Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right. We're going to get started.

Margaret Bunyal. Here. Erin Jacobson. Here. Gina Medea. Here.

Julia Nolan.

Here. Scott Reiser. Here. Angela Rosman.

Here.

Rodney Rutherford. Here.

Wonderful. So tonight we have a study session on faith-owned land and then a public hearing on the LUT splitting amendments as required by state code. Right now would be the time for anyone in the audience if online you would like to speak. This would be about anything but the study session. If you could please raise your hand. If you're here to speak about the public hearing, there will be a time later to do that. Seeing none, we will move on to the study session.

All right. Thank you, Chair Rosman. So tonight, we're gonna have a study session on our affordable housing on faith-owned land project. This one's been on the work program for a little bit starting last year. As we talked about when we were discussing the work program update, progress on this project was a little bit delayed last year as we worked through some staff turnover, but we've got a great team on it now. here to share with you some of the background on this project and then also our initial scoping direction from city council. With you tonight for the presentation is our senior planner Scott Guder and our planner Lou Yardley who has just passed out some maps for you. So they'll be walking you through it and I'll hand it over to them.

Hi, good evening. Hello. It's been a little while since I've been in front of you, but glad to be back. So tonight we're just going to go over a lot of what was covered in the staff report. That will primarily be covered by Lou. She will go over a lot of the background research, which she was heavily involved in. And then I will follow up with, you know, what this means for Kirkland and what direction did we hear from council. And then we'll move into some questions and then follow up with some discussion kind of organized around the questions that we have in your meeting packet. So if you had that open that time, that'd be great. With that, I'll hand it over to Lou.

Thanks, Scott. And hello, Planning Commission. Yes, my name's Lou, as Allie and Scott have mentioned, but nice to be here. And I feel very fortunate to have worked with Scott and continue to work with him on this project. It's very exciting. And as he mentioned, yes, I'll go over background research, kind of best practices based on that research, state requirements, examples, and then he'll jump back into it for city history and alignment as well as Council's direction. So to jump right in, in 2019, the state mandated that cities offer increased density on faith-owned land and land rented by faith organizations that are proposing a housing project where all units are affordable units. During this time, the city understood that allowing increased density was required if they were approached by a faith-owned site, but we did not draft any regulations. It wasn't until 2044 Comprehensive Plan where we formalized policies to address these state requirements, and that's why you see us here before you today. But in the last legislative session, the state passed new regulations under House Bill 1859 that allow mixed income development. So not all units need to be affordable housing units. So under this updated law, what you see on the screen here requires at least 50% of the units to be reserved for low income households that are earning at or below 80% of AMI, or at least 20% are reserved for very low income households, which means that they're not earning any more than 50% AMI. AS WELL AS ANOTHER CRITERIA IS THAT THE AFFORDABILITY MUST BE MAINTAINED FOR A MINIMUM OF 50 YEARS ON SITE. AND THE LAW IS EFFECTIVE JUNE 2026. SO AS WE'RE KIND OF DOING THIS WHOLE PROJECT, IT DOES ALIGN WITH WHEN WE NEED TO MEET THOSE REQUIREMENTS BASED ON THE BILL ADOPTION. So for best practices, these were really influenced by the HRNA and APA reports. And the HRNA report as well as the APA report support a streamlined and administrative approach to allowing increased density on faith-owned land. This could be allowing double the density of the underlying zone, like Redmond does, which you'll see in future slides, or allowing increased far and height like Seattle. Either way, all sites in the same zone are subject to the same standards, and there's no site-specific legislative process. In addition to the standard regulations, the HRNA report highlights how important permit fee waivers are, as well as establishing support for stakeholders, for faith organizations to work with, from the project feasibility stage all the way through project completion. Faith organizations are not usually familiar with development processes and permits, and they also rarely have the financial means to fund a major development project like the ones that we're likely talking about. So partnering with a stakeholder who can fund the project or finding a stakeholder who can connect them with someone who can is very vital. The APA report in particular also highlights how housing on faith-owned land aligns with faith organization values of serving community and providing essential human needs. So by enabling further density on faith-owned land, it gives the organizations opportunity to act on that goal and align with their mission.

Yes, thanks.

So examples from other jurisdictions. I briefly mentioned this in the previous slide, but we can kind of go into more specifics on what our neighbors have adopted. And included in your packet are a few examples of what our neighboring jurisdictions have adopted to comply with the state code. Seattle and Redmond both adopted standard and administrative approaches, so very influenced and aligned with the HR&A report. Seattle allows increased foreign height where Redmond allows double the density and an additional story to what the underlying zone allows. And the city council last week really liked the Redmond approach and they were particularly interested in kind of exploring something more similar to that. Bellevue, they took another approach and they kind of were a big spearheader and they adopted, I think, several years ago. I want to believe in like 2022, I think, or 2023. But they took an approach and created an overlay that rezoned faith-owned properties near existing multifamily housing and transit access to allow for 10 to 30 units per acre. So that site specific approach is more process driven and time intensive. It tends to limit the number of parcels eligible for increased density, but it is another option. Again, that doesn't fully align with the council direction that we got from last week.

Next slide.

So a couple examples, real world examples. Seattle, the Admiral Church in West Seattle, so they recently partnered with Homestead Community Land Trust to redevelop an existing multifamily parcel that's a little over 27,000 square feet and redevelop it into 21 for sale residential units. So 13 of these are affordable town homes and eight are market rate units. The unique and pretty cool thing about this project is they are not retaining the existing structure, but they are retaining the faith organization. So the faith organization will be located in a new ground-level church facility. And units also are available to households earning less than 80% of AMI. And from what I can tell from their website, I did reach out to them, I haven't heard back, all units are reserved for affordability. Next slide. And then Bellevue. So this is another example, St. Andrew's Lutheran Project, which maybe you all are familiar with. Imagine Housing, which is a big affordable housing and kind of stakeholder in this field, originated with this project. And so they partnered with Imagine Housing, and the project is retaining the entire faith community structure. So that will be untouched. If anything, there will be interior renovations. But the main addition is to add a four-story multifamily development with 100 rental units reserved for households earning 40% to 60% AMI. And we did talk with the Imagine Housing leaders, and all of those units will be for affordable housing, even with the new house bill that allows for mixed income. And as you can see too, this parcel is quite large, 179,000 square feet, so several acres large, and that does enable them to retain the existing facility and add a pretty major new development.

Okay, so what does this kind of mean for the City of Kirkland? Well, it does provide a unique opportunity to add housing, especially affordable housing, on existing properties that don't already have housing on the property. and therefore wouldn't result in not really displacing any existing residents, or at least reducing the opportunity for that to happen in another affordable housing project on a different type of land. It also provides an infill opportunity into our neighborhoods where it's very desirable to add you know, additional housing affordability levels, adding, you know, maybe affordable or attainable housing in these neighborhoods that have access to amenities. And then it also aligns with several land use and housing policies that really encourage the city to develop affordable housing throughout the city. Oops. So we took this to the City Council and as Lou has alluded to They were really impressed with You know, you know the Redmond approach and really wanted staff to kind of pursue a more by right development standard that would enable affordable housing on these sites. And so staff is going to continue to engage with the faith community and our affordable housing community. We've recently engaged with those groups and have started dialogue and have engaged with them in some Survey work early, you know, we we don't have a lot of information on that yet, but we're we're going to continue working on getting more survey work surveys complete and more I would say more interactions with our faith and affordable housing leaderships And then we'll work with them to actually develop the code that would be informed by that partnership. Here's the map that's in front of you. A couple of little notes here is that these properties identified as about 64 parcels in Kirkland, about Uh, two, I think two thirds of these properties are located, uh, are located in low density residential zones. And but I would note that most of the properties identified here as greater than. Two acres, um, are also located in those low density zones about 15 out of 19 of those sites. Also worth noting is that many of these parcels are owned by single organizations. So collectively they represent some parcels up to like 10 to 12 acres of land with a lot of opportunity for putting housing on their property if they so chose. This slide is just, again, kind of reiterating the kind of work that we're doing. The city of Kirkland already has a faith network of stakeholders. That's the initial group that we reached out to to kick off the conversation with them. and we'll continue to take the lessons learned from the studies that we've presented to you and also working with our neighboring jurisdictions and learning best practices from them and learnings that they have on the sites that have already been developed in their jurisdictions. At this point in time, we'd like to stop for questions before we move on to any kind of discussion.

Commissioner Nolan? Yeah, so I had a question. It sounds like there was at least some provision for kind of these higher density housing developments on faith-owned land prior to this due to an earlier bill. So I was just curious what currently exists in Kirkland.

Yeah. So in 2019, the state legislature adopted a the RCW that we had presented in our in our staff report. And that the way the way it works is, is is it directs cities. directed cities to consider adopting a housing bonus for affordable housing projects upon request and we didn't get impressed and we also about a year later offered up a kind of a housing bonus with our early adoption of middle housing essentially doubling the density of housing in residential zones so that was an offer that we could give them at the time. Now that is the base zoning now, and so we have to consider a bonus on top of now a base that we call middle housing at this point in time.

Thank you. So from the packet referencing national and regional examples, it said that if Bellevue's C-1 program were to be applied to other East County cities and housing would be, were housing to be built on all the site, the regions could produce between 55 and 9,000 new affordable homes. It's not likely that all the religious organizations are going to say, have fun being an atheist, figure it out. I mean, it'd be strange. So of the 64 that we've identified here, we know we have one that we're in earnest talks with. And I know the mayor had mentioned that others have approached her. If we were to put together parameters that were helpful to developers and that was executed and those buildings manifested, do we have a sense of, again, I realize it's hard to ask the question when we don't have the parameters defined, but do we have any sense or hope about how many homes this could bring to fruition?

We don't. So under state law, we're required to plan for and accommodate, and this would be one way for us to show that we're accommodating for the potential development of affordable housing on these lands, and in particular, they will really go far in addressing our affordable housing targets. It's only with future dialogue that we'll be able to really understand what is the true potential. The few survey results that we had, one was interested. The other was saying that we're not interested but supportive of other faith organizations that want to put affordable housing on their property. So it's really mixed. And while this is largely mission-aligned with the work that they do, there's a lot of There's a lot of concern over the feasibility of putting housing on their property and the long-term viability of it as they think about their other options. mission needs, right? So it has to kind of really align. We have to create a program that really would be supportive of that. So I think we're going to learn a little bit more as we engage in more in-depth conversations with these stakeholders.

And then just to put a point, sorry, on that, Commissioner Mendea, I think that as we get some code drafted, we could look at roughly how many units per acre would be allowed under a draft code and run some at least magnitude of scale numbers for you all to consider.

That's exactly what I was going to say, as well as kind of to piggyback off of what Scott was saying, I think debunking, or not debunking, but hopefully consoling some of those concerns too from faith organizations will come from key engagement with them as well. So really, you know, normalizing this conversation and also sharing with them the kind of practicality and the very like tangible ideas that could come from us us drafting some you know draft regulations for them as well as Connecting them with arch and various partnerships that can really be like a handhold partner for them throughout the process Commissioner Bunuel Yeah, I had a question about

I guess maybe could we be more inclusive and not limit it to faith-based? There are other charity organizations or nonprofits that could also potentially be covered under this. And have we looked at that?

Yeah, yes, so I know that I think Redmond and maybe Seattle both offer it to kind of just community facilities right now, so it's not only for faith organizations. The state code does just apply to faith organizations, but again, it also allows the city to kind of go beyond that and create options that are more unique to the city and its mission.

Commissioner Rutherford policy that supports that as well in our in our comprehensive plan and This could if if not now it could potentially be a building block to expansion to those organizations in the future

Yeah, building on Commissioner Buñuel's comment there, that's also something that came into my mind back during the course of the comprehensive plan, as well as in some, I believe it was discussions about the planning work program. With the council, I was like, why could we expand this? And the rough feedback, I recall, was that wanting to look at the faith-owned properties is at least the first iteration, and then with the possibility of expanding it beyond that in the future.

And the rough feedback I've heard so far, I don't know if that's what's... Yeah, I mean, this could potentially be a model for not just, you know, faith-owned land or nonprofit organizations, but also institutional lands or any kind of city-owned land in the future. So things to think about, like how this could inform those future discussions.

And then some other things I'd be curious to see more of is... what are the 10-minute neighborhood scores or evaluation of what are the opportunities for either 10-minute neighborhoods that exist today or adjacency to commercial areas that have the potential to become stronger 10-minute neighborhoods in the future and where some of those might be. I don't know if there might be, it sounds like maybe Bellevue had been thinking somewhat along those lines, but not, you know, Similar spirit, different terminology. In general, I was more drawn to the Redmond path, and so I thought that was interesting. That's where council was as well. So yeah, I think that would be interesting to see. And so we can think about, are there ways that we should think about how maybe some of these should be treated differently if they're in very

Vehicle, you know car dependent areas compared to areas that have more non vehicular opportunities Vice-chair Kind of a question based on the note on allowing giving allowances for non faith-based organizations I Would it be that much work right now to structure the zoning code changes such that in the future, if the city did want to allow this program to be used by non-religious organizations, that it would be a simple text edition of just inserting a few more words? Would that be a lot of work?

I don't think so. Just the way we're thinking of how... HOW WE'RE GOING TO BE LOOKING AT THESE PROPERTIES, KIND OF PUTTING THE KIND OF ANALYTIC DOING A PARCEL ANALYSIS OF, YOU KNOW, AN AGGREGATE OF LOW DENSITY RESIDENTIAL ZONES THAT HAVE DIFFERENT SITE SIZES AND CHARACTERISTICS AND HOW WE MIGHT APPROACH THAT DIFFERENTLY. as a way to kind of design some density tiers potentially in those areas based on those site-specific characteristics and then underlying zoning. I think we can easily say that if we were broadly IF WE ARE APPLYING THAT BASED ON UNDERLYING ZONING, WE MIGHT BE ABLE TO KIND OF SAY THIS IRRESPECTIVE OF IF YOU ARE A FAITH OWNED PROPERTY OR A NONPROFIT, YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO APPLY THESE CODES.

OKAY. THANK YOU.

COMMISSIONER MEDEA. THANKS. SORT OF A FOLLOW-UP. Regarding the the neighborhood centers or whatnot so pertaining to transit specifically the new law says that we're applicable the developer should coordinate with the local transit agency to ensure appropriate transit access and service So again, this is these this is a potential for faith-based Folks to approach us. It's not a mandate that they have to write So again, this might be a hard question to answer but like what analysis has been done to assess the relationship between the possible locations already identified and and the availability of current or future transit? How will that work? Is there a sub-concurrency type of activity that would go on when this process starts in earnest?

So early, early analysis at this point in time, we haven't gotten to that level of transit service related or street alignment or street classification alignment with particular properties that have been identified. I have been working very early on work with our transportation planners and our stormwater engineers on doing some basic analysis on what are the possible guardrails that we should be putting on these particular properties what levels of you know, I don't want to use a term a level of service, but the general gist of the of the that of that threshold might be Might be one of those kind of Criteria for you know a particular parcel to achieve a desired density level there's also And that might be one way we can also, another criteria that we can use to analyze where is the possibility for development and what might certain properties, where we might set some, draw some hard lines as to what kind of infrastructure requirements are going to be needed in particular zones. Also, this is just standard practice in any kind of development. If a development proposes a certain level of development capacity, regardless if it's close to zoning or not, we do have the ability to apply development standards that would address infrastructure deficits. And also like you know things that we already have in place that are a little easier for us to for everyone to hear To understand is like critical area codes anything that we you know that is going to be applied to a property like this and then if I could just

Add a little bit more while Scott and Lou are working on site specific analysis. I think it's important to remember that our land use is already tied to our transportation network as well. So we already have our higher density zoned areas correlated to the areas that have better transit service. And that has to do additionally with like where our urban growth centers are. They have the best and most frequent transit service. So there's already a link there. planning commission and council end up going in the direction of creating some tiers based on the underlying zoning so that that's already linked and then I think they'll also be when we get to it in a couple years overlap with our implementation of the transit oriented development bill that we're going to be required to implement and so it's a little bit baked in and they're also working on some site-specific analysis I hope that helps

And then the the other thing that I'm curious about, because we the best practices and the information that you're sharing do talk about financing being the biggest challenge. And I don't know if this was mentioned in your presentation, but are we considering allowing mixed income housing? Are we are we really solely focused on certain AMI classifications?

Under the state law that was outlined by Lou, only a certain percentage of the housing needs to be affordable at a different level. At a certain level, the remaining portion of that housing can be market rate. That is a way for more projects to become feasible as they pursue development.

Like the Seattle example, the Admiral Church, I wonder if that was part of why they went that route and is council open to that if that's what we end up recommending or needs to be from a financial perspective?

They didn't provide any kind of direction that was different from what the state law allows.

So, yes, yeah, they are interested in mixed income, yes. And I think those two examples that I gave to kind of the project drafting did start before this new ordinance was adopted, and so, you know, they always could... ADMIRAL CHURCH AND ST. ANDREW'S, THEY ALWAYS COULD PUT THOSE RENTS OR FOR SALE UNITS AT MIXED RATE, BUT I THINK THEY ARE STILL CONTINUING WITH AFFORDABLE HOUSING, BUT I KNOW THAT WE AS KIRKLAND WOULD BE OPEN TO ALLOWING MIXED INCOME.

EVERYBODY GOOD? ALL RIGHT. CARRY ON.

OKAY. Oops, wrong one. So we did give you a set of scoping questions. These are really high level questions. You've kind of already engaged with some of this already. It really is trying to get your initial thoughts on what type of development standards you're interested in. Is there an interest in thinking about trying to achieve different affordability levels other than what is required by the state, a question about allowing mixed-use development or even retention of the existing faith organization. What kind of priorities would you, what is your interest, what would you want to direct staff to really kind of dig in on a little bit further? There's a couple other additional analysis or studies that you would like us to produce so that you can analyze this with some draft regulations and program offerings. So I'll just open it up to you, Chair.

Well, I guess if nobody's ready to, oh, okay. Commissioner Nolan.

Yeah, so I think I like particularly knowing that because we've already got a lot of the standards baked in that would already kind of mean that like the existing zoning requirements would just be even upscale beyond that. I really like Redmond's approach because I think saying, two times the base density, which will be higher already inherently in areas that are higher density, zoned for higher density as well as scaled, would be great. Personally, you know, I like allowing mixed use development just because I think that, you know, particularly in some of the lower density areas, which it sounds like these are kind of the biggest opportunities, if you will, at least that we've currently identified. You know, it's nice, particularly if we're supporting lower income housing that might not have easy access to, say, like a car. that being able to have facilities nearby, I think is really nice. And I kind of feel the same way for retention of existing faith-based organizations, both it's a thing that is a service to the community, but also it strikes me that an awful lot of organizations will potentially be more open to development if they know they don't also have to relocate their religious building that, again, is presumably serving a number of parishioners.

One really quick thing that when you mentioned the Redmond standards, at least a couple of these are in the station area where we don't have density limits. So how, like if we're interested in the like Redmond proposal, is that where we would just have to do something different within the station area? Correct. That would be like minimum height or extra height allowance or something like that?

Yeah, we would have to figure out what would be a bonus when you're not talking about, oh, what is double density? Well, there's no density there, so you... WE HAVE ZONES WHERE THERE'S NOT GOING TO BE DENSITY, SO WHAT DOES THAT LOOK LIKE TO ADD DEVELOPMENT CAPACITY GENERALLY IN TERMS OF HEIGHT OR JUST DEVELOPMENT CAPACITY IN GENERAL FOR THE PURPOSES OF ADDING AFFORDABLE HOUSING ON THE PROPERTY?

VICE CHAIR JACOBSON?

Thank you. I guess I'll run down the list, but at the start, I appreciate that you did the analysis of how many of these properties are in low-density areas and non-low-density areas. I think we should take an approach of allowing just a little bit more in the low-density areas, but for properties that are either in regional growth centers or non-low-density areas or immediately adjacent to them, Um, to have that as a separate category because that's already supposed to be a higher density area. And so in terms of development standards for the higher density category, I would even be interested in saying let's not have units per acre limit. Just let the height and setbacks govern the number of units just like we do in the station area. I would be similarly interested in doing that for FAR as well. And again, just let height and setbacks govern it. For the lower density areas, I think we should look at maybe one extra floor, but I wouldn't want to change things with setbacks, and I think we should definitely, in both categories, take a look at transition policy requirements. Then I think most of my answers for the rest of these are going to be the same in both categories. I think we should follow the state standards. That's already going to provide significant benefit for affordable housing. And I imagine that a lot of these organizations will be interested themselves in maximizing the amount of affordable housing that they can provide. And the limiting factor for them is not what we require, but rather how much public subsidy that they can get. So I'm not so worried about them trying to absolutely minimize it. Definitely supportive of mixed use. I wouldn't want to require it, though. That can make financing more complicated. So I would want to let these organizations figure out what works best for them. Um, for approval criteria, I would want us to, uh, make it as close to a simple building permit process as possible. Um, the, in many ways, uh, the permit, people complain, a lot of people complain about how long it takes to get a single family permit in Kirkland, and right, and I think rightly so, but that's way faster than a lot of these other permits, and I think we should keep it to a clear objective process, um, and make it as, uh, administrative and objective as possible. And then the last part, I'm also, and this does apply to what options we consider. Given that there, I wouldn't, it doesn't seem like there's a huge amount of interest of moving forward on projects right now. And so I would worry about us spending a lot of time on this project when I don't think we're going to get a lot of these projects in the near future. So I would want to make sure that we limit the scope And I'm fine with even limiting the scope of the changes if that makes it easier. But when it comes to especially analyses that will take us a long time, I would want us to make sure that we can still achieve this project on schedule or even ahead of schedule, just because I really worry about us spending a lot of time on this when there aren't going to be shovels in the ground for these projects for a while.

Thank you. And just one clarifying question. I think at the very beginning of your comment, you said allowing the parcels in low density zones a little bit more. Do you mean like a little more density than their base allowance right now or in comparison to medium or high zones?

In general I would base it if it's if it's a parcel in Zone single-family and all the adjacent properties are zoned single-family Then I would say a little bit more than what they're allowed right now Okay, if they're adjacent, but if it's adjacent to a higher density area, then I would put that in the higher density bucket Thank you I really like pretty much everything that Commissioner Jacobson

mentioned there, my interpretation of what you're getting at with the low density versus the high density buckets, I think that's a great way of addressing the station area as an example, but in a more general fashion. My interpretation of the low density bucket, I was thinking kind of along the lines of what Redmond did. And the one thing I would add on to that as potentially exploring reducing the front setbacks in the low density areas because I can see that there's some possibility there for these properties to be an opportunity to engage more actively with the neighborhood. And reducing that setback can make it more, you know, approachable or provide more of those opportunities for engagement. Maybe there's some criteria, you know, of like expecting some sort of active or community engaging use. But I think that would be a fair incremental addition to what Commissioner Jacobson was describing.

Commissioner Medea?

Thank you, and I am in agreement as well with both Commissioner Jacobson and Commissioner Rutherford. So when I looked at the Bellevue one, and sort of this kind of gets back to what Commissioner Jacobson was saying, this 500 feet just seemed weird. So, I mean, is someone going to get like a tape measure or a surveyor out there? but this idea potentially of if it's adjacent to, like if it's adjacent to a commercial or a multifamily district, can that zoning kind of be incorporated and part of what the final, I think that makes more sense than 500 feet.

Commissioner Buñuel.

Being the former planner here, I was thinking about the administrative approval and I don't know what the SEPA thresholds are as far as number of units anymore, but I know that builders can complain a lot that a lot of time is eaten up just getting their permits and if we relax some of those standards. There are some standards that you can't relax. You can't relax the SEPA review. There's probably going to be concurrency. And I'm wondering, since I left, I'm not sure what number of units triggers SEPA review and concurrency. So I guess my point is that sometimes relaxing some of those administrative things are not possible, even though we think they're going to save them money. Really saving amount on permit fees is really a drop in the bucket, considering probably the millions it's gonna cost to build and do the site development. I'm sure it helps, but I'm not sure how much of a dent and an incentive it's going to give to builders. I guess that's more to get feedback from them. But again, I think they're going to say yes, please, because they never say no to relief to administrative or permit costs. So was there a question or was that just a comment?

I can jump in on the SEPA question, Commissioner Boniel. I think our threshold right now is 20 units. So if you're doing more than 20 units, you have to do SEPA. I think the one thing I'd add is that we have worked really hard over the last many years to really streamline the SEPA process for these short types of infill residential projects. So typically what the SEPA document would look like for this type of project would be an addendum to the comprehensive plan and possibly the stationary plan EIS as well. And so that's like a There might be a traffic study needed, but generally speaking, we're talking about like a five-page memo that just gets put into our file that is not subject to public comment. So the SEPA process for projects like this, assuming they're consistent with the comprehensive plan, which they are because we have policies baked into the comprehensive plan, should be pretty streamlined.

But concurrency, if it's subject to SEPA, then it's subject to concurrency, correct?

That's right. So that, yeah, the traffic study is going to be the big time suck for some of these. And again, we would endeavor to work with our public works department to do that as efficiently as possible.

And then just one more SEPA thing, and I can't take credit for knowing this off the top of my head. Adam's answer gave me time to look it up. A recent... recent piece of state law that we implemented in the last couple of years was that Residential and mixed-use projects in station areas is defined by the state station areas are categorically exempt beyond the 20 units I Had thought there was also a state bill that allowed cities to exempt projects up to 200 units From SEPA review if they were compliant with our comprehensive plan

Yeah, I think that is correct. I think that we have considered code amendments that would do that. I think the challenge is that we use SEPA right now to trigger transportation review, so that's not sort of written into our code right now. So I think more lenient SEPA thresholds is something that we should be looking at in the future, but we'll need to sort of account for the need to DO TRAFFIC ANALYSIS OUTSIDE OF THE SEPA PROCESS, IF THAT'S THE CASE.

OKAY.

THANKS. AND BECAUSE THE TRAFFIC ANALYSIS IS REALLY THE BIG PIECE OF WORK, IT'S CHANGING THE SEPA THRESHOLDS MIGHT NOT DO A TON TO ACTUALLY SAVE TIME SINCE THE PART OF THE SEPA REVIEW THAT WE DO IS REALLY JUST A FIVE-PAGE MEMO. SO IT'S A GOOD POINT, THOUGH.

COMMISSIONER RICER?

OKAY. ONE OF THE I HAVE A COUPLE CONCERNS. One is that we don't go too far in our market rate housing on these sites, because the whole point was to get affordable housing. I understand the need to support the building. I have worked on a couple of projects where it was the reason why the faith-based organization could survive. The new building, they took a very large high maintenance building, took it down. The faith-based organization got a small portion of the first floor and they could then continue doing their ministry and then have housing above. But the faith organizations were based on providing low-income housing. So it was a benefit to both organizations. So I am very supportive of mixed use in it so that they can continue their ministries. Also, I think it the project. So I guess that's my two bits. I am also very supportive of putting these in residential but not invading. So I think it's very important to continue in our lower, lower density areas, especially the Catholic Church up on Juanita has a huge property and it You could put quite a bit of housing up there, but I think you should retain some of the open space so I am I think you have to be fairly cognizant of the sites and I Agree with Commissioner Jacobson add an extra floor in those areas, but not I zero lot lines and some of the things that I would be in favor of towards our commercial centers.

I'm just going to kind of plus one to the general sentiment tonight, but re-flagging the, we're probably not going to see a lot of these in the next five years, so I would be in favor of moving this project along pretty quickly so that we can spend some more time on things that are probably more likely to help things happen sooner than that. Is there anything else you need from us on this tonight?

No, I think that was some great feedback. It gives us a lot of direction as to where to direct our energies when we're starting to craft some draft code and We'll come back to you at a future date. Hopefully not too long from now We have something for you to to look at if there's one more ask if you can if there is something that That you would want us to bring other than draft code if you can if you can just let us know with anything come into your mind and But otherwise, we will endeavor to continue with our analysis, conduct our public engagement with the stakeholders and the community at large, and we'll be back with something for you to look at.

And I presume we're comfortable going straight to a public hearing on this, or do we feel like we need another?

How are people feeling?

Personally, I think we could probably go to a public hearing next without an additional back, especially if you gave us a couple of options to look at. Does everybody? Okay.

Yeah. As I understand, thank you. Go ahead. As I understand, staff often like when we ask for multiple options to come back before the public hearing so that they only have to draft one option.

Yeah, well, I don't know. Again, I don't want to spend so much time on this topic. And I don't know if you think it's reasonable that we could get straight to a public hearing on this. It's just, again, I don't know that this is where it makes sense to spend tons more time.

Perhaps we can, it can come back in a public hearing, but you can highlight what are the levers that are easy for us to change with just changing a number.

Okay. Yeah. Would that, does that work? Sure. Yeah. Great. Thank you. All right. We're good for tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Scott. Thanks, Lou. And with that, we're going to move on to the public hearing for the proposed residential lot splitting amendments as required by state code. So with that, I am going to open the public hearing. Oh, and I almost hit my microphone instead of the.

Anything works. We heard it. All right. Thank you, Chair Rosman. So in front of you tonight, we are holding a public hearing on the residential lot splitting bill. This is a state required implementation project. Planning Commission did recommend on the work program and council approved early implementation of this one. So we're a little bit ahead of schedule. based on the state's required adoption date. This is one where we've mentioned it to you a couple times, but also had direction from Planning Commission to come straight to the public hearing tonight. So you haven't got a full briefing on this, but you had a good memo, and you have our newest senior planner, Stacey McGregor, here with you tonight to guide you through it. So with that, I will hand it over to Stacey.

Thank you, Chair Rossman and members of the Commission. This is a public hearing on proposed lot splitting amendments for the Kirkland Municipal Code to implement residential lot splitting. Here's how I'll walk you through tonight. I'll start with a brief overview of residential lot splitting and why it matters, and walk you through the proposed code and how it compares to existing land division processes. From there, I'll highlight a few key implementation issues, summarize public input, and close with next steps. With that, I'll start with a brief overview of what residential lot splitting is and why it matters. To make this more concrete, I want to introduce a story of an imaginary Kirkland homeowner, someone who has owned their home for a long time and is now looking at options, whether that's adapting to changing financial needs, planning for retirement, or simply making better use of their property. What we're talking about tonight directly affects what options are available to that homeowner. Under House Bill 1096, cities are required to allow a qualifying residential lot to be divided once into two lots through an administrative process. At a high level, that means a property owner or developer has the option to create an additional lot through a more streamlined review, provided all criteria are met. Compared to a short plat, a residential lot split is shorter in time, involves fewer steps, and allows lots to be created and conveyed earlier. In practice, this creates a new pathway for modest infill housing, but it doesn't remove the need to meet all other development regulations. In that way, it adds another tool alongside the city's existing land division processes. Lot splitting code must be adopted by July 2027. With interest expressed from the community, lot splitting was added to the 2026 work plan for earlier adoption and implementation. With that context, I'll walk you through what the code actually does. Continuing that same story, if our property owner or developer chooses to pursue a lot split, the application would be reviewed administratively by the city. That means there's no public notice and no appeal associated with the decision. The review timeline is 65 days, or 100 days with SEPA, and building permits may be submitted and reviewed at the same time. If approved, the lot split can be recorded and the newly created lots may be sold at that point. Site improvements can be installed after the lot splits are created rather than before final approval. To ensure the process is used as intended, a lot may only be split once. To put that in context, this slide compares lot splits with the city's other land division processes. If we return to that same property, The path forward looks different depending on the process used. With a lot split, the review is shorter and the lots may be created and conveyed earlier in the process. With a short plat, there are additional steps, public notice, a preliminary decision, an appeal period, infrastructure installation, and final recording before the lots can be sold. Unit lot subdivisions are different still. Those occur after development and create individually saleable lots built around units. Each process leads to a similar end result, legal lots. But the timing and sequencing along the way are different, particularly when the lots are improved and when they can be sold. In your staff report, there's a link to the Department of Commerce's residential lot split fact sheet dated March 2026. That fact sheet included an interpretation of the lot split statute that differed from staff's interpretation. Commerce interpreted the language shown on the screen to mean that only lots eligible for a lot split are those that would result in parcels that cannot be subdivided any further. Staff met with Commerce in April to seek clarification and to share concerns about how their interpretation would affect implementation, particularly for the type of homeowners we've been discussing tonight. Commerce acknowledged those concerns and indicated they would be revisiting the issue later this year. Late this afternoon, we learned that Commerce has updated its fact sheet and interpretation. We have emailed you the updated fact sheet. This updated guidance aligns directly with staff's reading of the statute. And based on that clarification, staff is now proposing a modification to the code that is before you tonight. Specifically, adding the word child to lots clarifies that lots meeting the minimum size threshold may be split and that resulting lots may be further subdivided if they meet applicable zoning standards. This change ensures the code is both consistent with commerce's updated guidance and functions as intended over time. We've emailed you the updated commerce fact sheet, and with that, I'll shift to public input we've received on the proposed code. We received four comments ahead of this hearing and I'll highlight one specific topic that came up ahead of this meeting after input from the Duwamish tribe. As part of their comments, the tribe requested consideration of an inadvertent discovery plan or IDP. An IDP is a state mandated process that guides applicants on how to respond if cultural resources or human remains are discovered during construction. In Kirkland, we typically require an IDP when a site has been known has known or likely potential for cultural resources. And in higher probability areas, a formal archaeological survey may be requested. A residential lot split itself does not involve ground disturbance. It creates a legal division, so it does not independently trigger an IDP. However, related permits that may follow, such as a shoreline or critical areas review, can trigger those requirements depending on site conditions. There is also ongoing discussion at the state level about expanding IDP requirements more broadly. This process is relatively simple for the applicant, and it provides additional awareness of how to respond if something is encountered. In practice, these considerations are addressed through the permits that follow the lot split rather than the lot split itself. There was a community member asking about learning the time of this hearing, and there was a community member who raised concerns about infill and increased density in the city. This email was received after packets were sent out and has been forwarded to you. A letter was received today from MBACs in support of the lot-splitting code. Finally, I'll close with next steps. Following the public hearing, the Commission will deliberate on the proposed code and consider a recommendation to City Council. City Council is scheduled to consider adoption on June 16th. Staff is recommending approval of the proposed KMC amendments with the language changed to clarify 2210.020 . With that, I turn it back to the Chair for questions.

And as a reminder, these are for questions only. We will have deliberation after public comment.

Commissioner Buñuel. So just to clarify, I already talked to Allison, but this is technically, it's a subdivision still technically, but It's just a change to the administrative process that has some criteria in order to use that shorter administrative process, right? So all the requirements of a short plat, like dedication, easement, stormwater, would still apply. It's just a process. We're creating a lot line, correct? Almost.

All of those standards would apply. So it uses the same standards as a short platter or subdivision, but it is not a subdivision. And that's really a nuance of where it lives in the code. So there's parts of the state statute. It lives in the subdivision part of the RCW. It is not a subdivision. And that's a nuance that's important when we reference other codes such as SEPA that exempt subdivisions. This is exempt for SEPA for a different reason, not because it's a subdivision, but it creates the exact same result as a lot short plat.

That's confusing.

It is.

But still all the requirements. So if someone has to dedicate right-of-way, does that happen with the lot split? Yes.

And with the lot split, the key difference is that the process of the development, so the right-of-way, adding infrastructure for access and utilities can happen after it's recorded and sold.

Thank you. Commissioner Reiser.

Okay, I just have a question on the clarification that happened today. So basically, you're saying if the child lot is large enough and still can qualify as a parent lot, it can be subdivided again.

So what Commerce initially said is that the only lots that are available for a lot split are lots that are the resulting child lot cannot be further subdivided. So for example, if somebody had a 19,000 square foot lot in a 5,000 square foot zone and they divided that lot into one 5,000 square foot lot and one 14,000 square foot lot, they could not do a lot split because that 14,000 square foot lot could be further subdivided two and a half times, two times. If they had a 15,000 square foot lot and they divided it into two 7,500 square foot lots, that would be eligible for lot split because 7,500 cannot be reduced by 5,000 more than once. If they took that same 15,000 square foot lot and did a 10 and a 5,000 square foot lot, it wouldn't be eligible for lot splits because the 10,000 square foot lot could be further subdivided. That's what Commerce initially interpreted the code to say. We challenged that and had conversations with them. And they did come back and they said any size lot can be lot split. There's not a limit to that size. So now we can take any lot so long as it meets, I'm sorry, so long as it meets the 5,000 square feet for each lot. It's eligible for a lot split. And with that, the larger lots can be further subdivided.

But through a whole short plat process. So it doesn't, it's not like you can go through the lot split again. It's a one-time lot split. And then beyond that, if there's a piece that's big enough, it can go through the whole short plat like normal. Okay. Right? Yes. Okay.

That's where I was confused because I was like, okay, you're saying now that the child can be

Yeah, but that makes sense now?

Yeah, that makes sense now.

I have a question on that. Sorry to nitpick, but how does someone down the road, 10, 20 years down the road who buys that property, how do they know that a lot split was done? Would it be picked up by a title insurance? Is there something that would be readily noticeable to any buyers down the road?

There's three ways that we're going to catch that, and it's primarily administrative. So it will be recorded on the face of the survey, so it should show up in the title report. Within the city of Kirkland, we will have, within our permit system, the lots will be flagged. So they will pop up and say, this has gone through a lot split. And then through our GIS system, we'll probably create a layer that shows lot splits.

Vice Chair?

Thank you. Let's say that the state changed its mind 20 years from now and said, well, actually, you can lot split those again, but maybe only one more time. Would that change automatically take place, or would that then only affect lots that were then split at that point?

It would depend on how the state phrased that language.

OK. Thank you.

Any other questions? OK. So with that, I open the public hearing to public comment. Do we have anyone signed up in the room? We also can't see the Zoom right now. And yes, I also can't see the Zoom. So if there is anyone online who wishes to make public comment, I cannot see the Zoom. So if there are no, OK. So we are good. All good? Okay. With that, I will close the hearing to public comment and open for deliberation. Vice Chair Jacobson?

Should I just make a motion to get us started?

Yeah.

I move that we recommend the residential lot splitting municipal code amendments as drafted by staff, including their amendment as displayed on screen.

Do we have a second?

Seconded.

All right. Anyone have any comments, discussion? Vice Chair Jacobson.

I just want to give staff props for talking with the State Department of Commerce and getting them to understand staff's point of view.

Yeah. It makes sense. So I guess I'll just make a couple comments that this is state law. The only thing we're doing here is approving on a slightly faster timeline than is required. Otherwise, this is exactly... required by the state and I think it makes sense to get it done and off of our plates so that we can move on to the things that we actually have control over because this one is out of our hands. So I'm good as written.

Anyone else?

All good? Then I'm going to call the question. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right. Motion passes. And with that, I will close the public hearing. That may have been a record. With that, we are going to move on to reading and approval of minutes. We have February 26th, March 12th, and March 26th.

I move that we approve the meeting minutes as drafted and presented.

Second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? All right, motion passes. And with that, we are on to Planning Commission officer elections. I don't think we have anything from staff on this. So shall we do chair first? ANYONE LIKE TO COMMISSIONER MEDEA?

FIRST I WOULD LIKE TO THANK YOU COMMISSIONER ROSMAN FOR YOU COMMANDING THAT ROLE FOR AS LONG AS YOU DID ALONG WITH US AND WE'RE GOING TO BE SORRY TO SEE YOU LEAVE BUT ALL THE BEST TO YOU IN YOUR FUTURE ENDEAVORS. IT WON'T QUITE BE THE SAME HERE WITHOUT YOU. BUT WITH REGARD TO FUTURE CHAIR OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION I WOULD LIKE TO NOMINATE COMMISSIONER JACOBSON FOR THAT ROLE.

I am going to second that one. Does anyone have any thoughts, anything they'd like to say? Otherwise, I would like to say something. I think Commissioner Jacobson and Vice Chair Jacobson will do a wonderful job leading this planning commission. He is extremely thoughtful and knowledgeable and really understands the codes and really looks at the big picture in a very objective way, and I think he will do an excellent job.

I accept that, and I want to thank you. And I want to give a plus one to Commissioner Medea's comments. I really appreciated being able to have the time to learn about running the commission with you as chair.

Commissioner Nolan, did you want to?

Just a plus one to everything.

All right. With that, I am going to call the question. All those in favor of Vice Chair Jacobson being chair of Planning Commission? Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Congratulations, Chair Jacobson.

Thank you. Yeah. I think that's at the end of the meeting.

I mean, we can pass now. And with that, go ahead.

I would like to nominate Commissioner Medea for vice chair.

Seconded.

And I would just like to say that I've really appreciated, even though we've disagreed from time to time, I have always valued Commissioner Medea's opinion, and I think she will do an excellent job as vice chair and eventually chair as well.

Thank you.

And I would like to second that as well. She cares very, very deeply about our city. And, you know, never makes a decision without thinking about it a whole lot. So I really appreciate that. And I really appreciate having people on this commission that really want to see Kirkland's future as like wonderful as it can be. Even though we're not always 100% all the time on the same, we all come from the same heart of you know, making Kirkland as wonderful as it can be now and in the future. So with that, all those in favor of Commissioner Medea becoming Vice Chair of the Planning Commission?

Aye.

And with that, congratulations, Vice Chair Medea. And with that, do we have a calendar update?

Yes, and if I could take staff privilege here and also thank Commissioner Rosman now for your service in the chair seat multiple times. I think you were chair when I became y'all's staff liaison, so did some training up of staff as well, so really appreciate all the time. serving with you as chair. And congratulations, Chair Jacobson and Vice Chair Medea. Really look forward to working with you both in your new roles. So for your public meeting calendar update, Your next meeting is on May 28th, and that will be, as we've discussed, a retreat, and so slightly different format. Staff, we invite you to sit with us down here at the table on the floor for an open discussion. I discussed briefly last week, or at your last meeting, sorry, asking if commissioners would send staff any ideas about things you'd like to talk about or any information that might be helpful ahead of that. Just wanted to pause real quick and ask if anyone has any specific items they would like to make sure end up on the agenda for that meeting.

Commissioner Nolan. Yeah so two things that I was thinking that might be interesting is a major thing that I keep thinking about is an awful lot of the projects that we're doing are kind of assuming transportation and I was just curious about kind of how we handle that when we know that most of the transportation is handled on a public not as or not a public accounting not a city level. And so I think that would be very interesting. And then just kind of more generically, I'm always interested in how we kind of balance often competing and sometimes conflicting needs, particularly with the knowledge again, that we often the needs we're most aware of are those from members of the community who are most vocal, but that doesn't necessarily mean that these are the parts of the community that have the greatest need. So kind of how we can do, I guess, the best job possible at making sure we're meeting maybe these less spoken needs, as well as trying to take a very comprehensive view.

Commissioner Rutherford?

Just to try to clarify Commissioner Nolan's point, you mentioned transportation and county. I'm guessing that was primarily in reference to public transit.

Yes.

I thought that maybe she's going to be going in a slightly different direction, which I think might also be useful, which is understanding how we can more effectively engage with public works on transportation. So I think both of these are things that are so important to the planning of the city, but we often end up being a bit detached. from those and getting a better understanding of how we can work proactively with both Public Works and the County on Transit.

Commissioner Reiser?

I would like to see a timeline or what staff's idea of a timeline of some of these things over the last five years that we have zoned and proposed when projects may or are they in the works or you know we've heard so much about the Petco site we've heard about all these different you know the crescent lighting site is it where are they in there you know and we've heard About the bridal trail shopping center, we up zoned it, the property has sold. What is staff's kind of foreseeing the future for all the things that we have zoned, up zoned? Is it likely or is it just sitting there? I don't know, does that sound too vague to you?

Well, and is that for like our discussion or is that like a future update?

I would like to see an update, but also what are we doing if it is working or if it's not working?

Yeah, on that one specifically, I promise that Commissioner Reiser and I didn't scheme this up before the meeting, but your comment is very timely because we're getting ready to take our quarterly planning implementation report, sorry, to City Council at their June 2nd meeting, so In that report, we update our major development project list, which shows what projects we have in the permit pipeline. And we even get down to the detail of what we've done pre-submittal meetings for, what's in for permit review, what permits have been issued, and what permits have been recently finaled. And we focus on those major development projects, like the Madera project at Bridal Trails is on that list. So we should do it every time. And this is a good reminder to me that I noted we should Let you all know every time we publish one of those because I think it will be of interest to you We also provide some updates in that quarterly report on the planning work program, which you're well familiar with and Some of our middle housing numbers and use of our city forestry account funds every quarter So I can make sure to send you all that list but if there are specific questions I think that Adam and I will be happy to answer some of those if they come up on May 28th we can definitely be ready to talk about some of those with you.

Commissioner Buñuel. I think I was one that initially wanted to do this and I really want it to be an opportunity to find out what my fellow commissioners think on items that are on the planning work program. Like tonight, I agreed with every single one of your comments on our two subjects tonight. When I read my packets, I always write down just kind of highlights, comments, but I also have questions. And each one of you ticked off everything that I had on my list. And even though I'm free to talk to staff about issues, I really want to know what you think about items that are on the planning work program and also because I'm the newbie a lot of times we've had subject matter that I've kind of deferred to your expertise when I voted on something and I'd like to be a little bit more educated on some of those planning work program items. I want to I want this to be an opportunity where we can chat freely with one another and not have to go through all the rigmarole of the OPMA where we have to keep track of who we've talked to and for how long and blah, blah, blah, blah. I want it to be more free form if that's possible. So to free you up, you can just sit and listen and bring a cold beverage.

Chair Jacobson?

Or is it chair-elect, technically?

Chair-elect?

First, to be clear, I think it will still be an OPMA meeting. It's just a retreat. But I also do want to second the idea of talking about what's coming down the pipe for the planning work program, at least for the items that we're going to be talking about this year. So I pulled it up, and it would be really useful to talk about home occupation, neighborhood commercial allowances, middle housing-focused optimization, The 6026, that one will have a lot of flexibility and a lot of nuance with it. And then I don't know if we'll end up starting it this year, but there's also the evaluation of citywide affordable housing requirements just as a start. There's obviously a lot of things we want to discuss. And so perhaps not this coming meeting, this coming retreat, but at some point this year have a time for us to discuss IF WE HAVE ANY IDEAS OF POLICIES AND PROCEDURES, CHANGES, THAT WE WOULD LIKE TO THINK ABOUT. BUT LIKE I SAID, IT DOESN'T NEED TO BE THIS COMING TIME. I DEFINITELY WANT TO SECOND THE TALKING ABOUT THE STUFF THAT'S COMING DOWN SOON.

COMMISSIONER RUTHERFORD, DID YOU HAVE A QUESTION OR WERE YOU PLUS ONE-ING THAT? COMMENT.

YES. THE PLUS ONE IS PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING I'VE ALREADY HEARD. AND AS COMMISSIONER RICER WAS offering his idea, a thing that popped in my head was, I would really be interested to learn from staff what are examples of zoning code that are either A, difficult to administer, or B, confusing to the public. And to get some examples of like, so we can better understand how when we are trying to craft this, what are some of the hangups for, be it staff or public, so we can try to shape a smoother PROCESS ALL THE WAY AROUND.

VICE CHAIR ELECT MEDEA?

THAT IS A MOUTHFUL. I SAW ON FACEBOOK WE HAVE A NEW GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS DIRECTOR. IS THERE AN OPPORTUNITY, PERHAPS, EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE NEW IN THEIR ROLE, TO GET AN UPDATE ON SOME OF THEIR AREAS OF FOCUS RELATED TO HOUSING AND LAND USE POLICY?

We can definitely ask. If not on May 28th, we can definitely invite her to a future meeting. Love that idea. It's great.

There are just a lot. We have a lot of ideas. And so I think if everyone's comfortable, it might be good for Vice Chair Elect Medea and staff and I to kind of streamline what would be valuable to talk about in two weeks and what can we delay potentially to a later meeting. Not that we won't get to them, just probably not in May.

But I think it's fair that we all walk out of there having felt like we've gotten something useful that make us better at what we do up here on a twice-monthly basis.

Well, and I think that's where leaving space, the point of it being a free-form conversation, I think, is that let's have an idea, and then if there's stuff that people, it's okay to meander down a side path.

Just to add to it, I don't think any of the ideas here were bad ones. I would love to discuss every single thing I've heard here tonight. So I don't, I know that I at least will not feel upset if like the things I proposed are not the topics of discussion if instead, because again, I think all of these are valuable topics.

Anything else?

Yeah, and if I could, to Chair Elect Jacobson's point, when I talked to the Chair and Vice Chair, perhaps one of the filters we could utilize is if any of these topics are ones where you actually would like them broadcast or recorded, kind of in memoriam or for the public to have more access to, because the retreat, at least that we're planning, how we plan to format on May 28th would be a true retreat where people It's open to the public in person, but we're not broadcasting it and it's not recorded. It's a lot more casual. So just a little food for thought before we talk is if any of these topics would be better for a more formal meeting just for visibility.

So I think we're good. Was there any more updates from you at this point? Just a couple quick ones.

Okay, go ahead. I'll be quick. On your June 11th meeting, so continuing public meeting calendar update, on June 11th, we are inviting the folks from the Blocks Hub organization out of Copenhagen to visit you and share a little bit about the work that we've been doing with them. They're very excited to come visit a U.S. planning commission, so it looks like that's going to be the only topic, so we'll have a lot of time for you to engage and ask a lot of questions, and I think you'll find a lot of their observations of Kirkland and of the Totem Lake Southern Industrial sub-area interesting, so we're excited for that one. Are those the same people who were here for the... Yes, they're coming back.

Okay, wow, that's like a quick turnaround.

Yes. For those of us newbies, who are they? Or what are they?

Great question. And so Adam can help me out here, but the city received a grant from the Scan Design Foundation, which is a foundation that's focused on connecting the Pacific Northwest and the Nordic countries mostly around design issues, as I understand it. So we received a grant from them that is specifically to work with BloxHub, which is a sustainable cities think tank based in Copenhagen. to engage with them around a project in Kirkland. The one that we're working on is kind of the Totem Lake Southern industrial sub area where council adopted a policy directing a sub area plan there. We didn't have the budget for a full scale sub area plan last year so we kind of split it into phases and have been working with a collection of people from Block sub so architects landscape architects some community engagement experts and others to engage and kind of understand that southern industrial sub area a little better and Build a strategic compass to help us think through the next steps towards that sub area plan

That's everything?

Sorry, one more thing. Okay. One more thing, I promise. Just wanted to update you all on a council action at their last meeting, and that was adoption of the station area code amendments that you recommended to them. So if there's any of you that haven't heard, council did primarily adopt planning commission's recommendation to them. The one amendment that they made to that was on the prohibition on townhomes. And so- As Planning Commission recommended it to Council, townhomes would be prohibited throughout the station area. They did meter that a little bit, so... Four, there's about eight parcels where they did want to continue allowing townhomes and those are on parcels that are east of 124th Avenue Northeast and that have allowed heights of 65 feet or lower. So those aren't any parcels that front 85th Street, they're parcels that were already designated to be kind of transition zones towards the lower density areas behind them. So that was the one change that they made and besides that adopted your recommendations to expand the potential flexibility with development agreements and the extension of the pioneer provision for affordable housing. And I am truly done now.

Okay. So, oh, go ahead.

I just want to clarify. So the Main Street project is not allowed to go ahead with their downhills?

No, so your recommendation included a vesting language for that project to continue. So you recommended that for projects that had already received design review approval, which that project has, as long as they have vested building permits within nine months of the ordinance adoption, they're vested and can continue. And so that project has now submitted building permits and council adopted what you recommended.

Okay, thank you.

With that, we come back to items from the audience. If anyone would like to speak either in person or online. Seeing none, I will now close my last meeting as chair.