Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Hey Tiffany, you're still on the road. I am in Chalan this week at a conference. So yeah, I'm remote again this evening. Okay. I hope it's going well over there. It is other than the 2hour sitst still on 90 trying to get over here. So it was a six-hour drive yesterday. That was fun.

All right, Mr. Chair, we are ready to go. If you are ready to go, sir. Let's go ahead and call this uh planning commission meeting to order. It's uh September 3rd, 2025. Let's go ahead and do roll call. Philip Cones, present. Robert Estrada, present. Mark Hair, present. Larson is currently excused. Lynholm, present. Ellen Talbo, present.

And Sharon Wallace is also traveling. you have reached for. Thank you, Miss Dero. All right, let's go ahead and do the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. Thank you. Has everyone had a chance to review the minutes for our last meeting?

Thank you, Mr. Herd. Mr. Estrada on the second. Uh, rumor has it there's public comments today, but uh, do we have anyone signed up? Anyone online? Mr. Chair, yeah. Need you to take the actual vote for approval of minutes, please. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. Um, all those in favor? All those in favor? I Thank you. Uh, let's see here. Yeah, back to our public comments. Is is there anyone present today who would like to make any comments?

Thank you very much. It looks like we have none and no none online. So, we'll go ahead and close that. Um let's go ahead and jump right into the agenda. We have new business.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And first, I do apologize to everyone involved this evening that I am out of town uh at a conference and so have to be doing this remotely. But I believe you have well I know you have a guest person there in by the name of Andrea Bell. She is our senior planner uh and she's there tonight with Karen Devo uh to assist with working our way through the 2026 comprehensive plan amendment review. And I believe you still also have our new city manager uh Doug Russell who uh just started within the last week or so. And so Mr. Russell, I don't know if you want to say anything on the record or if we should continue. Leave it up to you.

Here to observe.

Okay. All right. Thank you. So with that then we'll get started into the topics of the evening. Uh I will share my screen. So give me just a second here. All right. So, first of all, welcome back as well from uh the extended summer vacation. Glad to be able to uh give you that time off while we had a pause in legislative activity for the planning commission. And I hope you've had a wonderful summer and that it's not too hot there this evening in the city council chambers. We are here to start talking about the annual process for the 2026 comprehensive plan, zoning map and development regulation amendments. And as is the case every year, there is a specific legal uh process that has to be followed. First of all, there is a docket setting process. The docket itself is the list of amendments to be considered substantively the next round of action. So tonight is the beginning of the setting of that docket. Uh and then once that is first approved by you, you recommend it to the city council and the city council decides if it wants to add anything, change anything to the docket for next year and then they would take action this fall as well to set that. Once that is done, that is when uh we start our substantive review through the state environmental policy act uh to to look at all of the impacts of a particular application's um results if it were to go forward. And then there's also review required uh by the department of commerce and the department of ecology as well as other public agency partners. Then come next spring, it there will be a planning commission process by which you will see the substantive content of these

amendments. We're going to just mention at a high level this evening. You'll do a public hearing and then you'll make recommendation when you're ready to to the city council. City council does a similar process. They've got their public hearing that will be at some date probably next April or May. Then there will be their public uh excuse me, the review and then their action that they would take. The effective date of the amendments adopted in this package would be 30 days after action by the city council. We did have uh the call as required by our code for public uh members of the public to submit applications. We did receive two and so they are included in tonight's discussion of a docket. The last thing I would like to just mention this evening on this process is that um partly some of the stuff I've learned uh today at the conference I'm at is there is some pending guidance regarding some of the topics that are included in the docket as of now. And it may be that because the state guidance for how local governments need to implement some of these new rules or laws, we will actually pull some of the items that are currently included in the docket to be at a future time once we have that state guidance. I just don't have a clear sense quite yet of when the guidance will be available. And so we're putting everything in now, but we may pull some things out uh before council takes action on the docket list. So this table summarizes uh what we have. There are 12 amendments. There's a total of 21, but 12 of them are directly in response to state law. Uh the first is talking about um some additional tweaks to lot splitting, which is taking an existing legal lot, allowing uh the the owner to split it in order to have two or in some cases more than two lots for housing purposes. but they do not necessarily conform to all of the

traditional uh parcel requirements for infrastructure setbacks etc. So we've done some initial steps through this last legislative uh policy in the 25 comp plan amendments to do this but there have been some changes with this last legislative session we need to verify that we are consistent with the second one is um building code and regulation reform. I'm going to move this through this quick and give you some additional detail as we move through slides. Third is the uh optional self-certification for accessory dwelling units. Fourth, talking about transit oriented housing development. You've got concerning uh historic landmarks by cities designation. talking about using existing buildings for residential purposes, ensuring uh additional compliance with some tweaked uh language in the housing element of the growth management act. Minimum parking requirement updates. Uh subdivision, again, this is kind of parcel treatment, land parcel treatment inside urban growth areas. UAS include not only cities but the urban portion of counties outside of cities. looking at uh again updated rules regarding the sighting of child care centers, streamlining land use permitting workloads uh in in local government and then again another child care center but where they can be operated inside existing buildings. So those are all direct reactions to state law changes that occurred in the 2425 session. We then have additional uh 10 more. So eight of them are are initiated by the city and then we have the two private amendments that were submitted in July. Um again I'll go high level. We'll do we'll walk through these in a little more detail with um opportunity for you to ask any questions. One is just uh 13 is just asking us to correct the

reference to Pierce Transit versus Pierce County Transit. You've got uh a review of all of the parks zoning in the city to make sure that they are a accurate to what those parks are being used for now and or intended to be used for. And then we've got some changes to rental housing safety program regulations. Talking about split zoning and uh we've talked about that in this last comp plan amendment cycle, but now looking at a number of other parcels in the city that do have split zoning as of now. talking about food trucks and where they might be located permanently within the city. Uh looking at some changes to boarding house regulation and zoning, initial um discussion about pre-approved accessory dwelling units as a potential and then talking about what just occurred in uh the sub area regulations for the downtown. And if you'll recall, you had asked for some work to be done uh by the city to clarify horizontal mixeduse and how that is treated in downtown in particular. This is that next step to that. Then our two private reszone applications. One is in uh the Tilicum area and the other is um on Stilicum Boulevard Southwest uh over on the more eastern side of the city. So altogether again there's 2122 applications uh and we can start walking through those in more detail unless you have any highlevel questions at this point Mr. Chair.

No ma'am thank you

okay so I'll just start moving through um and because I am looking at slides please do stop me if there's anyone with a question. The first one relates to lot splitting. Um this is something where we are just confirming consistency with this new bill. Uh because we do already allow this. But what has been happening is I think quite frankly because of the speed at which the state legislature is adopting some significant land use rule changes. They're doing it one session and then the following session they're having to fix some things that maybe were unintended consequences or things that weren't fully resolved. So, we're just making sure that we uh do comply with this bill 1096. And it may be that this turns into something where there's no action needed by the city by the time we finish that analysis. The second is also looking for consistency against what's now House Bill 1183. This is allowing existing buildings to be used for residential housing and then also uh retrofitting of existing buildings that might meet quote passive house requirements. So essentially energy efficiency without um uh active heating and cooling systems. I'll say a very bluntly a very crude definition of passive house.

Question. Yeah. I'm sorry. We have a question. Sure. Uh, Tiffany, regarding um on page eight, the second paragraph in each of the foregoing instances, etc., etc., and there's no requirement that a city or a county allow a setback of less than 36 in. I don't quite understand what it's trying to say there, that we don't need setbacks. We don't have that. What is it trying to say there? You're talking about page eight of the actual packet

program for this evening. So, one second. Let me get there.

That's the page right here, sir.

Yes. Right there. Okay, this is when you're talking about specifically the um use of existing buildings. Um basically they're trying to make the use of buildings for housing easier and so they're lifting some of the rules that might have traditionally applied. So what you're talking about is existing non-conforming buildings here. Um, if you've got solar energy panels and also new construction or retrofitting to meet passive house requirements, they are saying that the setback is um not as strict or not as required, not as required, that's a bad way to put it, but it is a more um loose process if you will for these types of construction because they are now being promoted uh through the state law. What we will have to do is go back and verify a what our setbacks are. Is there does this even apply to the city of Lakewood? And if so, do we need to make any changes in order to comply with this bill?

So, it's allowing us to not to have any step back at all. There is no requirement that you allow less than 36 in. Meaning, you could have a requirement of at least 36 in. require. Okay. You you you can say you have to be at least 3 ft apart, right? Okay. Okay. Thank you. Sure. You're welcome.

One more question. Sorry, we have one more question. Okay, go ahead. Okay,

next paragraph, I mean on that same page, we're talking about uh parking requirements. Now the way I read it here is if I understand so like for example for an ADU we do not require uh off on street parking but do we require onsite parking? Yeah, this always gets confusing between onsite off street those are the same thing versus offsite on street right so we're talking about cities in our case uh planning under the GMA which does may not require off- streetet parking meaning you cannot require parking on site as a condition for permitting affordable housing or retrofitting or the passive house requirements Um, but you can require off- streetet slash onsite parking if there is um this talk of and you've heard me talk about this, but the empirical parking study that shows for safety reasons you need to be able to um have parking handled on site versus off site, which is the same as on street. So, generally speaking, you cannot for affordable housing say you have to put your parking on site. Same applies for these other types of uh special construction, if you will.

But if it's not safe, the house, right, this is really just a response to the house bill that was passed last year. This isn't the city. This isn't the city's policy. This isn't the city's current policy. This is what we have to verify whether we need to make amendments in order to be consistent with it. Yeah. So this right up here, these are summaries of each of the bills. This is not the proposed language for any of the amendments. Okay. Thank you.

Sure. So the third amendment is talking about again finding and making sure that we are consistent with House Bill 1353 which is actually a voluntary one. This is something that the city council ultimately c could decide to do or not. uh it's it's up to them, but there is the ability now to allow uh self-certified accessory dwelling units on residential properties. Only registered architects can do it and you have a permit that's issued through the self-certification program is the same effect as a quote regular permit. So, it's um something that the legislative uh process this last session originally was going to be a mandate that self-certification programs happen, but uh through negotiation and the bill process that always happens, it ended up being an option. And so, it's a matter of policy really for Lakewood to decide if it wants to allow this. Uh and so, more more analysis and more conversation would happen with this one come next spring. The fourth is looking for consistency with house bill 1491. This is related to transit oriented housing development. So for us um we do have obviously the station district around Sounder Station, but we also have the Pierce County trans sorry I did right there Pierce transit um hub right there in the downtown station sub area as well. So we have to make sure first of all that the um station area definition which has been updated again in state law is consistent in our own code. And then taking a look at density

requirements and bonuses, affordability requirements, uh the fact that multif family property tax exemption is now mandated. The city already has one, but we just have to make sure that if there's any changes to this new mandated MFTTE program that we match it. impact fees, which is something that the city of Lakewood currently does not assess. There's now uh a requirement to take a look at proportionate impact fees, meaning if it's a a smaller house with maybe a smaller number of bedrooms equals less kids equals a lower uh school impact fee potentially. That's the mindset be behind that. But at this point, again, we just would know that that's there. But Lakewood currently does not have impact fees. looking at transit oriented development regulations, making sure we are consistent with the bill, also looking at the minimum residential parking requirements. And one of the things that came out of this last session is, you know, we talked about this over the last 18 months or so, the idea of the empirical parking study that's needed in Lakewood because there are a number of areas that are long-standing residential areas with streets that are too narrow uh to uh accommodate sidewalks, let alone at least one if not two sides of the street being on street parking. So, taking a look at what has been evolving in state law regarding a little bit of a loosening on where you have to or don't have to do uh the parking requirements, it does still require the study, which is something that uh the city is hoping it gets its uh grant from the federal level for uh and then we would carry that out over the next year or so. The fifth amendment is looking at designating historic landmarks. The way the bill now reads is by next July, July of 26, if a property is less than 40

years old, you have sorry, you have to adopt something that will not allow that to be historic. In other words, you will prohibit something being less than 40 years old designated as a um historic landmark. It can be without owner consent if conditions apply, particularly the property is more than 125 years old after July 26 of this year. There's also some criteria and language from the bill um talking about you can do this um excuse me, I'm I'm backing myself out. After July 6th of 25, if you do something to set something up as a historic property or a historic landmark, that is considered void unless the property owner consents. This is also in some respects um not subject to SEPA if it's considered a non-p project action. The sixth amendment is related to uh existing buildings for residential purposes. So, we've talked about this a little bit already, but um essentially when you have um a building that's converted and not all of it is converted to residential use, the parts that are um I'm I'm sorry, I'm reading this and confusing myself. the parts that are being used for um non-residential, the stuff that's not going to be used for residential purposes, do not have to be updated for energy code requirements. As it stands now, where it's being converted, they do have to meet energy code requirements unless and then there's these criteria. So again, this is going to be a process of walking through our current code to make sure that Lakewood matches this. If it does not then it will result in

amendments to uh the development regulations, housing elements and housing development regulations. This is a choice. Again, this was going to be a mandate, but again, in the the process through the legislative sausage making this last session, this was changed to where it cities, if they want to, can take their adopted housing elements and development regulations to the Department of Commerce for a determination of compliance. If this occurs then commerce agrees to u support the city against any uh change or challenge under uh the GMA to the hearings board. So the city has not yet done this but there is the opportunity should like would want to uh bring its elements and development regulations to commerce and we just have to have that included as language within our code if we're going to do it. Minimum parking requirements. This is House Bills 5184 that passed this year. Again, taking a look at what's going on uh with some tweaks to the parking requirements that were passed over the past few sessions. So, at this point, no more than half a parking space per multif family unit, no more than one space for single family home or two parking spaces per 1,000 square ft of commercial space. Then you have also just you can't require any parking for and then this list of things senior and affordable housing, small commercial spaces, small residences, uh the existing building use and then you also have exceptions to this bill. Um parking restrictions do not apply to the following ADA still required. Um the restriction does not apply on smaller jurisdictions, childc care facilities, you can't do that too. and then non-residential spaces in mixeduse buildings. So, it's it's almost to the

point of TDM, but we just have to go back through what's already been adopted to make sure that the city's code regarding parking does comply with this bill 5559. This is land subdivision inside urban growth areas. So again, we're just going to be looking at uh whether or not we fit with the latest version of state law regarding unit lot subdivision. So more to come if there's anything needed. Otherwise, we may just come back with with a recommendation next spring that no actions required. child care centers. There is now this change that was done in the last uh round of changes that you have already reviewed that child care centers are outright permitted in all zones except industrial light industrial and open space. Uh you are allowed to do or you are required as a city to have child care as something that's allowed conditionally if it's onsite. So, for instance, a large factory in theory, if they want to have an on-site child care in an industrial section of the city, they can do that. If it's a standalone child care facility, it would not be allowed in the industrial zone. So, we again just need to verify consistency.

Yeah, we have a quick question on that. Sure. Um, I just wanted I just wanted to ask on that. Does that mean that um the air corridor zone uh is open to childare uses under this

we are not interpreting it that way as staff. So what you will see in the actual language coming before you is that it allows things across the residential and uh commercial into um the conditional and the industrial zones uh child care centers. But air quarter 1 and air quarter 2 do not allow them at all. And that is because of the safety rules regarding the number of people uh in uh daylight hours within a particular acre for a certain amount of time. So no, as of now, air quarter 1 and 2 would not allow child care centers because of those safety concerns. 202611 is one more that making sure that we are consistent regarding regulation of binding site plans, common interest communities and project permits. This is kind of a follow on to 5290 and uh that's first year's worth of data being collected under how quickly the city is processing permits in order to comply with um strengthen straight state law over the last year is coming due. So this is um a further step along the 5290 uh path. One more child care center u bill 5655. When you put a child care center in an existing building that has more than one one use, calculating the occupancy load for the child child care center is only based on where the child care center will actually be provided. So kind of a logical statement, but it's been done to make sure that there's a safe capacity in that childare center in terms of its own space versus the entire building. So those are all of the ones that are required because of state law changes. So more to come as we do that further

analysis of those bills. And once again, if we find uh between now and when council would take action this later this year on setting the docket that guidance from the state will not be available in time to do one or more of those by this next uh comprehensive plan amendment action next spring. We may pull one or two out, but you'll you'll see that before the end of the period where you would take action. So, stepping into some of the locally city initiated amendments for this round. I already mentioned this very simple making sure it's Pierce transit, not Pierce County Transit in our code. The next one, um you'll recall that there was some confusion and changes that were made to the zoning of several parks in this last comp plan amendment package. uh because we've had over time two different park zones, open space and recreation one and two. Uh basically OSR one originally was intended for open space and passive recreation whereas OSR2 was for active recreational uses in cemeteries. Over time as parks have been developed those haven't necessarily held true. meaning something that was zoned OSR1 has actually become used for active something or there's plans right now to create or improve a park for uh active use active recreation i.e. sports something other than an open field where you're walking your dog or something or vice versa. So, we're looking at is there really a need for two zones for the parking for the parks or do we need to just switch this out to where you have the land use designation and the zone open space and recreation. So, more to come on this one. There are some changes to uh chapter 5.60 of the Lakewood Municipal Code uh for the city's rental housing safety program. It's been around since 2018 if

I remember correctly or 2016. And so it's just it's time to brush off the code, make sure it is still accurate um based against state regulations as well as uh excuse me, state wax or regulations as well as state statute. So there'll be some edits there. Split zoning. Uh if you remember, we talked about this in the last comp plan amendment cycle as well. There was that one parcel that at one point had a split zoning between air corridor and industrial. the city had made the action to make it all air quarter and then the owner came back and said, "Hey, we'd like to go back to split zoning." And so there was a decision to allow that to happen. But in the process of doing that, the city has um analyzed and found that there's about 62 parcels in the city that are uh zoned multiple zones or splitzoned. Some of which was from an precityhood where the city just said, "Okay, it's it was two zones under the county before. We're just going to leave it that way." Or other actions have happened since incorporation where now some for whatever reason we've got split zoning. So, the intent of this one is to reach out to property owners to say, "Are you interested or willing or want to talk about why it might be a good idea to just go to a single zone on your parcel or not?" So, this will be a lot of background work by city staff before coming back to the uh council and you next spring with recommendations on whether to uh do away with split zoning on any or all or some of the 62 parcels. 202617 is related to food trucks. Uh, and everybody knows what they are. The way currently Lakewood handles them is they're allowed to park essentially for one day. They're not allowed to stay in one place overnight. And there are rules about if they were um to try to stay in a place overnight, they they have to be

in a covered building or there's other restrictions. There have actually started to be popping up in various cities and we've been contacted by at least one potential uh property owner about some sort of permanent place for food trucks to gather multiple food trucks. Some place call them um food food trucks pads or food truck centers or something. names vary based on different cities, but it's a it's kind of a a way to have that much choice for what people may want, whether it's tied to a specific event or whether it's truly a permanent location for a number of food trucks. So, this isn't an a first a question to the city council. Do you want the city to pursue this? So, if they were to say no and take this out of the docket, we would just leave the current uh rules uh in place and it would be no truck stays in the same place overnight. If on the other hand, the city uh council is ready for us to start looking at this, we would come back next spring with some ideas of how Lakewood would may want to approach allowing uh one or more food trucks in a particular location to be there at least overnight, if not for a truly permanent period. Boarding houses and co-living houses are two things that were touched on in the last comp plan amendment process. It is confusing because uh per state law boarding houses are thrown in with co-l livingiving but Lakewood has purposely historically separated the two. So, this is going to be looking at reconciling that and there may or may not be actual language coming back to you for for action, but we need the opportunity to take a look at where these two things are allowed in the city, which zones, and also if we want to change those regulations or just do away with one with boarding houses and stick with co-living. The 19th amendment here is uh talking

about accessory dwelling units. Again, there is uh the option out there and some jurisdictions have started to do this to have a local government say, "Okay, we know people are now allowed to do accessory dwelling units, but we also know there's cost involved in design uh of them before they ever even start trying to actually build. Is there a desire by again the city council ultimately right now to allow the city somehow to provide an option to u property owners to come in and say I want to do an ADU do you have plans that you've already approved and so I can at least get through this portion of the process faster and at less cost. uh there's a lot of criteria and a lot of considerations regarding who owns the pre-approved plan, who is um responsible over time for keeping that thing up to code if things change, those kinds of questions. So, uh we will be bringing this to you uh for the hearing in action and then to council this fall to see if this is something that the city council wants us to uh proceed with for the next cycle. This is the one that came from your funding of fact related to the annual development regulations which were just uh recently finalized and go into effect September 18th. Uh this is the idea of mixed use in the downtown and particularly horizontal mixed use. So, we are going to be starting to do some research and have more conversations with you to make sure when we go forward next spring to council, there's clear recommended language about how to encourage the type of mixed use that people are hoping for, particularly in the downtown, but this may be ultimately mixeduse language that could apply in other parts of the city as well. The last two are the private applications. Um, first of all, there's

a request to take a parcel uh that's got the star right here, which is in the middle of a commercial 2 zone and immediately adjacent on one side to the air corridor and then uh to the what would that be? The west side uh industrial. The request here is to change this from commercial 2 to neighborhood commercial 2. As you can see here, this is basically the corner of Stilicum Boulevard Southwest and South Tacoma away. So, it's kind of somewhat in the northeastern side of the city. And it's a matter of looking to see if this is appropriate. Uh the city hasn't done any analysis yet on this application, but very initial glance given where it's located, the fact that there is no NC2 anywhere nearby. The potential to reszone this as NC2 at this point doesn't look likely. However, there's a matter of contacting that property owner and understanding what exactly they're hoping to do to see if there's an alternative to reasoning that where they could still get to the result they're hoping for. Final

we go back on that. Uh we have a question here. Sure. I just wanted to ask what does there some sort of permitted use in

I'm sorry I didn't hear the rest of your sentence. Is is um is there some is there a permitted use in NC2 that is not permitted in C2 that is related to this request? That's what we are thinking is in their mind because the terminology may be confusing between commercial 2 and NC2 uses that they are trying to do something which actually might be possible under C2 but we need to understand that better from them. But yes, with commercial 2 versus neighborhood commercial 2, they do have their own list of allowed uses and we just don't know what that is.

Yeah. Yeah. I just need to get some additional clarification from them. If you were to just look at this at face value and say, do we want to um say yes or no as a city to this reszone? It makes no sense from a land use perspective to try to jump from C2 to neighborhood commercial two for one parcel, right? That's a spot zone that's not going to be allowed. However, if we do um some additional background work with this property owner, we may be able to come to resolution without the reszone. So, that's something that we are going to need to start doing on staff side. The last one is also a reszone request. This is again the starred property here. This is down in Tikom. So you'll see Commercial Street on one side, West Thorn Lane Southwest on the other, and then R3 is right over to the water, and uh mixed residential 2 is back toward I5. This is a parcel that has been um requesting a reszone because of the type of use that they are wanting to have on the property. They do right now have a nursery uh school in there which is a different intensity and a different um allowance in the R3 zone. So they are able to do something on their property right now. But this is an application to reszone uh in order to allow daycare centers similar to what we were just talking about a few amendments ago uh as uh something that would be on this parcel. So, we'll again take the analysis through, see if it's something that they still want to do come early next spring or if they're they're happy with what they um are doing now with the nursery, then maybe they'll withdraw this application. In terms of schedule, so tonight was the introduction of all of these. September 17th is the public hearing in front of the commission. October 1st is when you would be scheduled to take action unless you would like more time. Couple weeks later on October 13th, the council picks

up what you have recommended, they have their own hearing with an action scheduled right now for November 3rd. And then once the docket is set, as you know, the process will begin to do the substantive review in some cases substantive drafting by city staff of what will come then back to you next spring, probably February, March, uh to review and then make recommendation again to council for action. So unless there's any other questions on that, that is your first glance at the 2026 uh comprehensive plan package.

Thank you very much. Any no questions? Good. I one uh uh comment. And I know we're going to um dive into these more later, so uh we're getting a little ahead of it, but have you guys um had any more information handed to you about impact fees and their um their legality? I know we want to uh do those and I think we want to get back to them as a a point of creating um offsetting revenue for the expense on new construction. There's been some challenges of late and you mentioned the proportionality portion. So maybe next time when we uh talk talk talk about it if you could uh address that with the the planning commission just what I'm talking about. So we don't we don't need to talk about it today but essentially can we and should we be uh collecting a fee on something that may have already been collected a fee on? We've I've not found it at held in other cities. though I I think it'd be worth us being careful about going too far but still making sure that we're covering all of our bases and getting that cost covered. The um the the um deal with OSR uh I in concept have no problem with that idea. I'm all all for simplifying. One uh challenge or concern that um potentially you could address when we talk about it next is um what are the ramifications for those different uh OSRs than a traditional park like a um

cemetery where um what kind of maintenance is required that's different than a park. Uh, for example, I'm familiar with a a park that someone tried to mow in, which or I'm sorry, a a cemetery someone was mowing in, which is typical for maintenance of a cemetery, and they were flagged by different individuals saying, "Hey, this isn't uh, you know, there's protected um flowers here. You can't mow." And there became a dispute. Uh, in my mind, that should not happen. you know, it's a cemetery first. Um, and so, you know, just making sure that that we're sensible about how that how that um gets executed and we're not creating a problem for ourselves that um is really hard to enforce. So, it's really kind of the maintenance and upkeep, whether it's whether it's a protected tree uh or an oak that comes down, are we going to tear up graves to try and plant a new one or flowers or whatever it is? um you know, we got to we've we've got to think that portion of it through. So, it's just those particular uses that might be affected. How do we manage that?

And um that that was it for me. I really uh I I read through everything in advance. I thought it was well put together. I agreed with the majority of the topics outright. Um but I know we don't have anything to approve because, you know, we don't we need to review it and then approve it. But in general concept, I thought we were on the right track. And I liked your recommendations, all of them, to keep us clean and simple moving forward. Um, and we do have uh one more uh or another question from Mr. Estrada. Sure.

Piggyback on your OSR. Uh to me it was quite simple when you say passive is R1 and and recreation is R2. Uh but then I don't know all the specifics that are required for R1, R2. Yeah. Like you said, uh must be some stipulations. So, but but if they're negligible. Yep. You know, why not? Yeah. If there's So, we need to find out what those are first. Yeah. Agreed. All right. One more one more comment.

Um it's just really an anecdotal comment. I think I was um I find it a little curious that on one hand we went through this whole you know everybody got their comprehensive plans approved in 2024 and in that process you have to go through department of commerce's review in the first place but then I recognize that um the the house bill um in front of us that was passed in 2025 um the timing of that I guess. So now I can see that commerce is allowing an an opportunity for uh a secondary review. I'm I'm curious to know um because of particularly the conference that you're at or just um your awareness of dialogue in the um planning community in general. Are cities lining up to get their housing elements reviewed by commerce voluntarily?

No. And just to summarize what I understand about what occurred with this bill, this came from uh state legislators who wanted to mandate that commerce review every jurisdiction's comprehensive plan and development regulation changes every time they did it. And the thought was at the when the bill was first introduced um a city or county finishes their work, they send everything over and then within 90 days the department of commerce would send them back something that says either this is GMA compliant or not. Um after the negotiations and the reaction as you can anticipate from the department of commerce um it was recognized that that was unrealistic um both for the local governments and also for the department of commerce and its resources. So what you have here is the leftover of legislative negotiation in a very short session. And um whether anybody from the local government will actually take advantage of this, I don't know. But this did not come from local government. It did not come from commerce. It came from state legislators um who wanted to make sure we're having um active compliance with the GMA. So it may just be proforma really, but uh that's that's what I can tell you tonight. Thank you very much. It looks like that's it for uh questions and comments. So, we'll go ahead and wrap that uh part of the business up. And uh we do have council member Anything else, Miss Spear, that you had to Okay.

No,

we do we do have council member Bokei on and uh would love to hear any updates uh he may have from the city council. Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna start with this right away because Tiffany's still on on the line, so she's going to bail me out. She mentioned uh I hope she mentioned the development regulations that we passed, but I think we were sending one back to the planning commission because not because we had questions about your decision, but we got into a little bit about a debate about the expansion of drinking establishments and the impacts of that and we thought that that should go to um back to the planning commission. But I w I will say after she explains it that it's something that there are some things in there that you sent to us that we really do want to approve. So we really want a fairly quick turnaround on it. Uh but I'll I'll send I'll I'll let Tiffany explain it.

Sure. So, if you'll recall, what went through as part of the annual development regulation amendments was this idea of allowing breweries and distilleries in certain zones and it was a change from the current code uh and also updates to terms and where they would be allowed. What happened is you provided the recommendation up to city council and as council member Bokei says it wasn't a the result that happened was they pulled it out of the ordinance and sent it back to you. So, I didn't mention it yet tonight, but you will be getting it, I think, starting October 1st. You're going to start looking again at this idea of where breweries andor distilleries would be allowed um not only in the downtown sub area, but also in other parts of the city in various zones uh in order to be able to come back to the council to answer specific questions or concerns that they voiced. So, uh, it'll be in front of you, not next meeting, but I the meeting after that, and then it will be back in front of council in November, uh, to be able to take action hopefully before the end of the year. Uh, it is whether or not, um, having a tavern or a bar in neighborhood commercial zones or even residential zones. and whether that makes sense given the history of the city and its u development as a city since 1996 as well as just what is the purpose of allowing these things and where does it make sense to allow that in the city. So it will be back in front of you uh two meetings from now.

Thank you.

Sure. I'd also say that we approved last night we approved a contract uh with the company uh related to creating an urban forestry forestry program. I know that there's a lot of interest in that and and you may you may run into folks who are asking you uh how are you doing on that and uh it's because it's been a slow process. So they will be uh creating that program for us and it includes also natural environment and climate change program developing that NECC because we have that whole climate change chapter in our um comprehensive plan. There's also a lot of state requirements now and they'll also develop a a three to five year work plan for the the national environment and climate change program. So a lot more to be heard on that. you know, we've uh approved this contract with the EXP LLC to um begin that process and and I'm sure they'll be reaching out to stakeholders in that. Other than that, we have Fiesta Dealia this uh Saturday at noon at Fort Silicon Park. If you've never been, it is a wonderful event. Um and uh really, really good family event. So, it'd be uh good time to take your kids or grandkids or nieces and nephews. That's all I got, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you very much, Council Member Boi. As always, pleasure to have you with us. Glad to be here. All right, our next meeting is September 17th. We'll uh I'll be here on time. Until then,