Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Five meeting of the Lacey Planning Commission to order. We have quorum here. Judy is out. Elliot is not here. He may show up late.

Carian, would you please read our land acknowledgment tonight?

We, the city of Lacey, are on the ancestral land of the tribal people of the Treaty 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 Medicine Creek as the traditional stewards of this land since time in memorial 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, force removal, and abridge treaty rights that allowed our nation, state, and city to develop as they have today.

We recommend that the county members read the Medicine Creek Treaty, community members, rather, read the Medicine Creek Treaty of 1854.

Thank you. And as I mentioned every once in a while, we do take this serious. This isn't something we're just doing by rote. So the next item is approval of the agenda. I would look for a motion or amendments. So moved. Second. That's Karen. Those in favor?

Aye.

Aye. K. And then for the October 22 minutes.

Move to approve the October 22 minutes, Spencer. Second.

Alright. It's been moved and seconded to approve the October. All those in favor? K. We do not have any members of the public in attendance. We do have one, but he is observing. So no public comment. Any commission member reports? We'll start with Tanya. Anything? K. Anybody else?

I I think it's amazing that we had almost 40% turnout for the election, and it's a nail biter. Every vote true truly counts. I'm looking at some of the races that are just going back and forth. So, hopefully, we get everybody engaged in in voting and being an active citizen.

I agree. Thank you. And department report?

Yeah. I'll just, do a quick one. So I know we had some members of our planning commission that weren't at the last meeting. So, planning commission did make a recommendation on, the comprehensive plan, and now that is sent to the council. And so I kinda wanted to fill you in a little bit on that process.

So, at this point, we're gonna be briefing the council on November 25 on the planning commission's recommendation. There are some slight amendments that will be have done been done by the time the planning commission has made the recommendation at the time that the council will be approving that. So we really definitely we wanna make sure that the city council's aware of what those things are. We're still within our sixty day comment window from the Department of Commerce as well. That that kind of expires on December 1, right around December 1.

So there's still some changes that will be made to our comprehensive plan up until prior right prior to adoption. So, not only are we gonna fill the planning commission in on kind of, you know, the the planning commission's recommendation, which they've seen most of, and we, I think, last briefed them, I wanna say, at the August. So they're they're very familiar with what's in the document. Also, provide them the information of what's changed, since that point as well, and then update them on the latest that we have on our website that we're under development on. Hopefully, all that to

be said on December 16 would be

the final ordinance adoption date for the comprehensive plan. So, again, thank you all for your your work on this essentially multiyear process at this point. It was a long time to get here, but, we're definitely coming down to the to the end of things. And so, it's it's an exciting time that we are moving forward with developing our work plan for the next year. So stay tuned for that.

That's something that you all will see at the next meeting in December. So just a reminder, we're not gonna have a meeting in two weeks. That's the night before Thanksgiving. So when we're back in December, we'll go through that work plan as one of the items. That will prepare us for the joint meeting, with the planning commission and the council. That will be held in early twenty twenty six. We're looking at probably, like, a late January, early February date, likely to be on a Tuesday evening. So those are held on a council work session evening. So it'll be, we'll we'll kind of trade a planning commission meeting for a council meeting for for that week. So, stay tuned.

More to come on that, but just kind of a little bit of a thank you for the work we've done all this year, but then also get prepared because we're gonna start moving towards implementation. And we haven't got still got a lot of stuff in front of us moving forward. So

yeah. Anybody have any questions for Ryan on any of that? Okay. So I'm assuming the twenty fifth is a work session.

Correct. Yes.

And is there any advantage to me being in attendance?

Would you like to be there? Think so. I think in previous years, especially with the comprehensive plan recommendations, we've had the planning commission chair be there. Yes.

Okay. I would like to. Okay. Yes.

I absolutely would love to have you there, Jeff. So Okay. Yeah. He's right here at the table with us. And

yeah. Be like old times.

Yeah. Look out, but you might get called back.

Thank you. Okay. We have no public hearing, so we're on to new business. And Jennifer is gonna give us a briefing on co living housing draft update. And at this time, this is in preparation for a public hearing on the December 10. So, Jennifer.

Well, first of all, good evening, everyone. It's really nice to see you as always. Tanya as well. Hello. Always appreciate coming here.

Such a thoughtful commission. And so this is part of the part of the fun of, you know, getting to dive into some of these topics is getting to kind of collaborate with each of you here. So tonight, I am I'm I'm gonna apologize in advance. I have a lot due this evening. A couple of new So it's things with the co living, and then a couple of other housing initiatives that maybe won't sound completely new, but that we haven't covered a lot and or we haven't had a review for a while, such is the case with middle housing.

So this evening, the order of business is I'm gonna cover these four things you see on the screen here. So we're gonna start off with co living. That's gonna be our new item. And then we'll move on through middle housing updates, some updates with accessory dwelling units. And then finally, we will end up talking about unit lots subdivisions that may be the one you you may have heard.

You may have not heard about this one yet. So as we continue on with you know, none of us here are strangers to the pressures in housing, and none of us are strangers to the amount of housing legislation that has come down in the last, I don't know, five years, two years, specifically the last two years. So there's a lot going on and a lot for us to consider, whether it's through mandates or whether it's through policy choice. So with that said, again oh, I forgot. My apology. Did you have are you

Do you have the clicker? I just

wanna make sure

Do you

Yes. I do. Thanks for reminding me too because I want I did wanna apologize too. There's a lot of words tonight on the screen. Sometimes it just feels unavoidable. You know? It is a lot more fun to present with lots of pictures and things like that. Tonight, we're just gonna see a lot of words, but we'll we'll try to make it discussionary and just kind of talk through talk through what we're seeing. So with that said, let's see how this works. Okay.

So to start off, what exactly is coliving housing? What are we talking about when we say that? So the findings of the state have identified coliving housing as a residential development made up of independently rented lockable sleeping units that provide space for living and sleeping, while residents share kitchen facilities with other sleeping units in the building. So it's a little bit vague in areas, and you'll notice that it does remain silent on a few things, particularly bathrooms. So we will be coming to that soon here for a discussion.

So the concept of coliving is not necessarily new. This type of shared housing that has been in existence in The United States for probably likely over a century. Other common names you may have heard this style of housing or concept of housing would be things like congregate living facilities, rooming houses, maybe something like a modernized boarding house, etcetera. But the state, what they're doing here, I sort of consider a rebranding or a standardization of this type of housing. They've repackaged this to be called co living housing.

So that's what you're gonna probably broadly see across other jurisdictions who are also implementing this into their code. And then they have mandated that this form of housing, this coliving housing, be allowed in every community where multifamily housing is permitted and more specifically where six or more units of multifamily housing are permitted. So that's kind of the trigger where co living housing would need to be allowed within our jurisdiction. And so overall, the main idea there again is to provide smaller, more efficient spaces that are affordable by design. So that's really gonna be key here.

They're affordable in theory in theory. By design, these are not housing housing units that are dependent on any type of subsidy. Okay. So not for well, I don't know about the development side necessarily. I don't I'm not sure what the options are there.

But for for residencies would not be supported by housing subsidies. So, truly, the state is looking to provide another type of housing that should be accessible to some groups that are harder to reach, such as those in lower income brackets. So we'll look a little bit more at that as we go as well. And then lastly, the state also finds that coliving housing might be well suited for well, I guess we just covered a bit about that. Low income earners could possibly be a model for supportive and recovery housing, possibly supporting those coming out of homelessness or another type of shelter, you know, facility.

And then maybe students. In my mind, I traditionally think about students, right, or young young people. So let's go ahead and and take a look at what the actual statutory requirements say. And and there's quite a few. So I've got two slides here, and I'm gonna just kinda read read these as we go along.

So co living housing, established already, will be triggered when in a zone that allows multifamily units six or more. Coliving housing must apply the same dimensional and review standards as multifamily. So that's also really important in our conversation is that this will, by and large, be regulated similar to multifamily. And, also, really important, we see this with middle housing as well, but the language is specific about it can't be regulated more strictly than we would for for multifamily. So just keep that in mind as well.

As far as the sleeping units go, how the RCW legislation looks at this when we're talking about density is that each sleeping unit within a coliving development so the development let's let's parse that out for a second. The development is comprised of the sleeping units, the coliving sleeping units. So each of those units can only count as a quarter of a dwelling unit. So that's our that's our number for density. Sewer connection fees can only be half of those of a dwelling unit.

Off street parking maximum requirements, we cannot require any more than point two five of a parking space for every four units. So every four units in a co living development would yield one parking space. Another question. Yes.

So there seems to be a disconnect between count sleeping units and sewer connection fees. How can a sleeping unit count as a quarter of a dwelling unit but the connection fees be half?

That is a really good question for Ryan Andrews. Because because I'm not sure. I I can't I can tell you that I can tell you that with the dwelling unit so we have this conversation. We have been collaborating, of course, works. I do think Ryan's gonna be able to explain the math on this a little bit better. It I'm just gonna stop there and let you take it over so that I don't misspeak.

I don't know if I'm gonna be able so where this comes from is the RCW, which originally came from a a a bill. Right? So the legislature put forward that these were the standards. So, I'm not exactly sure why there's a discrepancy. One one says a quarter, and then, you know, for the sewer, it says a half.

But I'll use so what we do for just FYI for sewer is that everything's broken down into what's called an equivalent residential unit, also known as an ERU. And an ERU is one single family dwelling. And so currently, for multifamily, we so anything that is a studio apartment or above, you know, one bedroom, two bedroom, three bedroom, they pay point seven of an ERU. And so for our sleeping units in cohousing, those, would go down to point five. So it makes sense.

And, really, the idea is, and Jennifer will get this into into a second. When we are looking at actually drafting city regulations for this, we want this to not just be a way to be able to, be kind of a loophole into a studio unit that these all and we're gonna get into it where these have shared bathroom facilities down the hall. They have shared kitchens and those kinds of things that give them essentially some, you know, there's some calculation built in so that they actually get some credit to actually go down to that one half of an ERU per per unit. So the good thing is is that based on that sliding scale, so if you start at the single family at one ERU, you go down to a single multifamily at point seven, you go down to these co housing sleeping units at at half. It makes sense.

Why is it different between that and a quarter? Like, when you're talking about here, quarter of a dwelling unit, quarter of a parking space, I'm not sure. Okay. So I and I'm not I I don't I can't do the math on that to get you there. I can tell you is that from a sewer equivalent unit that that half makes sense for this calculation.

So it's a product of the wisdom on the heat.

Yeah. And you got it.

Okay. That's

very well said. Yes. All of the wisdoms. Alright. Well, let's just continue on with a few more of the high level statutory requirement requirements. Coliving cannot require other uses in a coliving building. We may circle back to that in our conversation. Coliving must not exclude coliving, housing or excuse me. It must not exclude coliving housing from participating in affordable housing incentive programs. So any, incentive, affordable housing incentive programs that the city of Lacey participates in, we need to make sure that coliving has that same equal opportunity to participate in those as well.

And then we talked about this already. Again, just so important. A city may not require through development regulations any standards for coliving housing that are more restrictive than those that are required for other types of multifamily residential uses in the same zone. And then I'm gonna briefly touch upon implementation due date, which is technically December 31. We are going to aim to wrap this up a little bit beyond that probably by the first part of probably in January 2026 is what feels like a a comfortable target for us at this point.

There are no punitive consequences, you know, for not meeting that hard and fast date. However, as with most legislation, the RCW would prevail if we did get a proposal come in through the door prior to our own adoption of our code. So let's move on through. So let's talk about what staff has been doing. So we do some things in in at our desks and in our cubicles.

And so as far as co living co living goes, like I said before, we've been doing quite a bit of collaboration. So we've been having very consistent meetings with our current planners. And the current planners are critical, of course, to how we write and how we plan to implement code. And so their voice is extremely important to this work. So we've been meeting very regularly with current planning as well as doing some collaborating with public works as well because we wanna make sure that we're all going to be in alignment with zoning and infrastructure as we implement this and and, you know, other housing initiatives as we move forward.

Staff has also prepared some preliminary code language that should be have been included in your in your packet for this evening. So there should be three attachments there with this item. You should have the proposed new chapter for coliving housing, and then you should have the respective parking standard update on that as well as some definitions that we needed to come up with, you know, to make this coliving chapter happen. And then we've also identified some key areas that we're gonna bring to you tonight, which will be kind of the meat and potatoes of our discussion. So those two things and we may have more, and that's great.

That's why we're here. But the two things that really come to mind for us right now are shared facilities versus private facilities. So if you can picture, like, a kitchenette. It's not a full kitchen, but maybe a kitchenette. Something that you might see in a maybe, like, a hotel or maybe even a studio apartment. And then we'll talk about that, and then we'd like to have a discussion as well about bicycle parking standards. So that is coming very quickly. So let's go ahead and move on. I just wanted to highlight a couple of things that you will see in your draft proposed chapter. These are policy choices.

So I'm going to say again and just reiterate, of this is up for discussion. So please don't feel shy about that or asking questions. What has felt comfortable to staff as we have been working on this is to set a sort of a cap on sleeping unit size that made the most sense to us. It's also what we are seeing other jurisdictions do. And so a number that felt fairly comfortable was 250 square feet as as a maximum unit size.

And so there's also some language in the RCW that talks about making sure that we allow at least the minimum standard of the building code. I think the current building code iteration that we would be following says 70 square feet. So you can anticipate somewhere between 70 square feet and 250 square feet for the actual living slash sleeping units in a coliving development. The other recommendation that staff has in this draft is that these units would have shared facilities only. So shared kitchens, shared bathrooms, but no private bathrooms and no smaller kitchen net units within the facilities.

And we'll talk about that as we go on. So with that, when we take a look at, well, what would trigger what would be a good ratio. Right? I mean, you don't want 50 coliving units with with one kitchen. So we started to look at what would be a comfortable ratio for sleeping units to kitchen.

And so we landed right now on six units. So six units per one, and then what we need to do there as well is call this a standard kitchen. And so you will see in the next bullet point there that we have created a definition or a proposed definition for a standard kitchen because that wasn't found elsewhere in our current LMC. So a shared facilities only is our is our current proposal, and then that ratio of one to six sleeping units. Now what happens if a a developer proposes a total of eight sleeping units?

Does that warrant two kitchens? Does that trigger two kitchens? So the answer to that is no. So we would use this kitchen rounding approach to address fractional kitchens. Right? So let's say a developer proposes seven or eight units. We're gonna kind of ignore that. Ignore may not be the kindest word, but we're gonna ignore that a bit. And then nine, ten, eleven, twelve, that's gonna trigger that second kitchen and then so on. Right?

So fractional kitchens, that's how we'd like to deal with that is through kind of this kitchen rounding process. Let's see. So, again, definitions. You will see in your packet a definition that describes the coliving housing itself, the sleeping unit, the standard kitchen, and then what do we mean when we're talking about shared facilities. So you'll see those as well.

Did we wanna pause here and ask the planning commission to see if they got any questions or Yeah. For sure. Concerns about Absolutely. Standards. Why don't you go back one slide?

Absolutely. Okay. This one oh, sorry. Wrong one. Uh-huh. This one. There you go. There we go.

K. Timely, any questions? Anybody else?

I have a question.

So we'll just go clockwise. Cool.

Sure. So you said rounded kitchens, frack fractional or kitchens? Fractional kitchen.

Does that mean that you're gonna

ask them to the builder to include a little bit more of the kitchen? It's still one standard kitchen, or what what does that mean?

Yeah. So that's a really good question. So I think the way we have it now is it would just mean it would just hold at the one standard kitchen. Okay. You know? I mean, these are things we could take into consideration whether there would be increased standards or not. But I think that was a clean way of, you know, trying to trying to get that expressed in code. And these sleeping units represent one person? Also a really good question. So this is also a place where the RCWs are silent on this. We also have some other legislation. I won't get into the weeds too much, but that have to do with regulating occupancy.

Okay.

So it's a kind of a sensitive area. It's not really within our purview necessarily. There are building code provisions that, you know, establish number of facilities and amenities per occupancy, but that's sort of where that would fall Okay. Relevant to to coliving. However, in discussions, it has come up that we could fairly easily make an assumption that each sleeping unit could probably have two people in it. Yeah. And so we started to then even use that number. So when we say the the ratio of one to six, that may not be six persons. It it it could be, what, 12 persons.

And I imagine that people are probably going to end up having to even if they're required to just be one person. Just thinking For affordability? Absolutely. Curious. Are you doing required shared facilities because it it makes the housing more affordable? Or what what's the thought?

So and we're we're gonna get there in a little more detail as well, but this is as good a time as any to talk about that as well. I think that you've actually made one of our one of our points, yes, is that the sort of the true intention of the legislation legislation is to provide this other type of housing. If we start let's say these have kitchenettes and they have private bathrooms, it starts to make it very hard to distinguish between what is coliving and what would be a studio apartment. And so it starts to make regulating these a little bit more tricky. So part of this is for clarity. Ryan, do you have anything you wanna add to that?

No. That that was really good. It it's really a a policy decision and something we wanna ask the planning commission. Like, you know, do do you feel a different you know, like, we should go a different direction on this? Because, you know, I'll I'll just also add that, you know, we're we're not really seeing any demand for these at all. We're not seeing developers come to us and wanted to do this as an option. Really, it's like we we have to allow it because the state law says we have to. But the market, especially in Lacey, isn't quite there yet. And I can see, especially with some of the things like like parking restrictions and other things, it's really going to limit this, you know, maybe to I'm thinking, like, okay. In a student situation where you're right in here close to Saint Martin's, maybe that's something that, you know, might be, you know, marketable.

But we just don't see that there's, you know, a huge market for these. And so thinking back, okay. What who who could potentially be a tenant there? Again, getting back to maybe the students. Well, does every student need kitchen or, you know, or would they be okay with, like, having a shared facility, almost kind of like a dorm situation with the this is kinda starting to mirror with the kitchen down the hall, with the bathroom down the hall. So we don't see that having these things, like, shared kitchens and bathrooms would be something that would be a deal killer. I think in fact, it might be something that would be preferred. You know, if we were to look at locating one of these in Lacey, that that might be a developer's preferred option. If not, there's always you can always do a studio apartment, and there's nothing

Mhmm.

Against that. So it just gives you another option.

I think it's great, and I think that the number is really generous. Thinking about the times I lived in a dorm, which this sounds like college when I was in the Air Force, we had a lot more people to a kitchen, to a bathroom, or, you know, to multi multi stall bathroom. And it was perfectly comfortable. So I I think people are really looking for affordable options. Right? Because you look at a studio apartment, it's

still not affordable for most people. Right.

So I think this this

is great. This is really interesting. And and to your point, Jennifer, and then, Carrie, and I know you're next, I just wanted to piggyback on that that to your original question. You know, I think it is reasonable to say that limiting by limiting to shared facilities, the development cost should be should be substantially lower. Right? Those are significant costs within a development. Yeah. Mhmm. So And then, period.

Yeah. I like the idea having lived with seven people in, like, a Victorian flat before with one bathroom and a shared kitchen. The senior tenants would sometimes get a deal break, and then the rest of the people would end up paying more as and, you know, and it would go down progressive rates come in. So having, like, a set amount where it's not kind of that you pay more because you're the last tenant in is seems like a way to build equity and make it inclusive for people at lower or the need to have affordable housing, at that rate. But I was really concerned because I'm thinking about, like, multifamily with six units.

So I think I live in a neighborhood like that, which is an older neighborhood. And if somebody was to build one of these here with only one parking spot for potentially six people, potentially six cars in this neighborhood. And in my neighborhood, it's already a problem with duplexes coming in and the excess cars on which make it down to, like, a one lane street, which is really challenging. So, that coupled with when I was reading on in in the documentation saying that developers for getting the minimum could get a 5% discount. And then if they go below minimum, so could they even go below providing a quarter of a spot per person to get a 10%, reduction in impact fees?

It seems like the minimums are in in our neighborhoods, it would have to really be that there was in conjunction with there's a shared lot over here where cars can go with specific and explicit language, you know, to protect those smaller compute communities about, like, no street parking or something like that. Because, I was even talking to one of the the LACCPD people saying that it is a problem in other communities. It's that they're getting a lot of complaints about issues of parking. So that's that's my biggest concern.

So I can tell you from my experience and, you know, I've been in land use for a very, very long time. Developers are not gonna product propose a project or want to do a project where they don't have parking for their projected occupancy. And so the regulation, the way it's written, actually makes sense to me because then it puts it on the developer. You know? If you're gonna come in and want six units in this building, it's on you to make sure that there's some place for them to go. Right? And and they won't do it otherwise.

You know, the problem is on that is that, like, for developers that only want to provide the the only the minimum. So you have a quarter space per unit. You have six units. That's a space and a half for six units is that it pushes the rest of the parking out to the on street and and those kinds of things. I think that's what carrying part of your concerns are. You're in an area where you've got, you know, a shoulder essentially to park on and maybe in front of somebody else's house. Right? And and so that puts the impacts on the surrounding neighbors. So, and and it I'll just say that this is one of those things that we don't really have a say in. Right.

So the state is saying, you must allow these types of facilities, and you cannot require more than a a quarter spate parking space per unit. So understand that we're a little stuck, I guess, when it comes to that because we a developer can always provide more, but we can't require more.

Right. And and I wanna say too, there's a very, very strong sentiment in the Capital Building to completely eliminate parking regulations. Mhmm. Minimum parking requirements, period.

And it's and it's unfortunate because it's being pushed on. I know you're, you know, you're I sympathize with you and where you're at. It's being pushed on to these other neighbors, you know, that have to provide you know, they're fighting for the same parking spots on on the street, you know, that somebody that maybe has lived next door to one of these for for potentially, you know, decades. And and that's that's unfortunate because and and, Jeff, you're exactly right, is that the state's coming down and saying, well, we hear you, but, you know, we want housing wherever, however we can. And by removing parking as a barrier, that's one way that they feel like they can, you know, kind of, you know Right.

I'm gonna let Spencer go. We'll we'll let everybody speak, then I'll

come back. Okay.

In an earlier slide, didn't did it say that it can't have a mixed use, that it could only be for residential?

It did, say that. Do we wanna go back there now, Ryan?

Yeah. If you can just go back a slider, I think it

maybe looks like it. Think it let's see. Correction. Did I go the wrong camera? Wire. Yeah. The top will other uses in a Columbia Mountain.

Okay. You. That's what I

need to clear. So we can require it on the site. That's what that's our determination is that this really just says specifically with the building. But, like, for example, if you've got a situation where you require x amount of commercial to be built on the same site as multifamily, we can still require that. But what we can't require is that there'd be other uses within that individual coliving building.

So just keep that in mind. We I I think what this is getting at is we can't just say, well, you you gotta have commercial as part of your coliving building that we Mhmm. But if it's elsewhere on the site, there there's nothing in the RCW that speaks to the rest of the site. It's only specific to the building, and so it's our interpretation But those other things around it can still be required. Robert?

Can you go one forward? Sorry. I think it's the the amount oh, no. Two forward. There we go. Is the 70 feet square minimum per building code, is that just overall for all housing, or is that specifically for co living? What where is the 70 kind of coming in? Because 250, like, when you think about sizing. The average hostel is, like, a 180 to two fifty. The average hotel is two fifty to 400. So, like, 70 is quite small.

It's quite small. By seven, the dorm room. It's yeah.

It's I mean, yeah, it's smaller than some of the dorm rooms. So just where does that where does that come in? Is that the legislature that's saying the 70 feet, or is that us, our our municipal code?

That's, I think, in the international building code. You can see international. Okay. We can we can double check on that, but that is basically the minimum area you need for a bedroom. Okay. For the for the building code. So it's

a It's just a bed in a room. Yeah. Exactly. Okay. Which, again, I I know that goes back to, like obviously, that's gonna be a harder sell for people. So and I think that's the hardest part about a lot of these things that are are given to us and not really up for debate is just because it's an option doesn't mean it's an option that people are going to take up on.

Right? Like to take. Exactly.

Right? It's it's just we have to. And then the other question is just some of the examples that you gave are things that already exist in our community. And so would they be retrofitted to, like, co living in the sense of, like, right, we have dorms in the city of Lacey, and we have, like, recovery houses that have a a many to one kind of ratio of, like, six people living in a house in separate lockable rooms. Yeah. But right? So is that

I mean, that's a really interesting question, quite frankly, and I'm not sure that I've given that a lot of time.

Of a sudden, I want point five instead of point seven or whatever the case may be. Right? Like, it just makes me question what process or what what what levers do we have in place for for something

like when this would apply would be for anything that's new New. Okay. Conversion. So it would in, you know, a dorm situation, like, on Saint Martin's. Saint Martin's has its own master plan that's been adopted that says this is where the dorms are gonna go, and these are how many buildings. So that's a little bit of a unique situation. I think if this was to happen, these things were to be built. They would be somewhere else on private property. They're gonna be in a multifamily kinda configuration, so it's not gonna be conversion of an existing single family home per se. It's gonna be more of stick built from the ground up kind of thing.

So, you know, and there are other provisions. You know, we could have probably a several hour session on all the provisions of state law that allow for various different types of housing for things like, you know, drug and alcohol recovery and and, you know, exit facilities when you get out of prison. And, you know, there's all kinds of different residential opportunities from that standpoint. We're really just very narrow very narrowly here talking about this one specific example.

Okay. And with regards to the 70 square feet, I'll tell you, the developers know when they go into an area what is marketable. Right. They're not gonna build something they can't sell.

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, to your point too, Jeff, you know, and this is I'd like to say it's kind of an assumption, but it's also feedback that we hear from our development community. Developers have a lot of really good things to say about working with Lacy. And my best guess is that they are very much keyed into the Lacey flavor or, you know, how however you want to look at that. They're keyed into what our community desires, what our community needs. So, hopefully, you know, they would be sensitive to making sure that parking was provided. A lot of times, you know, we see these things in across legislation, whether housing or something else. They're tested in cities. Right?

I mean, large cities. Like, you know, places that are much more walkable, places that aren't autocentric. And so it does make it a little trickier for jurisdictions like Lacey to find a clear path to implementing these.

You know, the last thing a developer wants is to be in a situation where the with their lender where they've developed something that they're not getting any money out

of. Right. Yeah.

I I thought I had seen Elliot's hand raised on the screen. I don't I guess it's

Oh. Elliot even here? That

that was so weird. Maybe it was Oh, how do I get

to it? Go down to the bottom and then look at attendees. So, like, down in there, it should pop up a little oh, we may not be able to do it with sharing screen. Thing again. Well, Elliot, if you're here and if you have a question, go ahead and raise your hand, and we'll definitely bring you in. Oh, there you go.

There you go.

So stop. So can

we hear him?

Hit stop share. Wait. Maybe Oh, he he needs

to be a panelist.

Yeah. Panelist. There we go.

There we go.

Now he has to accept it.

Oh, okay.

Alright. Unmute yourself, Elliot.

I'm alive. Hi. Hi, guys.

Want me to go back to share?

I'm sorry about that. My question was, you know, we're we're not talking about college dorms. We're not talking about military, you know, cohabitating. I've you know, I I grew up in San Francisco right above Haight Ashbury, you know, in a commune, a hippie commune. And, you know, you're slamming a bunch of families into these small bedrooms, six or so, all sharing a kitchen, you know, with the food.

You know, who's my food? Where's your food? Blah blah blah. You know? Hey. This is my time to be able to do things. Do we really want this sort of thing in our in our city because all we're doing is creating a cauldron of anger, frustration, and fights, and and cross generational craziness. So

You have a choice.

Feeling is this is not a good idea. Yeah. And, you know, you're talking about can't look at parking. You can't look at, and the developers are gonna look at this and go, well, gosh. You you have potentially a huge fire hazard.

We So don't have a choice, Elliot. It you missed the first part of the the presentation.

I realize that.

Thrown at it by the states.

But, you know, that's not the first crazy thing that's come down the road from them. And we should really be looking at ways to fight the craziness because every four years, you know, it's either more crazy or it's some sanity coming in.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, Elliot, I I appreciate your you weighing in on this. I think, you know, you clearly make a really good point. As Jeff was saying, unfortunately, there are mandates here. We do have some policy choice, and we're gonna dig into that here in just a bit. You know, one thing that your comment kinda made me think about just a little bit is kinda the other side of that coin, or maybe it's a different coin altogether.

But, you know, when you talk about frustrating frustrating situations, right now, we're in a place where people are very frustrated. They cannot find any place to live that is affordable to their pocketbook. And so that argument is happening now. And so, you know, really appreciate your comments about something that could happen with with, you know, the coliving. We're not there yet. And as Ryan pointed out, you know, we we don't have developers knocking down the door right now to, you know, to to build these units. So, you know, I think it's something to to really keep in mind. So, you know, thank you for bringing that

up.

Yeah. This is a good conversation. I do wanna move on. It's Yep. Quarter to seven, and we do have another agenda item to get to tonight.

So Alright. So let's quickly thanks, Catherine. Perfect. Okay. So this is just a continuation of the conversation. We're kind of already in. So just looking at some of those pros and cons. This is to the shared facilities. So some possible pros in this list could this is not, you know, an exhaustive list, clearly, but some pros. Again, we talked about clear clear distinction from studio apartments that helps us with implementing code clearly and consistently.

And it encourages the true essence of affordability for this type of unit. It also may encourage or promote a sense of community for folks that, you know, are looking for this type of a living situation. And then less infrastructure needs, therefore, you know, assumed less cost and less cost passed on to to the end user, to the renter. And then cons, we've talked about a lot of those, but reduced market appeal. Right?

Reluctance to rent if you don't have a private bathroom. There may be privacy, safety, accessibility, and quality of life concerns where quality of life is perceived as lower. But, again, and to Robert's point, you know, just because we allow it as a pathway doesn't mean that it's right for everybody nor does it mean it has to be chosen by everybody. So keep in mind, we're talking about just adding another option to our repertoire of housing options. And then let's move on.

So here we are to kind of that meat and potatoes I was talking about, and we've already had some great discussions. So, certainly, we can add some more here. I think what we really wanted to talk about with with you today is should coliving units be allowed to include these private bathrooms or private kitchenettes inside the sleeping units or private bathrooms only inside a sleeping unit. Or maybe we stick with what aligns with our draft code with the shared facilities only, and we've shared some reasons around why we have proposed that initially. So I just kinda wanted to open that up a little bit for discussion.

We've talked about a few pros. We've talked about a few cons. So this is your chance if if there's anything else you'd like to be considered.

I'm gonna start with Robert. Everybody will get a voice. No worries.

I do have some just safety concerns from, like, not having a private bathroom, but I think that it could be remedied with lockable, you know, individual stalls or something along those lines where it's a many to one ratio. So, right, I there's six bedrooms and three bathroom units that have built in showers that have a locking door that people can have their own, like, space or something along those lines. I just think that having a community space without any regulation, just without anyone resources right, without implementing that you also have to have x, y, and z type of resources for conflict mediation. Like, I go back to my higher education days and just, like, the just shoving six people in a in a community space without anyone to lead a discussion on how to share a space. The way that that can be avoided is having some level of privacy, right, and being able to lock that door from a safety and security standpoint.

So if we were not to add one in the private rooms, I would say we'd need to focus on how to make those communal spaces safe and secure for individuals. Mhmm. Excellent point. Excellent point.

I would agree with that. And, also, I think we should allow all of the options we see on the screen because that will provide developers with all of the tools necessary to meet the market demands for those units. And to his point, similar to all the co living situations I've ever been in, you've had a shared living space with usually a satellite style of little apartments rooms around it with one, two, maybe three separate private bathrooms. Quite small, but they did have a lock on the door, and they were individual units with a toilet and a shower. And, usually, it was a two to one ratio, two people per one restroom provided.

And I always thought that those were a good option. And so something maybe along those same lines with those ratios are would make sense and and alleviate some of those issues. Because, yes, I mean, from an athletic standpoint and several other programs, large group showers, large bathrooms, open bathrooms like that were,

a lot of shenanigans and not in a good way.

Not comfortable.

No. Period.

I'm thinking back again to when I was living in that Victorian flat, and we had seven bedrooms with seven tenants. And one, there was, a sink and the and the bathtub and shower and then another room that was a toilet and a a little sink. So for seven people in seven rooms to share those spaces. But, again, we did have a community, and you we had interviews, and then we would invite someone to come live with us. And this is a little bit different.

Like you were saying, it's not that the group is deciding to bring someone on. It's just anybody can rent that space and become part of the group. And at that point, it does seem like, especially having a 16 year old daughter with one bathroom at my home, that having my own toilet and sink so I could at least get ready for work in the morning Mhmm. Like, a half bath might be a nice consideration for for something like this. And I didn't know that I hadn't heard of housing where there's, like, a a full restroom for every two two rooms. But it seems like having some flexibility in that space so that people could live there but also get to work would would be, beneficial. So

K. Jennifer? Yeah. So my thought is at minimum, a sink in a room would change the quality of life so much. Like, if I'm thinking, like, from somebody who'd wanna rent versus not has a table. Blah. If it had a sink, that would change a lot for me. I don't know how much that changes affordability, though. So I don't know what that balance is. Yeah. Obviously, I think half bath would be the most desirable. But if we're trying to make it, you know, so it can be affordable housing, I don't know what where that line is. But I will just throw in having a sink would maybe assuage a lot of those interaction stressors, both in the kitchen and the bathroom, and a lot of a lot of reasons why that'd be Certainly. Certainly.

K. I'm gonna go to Elliot first and then Tanya.

So are we talking about one person, one room, or are we talking about a a couple with children? And you got little children sharing bathrooms with grown men. And what what are we talking about here?

Well It could be all of the above.

Yeah. So we we talked a bit about, you know, the city is limited. Our purview is limited on on actually regulating who who and or the number of persons that occupy a room or a dwelling. So I'm I don't know what a great answer is for for Elliot's concern on that one other than to say it's reasonable to bring that up, and I think that, you know, it's it's relevant in this conversation.

Well, you know, we're talking about people that, you know it's it's not like college dorms. You know, it's not like our old days in the military. It's not you know? But we're talking about that we should require private bathrooms and kitchenettes in every sleeping unit. You know, we we have at least that in hospital rooms.

Right? But, you know, again, what do we really want that police to have to be there 12 times a day, you know, or have a, report of a child being molested. So, you know, you you start packing people into those kinds of situations, and you start getting all kinds of bad results.

So we're we're bringing we're all bringing up really good points. And I thank you guys for all that, and this is all going to help drive the staff moving forward for revisions to this idea. Tanya?

Yeah. I like Jennifer's idea about maybe having some sort of sink in the unit. I know for me, I would prefer a private bathroom over a kitchenette. I wouldn't mind sharing a kitchen with people, but when it comes to a bathroom, that's when I think people would want more of privacy. And it's just trying to figure out how to keep how to keep it affordable if you're giving everyone their own bathroom, or could could we make it that it has to be one bathroom per every three units or something like that?

No. I mean, we have we have all kinds of different options. I think one one thing that would help us as staff is to kinda get and it doesn't need to be your final answer, but we do need to move this forward to planning commit to a public hearing at the next planning commission meeting. And so what I'm hearing and what we can what we can put into the draft is it sounds like tension kitchen down the hall, but for bathrooms, probably at least what we could do is we could put in half bath. Yes.

I mean, at this point, I think that would be, and then security for shared facilities otherwise. Yes. Think that's that's kind of the main things that I'm hearing. And and put that out at least as our public hearing draft, get comments. I don't particularly think we're gonna get much feedback, but if we do, we can, you know, we can change that, but we can change it up until your recommendation. So I think I I think we've got some good feedback. We can roll with the, like, half bath in each room. And then for each of the common facilities, which I would say also include the kitchen in in this, is that there needs to be secure and locked facilities. And that could be that could be food. That could be your your own kitchen equipment.

That could be a shower. That could be a toilet stall, whatever, but that there needs to be, you know, some level of appropriate, you know, security provided, for those common facilities. And I can work with you, Jennifer, to kinda maybe come up with

some general language. I think you've you've encapsulated what I've heard here.

So That's good.

As well. So, yes, thanks to everybody. Anything else on this one, or are we ready to move on to the bicycle? Okay. Excellent. So the other part of the discussion we wanted to have with you, of course, is around the bicycle. I'm sorry. It would be helpful.

I'm so sorry.

It would be helpful if you guys got to see it too. I'm sorry. Okay. So to this point, we've established that co living regulations can't be more restrictive than those of multifamily within a respective zone. So, currently, lazy bicycle standards correlate with the number of parking stalls for a project.

So the standards for multifamily for a studio unit project, k, only require one bicycle space per 10 parking spaces. K. So that's so 10 parking spaces triggers the one bicycle space for a studio unit. That number moves up, you know, if you have a two bedroom, three bedroom, etcetera. So at this rate, and if we use a simple scenario, this one here, just picking a nice even number of 40, this could mean that a sleeping a coliving proposal that had 40 sleeping units at our current standards for multifamily parking slash bicycle standards.

And then considering the ratio that the state gives us of point two five parking space per one sleeping unit. K? I know this gets a little a little wonky. At any rate, a proposal with 40 sleeping units for a coliving development wouldn't even trigger any bicycle parking. K? Because it wouldn't get to it it would yield four parking spaces. And if we go back and we look and we see, oh, bicycle spaces aren't triggered until you've reached 10 parking spaces. So 10 parking spaces equals one required biking. Sweet. 100 to one ratio.

So, yeah, it's it's it's it's fairly it's fairly silly considering, you know, the potential demographic that we might be trying to target or reach with this type of a housing model. Right? So dependent individuals. Exactly. So when when we are, you know, assuming folks that are less auto dependent and probably more prone to alternative modes of transportation such as a bicycle.

And so then the next consideration in that sort of package, if you will, of talking about bicycle standards would be coming back to things I've heard here this evening, security. Right? So what what would we want this to look like in relationship to cohousing? I'm gonna back up and throw you another curveball really quick, which is just that we have to come back and remember that we can't make the standards any more strict than what we have for multifamily. Currently, this needs to follow what we have in place for multifamily.

So in order for us to do something different here, we would really need to do kind of an overhaul to our multifamily. So one proposal or maybe our initial proposal is that we could pause on this for a bit of time. And the reason we throw that out there as a recommendation or suggestion is that among housing legislation, there's a whole slew of parking legislation that is coming down the pipe already here. So we know in 2026 and probably 2027, we've got a lot to do with updating, parking across the board. So there again, with consistency, with staff time, other things, Ryan Ryan or Jeff, you may think of think about that I'm not thinking about.

One proposal to get us to compliance. So remember, we wanna reach compliance probably sooner than later, but we could breach compliance and do nothing right now with bicycle standards. Bicycle standards are not even mentioned in the legislation. It's completely silent on that. So we can still reach compliance and pause, have a larger discussion about this, and roll that into future updates. So

because of compliance deadline, it's the end of the year, and we're not gonna meet that compliance deadline, and you just opened up a whole can of worms for this discussion. We can't we cannot make this any more restrictive than our multifamily regulations. So my recommendation, and I'm looking for con concurrence on this, is we pause this the way Jennifer recommended and come back and revisit the parking standards for bicycles along with the multifamily at some point in 2026.

Jeff?

Can I get

I I was gonna ask can I ask two clarifying questions before we do that?

Certainly.

One, I'm looking at this, and it says in the required bicycle parking spots, it says two minimum per building. So I was curious about that. And the second thing is, what is a bicycle parking spot? Is that, like, a a sheltered thing that you lock, or is it just, like, a a metal hook that you can attach a bicycle to? Yes. Yeah. Okay.

So I I agree with Jeff. I think I think, Karen, you're right. I think we would probably at least require, like, a minimum of two per building. So we it wouldn't be exactly zero, but it's gonna be two stalls. And what what two bicycle parking stalls could be is, like, if you've ever seen essentially an ups upside down u that's made out of metal that you can you can attach two bikes to, that is two bike parking stalls because you can get a bike on each side.

It's gotta be undercover, so it's covered, but there is no locked, no nothing. And so I think, you know, my recommendation, would be the same as Jeff's, is that we come back to this, you know, next year and look at okay. And this is, I would say, quite, antiquated at this point as far as our parking in general. In terms of I think from a multifamily scenario, you're probably gonna want either a a facility, like, in a room or you like, in in somebody's unit, or you're gonna want a facility that's, like, commonly shared that you have a code to that you can go, you know, get to on the yeah. Inside the building on the Ground Floor in in a multifamily situation.

And I think from that perspective, we've come so far. I don't think anymore that a bike rack in front of a building like we had, you know, back in the eighties or nineties is adequate bike parking for for any multifamily situation.

You know, the a side note here, one of the great things about the BART system in San Francisco, they've built these rooms that are secure. You have to have a code to get in, and they have, like, parking in these rooms. But the other thing that they've got and and so it's secured because you gotta have a code. Right? But the other thing that they've got is these stanchions in the room that have bicycle tools on tethers.

So you don't even need to have your own tools. Everything Everything you need to work on your bike is right there, and it's on on these steel cable tethers so that they're not you know, people aren't walking off with them or put put in their pocket. Forget about it.

That's nice. And and keep

in mind, this is just a minimum. A developer can always provide more.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Right?

Yep. Okay. So thumbs up on pausing this and revisiting in 2026.

Okay. Makes

sense to send time around if it's gonna

be around a change. Perfect.

Yeah. Because I wanna make the right decision.

Okay. So so if we do if we do that and we and we put the brakes on that, we we know we're gonna come back to it. Next steps for this item, would be coming back, in December, for public hearing. This would, of course, be after some revisions that account for what we've heard this evening here in our conversation. And then early January, make it to city council work session. And then, hopefully, by the January, adopt an ordinance. So that's kind of the the the rough estimation of the the time frame on this particular item. So if we're comfortable, let's just cruise on through here and start to take a look at our other housing updates for middle housing accessory dwelling units and then unit lots subdivisions. Any any questions before I move right on with

I the wanna I just I do wanna go around the table and find out if anybody has any further comment on the co living element. Tanya or Elliot? Perfect. Thank you.

Alright. A bad idea. But I I understand it's required. But Thanks for your honesty, Elliot. Or ways to for people to get along with, which would be full kitchenettes and a full bathroom.

Well, I always appreciate your comments, Elliot, because they're well thought out. And in this particular situation, we have to move forward. Agree.

Okay. So middle housing. I have, been here with middle housing a couple of times. Jennifer, you're newer. Robert's a little bit newer, so

I'm not

sure how much of that you've had the benefit of learning about. So let's just do a high level kind of revisit of middle housing, what we're talking about there. So simply put, the state defines middle housing as buildings that are compatible in scale, form, and character with single family houses and contain two or more attached, stacked, or clustered homes, including and then it goes through all of the plexus, townhouses, stacked flats, courtyard apartments, and cottage housing. And then we know that per the house bill or the legislation on this item, one of the main provisions is that every jurisdiction, so including Lacey, we do have to formally adopt six of these nine identified types of middle housing that the state has identified. So that needs to be formally, specified or adopted within our, code.

One of the things that, I just always like to really be clear about because it does come up, and it it has come up, in this group and elsewhere, to be really clear that middle housing is not affordable housing. Okay? These are not synonymous terms, and I know that it it can feel it can feel just a little confusing at times because we're talking about a product that in theory should be more affordable. But affordable housing is more defined by requirements that have to do with income thresholds and, you know, the percentage of of your your income spent on housing, etcetera. So we just wanna make sure that we distinguish that.

So, again, Elliot and Tanya, just everybody remembering not affordable housing, just middle housing. And then it helps fill the gap. Right? So that's that's a concept here is that it's really anything between single family housing and then larger apartment complexes. So the duplexes, all of the things that we've listed there or that the state has listed.

And then let's just refresh real quick about the statutory requirements, and this is from house bill eleven ten that supports the middle housing initiative. So, again, high level on these. Doesn't get completely into the weeds. But main requirements are we must allow two middle housing units on all thank you so much, Jeff. We must allow two middle housing units on all lots that support single family dwellings.

Okay? And then we must allow three or four units if one of those units is affordable at the 80% AMI or below. So in a nutshell, two by right, three or four if one of those is at the affordability rate. And then we talked about adopting six of the nine, same dimensional and permit standards of single dwellings within whatever zone the middle housing is being developed. This is administrative design review only on middle housing.

And then parking parking maximums, we can only require one off street space per unit on lots that are 6,000 square feet or less, and we can only require two off street spaces per unit on lots 6,000 square feet and above. All we we must allow unit lot subdivisions for ownership opportunities. That's I'll come back to that because you're probably wondering why am I talking about unit lot subdivisions with middle housing. We're gonna touch upon that, but it is a tool that's kind of gonna be wrapped into this suite of, you know, new housing options and provisions. And then critical areas and statutory exemptions do apply with middle housing.

And then I wanted to touch upon refreshing your memory that back in 2024, we did run a survey at least for a minimum of thirty days. I think it ran a bit longer than that. And we were looking for some very specific I am really doing bad tonight, because I'm really sorry. Thanks for all the reminders. So we did run a survey.

We were looking very specifically for a couple of points of feedback from the community. We were really looking to see what types within your neighborhood, thinking of your neighborhood, what types of housing could you know, would you be the most comfortable with in your neighborhood if it were to be added? And sort of you can sort of see here that what we ended up with with our response was we started from a place of neutrality, and we were looking for, you know, that degree of strongly approving or strongly disapproving. And so our target here is to, you know, to go with something that's more, you know, neutral or in this case, at least, because as you can see, disapproval ranked higher than than anything on the approval scale. So with that said, we ended up with feedback telling us that fourplexes, okay if we have to, townhouses if we have to, and cottage housing if if we must.

Now the the good news was we did have a a pretty good response. We had 361 responses to that survey with a lot I don't remember the number, but there were well over a 100 open ended comments. So we we got a lot of feedback from this one. What you're seeing here is that the planning commission, when we came to you, you really supported what the community told us. And so what what we heard from you was let's let's support that.

So when we have to adopt six of those nine, what we ended up here with was duplex, triplex, four plex, skip the other plexus, stacked flats, townhomes, and cottage housing. What you're seeing in red there, those are the only two that we don't currently really have specified. So the city of Lacey's been ahead of this curve for a little while and already really allows duplexes, triplexes. We also have townhome provisions and cottage housing as well. So we've kind of been ahead.

But what we're gonna do here is we're gonna back up just a little bit with that retrofitting kind of idea, and we're gonna say, these all now are gonna be considered middle housing, and that, really, that equates to density. Okay. So so that that was what I wanted to touch upon there. And then what has staff accomplished on the middle housing front? We did apply for and were rewarded a a $75,000 grant from the Department of Commerce.

This was for administrative support and for the work. And we successfully completed that process and passed the finish line on that at the closeout date of June of twenty twenty five of this year. So that was that was great to see. As we've talked about earlier, we are continue continuing with very intentional cross departmental collaboration on middle housing with all of the other housing initiatives. We've done a a lot of public engagement.

The first year after we applied for and received the grant, we we hit it pretty hard. And so we, you know, we showed up at events and and then did the survey and got a lot of great feedback that way. We've come to planning commission at least two times that I can think of. There may have been a third, although it may have been kind of related in a way with the comprehensive plan. So and then staff is just continuing now to work on draft code to be able to present you as we did here this evening with with Coliving.

So that that is coming soon. So moving on. So this one is kind of important. So compliance date and preemption. So, originally, how how the law read or how the RCW always or typically points out a a due date, for jurisdictions, they're not always super clear.

You know, sometimes it, as in this case, due dates coincide or run with your comprehensive plan update cycle. So in this case, the city of Lacey's comprehensive plan update is due the end of this year 2025. And we're almost there, and we know that. Originally, with middle housing and a couple other updates that we're gonna look at in a moment, the state was giving us six months beyond our comprehensive plan due date. So, originally, we, along with many other jurisdictions, were really latching on to that six months.

It was important because we're all neck deep in our comprehensive plan. Unfortunately, at the end of the twenty five twenty twenty five legislative session, some sneaky things happened, and there's a little bit of language in there that took that away from us. So the due date shifted very quickly to all of this being due by the 2021, so December 31. We're not gonna meet that that deadline. Now the good news is there's no punitive, you know, anything for not meeting that deadline.

However, with middle housing specifically, there is a model ordinance that we do have to follow. So the state has developed a model ordinance. When we work with our current planners on this, we have sent them the model ordinance for their review and gotten their feedback so they understand that this is what we would have to follow for middle housing proposals from 01/01/2026 until such time that we adopt our own middle housing ordinance. So that's informational for you. So that does preempt us in this case with middle housing.

So all the more reason to make sure that, you know, we continue working toward the the kind of middle housing code that we want to have within our own city. Alright. So let's just move right right along with that. So next steps for middle housing, we're just gonna continue doing what we're doing. We're gonna continue working on our draft language, behind the scenes collaboration that's really critical for this, and then we're gonna get you those code amendments the next time we the next time we schedule for middle housing, expect to see some kind of a draft in front of you.

And then we'll, yeah, we'll revisit you guys in early twenty twenty six with middle housing stuff. So that that's coming. And then let's what about ADUs? So, some more updates. Now we know that we have a great ADU program in Lacey, and we've even got some recognition about that.

But the state gave us a new, set of regulations for ADUs. So under house bill thirteen thirty seven, we must now allow at least two ADUs per lot where single detached or single family detached homes are allowed. ADUs can be attached, detached, or even within an existing structure. There's no minimum lot size requirements for ADUs. These are all fairly familiar to you, I imagine.

This one's new. Owner occupancy requirements are prohibited. So where it has been that an owner, to have an ADU on the lot with a single family home, the owner needed to be part of that equation, and that's no longer. So you can have an owner completely absent from from the property, and so no no requirements there.

But, yeah, I'll just say in Lacey, we've never had an owner occupancy requirement.

Oh, thanks, Ryan.

Yeah. Okay. Some some jurisdictions have, and the state is coming out saying

And we didn't. Alright. Can't can't do that. Right.

Thanks for correcting me on that. Does that open anything up to squatter rights? What do you mean? To so a squatter can put, like, their travel trailer on their proper on your property and then put their mailing address, and you have to now evict them. You can't just get them out.

No. Okay. So an accessory dwelling unit is like a it's a permitted structure Right. That's on your lot that it could be stick built. It could be manufactured, but somebody has to pull a permit, which makes you think, well, then somebody has the authority to be able to do that. If somebody comes to your property, there this doesn't affect anything, like somebody coming in and being there illegally or trespassing. I mean, this is permanent building on my property. No. Okay.

I was

just like, wait

a minute. That's a bad question.

It's a good question. It's a really good question. And this one will be new for you too. Currently, the Lacey code allows ADUs to be 850 square feet. That number is moving up to a thousand square feet that is given to us by the state. We do have policy options if we would like to go bigger than that. That is within our purview. I don't believe that's what staff would recommend right now, but you haven't seen any language before you, so I'm not gonna, you know, put the cart before the horse on that one quite yet. Maximum

for an ADU size?

The state code does not have language on a maximum. Nope.

And this is so the ratio, I think it was before 50% of the primary house, so that's gone.

Yep. Yep. Good good good one.

So one thing to remember with all of this, you know, as you've said, we're happy to comment your questions. So where all of this is coming from? The co living, the middle housing, the the ADU stuff. So, you know, the state legislature over time has passed a lot of legislation to encourage development of these types of units. But they've left, you know, local control in place.

And the legislature because all they're hearing about is affordable housing and homelessness. And they're very, very frustrated with the speed at which local jurisdictions are adopting regulations. And, you know, the housing affordability just becomes more and more of an issue. And so the state legislature, starting in 2022, just finally said, okay. We've had it.

You guys, we've given you the tools. You're not implementing them. So now we are going to say this is what you have to comply with. And, you know, so that's where all of this is coming from. Most of this is not optional. So whether, you know, whether we agree with it or not, let's make the co living. Let's make the middle housing. Let's make the ADU requirements look like Lacey within the regulations we've been handed.

Thank you, Jeff. Very well said.

I I was curious within, because I oh my gosh. Why can't I think of the name? You know where you have the community since the eighties, you have to have the h h

The owners association.

That's the one.

Yeah.

So where these have been excluded previously, does this supersede homeowners associations?

So, actually, that's a really great question. And the answer is no changes will they won't have to retro I keep coming back to your word. I'm really liking your word there, Robert. So existing homeowner associations, not touched. Any new development proposals, though, must allow for this. Yeah.

They won't they they won't allow restrictions within covenants that they used to allow. Correct.

Yeah. But any new ones that come on after this legislation was passed will have to comply with

After the legislation.

Yeah. So

Yep. And who knows what they'll do in the future?

So there is a lot of, within covenants, there is a lot of language that precludes you from being able to do many of these different things. Right? And so those things still apply. While they're not city code, they still are subject to, you know, HOA approvals. Right. And so if you're trying to build something that you can't get the approval of your HOA to do it, it's gonna kibosh it before you even get to the the city to get a permit.

Well and I think that's a really good point. So I just wanna comment really quickly along those lines that with middle housing, with pretty much all of these. Again, just because our code may say it's possible, it may not be possible at all. Right? And so development standards are still going to have to be met. Mhmm. You know? So you can theorize all day about, oh my gosh. We might have, you know, six people in our neighbor's backyard or six new buildings in our neighbor's backyard. But the reality is, really, there's not that many lots in Lacey that can probably accommodate this kind of density.

In fact, we we did a poll a little bit of or we did some research on that as well, and we targeted, I think, about 10,000 parcels in all limits of Lacey, where they were 10,000 square feet and larger, and they were within 200 feet of a sewer connection. And those would be the parcels most likely, probably, to see this kind of density. So anyway. And then the last two on this were the last three parking maximums, that looks very familiar. We just saw that with middle housing, so the same standards there.

Roof height limitations must be greater than or equal to 24 feet feet for ADUs. So we can't we can't create a lesser roof height than 24 feet on the ADUs. And then this is new as well. They may be sold independent of the primary dwelling unit. So where traditionally these ADU units have been complementary to the single family dwelling and kind of a one package deal, now there's gonna be options to independently sell the ADU even if it was originally established under anyway, I'm I'm I can feel myself messing that up, so I'm gonna just pause on that.

Just know that right now, the new law will allow these to be sold independently. Okay. So let's just move on to the unit lot subdivision. This is one where this may be a new term for you. And so a unit lot subdivision, what is it?

Well, it creates new lots much like a typical subdivision. Except for in a unit lot subdivision, it allows flexible application of dimensional standards. So in a ULS for short, the development as a whole, we're gonna consider that the parent the parent lot. So that would conform to all of the zoning dimensional standards, but the individual lots within a unit lot subdivision are not required to meet those development standards. So that's kind of the caveat here.

The development as a whole, the parcel of land as a whole still has to meet those standards, whatever those are. But after the unit lot subdivision is applied, each of those units does not have to meet those standards. So unit lots, we could call them child lots. So we've got the parent lot. We've got the child lot. They're individual. They're sellable. They're going to be legal lots of record, and they'll have their own tax parcel identification number with the county as well. They must be included. This is also something we don't have a choice about.

This must become a new pathway within our short plat regulations. Okay? So that's where these are going to be authored is in that short plat regulation for our city. Ryan, am I correct that our city does a maximum of nine within the short plat? Okay. Perfect. And these two will be an administrative approval. So that's really important too because that really suggests and emphasizes the timelines of things. Right? So this is a way to sort of streamline this process of dividing these units.

So administrative approval. So, yeah, so I think that's probably all I can say about it at this moment. But let's take a look at just some some examples. So so down at the bottom here, if you if you can see that, so you've got your your little key down there. So the unit lot line, of course, is your orange dash line.

So that's fairly self explanatory. You can see the parcel here is all the same, and they've just applied some different configurations, whether it's middle housing, such as in the third example, you've got four townhouse units. The first example, you've got your single family home that's added a triplex in the back. And you can see with those orange lines there how they're applying that unit lot subdivision. So you will end up with some common shared spaces similar to perhaps maybe a condominium model of ownership, but you're also going to own the land that is directly underneath your unit, which is not what you see in a condominium form of ownership.

So these are just, you know, again, just a couple of examples on on how this might be applied and why it might be applied. Last example there, you can see the what I was talking about where an ADU can also be part of that unit lot subdivision, and all every single one of those can can be sold. So, definitely, you know, if we if we look at you know, we we talk a lot about who who are the potential residents of of these units. We don't talk a whole lot about the owner. This definitely does provide or is you know, puts out some more options for some possible revenue options for property owners.

So, you know, I just wanna be mindful to remember they are also part of the equation when we make our decisions as a city. So let's just move right along. I'm almost done. You guys have been so patient. I won't go into huge detail here, but if you want more information, I am happy to send anything your way that you I've got all kinds of resources. But because we were talking about the unit lot subdivision and kind of comparing it to a condominium, this kind of a nice chart commerce produces, it just gives us kind of those high points. What are the differences between the two? And so one of the things that I start there, that we talked about that is the processing time. You know? So this is processed.

A unit lot subdivision would be processed through the jurisdiction with administrative review. That eliminates the state process that is required for a condominium model. So there's a lot of time and paperwork savings there, probably some costs involved with that as well. And then so, anyway, I I won't go through this. But if if you want to spend more time with us, feel free anytime to reach out. I'm happy to send you any resources to take a little bit of a deeper dive into into this process. And, boy, we are we're getting close. We are cooking right along here. So what's next for ADUs and and unit lot subdivisions for time frame? Well, same as with middle housing staffs continuing to work on draft language.

So these are part of those collaborative meetings that we're having that are touching upon everything that we need to implement. And then we'll revisit planning commission in early spring as well with these. What we would like to do is we'd like to excuse me. We'd like to come to you with each item so that we have some time really talking about each item. But we but we'd like to overall propose that all of our housing initiatives, not the co living, the middle housing, unit lot subdivisions, the ADU provisions, that we really package those as a suite of of housing initiatives so so that we would be doing one ordinance process rather than multiple ordinance processes.

So that is our proposal to do that. But, again, you know, we won't overwhelm you. We will make sure that each of these items gets proper attention, if that makes sense.

Yeah. So just to key in on that. So what we'll do is we'll come come to you first thing after the first of the year with middle housing and then followed probably by, ADUs and then followed there by, you know, lots of divisions. So that'll probably be think about maybe a month or so for each one, package those all up, do one public hearing, and then move those to council as a package.

I think that makes sense.

Mhmm. And this last one, it might I you know, I feel like Jeff already really touched upon a lot of of this, but, you know, I just assume the question might come up. Why would we wanna address these altogether? And just, you know, a couple of reasons there are, you know, they all expand housing options and specifically on lots where single family homes are already allowed. So that's kind of the target with a lot of these infill housing initiatives.

They all increase housing choice. They aim to reduce barriers. They aim to promote more affordability or at least reach broader income bands. They all modify the same sort of areas within our leasing municipal code, so it's it's nice to address them all at one time. And, yeah, coordinated update provides clarity and consistency, and then it's efficient too.

So, you know, we all we also wanna be mindful of of how we're working through our processes and be efficient where we can be. And I think that that is all I have for you other than, you know, happy holidays. If you celebrate the holidays, I, I can't believe that we're here already, and here we are. Stop sharing. So that is all I had. I most appreciate your time. This was a lot to get through this evening.

Yeah. Thank you, everybody. And, I don't know. Does anybody have any questions for Jen there really isn't enough specifics in this presentation. Like Jennifer said, we're gonna go through these each of these one by one where there will be a lot more detail, a lot more, room for input from this commission.

What I would like to say to everybody, thank you very much. We went through a lot tonight. This was a pretty meaty meeting. Mhmm. And there was a lot here. I appreciate all of your comments. I appreciate your dedication to the people of Lacey. I wanna wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving, and I hope you and yours remain healthy. And with that, we will see you in about four weeks.

Thank you. You. That's it.

Bye, everybody.

Sure.

Just

wanna see if you've heard it go