Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Ready? All right. Welcome, everybody. We have an audience tonight. That's kind of refreshing. I'm going to call the August 26, 2026 meeting of the Lacey Planning Commission to order. We have roll call. The only member we have missing is we have Tanya and Jennifer missing. Otherwise, everybody's here. I'm going to ask Aaron to please read the land acknowledgement.

We, the City of Lacey, are on the ancestral land of the tribal people of the Tree of Medicine Creek, including the Nisqually Indian Tribe and Squaxin Island Tribe. We acknowledge and remember those tribal people not recognized today who were absorbed or relocated into other tribes for survival. We recognize the ancestors and their descendants who are still here. We recognize and respect the tribal people of the Treaty of Madison Creek as the traditional stewards of this land since time immemorial and their role today in taking care of these lands in perpetuity. We recognize and have the responsibility to call attention to the histories of dispossession, forest removal, and abridged treaty rights that allowed our nation, state, and city to develop as they have today. We recommend the community members read the Madison Creek Treaty of 1854.

Thank you very much. So the first action item is approval of tonight's agenda. I would look for a motion and a second. So moved. Second. OK. All those in favor? Aye. Perfect. And then the next action item is approval of the August 12 minutes.

I move to approve the August 12 minutes as written.

Second. Spencer and then Judy. Awesome. Okay, next item is public comment. I know we have a lot of members of the public here. If you're intending your public comment to be testimony for one of the public hearings, then please don't speak now. Is there anybody here to make a comment that is not one of the public hearings? Yes. So right now is the general public comment. We are going to have a public hearing for the items that are on the agenda. If you want your statements to be part of the testimony for that public hearing, please hold your comments until the public hearing is open.

It feels redundant because typically if we don't have a public hearing, this is the time that you'd be able to speak. Yes.

All right. Any Commission member reports tonight. Okay, department report.

I do have one item that I wanted to highlight, which is there is currently a vacancy on the lease have heard, but Nick Dunning, former council member, has resigned. And we just highlight that right now there is an open application process for council members. So the way it works when a council member resigns is that the existing council nominates and seats a council member to sit in their place for a certain amount of time until the next election. And so at this point, there's a vacancy and a way to be able to apply for that through the city's website. So we do have a webpage associated with that you can submit through there and i'll just say that many of our council members current and former have come through the planning commission and one way or the other including i went the other way yeah including Council Member Cox and Green Sign. They both were former Planning Commission members before they were City Council members. So if you do have any interest in that, you can take a look at the website and would welcome your application through that process. So with that, that's the end of my report.

And Lacey City Council members serve at large. So they do not have to live in any specific area of the city. They just need to live within the city boundaries. Okay. Okay. So before I open the public hearing, I want to talk about how we're going to do this. So the public, we have two public hearings tonight, one for the tree regulation amendments, the other one for the potential rezone. I'm going to open them one at a time. Staff presentation will be on the one that's open at that moment. At the end of staff presentation, any members of the public that wish to make comment on that particular public hearing will be invited up to make their comment. Commission members will have the opportunity to ask questions. I'm gonna close that public hearing, open the next one, same thing. And then at the end of the second public hearing is when the commission will debate each one separately. We're looking for action recommendations tonight to the council. And so the final action will be a motion to either approve that particular item as presented, to ask if you want future study on that to ask staff to go back or a rejection. So we will do it that way. I think that's going to be the smoothest way to do it. So right now, I'm going to close the regular meeting. I'm going to open the public hearing for the trade regulation amendments. Once we get to the public comment, you will have three minutes to speak. Please, no vulgarity, no personal attacks, no offensive language. And we will hold you to the three minutes. What I will ask, because we do have several people speaking tonight, is if somebody before you says statements that are essentially what you wanted to say, just say, I agree with that person, and your comments will be registered officially into the record and given the same weight. Yes, ma'am. No, you don't need to be signed in to speak.

So we'll make sure to get to everybody.

Yeah. But when you speak, please remember to identify yourself, where you live, and then make your comments. All right. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Hans. The tree regulation amendments is first. All right.

Yeah.

We'll see how that goes and using

most of the screen. Oh, my name is Hans. I'm a senior long range planner here at the city of Lacey. The presentation I'm going to be giving here is covering docket number 11 for our community and economic development work plan for this year, which relates to tree code consistency review. There's a couple different areas that I'm going to cover. And these are all been things that we've generally just of everything and make sure that everybody's up to date and current on what we're talking about.

I need to not click that mouse so it has control. Let's see. Okay.

So this is where we're going to start to get crowded here. But yeah, so this is a 2026 community planning docket. This was largely as a result of the city council's direction in recognition that actually starting later this year, 2026, and then moving on into 2027 and potentially 2028, we're going to be doing a larger update of our Lacey Urban Forestry Management Plan. But in the meantime, council has asked us to take more of a targeted look at a couple different areas of our existing tree code as it relates to a few different topics. So one being residential bought tree retention standards and then some unpermitted clearing that we've been experiencing lately. Tree track requirements within commercial areas and then class for forest practices definition. So really kind of again, I want to reiterate a targeted review. There will likely be an additional cycle of review that comes out of our Lacey Urban Portion Management Plan and the update of that. But these are areas that council thought deserve some attention before waiting until that cycle has been completed. But with that in mind, and I'm doing it again, right? This is where things are going to get crowded. I don't expect you to see all of this right away. And I am going to get more in detail with it. And this is also in everybody's packet and also attached to the staff report packet and the packet that's on the city website. So anybody that wishes to look at this more in detail, there are a couple different places that you can find it. But with that, I do want to run through kind of at a high level. what our residential tree removal flow chart looks like so this is really kind of the decision tree that when somebody comes into the planning counter or calls one of the planning staff and is looking to remove trees on their site this is generally the process that we go through permitting process looks like, what's needed for us as far as information, be able to determine what type of permit might be needed, if we need to bring the arborist in, things like that. But the first part of this decision tree, I can, as it is, here we go. One other thing I did want to highlight, there are two different types of decisions that are generally taking place within this flowchart. One, they're an administrative or kind of more systems oriented approach. So it's kind of something that we can navigate over the counter and either or kind of situation, pretty clear cut as far as what the definitions are. And then there's decisions that are more of a technical or scientific nature. And those are typically ones that are made by one of the city arborists. in those areas. But with that, Really, when somebody comes in, and I apologize for all the overlap here again, the first question that we want to figure out is how many trees are being proposed for removal on a residential lot. Right now, the way the code is written, it's either three or fewer or four or more. And the distinction there is that three or fewer falls into that three trees within a five-year period, which we're also going to be looking at later on as part of this presentation. or four or more, which pushes you into a different category. So anything that isn't within that three trees or fewer, would actually be an exemption. That's something that we'd be able to navigate right there at the counter. And some people on their way, it's actually a free permit exemption process that we can navigate right there. When people come in and are looking to remove four or more trees from a residential lot, that's typically when we recommend bringing an arborist in. Reason being is that hazard trees do not qualify as a tree being removed as part of that four or more. So if an arborist designates one of those trees as a hazard tree or a few of those trees, then there's a scenario where that could get bumped back down to those three or fewer within residential law. Does the city have an internal arborist? Yep. So we have two hired sub-consultants, arborists, and then one of them would go out to a site and do that tree assessment at that time. Yep. I keep wanting to click. Let's see. One area that I did want to bring attention to is our hazard tree definition because that is actually where a lot of this hinges is what is a hazard tree and what is not a hazard tree. And our definition is actually pretty broad in its range as far as what qualifies as So this first gray box on the left here is actually pulled directly from our Lacey Municipal Code. And it covers things like dead, dying, damaged, diseased, structurally defective, recently exposed to adjacent clearings, or some other factor that will be subject or subject the tree to failure. And while the first few definitions or inclusions there are pretty specific, they do get a little bit more generalized as we get more into our code. But what our code does do is it references the International Society of Arborists Guide for Plant Appraisal, which is what the guide that an arborist uses to assess what that tree looks like and the condition of that tree, the health of that tree. And that plant guide actually has a much more robust definition for each one of these instances. So specifically for the failure-prone category of trees, there's even more of an expanded definition than what is in our specific code. But it goes on to say mechanical weaknesses such as decay, cracks, included bark, cavity, or root zone issues, any of which that reduce the tree's strength to the point where common loads such as wind Because trunk limb or root failure. So the reason I'm bringing a lot of this up is that right now our hazard tree language within our code as it's currently written or referenced is pretty broad as far as what it encompasses as far as problems on site. That said, we did have a range of community comments and also discussion at our last planning commission meeting that asked to look at ways to expand that further. So really scenarios where it is not a hazard tree, but it is still causing some kind of site issues by dropping limbs that wouldn't meet that definition. So we will get back around to that in some of our future slides here.

Let's see if this works.

Okay. So moving down, so once we kind of understand what a hazard tree is, the next definition of when people are coming in and are looking to remove four or more non-hazard trees, distinction there being non-hazard trees, the next question that we ask is, will this removal lead to the removal of 5,000 or more board feet of timber being removed? The distinction there is that typically when you're above that number, what you're typically looking at is a class for forest practices permit. And that's typically more in line with something like logging or timber harvest of that nature. So pretty large scale kind of operations is what typically you would see that type of permit being applied for. If the answer to that question is no, that's more commonly that other category. So something more on a traditional residential lot where somebody is just looking to remove four or more trees at a time. So the next question, or that would funnel people into what we call a land clearing permit. And a land clearing permit does come with a replanting plan requirement requiring that once those trees are cleared that that site is brought back up to that right now for trees within 500 square feet total lot so that minimum lot requirement. um and then we do also have another option so if that lot for whatever reason doesn't have capacity to bring uh the number of trees back up to that minimum requirement we do have what's called a city tree account where people can pay into that as an alternative to meeting that minimum individual lot requirement and then those funds will go towards the planting and maintenance of trees within other areas of the community so That is the upper part of that. Let me see if I can move back out. So that is really everything that's four or more trees as far as removal on a residential lot. The other scenario is three or fewer non-hazard trees being removed on a residential lot. So that bottom kind of pathway, if you will, there. And this includes trees... Again, that are non-hazardous. And at any point in time during either of these processes, while we do recommend it at the beginning, an arborist is definitely an available option to anybody that's coming in looking for permits to get a more thorough site assessment to really figure out what's going on and just really provide both the city and the applicant more information about what's going on. on their site, the health of the trees, where they're located. But again, so the next step there is that it's three or fewer trees within a five-year period. So the next step is that we actually check to see based on other permits that have been issued, if additional trees in the past or in that past five years have been removed from that site that would then push those, however many trees are currently being requested over that allotment within that five-year period. If the answer to that is still no, the next question is would the removal of those trees drop that site below the four trees per 5,000 square feet requirement? If the answer to that question is yes, then a planting plan will be required to bring that threshold back up to that minimum carrying capacity. And again, at that point, a tree account, payment into the tree account is another option if for whatever reason there isn't capacity on that site for additional trees. And I'm going to move this out of the way momentarily. If the removal of those three trees does not bring that site below four trees per 5,000 square feet, then they would actually just be issued a land clearing permit right there and that process is over. So many different avenues, but really one of the things that I did want to highlight and drive home based on showing us is that we do have a pretty responsive code as currently written to a lot of different situations that could potentially come up as part of a tree application. With that, I do want to get into the topics that we are covering as part of this potential code review.

Nope.

That's not what I wanted to do. Are you able to hit the arrow, the down arrow, or next on your computer? One more time. There we go. All right. No more jumping around. Just regular slides now. So one of the areas that we're taking a look at as part of tonight's review is the three versus five trees in a five-year period on residential lots. So this is something that was asked as a result of both code enforcement and council and community coming to council identifying challenges that they're having with the three trees within a five-year period. So right now, as our code is written, it is three trees in a five-year period. What is being proposed is to expand this option to five trees in a five-year period. So essentially a one tree per year situation. Additionally, There has been some unpermitted clearing that's been taking place or a tree. Yeah, trees have been cutting down. So people have not been coming in to check with the city. They haven't been getting our first review and they've been sidestepping a lot of the permits that are in place to help facilitate this process. So there is some additional language as part of this that's added to more on the code enforcement sides to give them more of a systematic response to those situations. So- That's area one that we're gonna talk about. Keep trying to hit my keyboard, but it is something like this. All right, the second area has to do with land clearing exemptions for residential lots. So this is a highlight of kind of for arborist-designated non-hazard trees. We have the removal consistent with the previous slide. So the three or five trees within a five-year period, depending on what's recommended. The land clearing permit or class four forest practice permit with one of our conversations from our last planning commission meeting was creating another pathway that would be contingent on notice from an insurance carrier, identifying a tree as affecting their insurance coverage or policy renewal. So essentially what that would be is a tree that wouldn't fit the formal definition of a hazard tree, but is still dropping limbs or posing some type of risk to a home or property in a way that wouldn't trigger that arborist definition, but would give a homeowner a pathway to still have the ability to remove that tree.

Do we have an example of that? Because I was present at the city council meeting and I heard stories of Ryder and several of the other council people talking about limbs falling on their house and how difficult it was to get the trees removed. Wouldn't that meet the definition of a hazardous tree? If it is dropping 40-foot limbs and it's penetrating through your roof?

Not according to the arborist definition. It's still a healthy tree in the sense of it's not a dying tree.

It's specified explicitly within the fall path of it if things were in that. And so that seemingly meets that requirement in my mind. Is there some technicality I'm missing or something else?

So while that hazard tree definition is very broad, had some folks come to city council in the last six months or so that have been identifying trees that they did have arborists out to take a look at that were not designated as hazard trees, but were still And this is where we get into the technical review of trees, which I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on. But we're still dropping limbs on their homes and causing damage. So based on that testimony, it sounds like there is still a gap within our code that doesn't fully address those situations.

And that's going to be left up to staff or the arborist review to make that call?

So currently it's up to the arborist to make that distinction of whether it's a hazard tree. This new code edition would actually be dependent on the carrier, the insurance carrier, identifying that as some kind of problematic tree for typically it would be multiple instances of damage from some.

Arborist comes out, says it's healthy. Insurance company says this is damaging this house and it's an issue. Then there's a path for them.

So personal experience here. Neighbor behind me, completely separate issue, got pissed at me. And there was a tree that was right kind of on the fence line between me and him. And he wrote me a letter and said, I'm really concerned about that tree falling on my house. Nothing wrong with the tree. It was perfectly healthy. In fact, it was the tallest tree in the neighborhood. Called my insurance carrier and said, hey, I got this letter. I said, what do you want me to do? My insurance carrier advised me, get that tree taken out because now you have that letter that neighbor has expressed a formal concern. There could be a problem with you being liable for that if it ever went to court.

And I think it would be a relatively rare scenario as well because, you know, there's always the pathway to remove any three, at this point, three trees in a five-year period regardless of their health. So it would be maybe an instance where somebody has already removed their allotted three trees or they needed to permit to remove this fourth one that they just so happen to have a letter from the insurance. company that said, you know, we're not going to maybe give you, we're not going to renew your homeowner's policy or something like that. So it would be a rare instance, but it does provide an avenue if you do have, if you're put on notice, likely what would happen is, you know, somebody made a claim about a tree and then the insurance company said, well, you know, we're not going to keep paying out these claims anymore. We're going to put you on notice to take that tree down or we're going to not renew your policy. So it does provide that as an option in those instances.

Any other comments on that one?

All right.

Hans, if I recall, it's trees of a certain diameter as well, right? It's not all trees. So it doesn't count towards your count if they have a smaller diameter trunk, right?

So we do have language within our code that speaks to the diameter of trees. And depending on the size of tree being removed, There is language that it's not necessarily a one-to-one replacement. So if you're removing a relatively large tree, that might actually translate to a few trees being planted to replace kind of the value of that larger tree.

Depending on the situation. And then also it needs to also meet the definition of a tree, which is a single stem and it's, what is it, four inches or more in caliper, four and a half feet above the ground.

So I'm going to ask commission members to please hold your questions until after the presentation. Thank you.

All right, and then another area that we're taking a look at as part of this more targeted review, tree track requirements within our commercial zones. So right now within our urban forest management plan, it actually calls out this specific instance that this is the requirement of tree tracks in these specific commercial zones is contrary to Lacey's goals to establish the core area as a more urban center. One thing that I do want to point out really quickly here is that while tree tracks are a dedication of space, they're not necessarily a dedication of trees. So I do want to make the point that this is separate from the required number of trees that you're required to have on a site. It's just where those trees are required to be placed on that site. Does that make sense? So it's location-based, not number of trees-based that we're talking about with tree tracks. I'm getting some kind of... So commercial properties over an acre are currently required to provide a 5% tree tract or create one within 15 years. Largely within our woodland district and our general commercial district, these areas were developed long before a lot of our tree code that is currently written today was actually ever in place. And as a result, there was a significant amount of clearing that took place in these areas prior to any of this being adopted. As our code is currently written, there would be some requirements to start actively trying to find ways to inject 5% tree tracts back into these pretty heavily developed urban centers. So this language would loosen the requirement as far as it being a 5% dedicated tree tract. Again, you would still be required to hit whatever that tree coverage allotment is for that site. It just wouldn't have to all be in one location in the form of a tree tract was what we're talking about here. So the intent here is to give commercial properties a little bit more flexibility on how they meet those minimum tree requirements on a site. Tract. And then the last one here. This is really just a definition based one. So in our code we reference class for forest practices activities and we define them. And we also reference the Washington code on this subject. Unfortunately, there is a specific line of 500 or 5,000 feet or more board feet are removed from a site, which does exist at the Washington level, but doesn't exist at the LACI level within our code. So we're just recommending adjusting the LACI code to better mirror that Washington level language. So I think with that, that brings us to kind of where we're at tonight and next steps. So that first bullet here is where we're at currently. So we have the opportunity to hear from the LACI community on these proposed amendments. You guys will have an opportunity to discuss them. And then following that, you'll have the opportunity to make a recommendation to planning committee or council, I should say, for additional review and consideration. But yeah, that concludes my presentation. I'd be happy to answer any questions as we move on.

Robert, what do you got?

Do any other cities use canopy coverage instead of the amount of trees? Because in my brain, I keep thinking we have these requirements of X amount of trees, but the difference between a tree And so I was just curious if there's any other organizations that are using canopy coverage, because I think that's what we really think of when we think of a tree city, but it may be harder to have a metric for. I'm just kind of curious.

Yeah. So the short answer is yes. Other communities do use that. How they approach that definition, how they implement it is really different. And it really does run the gamut as far as different approaches. If you can think of approach, there's probably a city out there that's implemented it to varying degrees of success. I believe that that is actually one of the areas that while I don't think is a good fit for this cycle. I think it is definitely something that's going to be addressed and is going to deserve a lot more discussion as part of our urban forestry management plan update that's starting here. And I think that is going to be a focal area of that update process. And I think it'll get a lot more attention as part of that because I think it is an important question, but I think it's more nuanced than probably what we have an opportunity to tackle as part of this. One at a time.

Yeah. Spencer? Yes. Building on that, could somebody remove five hazardous trees as an example, or non-hazardous trees, excuse me, in that five-year period, and then continue to whittle down the number of trees in the property until there are none remaining?

So they would have to wait five years at a time, but hypothetically.

You can significantly diminish.

Alan? Actually, I like all the ideas because it affected my home. Arborists did go out. I had a tree. It rotted from the inside out, split, and half the tree landed in the roadway. Arborists came out. The only thing I And then the other one was the insurance issues with some of the widow makers that I have, how these trees grow and how they lose their limbs. And especially their outer portion of the lens become flex wings. So they become they don't fall sideways. They fall as sideways. time that happened, the insurance basically said, no, we're not going to give you the full. It just gave me a certain segment and didn't replace only the section that was visibly damaged, not the whole core. So I'm glad that these are being implemented or being recommended at this time.

Judy?

I don't have any more questions, thank you.

All right. Just a quick clarification on the tree track requirements. Is that something that when they develop the commercial area, they say, hey, we're going to put it here, and then the city says, no, no, you put it here? How does that designation work of where the track goes exactly?

As part of commercial development, say you're starting with somewhat of a forested or a lot that has trees on it, One of the very first things that happens as part of that process is that the arborist would actually go out and do an entire assessment of the entirety of that property and look at all the trees on it. And then based on that assessment, they would actually identify where there are groupings of trees that are healthier, that might be more of kind of specimen species, if you will, or are kind of unique in character or provide additional value. or interest of some kind in addition to just kind of fulfilling that tree requirement and then the forest or the arborist sorry will give a recommendation on actually where that tree track should go based on where the highest quality healthiest trees are on a site uh and then and then as part of that development plan that site that zone will be kind of the protected spot if you don't go interesting oh thank you

Yeah, I had just a couple of questions. One was a clarification. When you said that if a tree was illicitly removed, that it would have to be replaced, I was looking at that flow chart or into the lot. It said 5,000, or I'm sorry, it looked like it said 500 per tree, but over a three-year period. Was that 500 in all for trees? having to replace that tree that was cut down, or is that 1,500, like 500 per year for three years?

You're talking about the monetary values that were kind of assigned to each one of those permits?

Yes, sir.

Yeah, so those, and I will be able, some of those are clear permits. So they do have specific dollar values attached to them. And then the arborist is $150 per hour for a site visit. So depending on the size of the site, that could take more or less time. That said, if while the arborist is out there, one of the trees that they identify is a hazard tree, the city would actually cover that cost at that point. The other one, the city, what's it called? Tree account, sorry, the city tree account. That is based on the market kind of cost of a tree plus three years of maintenance and kind of support of that tree to ensure that it actually succeeds and is viable after those three years. So that's how those different prices are identified. So the city tree account, that number that's provided in the flow chart, that would be on a per tree basis. And then the other ones are either a flat permit or based on the amount of time that the arborist spends actually on site, depending on the property being surveyed.

I appreciate that. And then I was hoping for a clarification about the dedicated tree track, because I believe, because we did a large study of trees, I think it was about five years ago, and we were told that trees in a track actually are healthier and survive better. And I don't know if that's just evergreens or specific trees. And I do see some... deciduous trees out here like in parking lots kind of spread out through commercial zones. But if there's a way to preserve tree tracks, is that a pathway that could really be supported or is it now just up to the will of the developer whether to preserve like those old growth or older growth tree tracks for the 5% retention?

yeah so there's uh so i guess there's a couple different answers to that so in all of these scenarios whether or not the tree tract remains a requirement for the woodland and commercial district or general commercial district an arborist would still be involved in that process from the very early onset of the review of that site the arborist would still go out and survey that site still identify where the trees are on site and provide recommendations on specific trees that they would recommend protecting and preserving over others. That information would factor into the site plan review and still be a consideration as part of the kind of arrangement of that site. That said, it wouldn't be a requirement that they would have to put a on the site, but they could still have a little bit more flexibility and identify where those maybe pockets of trees are that are really worth preserving and have a little bit more of a nuanced or responsive approach based on the site characteristics. Does that answer your question?

Okay.

Okay. So now I am going to... Robert has more.

It's okay.

Okay, yeah. So what I'm going to do is get into public comment, and then we'll come back around for more questions. So thank you for being patient with this process. So I only have two members signed up to talk about this, but I'm sure there may be more. So I'm going to call David Rotabaugh first. Please come up, identify yourself, where you live.

I might ask your indulgence on this. I'm speaking to the tree ordinance, but not specifically to one of the items on the document number 11. If you'd like me to speak last relating to the tree ordinance, because it's not... You've got three minutes. Got it. I live on 40th Port in the city of Lacey. I live there and own a house there. I'm also president of the Rubble Heights Community Association, which is an HOA that we have 15 lots and two drainage tractors.

up by infiltration ponds.

My main point here tonight is that the tree code, tree mitigation requirements for removing trees in HOA tracts doesn't work. And the problem is that we have one of our drainage tracts, these are basically the size of residential lots, 84,000 square feet and 1K get shaded out and die. We have almost 100% canopy cover, but close enough to it on that tract. The other tract has seven existing trees. Again, most of the tract is infiltration bond. And so if we do have a situation where we are looking to manage risk, we have, as we did last year, one tree that was very unhealthy. And the city's urban forester recommended that it be removed. eminent danger to life or property, since it didn't quite meet that standard, there were arguably mitigation requirements with that. Fortunately, in that case, we had room. Ultimately, after some back and forth, the city required to plant three additional trees and managed to fit them in. But we're about done with room to plant trees if we have mitigation. So if we have another tree, It truly is a hazardous tree that is an imminent danger to play for property.

We're stuck. We don't really have a way out.

And with the in lieu fee payment system, we have no idea what it would cost. I don't know if we could do that. Is that three? 30 seconds. Okay. So you need to come back at or is some minimum tree standards for HOA tracts somewhat analogous to the residential tracts or parental tracts might be a different number, but something that we can actually accomplish because right now we're stuck. I have to wait for a tree to become an eminent danger, a hazard, and hope I catch it before it falls. That's really my management alternative right now, and that makes me uncomfortable. Thank you.

Thank you. I can't tell if it's Lynn. Is it Lynn?

Could Charlotte go before me?

Absolutely.

Okay. So I'm Charlotte Persons and I live in a little room. I'm here today to remind you of the benefits that trees provide us, especially mature trees. You may be most aware of the climate benefits, a major reason that why tree protection is part of Lacey's comprehensive plan. As they grow, trees absorb more and more carbon up until they're about 40 years old. However, because of their larger canopies, mature trees continue to absorb and capture more carbon dioxide than smaller trees. Similarly, mature trees provide more benefits than small trees in stormwater management. Larger tree roots absorb and sequester more surface water. Because they have more leaves, mature trees are more effective at removing from the air the particulate pollution that causes asthma, heart conditions, and cancer if the trees are planted within 100 feet of the residence. One of the easiest benefits of mature trees to demonstrate is urban cooling in summer and heating in winter. On July 28th, I was able to go on Tumwater's Tree Tour, a bus ride through different subdivisions to learn the effects of past regulations and have proposed new ones. One of our last stops was Brondington Drive subdivision, built in early 2000 under Thurston County codes. Tumwater's urban forester, Brian Coughlin, told us that this was the coolest area of this city because of 20 years of tree growth and a high amount of vegetation. His heat index survey of Tumwater showed that in summer, this area is 12 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than the city average. In winter, because mature trees protect against wind, Ronington Drive subdivision is six degrees warmer. Trees clean the air, control stormwater, and increase summer cooling and winter heating, most directly in the areas nearby. This is why it is not effective to cut down trees in new subdivisions and create tree preserves far from the residents who will live there. Trees need to live among us, not in tree zoos. Because of the benefits of retaining older, more mature trees, I urge you to include in Lacey's Tree Code incentives and regulations that will preserve existing trees in current housing areas and especially in new subdivisions. You can look for ideas in the proposed changes that are being proposed for the Tumwater Tree Code and have already been implemented in Thurston County This is your opportunity to provide health and economic benefits for residents for decades to come.

Thank you. I got to say, you nailed that. That was awesome. Okay, now Lynn.

People online want reassurance you're going to call them after that.

Yes, absolutely. I give deference to the people that made the effort to show up.

I appreciate it. Lynn Fitzhugh, Director of Thurston Friends of Trees. Five years ago, Lacey citizens and members of our group testified repeatedly before both the Planning Commission and City Council asking for better protection for trees. At that time, staff was actually proposing to reduce existing protections. This was particularly troubling because the city's own data showed that Lacey had lost 15% of its tree cover in 15 years, was below its canopy goals, and that a staff conducted public survey showed citizens wanted stronger tree protections. After months of discussion at the final hearing, a council member proposed changing the cutting limit from five healthy trees in three years to three healthy trees in five years. a modest increase in protection. He explained that he was making the proposal because we have heard nothing but requests from the public for tree protection. I was therefore surprised and disappointed to see agenda notes suggesting that the city is now being asked to adopt what staff recommended five years ago, but did not receive because of the democratic process. I'm also concerned that the fact that some citizens illegally cut more trees because they do not like policy is being cited as a reason to change the rules. If I start driving 75 miles per hour down Main Street, I suspect you will not change the speed limit. The fact that a policy does not work for one or two squeaky wheels does not mean that the many benefits of preserving trees as Charlotte described no longer matter. Five years ago, our group also asked for modifications to the tree ordinance to better reflect the intentions of the Thurston Climate Mitigation Plan. We were told this issue could not be taken up again until 2026. More recently, I was approached by the climate coordinator and asked to identify someone to serve on a stakeholder group as part of what appeared to be a longer process. And therefore, not understanding why we suddenly have three proposed rule changes rather than considering them as part of a carefully framed and comprehensive update to the tree ordinance. Because the benefits Charlotte described are experienced where trees actually grow, not somewhere else, We oppose the idea of tree tracks with limited exceptions. I sometimes refer to them as tree zoos because you have to go visit the trees. Our group strongly supports urban density as a climate solution, but up not out should apply to individual building sites as well as the city as a whole. Appropriate setbacks can provide space for trees while allowing narrower and thus more affordable buildings. See Rhonda Kramer's comments. I do not have time today to address how a good tree code can provide flexibility to the city with having one standard for homeowners and another for development or how it can incentivize retention of older trees during development, but both are possible. Please do not. Yes. Last sentence. Please do not green light the current proposal until we have the opportunity for a broader, big picture thinking and meaningful city citizen input. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Is there anybody else in the room that wants to talk to the tree ordinance?

I just want to say that I agree with both of these speakers.

Would you like to register your name so you're official?

My name is Maureen Gannon and I live in Lacey.

Okay.

And I am Diane Chamusco, and I also agree with Charlotte and Lynn. Okay. And I feel like if Lacey wants to have the moniker of Tree City, then we need to really do things to preserve our trees and not just make it worse. We really need to do something.

Thank you all. Anybody else? Thank you very much. Okay. Is there anybody else on?

So if we can go to the attendees. There were two people that registered to provide comment. One is Nicole Martel. So just allowed to talk.

Yeah. Hey, Nicole, please identify yourself. I don't know if you heard earlier. You got three minutes. Please, no vulgar, no offensive language, and no personal attacks. So if you could identify yourself and where you live, and you got three minutes.

Of course. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Nicole Martel and I currently live in Yelm and I work part time in Lacey. And I'm here. I was sorry I can't be there in person, but because of work, I'm glad I'm at least be able to hop on online. I appreciate that. I'm here because I believe Lacey has an important opportunity to rethink how we approach trees as our city continues to grow. I don't understand why the management of trees and development situations is being handled by a separate item rather than in what the public has been promised would be a comprehensive rewrite of Lacey's tree code. I understand that Lacey needs housing density and thoughtful development. But I would encourage the Commission not to treat those goals as inherently incompatible with protecting existing trees. In fact, I believe we need to ask a different question. How can we achieve responsible growth while designing around and retaining the trees we already have? Too often, our development processes allow an entire site to be cleared, sometimes including mature and healthy trees. and then considers planting a small number of replacement trees to be an adequate solution. But a mature tree is not interchangeable with a newly planted tree. An established tree is already providing significant benefits to the city, cooling our neighborhoods, storing carbon, filtering air, managing storm water, reducing flooding and erosion, noise abatement, providing wildlife habitat, protecting soil, and helping our communities be more resilient to increasing heat and climate extremes. And those benefits occur where the tree actually stands. So putting replacement trees somewhere else does not provide the same benefits to the neighborhood where the mature trees were removed. Nor can a young tree replace decades of ecological function. So I encourage Lacey to prioritize changing the development process itself. I am curious how Lacey is measuring tree protection. Is it primarily by the number of trees? When ecological function is more closely related to canopy, size, age, biomass, location, and continuity. We must be responsible and consider the health of our community over development. I'm asking if you can begin to explore how developments can be designed around significant existing trees. Can road alignments, building footprints, parking areas, and infrastructure be adjusted when feasible to preserve mature canopy? This is not... This is not about stopping development, it's about developing more intelligently and with the times. I would respectfully caution against creating incentives where removing trees becomes easier simply because a developer can pay a fee or plant elsewhere. If trees are valuable public infrastructure and science increasingly tells us that they are, then we should be protecting that infrastructure where they already exist. We are experiencing hotter summers, increasing stormwater challenges, air pollution, habitat loss, and rapid development. So this is exactly when we should be strengthening our urban forest protections, not weakening them. Lacey has an opportunity that growth and environmental stewardship can work together. So let's stop thinking of mature trees as something development replaces and start treating them as something development is designed to preserve. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much. Okay, Rhonda?

The other one that signed up was Natasha Hayes.

All right. Ready for me?

So, Natasha signed up. Let's go to her first.

Hello. I am very oddly listed on my thing as Catherine Bisser, which is not correct, but this is Natasha Hayes, and I live in Olympia, and I have warped in Lacey. I agree very much with those people who have spoken, Lynn and Charlotte and Nicole. I did want to add, however, two things. The first is that I see nothing, and Nicole did allude to this, I see nothing that specifies very carefully the 2% of the largest trees be preserved. because as many people have discussed, it is those very, very large trees that are by far the most important. And of course we all know about all the horrible fires that are occurring all over the world that are destroying those large trees. So they are of extreme importance. The other thing I did want to say is that I thought it was quite, I think it's quite a shame that all this information about, and you know, plans about trees and hopefully it will be in the tree code. does not include any planting of trees. And we all know that when you plant a small tree in exchange for one of these large trees, the difference is absurd. I mean, the large tree does so much more to protect the environment. So both of those two things I did want to add. Otherwise, yes, I fully agree with what has been said.

Thank you. Rhonda?

Thank you. My name is Rhonda Larson-Kramer and I live at 1814 East Side Street, Southeastern Olympia. I want to start with a question a commissioner asked earlier, and that was, is there a jurisdiction that regulates canopy coverage rather than simply tree numbers? Canberra, Australia does this. For example, multi-unit development in Canberra's higher density residential zones must provide at least 20% tree canopy coverage while its lower density residential zones have required 15%. In other words, rather than assuming the increased density requires reduced tree canopy, Canberra has required higher canopy coverage in its denser areas. Canberra also requires minimum soil volumes based on mature size of the type of tree. And this is important because 10 small ornamental trees and 10 large shade trees may both count as 10 trees while producing dramatically different amounts of canopy. Stockholm demonstrates what is possible at even greater densities. It has developed a system that provides large trees with substantial rooting volumes beneath paved areas, allowing large trees to coexist with sidewalks, streets, and even high rise development. I emailed the commissioners earlier today with links to information about both Canberra and Stockholm. I'm concerned about the tree bank approach discussed in the staff report. If developers can pay into a tree fund instead of providing required trees on site, the result could be fewer trees and less canopy where the development actually occurs. A tree planted elsewhere in Lacey cannot provide shade, cooling, or stormwater benefits at the development site. But before using off-site mitigation to accommodate greater density, I encourage Lacey to examine how other cities are accommodating both density and substantial mature canopy on-site. Density and trees are not necessarily in conflict. Density changes how we have to design for trees. It doesn't mean we have to give them up. Finally, trees and the soil they need should be treated as infrastructure. Instead of designing the buildings, streets, sidewalks, and utilities first, and then asking what tree will fit in the space left over, space for mature trees should be incorporated into the development from the beginning.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. So now I'm going to go back to commission member questions. Let's close the public hearing. Okay. So I will close this public hearing.

I did want to also mention that planning commissioners have been emailed all of the written comments that we did receive as well. And then those are also on the city's website on the public meeting section under the agenda. They're listed there as well. So you all should have the written public comments in your email box, looks like. Thank you.

Robert, you have been so patient. Thank you. No worries.

I was curious where the three and five to five and five kind of came from and if it was based in data in the sense of if we were to accept this recommendation to increase it to five, does that cover 90% of use cases that you're receiving? Like what is... What actually happens when we increase it? Has there been a demand past the three and five? And basically, if we were to think about increasing that, would that cover all requests that are coming in? Just I'm kind of trying to understand the why behind it. I can provide a little bit of history on this one.

Brian was actually part of the initial round of this.

Yeah. So prior to about 2022, for as long as I've worked here, our threshold was always five trees in a three year period. um we did a urban forest management plan update in about 2020 or 2021 and as a part of that we adjusted some of our regulations and at that point um there was a tree committee that was established and and provided some recommendations to council on um doing some adjustments to our our residential tree requirements one of those has been mentioned was some relaxation of some of the regulations when i took the recommendation of the tree committee and the planning commission at the time to the council The council actually took a look at it and said, no, we've heard we want to make these residential tree requirements more restrictive. And so that's when they went to the three trees in a five-year period. And so now here we are, you know, fast forward another kind of five years or so, and we're back with another recommendation for essentially kind of a middle ground of five trees in a five-year period. So we went from three trees in a five to five trees in a three, and now we're back with five trees in a five-year period. And where this comes from, This was initiated and put on this year's docket by the council who wanted us to take a look at these requirements because they've gotten a number of complaints from homeowners and others around the community that they're not able to take down as many trees as they need to under our exemption criteria. And so therefore it's creating issues with, you know, maintenance and other concerns. And so staff's recommendation at this point is to find that middle ground at five trees in a five-year period in attempts to try to retain as many trees as we can while also addressing some of the concerns of the folks that have been coming to council.

Spencer.

Yeah. At this point, I'm going to recommend to the commission is my opinion that we hunt on this one and that we send it back for the comprehensive update when it's done in a more thoughtful and large-scale manner. There's a lot of elements in the tree code that I disagree with, and I don't think that putting a couple of these changes in here now is going to be effective both either to the citizens, the developers, to anybody involved in this process. I don't think we're making meaningful changes that are thoughtful of the second and third order consequences that could come with it. Some of the testimony tonight, I think, agrees with that. I think all of it agrees with it. And one of the questions I had written here that I didn't get to ask was, we explicitly in the slide called out that upping this limit is contrary to Lacey's goals of retaining more trees. so why then knowing that we are supposed to be retaining more trees we heard it 30 40 of the responses we got from people in the comprehensive plan update we're talking about trees we want more trees So then I ask us, why are we here upping the limit? Because we've had a couple of vocal upset people. I don't think that there's anything wrong necessarily, but I want to see more information. I want to see case studies if possible. I want to see examples of successes and failures where we can look at that and say, does this align with the vision of the city that we received from the public last year during the comp plan? And if the answer is no, I can't confidently recommend that we move forward with that. And at this moment, I feel the answer is no. And so I'd like to send it back for further review and a more comprehensive analysis. Thank you.

So can we move to punt it back to staff or do we have to recommend to the council that they reject this? You can do either one. Okay. So is that a motion to punt it back to staff?

I think my motion would be that we delay or cancel this process entirely tonight and have staff do a further review as part of a bigger, more well-fleshed out initiative to update the tree codes.

Is that a second? No. Oh, go ahead. Yeah, actually, I agree. Okay, so that's a second by Alan. So now it's been moved and seconded that we punt this back to staff to make it part of the larger urban tree comprehensive study. And so any further discussion among commission members?

Yeah. My concern is that there are a lot of things in here that are really beneficial. When I look at part F, what's been added about making it, you know, against regulation to build if someone illicitly clears a part of a lot. So there's that protection for the trees there that wasn't in the code previously. So that's something that would really encourage developers to think before they cut. And I think there's some other protections in here that are, you know, of good value to look at that. You know, there's a lot right next to me that was developed and they planted four trees on half of the lot. They split the lot. And then as soon as they were cleared with the city two years later, they cut them all down. said, well, they're too close to the foundation and underneath the power lines. And so I've been seeing that a lot, that new development has trees planted, and then a couple years later, they're being removed. So I think that having those protections against illicitly cutting trees is really an imperative thing. Maybe there's a part that's not ideal that might be reconsidered, but I think to scrap this whole process and all the work that's been done might be undermining the benefit that's with these positive changes that are in this plan.

So the motion isn't to scrap what's been done. The motion is to put it back into the larger study.

All right. Thank you.

Any other discussion? Yes.

I wanted to add to this discussion. So this is my second term serving on the commission. And of all the variety of topics and things that we've discussed in my time serving, one consistent theme has come through is community feedback, formal and informal, with all the channels, open houses, or the online things, or people showing up and using their voices, has been about preserving our trees. I happen to live on the north side of Lacey, north of I-5, where a tremendous widespread tree cutting has taken place in the last five years. Completely changed the community that I moved into. the appearance, all of the environmental benefits. And I understand the need for commercial development and all those things that the city is responsible for. But I do support the motion that's been made and the second. And just wanted to add from, you know, what I've observed in these five years.

Okay, Robert. I would just I also agree living near what happened to Bradley, where the Bradley Park development was like watching hundreds and hundreds of trees be replaced by like dinky little two foot wide trees in front of condos was disheartening and not necessarily what we're aiming for as a city, I would say. what I hear is some people have had some unique experiences and the, and the real cushion part was that party, the insurance carrier where like, I have now heard four people, two people in city and in these kinds of meetings and two people that I've chatted with that have basically said, yeah, the Arborist said it was happy, healthy. And then another limb fell on my house. And so my only reservation of completely rejecting it, which I don't think there's a middle ground right now, but yeah, I would maybe encourage us to consider having them come back with some of these things, like Kyrian was saying with the part F in the... I'm sorry, the Tree Act tract requirements and Part E and the exemptions, I think it can provide temporary relief while we actually deep dive into some of the larger issues like the tree canopy versus number of trees and some of the things that have been brought up today that I think are more in line with the goals, especially after listening for a year and a half during the comprehensive plan, we know that it's a priority for our citizens. And so I think that's my main reservation of making this vote is that it does not address some of the issues that have been brought to us that seem to be real issues. And so I would just, I guess, make it known that maybe there's a path forward where we don't change the number, but we do find some alternative paths for individuals that have tried to take care of their homestead, which they should be able to do as well.

I agree with that. My concern here is taking this small piece of the larger picture and making changes here right now without knowing what the larger picture piece is going to look like. I can see a stumbling and I don't think Every time the opportunity comes up to talk about trees, people talk about trees. And that is something that Lacey has always prided itself on is trees, right? It's part of what makes this community so much better than other communities to live in. And so I'm going to vote in favor of this motion because I want to see the big picture. I don't want to see small scale changes when we don't know what the big picture actually looks like.

So just to clarify the motion. So it sounds like we've kind of discussed around the table and get sensing that the planning commission is, you know, wanting to tie this to the bigger effort, which will be coming up, you know, in the next year or so is, you know, when, when I was first asked the question about sending this back to staff or to the council, if you were to send it back to staff, then. This needs to go to the Council. So if you send it back to staff, it would be to either provide you with more information or make some amendments at your direction and then come back to you with that information. What I'm understanding based on the motion sending this back to staff is the intent really is at this point you're recommending denying this language so that we take this then to council and say hey the planning commission looked at it heard testimony understands that there's a larger update to the urban forest management plan that's upcoming and at this point this the planning commission's recommendation is actually denial because this being on the docket the council actually needs to take action on this so it's not like we can just punt and then keep it in our office and not take it for staff ever or to pronounce it right we can't do that right we could you can put it back to staff for us to do additional work additional research additional you know whatever amendments draft amendments those kinds of things but we can't just take it back and hide it from the council So I'm understanding the motion is actually a motion to recommend denial of the amendments in favor of a future update to the regulations at a time to come in the next year or so.

So I would need an either Spencer with dry original.

I will withdraw and make a new motion that we deny the amendments as written currently. under the presumption that this will be revisited within the next work plan as the work plan allows for a more comprehensive evaluation of the entire practice second again i'll say alan seconds again okay so the motion on the table the original motion withdrawn by the motioner

And so the, the current motion on the table is to recommend to city council that this current proposal be denied and that these kinds of changes be worked into the larger urban tree plan. So all those in favor, carrying up or down.

I think I'll abstain from this vote.

Okay. So the motion passes.

So there you go. So we have one, two, three, four, five, six ayes and one abstention.

Yep. All right. Thank you. Okay. Next, we're going to go into a rezone request. And I'm going to open that public hearing. So Hans, you're up. Mark.

We let you off easy last meeting. Thank you all very much for being here. Appreciate it.

Thanks for bringing the science. You brought the science, not just emotion about it. We all love trees. You all brought the science.

Thank you for saying that. Dr. Jackson, you're not going to say anything?

Put yourself lucky to that.

Thank you. Thank you for being here.

So now we're going to be moving into CED work plan docket item 13. Again, this is largely going to be a review presentation, but we did want to cover the entirety of the topic that we've previously reviewed for the public record. So this is captured along with the public hearing. So this item relates to a private comprehensive plan amendment and bridge zone request, more specifically known as a Tilden Commercial LLC number there. See, here we go. Okay. Yeah. So moving into kind of just a general aerial to figure out what we're talking about here. This site is on the corner of the Lammitt Drive and 31st Avenue. It's highlighted by the two kind of pink or magenta rectangles there. There's a bit of background site details. So those two parcels are 3202 and 3220 Willamette Drive Northeast. They're located at the corner of Willamette Drive and 31st Avenue. Their parcel numbers are included here. And then also they in total combined for about 1.8 total acres. And then the site condition is undeveloped cleared at this time. As far as current site designation, so the current zoning designation of this site is Neighborhood Commercial District. This permits a range of different uses, including horizontal and mixed use, so combinations of residential and commercial. It elevates corner lots as far as their kind of activity centers and high visibility centers. recommends them for more commercial-oriented, more public-facing uses. It comes with some form-based approaches for variable building scale and massing, depending on what's being proposed. And then it also comes with a maximum height of four floors when mixed-use. There's an additional bonus height, actually, when the top two floors of a mixed-use building are residential. And then moving over into the comprehensive plan future land use side of things, this site has a traditional transitional mixed use designation. And again, it promotes mixed use style developments. This transitional mixed use is intended to be located more on the periphery kind of as a transition zone between more residential leaning and more commercial leaning areas of the community. and also offer kind of really pedestrian-oriented scale, support local smaller-scale development retail services, and kind of working to reduce conflicts with more lower-intensity and higher-intensity uses. And then, so as far as what the request is before us tonight. So the requested zoning designation would be high density residential. The primary uses that we permitted under a high density residential would be residential. Minimum density requirement with a high density residential designation would be 12 units per acre. And then maximum height would be 80 feet. As far as the requested future land use, this would also require a change because high density residential is not currently a permitted zoning designation within the future land use designation. So there is a request there for a residential designation, which would then permit a high density residential zoning designation as well. then as far as residential uses they're residential in nature and really cover the gamut of kind of individual structures all the way up to larger multi-family. As part of the review process we actually have a specific section of code that dictates how we review these requests when they're in alignment with the future land use code and when they are not within alignment with the future land use code. So in this situation the request And then there's actually four different criteria that are identified within this section of code that any proposal will be required to meet all of those criteria in order to be recommended. And those criteria, and this is summary language, they are longer within our specific code, but at a high level, number one, they have merit and value for the community. So they will not adversely affect public health, safety, and welfare. Number two, they will not negatively impact adjacent uses. Number three, since the last rezone, conditions have substantially changed that would warrant a redesignation as a result of significant changes in the area. And then number four, consistent with the comprehensive plan goals and policies. So what's being proposed is in alignment with the comprehensive plan and the goals and policies that have been identified within that plan. So those are the four criteria that we're essentially evaluating any rezone that comes in against.

There's my cursor.

There we go. As far as a bit of site history, and this is really only covering the last six years of this site, but looking back to pre-2020, this site actually used to be a single parcel. It was 11.5 acres at that time. And it had a community commercial designation. Community commercial kind of fell between what is now our neighborhood commercial district and our general commercial. So it was a kind of middle scale commercial development. Provided a range of different opportunities for commercial facilities, really providing for kind of the day-to-day operational uses of the community versus the neighborhood is kind of one of the distinctions there. And it really kind of balances the catering to both automobile traffic, but then also local foot traffic. So again, it's kind of a middle between general commercial and neighborhood. Um, since this time we've actually eliminated the zoning designation, um, and we've consolidated majority of those sites into neighbor commercial because it actually, when looking at the code at that time, as part of the comprehensive plan update, pretty closely mirrored what was our then neighbor commercial district. So, um, yeah. Moving into 2020, this site actually came in for a rezone application, splitting it into two different zoning designations, one of which would be 9.51 acres being rezoned to high density residential, and then preserving the southwestern corner two acres for a neighborhood commercial district designation. Part of the findings and why this was actually recommended at that time was because the inclusion of the commercial component, so that neighborhood commercial component in the corner, really aligned with the policies of the comprehensive plan of that time, given we have updated it, but It really met the policies of the comprehensive plan as far as meeting that neighborhood scale commercial nodes. It was really highlighted as part of that update. And then it also really highlighted the ability of that site to meet the strategically located commercial locations within neighborhood zones to meet kind of those economic goals plan at that time. So that proposal was carried forward and approved. It was recommended by both Planning Commission and Council at that time. But really a large part of why that recommendation came about was because it was holding on to that commercial component of the rezone at that time. Moving into 2022, all the way through 2024, the then rezone 9.5 acres high density residential or not rebuilt, but developed into what is now Tilden Apartments. So it is a higher density residential style development. And then immediately across the way, and again, text here is covering up those graphics and they are admittedly small to begin with, but immediately across the way, another 8.5 acres was also developed with multifamily. In total, between those two developments, there was an additional 400 residential multifamily units that were brought within 200 or so feet of the subject site over this timeline. So between 2022 to 2024 is kind of when all that development took place. Moving into 2024 and actually starting similarly back in 2022 is really when we started looking at this, but the process took about two years. It was the update to our neighborhood commercial districts. This is something that a lot of you actually on the planning commission participated in. But this was prompted in large part by the existing neighborhood commercial districts that were north of High Five, largely located within this Hawkesbury area. And the community feedback that we were receiving at that time time and that the districts as they were zoned at that time and the code associated with that zoning designation really wasn't meeting the intent of the community so it was a large overhaul of the neighborhood commercial code at that time to the point where we actually did a full repeal today. And a lot of you again participated in that. But as a result of that code update, there was actually a significant increase in the amount of residential uses that are actually permitted in these zones, both vertically and horizontally. removal of gas stations as a permitted use within these zones and then expanded allowances for things like grocery stores and daycares and other community oriented uses. As part of this outreach, we also reached out specifically to all the owners and commercial and residential operators that existed within these zones and encouraged them and solicited feedback directly from them as part of this update process. So we did definitely with what we're hearing from the owners of these sites and the commercial developers at that time. And then moving into 2025 is when we updated and then adopted our comprehensive plan, which again, a lot of you were a part of that process, but that was a larger, more community-wide engagement process where we heard from the community at large about a range of different topics, some of which speak to and were directly related to either this process or neighborhood commercial districts in general. So we did actually get, between the neighborhood commercial update and the comprehensive plan update, a wealth of feedback from the community that feels relevant to the subject at hand. Things that got carried forward and has actually been persistent parts of our comprehensive plans for years and our climate sustainability goals is a Thurston. It's actually originated in a sustainable Thurston from, I think, 2012, but has been echoed and carried forward in 2014. Some of you were part of that as well. But that goal really highlighted a priority for the community that's been carried forward and with a stated target of by 2035 for 72% of all households to be within a half mile or 15 minute walking radius of an urban or neighborhood center, which these commercial nodes would fall into. We also heard further just generalized feedback on desires for walkability and community gathering places and shopping options closer to where people live. And then we have here. Okay. So yeah, that was just general kind of feedback. And then also as part of this comprehensive plan update process, we did also ask the community for rezoned submittals. The reason we did this is that we had some opportunity there to take a look at our different zoning designations and see if there were some that would be better adjusted to align with the community feedback that we were hearing at that time. In total, we received 50 different unique submittals as part of that process. We took those 50 sites to you guys and actually identified and developed a rezone prioritization rubric, really kind of creating two categories. Category one being those zones that really were simple enough and in alignment enough with the community feedback that we were hearing at that time to carry forward as part of the comprehensive plan. And then category two was those sites that deserved more targeted focus review outside of what the comprehensive plan could offer at that time. This site was submitted as part of those 50, but ultimately after this process was recommended for more of a targeted review, which we are now engaging with here tonight and the last meeting and into the future. And then As recently as actually this year, we actually just completed our 2026 Economic Development Strategic Plan. Within that plan, it covers a range of different topics, but I did pull out a couple that felt relevant to the topic at hand. One, the vision statement speaks to a thriving small businesses, a supportive business culture and local commercial hubs integrated into surrounding neighborhoods that will create spaces for gatherings, daily needs and placemaking. That's the vision statement of the economic development plan that was adopted this year. And then it does have sections that speak directly to kind of the Hawkes Prairie area, including findings that the Hawkes Prairie area commands higher commercial rents than other areas of the community. And then with all the industrial growth that's really kind of taking place in the Hawkes Prairie district north of I-5, with all that development, there's a heightened need for additional retail And then there were also developers that were interviewed as part of that process as well. And there's a quote from one of those developers included here on this slide. But really what it says is evidence of sustained market interest in creative mixed use development, emphasizing that projects offering food, recreation, and gathering spaces are outperforming single use models. So all things that felt progressively relevant the closer we get to today. recent findings and studies have produced. This is just a graphic to kind of show the last six year timeline of all the different projects and updates and work that has gone on either specifically to this site or immediately surrounding it or relevant to it in some way. So really starting with that community commercial designation pre 2020, moving into the first rezone that split the site into a high density residential portion and a neighborhood commercial district portion in 2020. And then the multi-unit developments that took place immediately around the site from 2020 to 2024. And then the update to the neighborhood commercial districts that we did in 2024, a comp plan update in 2025, and then the economic development strategy in 2026. So the reason I throw this graphic up here is that it's rare that we have so much work studies and information from the community this recently completed this relevant to a proposal a lot of times we're you know looking back 10 15 years to find these types of documents to find out what the community said at that time and then we're trying to extrapolate that forward with what we hear at a public hearing and kind of combining all that feedback into one but with this site and specifically and reasons that we probably will experience the next few years we do have a wealth of information from the community as far as what they're looking for And then at our last meeting, when we took a look at this site, the other neighborhood commercial designated sites within the Hawkes Prairie area north of I-5 to see kind of when they were initially designated as commercial sites and then how long after that designation did take for them to actually to develop into commercial uses. This graphic is actually pulled from the 2024 review of neighborhood commercial districts but it's a helpful graphic to kind of show you get a little bit oriented with the north side of I-5 as far as the But the first one is located at the corner of 41st and Marvin. It represents 6.4 total acres. It was first received a commercial designation in 2002. It actually received, a portion of the site actually had one prior, but it wasn't until 2002 that the entirety of that site received a commercial designation. And The owners of the site were participants in the neighborhood commercial district update. As far as that code, they provided feedback in there and then actually immediately thereafter came in for design review in 2024 after that update process. And then they have anticipated site development of 2027. And this is a kind of early site plan graphic and rendering that they've provided as part of the initial packet. So this one here is just about 25 years between its initial complete commercial designation when they actually came in for permitting and design review. The next one is located at Willamette and Campus Glen. It is 1.5 total acres. It was first received a commercial designation in 2003. Many of you might recognize this as Meridian Market. the review of the neighbor commercial districts. A lot of the discussion around it started here. But it came in for design review in 2022. And then is currently actually I took this photo last week. So it's actually currently under development with a commercial use on that site. So again, that's about 20 or so years between initial commercial designation and development. And then the last one that exists within Hawks this kind of area is at the corner of Hawks Prairie and Marvin. This actually is one of those examples of what this used to actually have a community commercial designation to it. But was rezoned as part of our comprehensive plan to neighborhood commercial district because the build out of it really kind of mostly aligned with the characteristics of neighborhood commercial district. So it's not a clean one to one, but it is still an example of a neighborhood commercial district within the Hawkesbury area north of I-5. This site represents 9.4 total acres. Just around half of that currently has a commercial style development on it. The other half has a residential one on it. But this first actually had a commercial designation. So not necessarily neighborhood commercial, but a commercial designation. As far back as that we could find it was 1997 and it didn't come in for design review until 2016 and is currently still mostly built out, but there is still a commercial pad there. It's available. So it really developed largely between 2017 and 2025 So again, that's 20 plus years between its initial commercial designation and when development took place. So those are the sites that really kind of met the criteria that are in the vicinity that were asked about as part of our last meeting. So I did want to give some background history there. And then kind of circling back to the criteria that we have to balance recommendations based on when rezone applications come in. So the criteria that we're looking at, whether or not an application meets these conditions in order to recommend it. So at least municipal code 1113050 states city may deny a rezone request if it fails to meet all criteria within this section. And then so this is kind of criteria one and then staff findings related to each one of these criteria and I'll run through a couple of them here. But criteria one was proposal has merit and value for the community and will not adversely affect public health, safety, and welfare. And staff findings related to this criteria specifically. So the existing proposed zone does allow for high density residential uses given there is a commercial component attached to it as well. But that does not expressly prohibit residential uses also taking place on site in a mixed use form. The neighborhood commercial district also has a height density bonus for when residential uses are proposed in conjunction with commercial up to floor floors. Floor floors is actually the height of the Carlow apartments, which is southwest of this location where about 200 or so units went in. The Tilden apartments by comparison actually only went up three floors. So hypothetically, with that four floor allowances, you still could accomplish ground floor commercial and meet the same level of density that the adjacent uses has been built out by. And then under high density residential zone, so really this last bullet is getting at, so if residential is still an allowed use on the site under both the existing and proposed designation, what then would we potentially be losing out on by changing this designation from the neighborhood commercial to a strictly residential use? And really some of the things that are within the neighborhood commercial district that we would like to highlight is the affordable housing requirement of a neighborhood commercial district, community oriented public gathering spaces, and then commercial retail spaces in support of our vehicle miles traveled and other comprehensive plan goals and targets that we identified. So that's criteria one. Criteria three relies on how conditions that have, yeah, so basically points to conditions have substantially changed or impacted the subject property since the last time it was rezoned. So the last time it was rezoned was in 2020. And I do wanna get right out and say that there was definitely 400 new multifamily units that were placed within a very short proximity of this location. That said, those new units were placed on parcels with a designation that accommodated that type of use. So while that is new development, it's not unanticipated development based on what our comprehensive plan and zoning had projected at that time. The caveat there is that both of those sites previously, before they had residential uses placed on them, had a pathway for both residential and commercial uses to go in those locations. So the biggest change over what was kind of anticipated and what was built is actually a loss in commercial uses on both those sites that had potential to go in there, but they weren't developed that way. So that's criteria three. And then criteria for rezones must be in alignment with the goals and policies of the comprehensive plan. This one was largely covered in the staff report. There were seven goals and policies that were identified that were largely in alignment with what's being proposed on site. That said, there were another 16 goals or policies that were identified as I'm not going to run through all of those right now. Thank you. But they are there in the bill. We've been at this a while. Yeah. The, the, basically the takeaway of this slide is that while there are goals and policies that are both for and. or in alignment and not in alignment with what's being proposed there are a larger number that would appear to be not in alignment with what's being proposed so with all of that there is both a staff recommendation and then also a planning commission recommendation but based on these findings staff is not recommending the adoption of this proposal proposed rezone or comprehensive plan amendment at this time And with that, it brings us to tonight's meeting. So where we are here, we have an opportunity to hear from the community. We have an opportunity to hear from the applicant. You guys have an opportunity to discuss it. And then following that, we have an opportunity to make a recommendation to council where then they would potentially do further review and then make a final determination.

Thank you. So I'm going to start. I think we have a representative from the ONU. So let me give you five minutes. I trust, I don't have to say this, but nothing vulgar, offensive or.

I was the developer of Tilden Apartments. Sorry that all our tree people left. We worked really hard to preserve a mature tree canopy at Tilden Apartments. We acquired the property in 2021 after the previous rezone had occurred. And last time you met to discuss this project, my colleague Deanna shared our site's history with you, which we don't need to go over again. We knew right away that this We've been turned away. I am not naive. I know based on your comments at the last meeting and my subsequent discussions with planning staff, I believe a recommendation to approve this request tonight is highly unlikely. That said, I'm here because I have a responsibility to my partners to do everything I can to make this site a success. Terragon is not a merchant developer. We build and hold for the long term, and we have no plans to sell the Tilden Apartments project. If we're unsuccessful here tonight, you can bet that we'll be back. At the last planning commission meeting, you raised several questions about this rezone, and I would like to share our perspective on these issues tonight here before you deliberate. The question was raised, how would this rezone impact traffic in the area? Our team engaged a traffic engineer during the development of Tilden Apartments. Within that study, which was provided to the city back in 2022, It states clearly that a retail use on this corner will result in higher traffic counts during PM peak hours than a residential use. To restate that in different words, if this site could ever be developed as retail, evening traffic in the area would be noticeably worse than if the site were developed as residential. I know you're pushing for walking with communities, but please note that a retail use in this location will increase vehicle traffic, including trucks and semis. Another question was raised about the economic impacts of this free zone. Our team used city data to prepare an analysis of tax revenue generated by this property. Currently, we pay $4,000 a year in property taxes. About 15% of that goes to the state of Washington and 85% of it stays here locally and goes to the city, the county, and to local schools. Over a 10-year period, a vacant site would contribute roughly $37,000 to the local economy. In contrast, we examined the tax revenue that would be generated if the site were rezoned and developed as one by family. We used data from the city of Lacey's 2024 annual comprehensive financial report to estimate per capita sales tax revenue. And we combined that with increased property taxes over a 10 year period. That number is north of $2 million. To be clear, that is $2 million in tax revenue that the city is leaving on the table if the land remains undeveloped. We did not analyze the tax revenue of a retail use on the site, because as we've shared multiple times in the past, we can't develop the site as retail if there's no demand for it. Several of you asked for more information on the neighborhood commercial nodes north of I-5, and Hans did a good job of summarizing these to you. But I want to point out a few points about them. The node at the intersection of Marvin and 45th of our site. They have far more space to work with, and this gives them greater flexibility than we have. Second, the node at the intersection of Hawks Prairie and Marvin Road contains a gas station and a daycare. Gas stations are no longer allowed in the neighborhood commercial zone, and we already have a daycare directly across the street from us at Tilden. The third and final node is just north of us at the intersection of Willamette and campus plant. This site is under development as a gas station. Again, this use is no longer allowed per your city's code. These other three retail nodes have very different circumstances dictating their uses. And some are even playing by different rules. Saying that we can develop our site as retail because these other sites are able to do so is not a fair statement. In closing, serving the neighborhood and it's not serving the city of Lacey. We have a plan to put this land to work to make it a meaningful and valuable part of the community. But we can't do that without your help. Please consider everything I've shared with you here tonight. And let's work together to do something rather than continuing to do nothing. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Okay, Maureen, you can state your name and where you live in three minutes.

I get my legs moving.

You all should stand up and do the same thing. When I stand up and I can try to get everything to move in the same direction, right?

My name is Maureen Bard, and I'm a resident of the Meridian Campus neighborhood. Our neighborhood already is experiencing significant congestion because three exits all funnel onto one single roadway. And this occurs now before the Hogan Bay Town Center has had any residents move into those apartments. We are already facing gridlock under the current conditions. Adding more density will only intensify the problem. Before approving additional land use changes, we need clarity on when the last traffic study was conducted and whether it really is reflecting our present day realities. I guess I'm asking if gridlock adversely affects public health, safety and welfare. I think that more and more we're getting concerned how we can get out of our neighborhood if there's a fire and if there's some kind of emergency because we're trying to evacuate when we've got cars, we've got semi trucks, we have all sorts of interesting mixes of vehicles. And so I'm not quite sure how this is all relating to what this is before you today, but I do want you to consider that with increased density, we're getting the increased concerns about our safety and our evacuation. There are a lot of neighborhoods in Spokane that I'm sure could be asking these questions.

Thank you. Okay. Online, Nicole, are you wanting to comment on this issue? Yes. Nicole?

Hi. No, actually, I just was appreciating that I'm learning more about this rezoning issue. And so, no, I'm just observing. Thank you for checking in with me, though.

All right. Thank you for being here. All right. With that, I'm going to close the public hearing and open up discussion.

I'll just start interrupting again, Jeff. I apologize. But just also, we did receive some written public comment on this issue as well. And those are in your email inbox as well. Yes, thank you.

So at the end of this, what I'm looking for is a motion and a second to make a recommendation to the city council to either dock or reject this zoning request. Before I go to all you, I do want to make some comments that are based on my 40 years experience of working in land use and especially with commercial development since 1997. My first observation here, if I was looking at this, well, I am looking at this, is that the current owner bought this with the current zoning in place. in the hope that, well, we can probably make something work here. And now they have determined they cannot. But what I will say to that is we don't know their business model. Is it that Tilden cannot make it work, but another developer can? I also want to make a comment here that if we do accept this rezone, that neighborhood commercial is never coming back. And when we were going through the comprehensive plan review the last two years, which you all worked very hard on, most of you worked very hard on, some of you weren't here. What we heard from residents was that that neighborhood commercial is very, very important. And one of the comments from the developer here was, There's already a daycare center across the street, yet the type of development they're proposing with the rezone is going to increase the demand for daycare. So it's kind of, you know, what do you live with here, right? So in my experience, especially in city council, was every developer has an idea how to maximize their return on any given site. And it may or may not fit with the current vision of the city. So is it that they can't make money on this site or is it that they want to make more money? So it's definitely something to consider here. And as far as the timeline for development on these sites and what we saw in the examples that Hans gave, Anywhere from 10 to 25 years for development to take place after a zoning change, that's common. I mean, honestly, I've seen sites where it's 40 years from the time a zoning change happens until economic conditions catch up to where that site becomes profitable. So I'd like you all to keep that in mind because I think it's valuable to learn from what I've learned in my life. So with that, I'm going to start with Carrie. Any questions?

Well, you know, I was just recently at Point Ruston, and I don't know if you've been to that neighborhood in Tacoma, but it's basically all neighborhood commercial. All the first floors are businesses with housing built on top of it. And granted, this particular parcel is not on the sound, but I've also seen other... instances of this neighborhood commercial model being used. And it really builds a thriving community. And you see that the people from those buildings are actually coming, people from around are walking or riding their bikes, and even people from outside are coming, which might increase car traffic. But it seems like this is something that really is different than the rest of that area. And it's something that's really fulfilling a need. So I do believe that If you find the right model and you put the right energy into it, you create a thriving community that would actually make the, you know, the surrounding apartments even that much more desirable. But the question I had was that I believe Ryan, or I don't know if I heard, heard you right. I'm sorry. Was that Hans that was saying that it could go up to 80 feet, which I believe is eight to 10 stories in the, if it's high density at the state's definition of high density?

Yeah, that's correct. So under our zoning regulations, under high density, which is the proposal, it can go up to 80 feet in height. High density has no maximum density associated with it either. It's essentially 12 plus units per acre. So in this case, what you would see is probably you know, more market rate garden style apartments be there. So I would say that, you know, the, the likelihood of a essentially 80 feet means an eight story tower. Um, you know, there would need to be parking and other things associated with that. So, you know, highly, highly unlikely, but, you know, likely to see more, you know, market rate garden style apartments on that corner under the proposed zoning.

Thank you.

Okay. Uh, Yeah. I mean, I don't have any questions. I mean, I think, yeah, with the current use of those in the community is still, there's opportunity for housing as well as a mixed use. And, um, yeah, no, no other questions.

So is that a motion to recommend?

No, like I'd like to hear from her. Yeah.

So, um, I am a resident of Meridian campus and I have served as a board member and a community leader. in this area for six years. And there is a demand and a need for commercial opportunities that has been expressed to the board, to our team for many years. The convenience, the walkability, we echo the preferences of the city in wanting walkability to these situations and not more residential and not more density. And I don't know if we're allowed to ask the petitioner questions, but I will just say my question out loud, is what efforts have been undertaken to determine the opportunity, the business opportunity for making it commercial? Has there been a partnership with the, you know, various city services or groups, economic development and things? Has there been a survey done of the 2,100 homeowners in Meridian Campus residential of what they're looking for? What efforts have they made to find this opportunity other than just a plug and play? We know how to build apartments. We want to build more apartments.

Would you like to answer that?

Yeah. We, since the day we acquired the property, we have been doing it. The microphone is right. I forget who said it, but we acquired the property with the intent to do something there retail. But we have been trying for five years. We've been marketing it actively with all of the retail brokers we know in the city of Lacey, including our internal team. And in five years, we have received zero interest. And that's the reason why we want to do something different. Because what we've been trying to do

able to make anything happen yeah so part of that time frame encompasses covid which was not typical times to solicit interest for anybody and and then you know you're looking at interest rates and the economy at a certain stage but i think there'd be so much value to asking the 2100 homeowners that could walk or ride their bikes or their e-bikes and things that everyone do now that would give you a sense of what would be successful there as a business um so i think there's some creative ways to explore that to make it profitable rather than what you know is building apartments and let's do more. There's a demand. I know there's a demand. Having served as a community leader there for six years.

I also live in that neighborhood and I've complained about the traffic since all the warehouses have been going up. Majority of my fight, you guys have heard, is the trucks driving going down the neighborhood ways and smashing the center blocks and all that stuff. I dread going out of my neighborhood just because if I go out, I'm stuck in traffic in the main city. I'd rather have stuff in my neighborhood to leave. I'm now getting scared going out just because of the density of the traffic. But like my mother-in-law, she uses a P.T., She, you know, it helps her walk over there while she gets, I mean, medical clinics, smaller type medical clinics. There's a high density of soldiers that are running in there, especially probably in your apartments as well. Just have access, some of the, uh, availabilities of not only just childcare, but child entertainment of various ages. Um, we, you know, I work also with, uh, the Squally Reach Nature Center. So they've been increased. There's, um, uh, a lot of, uh, density of, uh, fishing access. And I know the boat ramp stair has increased as well. So there's a lot of things that you can explore, um, in there. Um, Yeah, just going outside that neighborhood, it scares me because going on traffic takes me, just to move my car a mile, it's 15, 20 minutes. So as a retiree, I'm like, it's not even worth it until I wish a lot of the stores in the city were up to 2 a.m. because then that's probably when I'll probably go. There's no density. Not a lot of people are out and about, but That's what it's come to. But if you're asking me to work, I'd rather stop and spend money in my own neighborhood. But the trucks are the big thing for me. Killed me.

I'm in favor of retaining it as neighborhood commercial. And I do have the broad question of why wasn't it developed whenever the parcels were zoned, rezoned, and split? Why was it broken into three separate parcels and created that seems like this is a design choice that you're asking for the city to let you out of versus we had a fully developed vision also those lots are completely cleared that was a forested area so under what permit were those lots cleared i have to ask that trees and retention of that it looks like that was used as a staging area for construction which is a fine use but you left a lot on the table you left almost two acres you know almost 20 percent of your total land area on the table with no plan to develop it and you're saying it can't be rented out it can't be developed to someone else because we haven't been able to find anyone and you've heard several creative solutions i'm not going to offer any i don't work in that field But this feels like a self-inflicted choice from my perspective, and I see no reason why the city should change that designation after having gone through a full multi-year long process reaffirming that designation with so much input from the people in Hawks Prairie stating they want these retail opportunities close by. You also have the opportunity to have that retail on the ground level and supplement that with residential above. Yes, it's more expensive. Yes, it comes with a few extra hurdles. None that I don't think are substantial in preventing your organization from developing that land in a meaningful way that will benefit the community. I recommend that we vote no and deny this. The staff has listed numerous reasons. I've read multiple public comments. I've received testimony. I would make the motion, but I want everybody to have their chance to speak.

I think my comments are turn. Nice. Okay. I also, you know, just kind of took in all the notes and I think, you know, there has been a lot of movement on this parcel in a short period of time, but there's a consistency. And, and I think that the fact that there was, you know, an 83% reduction in commercial use in an 11 and a half acre parcel. And yes, it's been a few years, but there's still only so much left. And my reservation mainly stands with the fact that once we move it that way, there is no going back, right? There are only so many limited spaces that we've designated in a very high density area and a very large area that is continuing to grow from a residential standpoint. So I would be very cautious about making a change that's irreversible. And so I would like to motion to not recommend the proposed rezone request to the Lacey City Council for the second review.

Seconded by Spencer and Judy. Okay, there's a motion on the table to send the recommendation to the City Council to reject this proposed rezone. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. It's unanimous. All right. We reached the end of our business. We're only two minutes over our scheduled time. Three minutes, sorry. And I want to thank you all. I want to thank you all. I want to thank all the members of the public that managed to stick with us.

One quick thing because we got through all of the business tonight. You're rewarded with not having to come in two weeks. So our September 9th meeting is canceled. We'll regather. Next meeting is September 23rd. That will be a rather full agenda that night.