about that little piece of land that is not wetland? How close could they build to it?

Like, up here, you mean?

Yeah. Right at 98.