City Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Call the meeting to order at 4 o'clock. Can we have a roll call, please?

Tom Salbert. Phil Foyer.

Here.

Joe Mann. Here. Jim Bumker.

Here.

D.G. Garcia.

Here.

Charlie Jenks. Here. Gene Huchel. Here. Abby Sprague. Troy Molinitz.

Here.

Thank you.

uh can we get a motion to excuse tom solberg and ambi sprague move to excuse second motion second discussion hearing none all in favor say aye aye thank you all right pleasure to meet you it's to do the flag from the united states of america to the republic for which it stands

One nation not heard bad about.

An individual with liberty and justice for all.

All right. Can we get a motion to approve the agenda?

Move to approve.

Second. Motion and second. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. You get a motion to approve the minutes from April 22, 2026.

Motion to approve. Second.

Second. Motion, second. Discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. All right. On to workshops. All that.

So we're going to be going into the next phase of our comp plan update, which is going to be the development code changes that we need to start working on. We have enlisted SCJ Alliance to help us with some of that work. So Alicia is going to walk us through kind of the outline of what we're going to be looking at and set the stage for what our next few meetings are going to be about. Do I have a quicker? No, I have to advance the slide, so just let me know when you're ready.

Okay. Great to be here, everybody. Alicia Ayers with SCJ Alliance. I'm one of the PMs on the project. Jen Dial, who maybe you know or don't know, she worked on the PROS plan, your parks plan. She's also involved in this project. So great to be here again. And like Amy said, we're just going through the updates to the code. And so I'm going to walk you through those things. Feel free to ask questions as we go along if you want more details. So the primary goal of the code update is to bring the development code into compliance with state mandates. There have been quite a few, and you've probably seen this as you've been updating your comprehensive plan, particularly around housing, but there's also mandates that are outside of housing that we have to address as well. Housing affordability is closely related to those housing changes that we're looking at. So that's a big one. And we also want to align the goals and policies within your comprehensive plan that you've been working with, with those development regulations. They have to be consistent in order for you to get the plan approved through the state process. So we've kind of broken the presentation down into two sections. There are the mandated code updates, and then we have some recommended code updates. For the mandated code updates, we've got about 11 of those that I'm going to go through. Seven of them are housing, and then four of them are kind of other. They're different topics. Parking is one of them, and then there's some other unrelated. And then in the mandated section, the first three are housing, and then we have some other ones that are kind of other, but there's only seven in the recommended. Go to the next slide. So for middle housing, and you probably heard this term quite a bit, we've listed the RCW or the house bill along the left-hand side to point to that recommendation. But for this particular item, we have to allow at least two residential units, excluding the ADUs, that's a separate thing on the next slide, per lot on all lots that are predominantly zoned for residential. And then the two residential lots may include various types of housing, and we've listed a couple there, the duplex, cottage housing, courtyard apartments, or stacked flats. Those are examples of what those two residential units might look like. Go ahead to the next slide. So accessory dwelling units, this is another one that we're revising. Two big sections here. One is the definition of the ADUs will need to be updated to comply with state standards and update the regulations to align with the increase They have increased the maximum allowable ADU size to at least 1,000 square feet. They're increasing the number of ADUs per lot to allow two on those predominantly residential zones. And then we're removing lot size limitations, primary resident size limitations, or primary resident occupancy requirements.

Pack them in.

Yeah. Go ahead to the next slide. Condominiumization. So we're allowing separate ownership on middle housing units or ADUs on a single lot through the condominiumization or subdivision process. And so what that means is where there is a middle housing type, like an ADU and maybe a single family residence, let's say on a lot, the ownership may be different. And so they're allowing for that to be separated out when there are more than one unit on the lot.

Are they separating the lot itself?

No, the lot itself, I don't believe is being separated out. I think just the ownership of the home.

I have a question. I don't believe, Amy, that the City of Liberty Lake processes CPR applications is sent to the state for processing. Is that true?

I don't know what you mean by CPR.

Condominium property regime, which is just being described. When you want to break out an ADU and separate ownership, Apparently the state law now says that you can do that and sell that property. It's not a lot split, but it's a paper subdivision, if you will, just splitting it off in common interest. Does the city process those requests? I don't think the city does.

I have not seen that. I haven't had very much experience with this yet. So I think that is a process to be determined.

Okay. I have a question. And who pays the taxes?

yeah that is a good question yeah who pays the tax that was my question how are you going to how does title work off you can't if you don't separate the lot that's why

Well, these are things that we can look into further and talk with Amy about those details. Condominium minimization is complex, clearly. And so it is going to require some more discovery. We did recently, Amy sent over a condo I think is what we were calling it. And we recognize that the codes were not real thorough for Liberty Lake. And so that's one of our recommended things is to really look at that and maybe provide some more context within the code on those requirements.

Question then, if it's a mandate, shouldn't the rules of engagement already have been identified?

What do you mean by the rules of engagement?

I knew it was going to work. I just heard you say we will discuss it, but if there's a mandate, what do we have to discuss? That's what I don't understand.

That's a good question.

I think we just need to look more closely at what the laws are and what they're telling us we have to do and make sure that we're complying with that. That's what I think Alicia meant.

So that's my reason for my question is the purpose of going through this workshop and future discussions

is it to better understand how to apply these mandates or is it i mean what is our purpose right now the purpose is that we just want to go over kind of what these are going to be what we're going to be talking about essentially yes and then at the next meeting is when we're going to bring red lines of what we're actually proposing to change um change the mandate no change in our code Okay. What the code language says now or doesn't say now and what it's going to say.

So our goal is to interpret the mandate, whether it has proper guidelines or not, and incorporate it into our development code.

Okay.

All right. That'll help with the discussion, I think, because it sounded for a second there that we had an option. And I don't think we do. Yes?

And to that end, what if someone dies? Who inherits the property?

Yeah. Or who insures the property?

Forget the insurance. We're looking at only inheritance.

Yeah. All of the above.

Probably the state like everything else.

Yeah.

Okay. That's helpful. It gives a lot of questions.

And I wrote down some of these things. Okay. Yeah. Okay, go ahead. So the unit lot subdivision review current standards against RCW to streamline the subdivision process. So the state is looking for more efficient streamlining of that permit coming through the city. Certainly doesn't mean that we're going to find something, but we have to at least look at it and see if we're out of compliance in any of those areas. Manufactured housing must be regulated the same as site-built housing. So two things with this. The zoning district matrix will need to be updated. Some specifications will need to be eliminated. And currently in the code, manufactured homes must have a pitched roof with a minimum slope of 3% and 12%. Go ahead to the next slide. permanent supportive and emergency housing, we need to remove any barriers of limitation to the number of units and residents within a facility. And we've provided a bit of an example here. Instead, utilize the parameters such as occupant load per square foot, rather than the number of folks in the permanent supportive housing. Go ahead to the next slide. Co-living allow co-living as a permitted use in any of the zones that allow at least six multifamily residential units, including lots of zone for mixed use to support seniors and individuals with in need of assistance. The adaptive reuse, so we need to relax some of the design standards in development standards for the adaptive reuse, so that we can encourage the conversion of existing non residential buildings into housing development. Vehicle parking standards, we've got three items under that one. Limit the required spaces of one off-street parking space per unit for two-unit middle housing types on small lots that are 6,000 square feet or less. Again, middle housing is a catch-all term for different housing types. Eliminate parking requirements for, again, middle housing and ADUs within a one-half mile of a major transit stop. and limit the amount of parking required for low-income senior disabled and market rate units located near high-quality transit service stop.

I have a question. Amy, do we have a, did you say high-quality transit stop?

Yes.

Or a major transit stop?

We have high-quality on here, but we also refer to them as a major transit stop.

Do we have such an animal in Liberty Lake? Yes, I do believe we have.

I would have to look closer at the root to give you an exact answer, but I know that I believe we have two that run with the frequency that would qualify for this.

Thank you.

Impact fees?

Uh-huh.

couple of different items here. So amend the fee schedule to allow for the deferment of impact fees for single family detached and attached residential unit construction. Limit the N exempt impact fees on early learning centers and low income and emergency housing development. We want to ensure that the impact fees are not assessed on the construction of an accessory dwelling unit that are greater than 50% of the impact fees that would be imposed on the principal unit. and ensure that the impact fees reflect the proportionate impact for new housing units.

So the only impact fee I can think of is our Harvard Road mitigation fee. Is that right?

That's accurate, yeah.

And this is a mandate to reduce it by 50%? Am I reading that right?

That's what the law says.

For accessory dwellings.

Yeah. And the caveat that they're not greater than 50% of that impact fee.

Oh, right there. Sorry, I missed that. Accessory dwellings. OK.

Thank you. Next slide. Transit demand management. So two items here include some specific language prohibiting the development of the level of service standards for transportation facilities when they cannot be met and include measures to bring locally owned or operated transportation facilities that are below the level of service into compliance. And an example there, highways of state significance should be exempt. So that wraps up the mandated code requirements. And now we're getting into the recommended code requirements. And again, there are seven of these.

These are voluntary.

Yes, we are recommending these to be in compliance with your comprehensive plan as well and or any code that maybe needs to be updated based off that comprehensive plan.

Where did they go? Cut off. OK. It is.

I'm in the wrong day. You guys just all saw me do that.

It was in the same grouping, three of three and five.

OK. We're now down to the ceiling. Oh, I think I got it. I don't know why I didn't I tried to copy all of her slides and into my presentation. So I could just do it seamlessly. But apparently these ones did not go. So I believe this is the first one of the recommended, right? Yes. Sorry, it's all on the screen. It's not sharing the right one. Sure.

So is not to add any more pressure to that she's trying to do over there. Did I? Can we go off topic a little bit? Is that okay? I'm sorry. Can we go off topic a little bit? Did I recently? Are you ready?

I am ready.

Okay. Sorry. I'll ask. Okay.

Yeah, Amy, that looks correct. Okay. Okay. So the 1st, 1 of 7 here, housing times types and densities. So allow 80 use to be built with with duplexes. Expand allow or extend expand allowable housing options such as tiny homes, cottage clusters and co-living developments in the R2, R3 and mixed use zoning districts to increase diversity of housing options citywide. Increase the maximum density of attached housing in the R2 zone from 12 to 16.

Good question.

Yes, sir.

Why do you want to do that?

The second bullet?

Yeah. What was the rationale for that recommendation?

Is Liam on the call too? Can you guys hear me?

Awesome. Hi, this is Liam Taylor with SCJ Alliance. Thanks for promoting me to panelists, Amy. I appreciate it. I think the recommendation just kind of came from um just that this kind of movement of expanding housing types some of these housing types such as tiny homes or cottage clusters might be i'm sorry this is density in r2 oh third bullet third bullet point well i think in my handout it's the second one

It says increase the maximum density for attached housing in our two zones from 12 to 16 units. And my question is, you know, why? What are the pluses? What are the minuses? It was a 33% increase in density. I'm just wondering where that came from. How many units would that be?

Yeah, that's a great question. So then just to read it all out loud, because I was just getting to that one. Our mind is out of order from yours, by the way. Increase the maximum density for attached housing in R2 zones from 12 to 16 units per acre, which is typically associated with moderate density housing. Moderate density housing is the R2. So, and Leah, maybe you could look into this while you're on the call. My guess is that the way that it's zoned right now with the units that it allows is not at a moderate density. a density rate. So to be more consistent with that moderate density, that's why we would be increasing it.

Well, I think it would be worthwhile to consider how many additional units that would yield and whether or not there's infrastructure to support that. And are there any other considerations? It's a big jump. yeah yeah i'll add the other consideration would be the theme from the citizens that live here are yeah not high density it's the exact opposite yeah i mean is that something that they really would enjoy right exactly okay okay what's an example of an r2 district in liberty lake um trying to think of a good example what would the density be

I don't know what off the top of my head I could look it up. Well, I won't do it on here, but I can get back to you on what our current density is. Most of the R2s are, they were zoned R2 because they were already built out to a certain density. Okay. So.

But this would overlap, overlay this kind of density. on that existing density, which gets you to your concern, which I think is really legitimate. Now, personally, from a development point of view and having any experience with this kind of product, you don't really get the yield. If you want to get yield out of land, you really need to go 16 to 18 per acre because most of the, they call it, that's not moderate, middle, Housing is, they talk about stacked flats. That's two-story product. And typically, that's 16 to 18 per acre, depending upon the parking standard. And the 18 per acre has to be, if you have two spaces per unit, you've got to plot it at 18 per acre. Otherwise, it just doesn't make any sense financially. And it doesn't belong. I mean, I'm not too familiar with what R2 is and what we like. Like, from my observation, just sitting here, it doesn't sound like that would be something you'd want to do with an R2 district. Maybe in a light industrial district where you can get people living close to where they work, or a mixed-use district, possibly. But it seems to me an R2, I don't know. And that's, the R2 designation came from the state, did it not?

I think that's within your zone already. Yeah. That's your zone already.

No, no.

bit more about that okay yeah we can do a little bit looking at what that would mean yeah okay yeah i'd agree with that amy i think what i'm hearing in some of these questions is that some understanding even of what's happening currently against what we're recommending would be really helpful okay go ahead to the next one okay we didn't did we talk about the final bullet oh Okay, allow multifamily residential as a limited use in light industrial zones with appropriate buffers.

I have, I just have a question on. These zoning change these additional requirements for. John Potter, Changes to existing zoning as a property owner if i'm by property in in light industrial and my my business plan was to do a specific product on that property because it's the only way it is, how does it work with the. John Potter, I mean do those property owners just Okay, I guess, the state or the city is going to change the. rules of engagement on the zoning when most of this property is already bought up. It's not like it's country vista frontage. Even that's all zoned, C1, 2, whatever it is. So if you come back and you start changing after you've already zoned land for a specific use, is there any recourse from the landowner?

I think if we were reducing the number of options, if we were reducing what you could do, but by allowing multifamily, you're really expanding their development options. So I think if you were to go the other direction, as far as a down zone or restricting what was previously allowed, you could get into some kind of what you're talking about. But by adding it as a limited use, you're really expanding how they could develop their land. They're not saying they have to develop multifamily. It's just saying that they could.

As a neighbor of a new change like that, I wasn't expecting apartments.

And that's fair. If I remember correctly, this recommendation came from the Planning Commission as something to consider. And it would be something that we would have to really look at as far as what the impact would be because we currently have some pretty high standards for landscape buffers between industrial and residential uses. And so that could be something that could have an impact like what you're saying as far as negatively impacting their ability to develop because a previously unconsidered use went in next door. So that's definitely something that we need to look at.

So that's the appropriate buffers part.

Yes. So that would be the buffer part is you really want to make sure that you're protecting the two uses from impacts from each other. And so we would just really need to look at what our current code says for buffers between residential and industrial.

I'm looking at the zoning map now. There's a fair amount of industrial.

Okay. Phil, were you also questioning say I bought this property and developed it into this use because that was all that was allowed, but I had other things I wanted to do and I wasn't able to.

That was my next one. Yeah. Thank you for bringing that up.

I mean, we go back to the gas pump thing from a couple of years ago that we bought this gas station, put it here. We could only have eight pumps at the time. So that's how we developed it. Now we can have 12. Well, how's that fair? Because now we can't put 12 on here, even though, you know, the guy across the street can or, So I think you're spot on with that. And whether the Planning Commission recommended this or not, I think those are valid points to consider. So I agree with Phil.

And we're looking at the economy as well. That's taken the economy into full effect on what's going to happen. Anyone who feels that owns a single family home on some substance financially, who finds themselves in an awkward position and then doesn't want to leave the community that they live in. that they brought the children up in. These are other avenues in my mind that allow such individuals to downsize, to maximize their financial status in a place where it allows you to do it at a lesser cost. So when I look at what I consider, these are recommendations only, that we need to consider the financial position our country is in right now. Liberty Lake may not be in that position, but it can get there, and it can get there really quick where it's going to need to find areas because people selling their homes now in Liberty Lake are buying little teeny-weeny homes for lots of money outside of Liberty Lake. And then they can't afford to move back into Liberty Lake. These are important factors. And then if we want to be an all-inclusive, unless that's an 80 word, right? If we want to be all-inclusive, then we'll make way for that to happen, to gain new areas where we can reinvent our property and do things differently and welcome people other than what currently we have as a base. I'm looking at it that way versus... who's gonna be my neighbor. Because you can't pick your neighbor anyway. So the building doesn't pick your neighbor. You're hoping that the right neighbors move into the community where they understand the laws and the rules that are going on.

But... We'll understand that as it relates to residential zoning. But that's my purpose for my question is it's the zoning change, but... Appropriate buffers, we'll talk about that.

Okay, next slide. can go to the next lighting brian thanks there's a delay i understand okay permanent supportive and emergency housing a couple of bullets here remove spacing requirements between shelters and permanent supportive housing facilities increase or remove transit proximity requirements for permanent supportive housing and emergency housing So currently in the code, there must be at least 0.7 miles apart and within a 0.25 mile distance of public transit. Bullet 3, allow offices in conjunction with permanent supportive housing and emergency housing across all residential zones. And the last one is to adjust parking mandates for permanent supportive housing and emergency housing facilities. Again, currently in the code, it requires 0.5 spaces per bed plus one space per employee. Okay, design standards. Eliminate the minimum enclosed floor area of 1,000 square feet to allow for tiny home development. Remove ADU design standards, such as the maximum number of bedrooms, the six-foot fence, and the minimum roof slope. Allow more flexibility in the commercial space requirements for housing developments and neighborhood-oriented mixed-use zones. Currently the code allows the multifamily housing in mixed use zone must incorporate a commercial component regardless of local commercial demand. So greater flexibility with that bullet three. Revised parking standard requirements for multi-unit housing based on unit size or number of bedrooms. Currently in the code there's 1.75 spaces per unit regardless of the unit size.

There's a recurring theme here and it's parking. Where are people going to park? In the street.

That's right.

If there's no onsite parking for them. I mean, it's not just, I mean, this is like the sixth or seventh time I've heard reduced parking requirements. And for me, it seems like what we currently have is already restrictive. Just drive around town.

To add to that, in the River District, if you park on the street, a fire truck cannot get by, period. And so that's true. That's where the parking will have to be. But what about the safety issues of being able to get a fire engine to a fire or to someone in distress? The streets in the River District aren't wide enough in most places.

So in most developments, they're not wide enough for parking on both sides and two lane traffic.

So what we're thinking in our development, each time we each time we develop something in our community, we work forward thinking in how transportation would actually be involved or impacted, getting from one place to another, like in the river district when we're coming down Harvard Road. and going in. You're very lucky if you can't recall the maneuvers you have to do. So perhaps if we start looking at the transportation elements a little more than the development housing units, we may have that. Now we're having to redevelop. We'll have to redevelop in order to get transportation because life and death is the first you know, important structure. So I think, in my view, when I look at the city of Liberty Lake, I don't see the current developments really looking at transportation as much as it should or could have.

To counter that, though, how do you anticipate that when you've got a legislature with no experience with transportation passing laws, about transportation. And that's part of the problem we have here. We have a legislature that is out of touch because most of them aren't builders. They don't build roads. They don't understand that. Yet they're passing laws to try to reach this green utopia that this state is supposed to be. And it's causing all kinds of problems as we're seeing now. I mean, it's not these guys' fault. It's what the They're interpreting what the state is telling us. And we've got a state that's driving every municipality to mediocrity. Here, here.

We don't have a lobbying arm. The city of Liberty Lake, unless I'm wrong, does not have a lobbying arm. And therefore, there's no one to lobby on the city individually.

That's because we don't have the extra money to lobby with.

Well, if we bring back institutionalized thinking to the populace, then we can talk about with them. We have what we have because we have no power in Olympia. In order to invoke some of that power, in order to do the things we need to do and not have things pushed on us, or we'd like to do, we need to have someone speaking on our behalf are individually . I know we got collective conversations happening in Olympia, but individually, because all cities are unique and they operate differently. And so you are right. While they throw things on us that are mandated, the recommendation becomes a mandated front. Then our hands are tied. So we may want to look at how do we get that lobbyist type individual to argue the points for us when necessary, because we're gonna always then be subject to what we have currently.

I have a question. A couple of times I've brought up this mandate approach from our friends in Olympia. And what I was told was, well, look, we have to do this because if we don't do it, we're not gonna get state money. We're not gonna get grants from the state. because it will make them angry and they won't be complying with exactly what they want us to do. Okay, fine. I mean, I don't agree with that. And I would personally push back against that because I don't think that's either A, fair or B, normal behavior. But with that said, here's the question I have for the two of you. If you take, for example, this issue of parking and you say, okay, we're going to, Talking about the streets in Riverfront, if they're too narrow, we can't allow ADU parking on street. We must require ADU parking on property. If you made kind of a flexible requirement for the state, would they reject that? Or do you think that they would say, okay, look, they're trying to make this work. Dave Kuntz, Instead of creating a problem and river river front but i'm sorry if I didn't get the name correctly if, instead of creating a problem with emergency vehicle access. Dave Kuntz, We can now we can structure the adu adu parking requirements based upon the street with in front of the residents, so that we know. Dave Kuntz, hey we can't have on street parking for this unit, it must be on property is that something that's even possible. Do you think? Would they reject it out of hand?

Let me just add to that. If that's a concern, I think the city has the right to say no parking on the street.

So where do you park? And then you're in direct conflict with what the state wants you to do.

Well, the state says no on-site parking. And if the city says no street parking, then what? Then everybody uses a bus. That's the goal. Which is the goal. But I mean, the street, I mean, it's true. So my question is, the city does have the option to say no parking anytime on the street.

Can I inject another, a different way of looking at this? Yes. From the standpoint of these mandates will continue to flow. They always come from the top to the bottom. And how you implement those mandates are, of course, how the individual communities distinguish themselves from all the other ones. So if we had a little caveat in one of our initial guidelines that says we will not do anything that violates the safety standards appropriate to OSHA or whatever we come up with. But a nice little statement that says we're following all of the state rules. However, if they cause us harm to the community or create an environment that is not conducive to good order, we don't have to comply or we won't comply. Or, of course, we don't want to tell the state we won't do anything. But you have to make it in smooth, soft, Dave Kuntz, Legal type garbage terms that allow us to still function, the way we want to function. Dave Kuntz, Because we're going to shoot ourselves in the foot with all these little at us and people's backyards particularly on duplexes. Dave Kuntz, And then no no parking that's just it's ludicrous to go ahead and think we're going to do that now some communities might and we might have some already that exist. So how do we deal with the future? I think it's a little statement that says we don't do anything that violates the safety standards or the standards that promote good health in communities.

So the question is, how much flexibility do we have without making the state angry and saying, we're going to take away your grant funds?

How do you know? single out Liberty Lake? I doubt it. Because by the time that this all occurs, we'll have a change in their legislators anyhow. And there'll be a new sheriff in town. We'll come out and create different rules.

It's been the same sheriff for 40 years.

Yeah.

It's coming.

It's coming.

That's the problem. It's the fear of losing funding. Matching dollars, right? I mean, that's what it'll all boil down to, is money.

How much money are we talking about?

I don't know. I could tell you this. When they were doing these interchanges, it was $26 million. And that was how many years ago? And I think the city... That was then today.

What are we talking about today? The revenue stream for the city is $29.2 million. Okay? If you take 10% of that and say that's money from the state for various things, sidewalks, whatever it happens to be, you mean to tell me we couldn't find 10% in the city's budget to make up for that loss?

I don't know.

I don't find that hard to believe.

My experience being a part of this experiment has been we probably get taken... more advantage of the TIF and lift options with the county than we do with the state, because the only thing the state's going to offer is if it has something to do with that freeway. Is that fair? So I guess I would ask myself in the next 10 year window, I think they have a capital facilities plan that goes out 30 years. What part of any of those projects would the state participate in? And if the answer is none, then my attitude changes about all of this.

So the comment that I would make, I mean, we're talking specifically about parking. And the mandate is no on-site parking. And which then, where do you park? Well, if it's not safe to park on the street, then the city has the right to say no parking on the street. Now, if that's a problem for the dwelling, so be it. That's just the way it's got to be.

So you couldn't get a permit then?

That's right.

So the city could just reject the permit application and say, can't give you a permit for your ADU?

Oh, no, you can go ahead and give them the permit. It's just that if they park their car in the street, you tow it away.

Or you make a provision for on-site parking.

Or you make it, which you can't because the code doesn't allow that.

No, it does.

They could choose to provide on-site parking.

They could choose to.

You just can't require it.

You can't require it. So there you go.

Any smart developer knows you need on-site parking. Yeah. So it should work itself out. It should work itself out. So all we're trying to do is check the box with the state. So if the day comes and we want some funds from the state that we're not in. We're not in a doghouse. That's about it. Yeah.

Yeah. And I working in some other small jurisdictions, I have seen processes get delayed. to the point that the commerce and thing progress was being made. And so not only can you not apply for funds within that department at commerce, but they talk amongst agencies and sometimes that funding gets held up too. And that really did happen to a jurisdiction. We made it all good, but that's where that can happen. I think to your point, Phil, you don't wanna see yourself get there. You wanna keep the good standing and work within the limitations that we have. And I think what might be helpful for this group is to really look at the flexibilities that we have in the code and a solid understanding of what is and what we're proposing and what the flexibility limits are would probably help with some decision-making around these.

Wonderful.

Okay. I think we got through the design standards, Amy. Okay. A review and permitting process. So eliminate design reviews in the R1 zone, R2, R3 zones for moderate density housing and utilize administrative design review for multifamily housing of more than six units to streamline approval processes. And there's an asterisk there under the administrative design review. For those of you who may or may not be familiar with this process, what that means is development permit process whereby an applicant is reviewed, application is reviewed, approved, or denied by the planning director or the planning director's designee. So it doesn't ever elevate to a more stringent review outside of that planning director or the designee. Bullet number two for preliminary and short plaques, consider making the requirements for adequate public facilities such as streets and sidewalks more explicit. Establish review procedures for condominium plaques.

What do you mean by more explicit? More clear? A standardized requirement?

Yeah, remember when I was talking about that condominium plat that Amy had showed us that we were reviewing, there wasn't a lot of codes around how to process that application. So we're looking at how to make that more clear within the code. So adding some context there for how to process those. Okay, go ahead to the next slide. transitional housing explore temporary or short-term rental programs as traditional transitional housing options for specific groups could you what what what would be a specific group thank you um specific group of the population so um parolees say again parolees people on parole that's a specific group yeah and you are required That's the one example.

Oh, okay. That's one way of looking at it. What if, what if I'm between, um, I'm, uh, I've sold my house, but my, my, uh, my, uh, the one I was going to buy fell through for whatever reason. And now I need short-term housing. Does, is that a specific group? Well, meaning can you allow 30 day rental?

So it's exploring the options to provide short term or temporary for the transitional housing options within the specific group. I think it has more to do with the type of people who would need transitional housing than it is about a short term rental program. for the example like you just said, the average person who owns a single family residential.

Or somebody that's moving to town for work and they haven't been able to find a home yet, they intend to.

Right.

That's a transition. So I guess maybe that key word here is what's the definition of original housing? And specifically who it applies to.

Well, in the case of, I know of a case, transitional housing, because we can, people can rent for 30 days or more here in the City of Liberty, not less. They moved in while their house was being finished, being built, and the business was going and they had to be here. And once the property was, they signed a six month lease, I believe, once the property was all finished, moved out and moved in to their home. So that's the group that you're talking about that are moving here. There are lots of professionals. In fact, Country Vista, Big Trout Lodge has a lot of such type individuals who are moving in as they wait for their home to be built or clothes or anything. And that allows... for them to come in and spend their money here in the city. And then, you know, instead of living somewhere else, hoping to move into a business that's still operating here.

It just seems like we already do that.

That's what I'm saying. We already do it.

Do we really need this? Okay. Okay. We'll figure it out.

Just real quick. My understanding of transitional housing is for people who can't afford it. That was my understanding.

Well, that's why I was asking, what's the definition of transition housing?

Liam, do you happen to have the definition in front of you?

I'm looking it up. I think it might be one of that. Actually, I believe that it might be one of the step housing items. Just going up to RCW. So transitional housing, a project that provides housing and this isn't, this is from the fact sheet. I don't know if this is RCW project that provides housing and supportive services for up to two years or longer for individuals or families who are experiencing homelessness. The purpose of transitional housing is to facilitate, excuse me, the movement of people from homelessness to permanent housing. And the official RCW is transitional housing means a project that provides housing and supportive services to homeless persons or families for up to two years. And that has its purpose facility, excuse me, for up to two years, and that has its purpose facilitating the movement of homeless persons and families into independent living.

Well, do we need the phrase specific groups?

Every definition that I'm seeing online, it has to do with homelessness transition. That's transitional housing.

So what I just asked is, do we need the term specific groups?

that need to be in there if transitional housing is defined yeah then thank you for clarifying because we have a whole bunch of parolees living here in liberty but a bunch yeah right a bunch not uh not a positive thing but so do other cities right but we don't have them a contingent for homelessness. Like they have a family promise and things like that, where they actually help with skills and stuff. So we want a group, one group only is. As you said, Jo, that's been defined.

Yeah. And the thing that made me think of is part of the definition said people experiencing homelessness for up to two years. I mean, groups I could see being broken down into mothers with children, Men, families, I could see groups being broken down that way. We can look at that. And then just to point out, that's why the transitional housing is pointing back to temporary and short-term rentals as a more of a programmatic way of providing that type of housing.

Does it need to be broken down into groups? So this was my question. What does it matter who the people are? well why did they need to fall into a group transitional housing is meant to help everybody in that situation so that's just my my question if it's necessary to put them into specific groups if we're just defining what transitional housing is the only reason why i kind of caveat out that it that way is because with homelessness sometimes there's a safety issues with women and families and being put in with men and so i didn't know i don't know for certain

that that's a concern here, but it's something that we can look at.

But if we're exploring putting programs in place, a program can be for specific that doesn't need to be defined in here. That's just my question.

That's a good point. So if a person builds an ADU on their property and they want to rent it out, they want to take advantage of Section 8 housing vouchers, They could do that. And that could be transitional housing on someone's individual property, could it not?

Transitional housing is totally different than renting it out, the ADU out.

But if someone's homeless, they need a place to go and stay.

If you're homeless, you're not paying rent anywhere. But the transition will allow the little bit of money that you may get from the state or the state. perhaps, will allow you to transition in and transition out. So as you become more skilled, the Delaney Project, for one, the Delaney Project, if you look it up, it is in California. All of the members that come there are parolees, right, or felons, who established themselves in a business. This thing is huge. They get the skills, they get the training, they get everything. They're working businesses and everything, and now they're moved on. But the transition is key. Transition in, give them something to improve their life, and then transition out.

So physically, is this a complex they come to? Or is it separated out individually?

It's a big... It's a complex. It's a big industrial building that wasn't utilized properly, that they turned into... that facility, and it has an open-ended limit. But the word, the key word is transition. Moving in, some kind of skill. So we would want to be able to accept what's being taught there, if it's something that will transition them out to a better life financially, or if it's something that doesn't transition them. Are we to say that all homeless people can transition? You're looking at one thing, right? Okay, in 2008, as the economy blew up, so did my 401k, so did my house here, property there, my vacancy here and there. All of it exploded. It was like a baby. You open the bottle cap, the baby turns it over, and all of it goes out. I was not the only one. It was so many people who suffered that. Now, did I have the wherewithal to figure out what do I do now that my money is gone, my diversified income is gone? People didn't want to hire me because they would have had to pay too much. It was that serious. They paid too much because of what I know, what I'm able, what I was capable of. So you wander around. But thank God I had my car and I had my sister, who was adopting six children out of foster care. She couldn't have a homeless person living in the house with them. So these things are real. These things are real. Have I recovered all that money, all those funds? I didn't recover one penny because once it's taken, it's gone. But as a promise made, a promise kept, right? I persevered and I am where I am now, able to live very comfortably. I have what I have because of what I've done. So we're talking about right now, we're talking about people like me. So when we're talking about it, let's just, and all of you do, do this, thank goodness. Let's put that human element into the picture. Because I was just like most of you. Everything was wonderful. There was no problem with money, finances. I could do what I wanted. Had property in multiple states. So when we're looking at it, as you said, Jordan, Let's look at what the terms are telling us and how we operate within the terms. What is it telling us that we need to do and how do we look at it better? I'm not the them, I'm the us, can happen to any of us. So I look at transitional housing as one of the most important things that a city can do for itself and for its residents. because the economy is about to implode. If we don't believe it, then that lies with the individual. If we don't prepare for it, that again lies with the individual. But if we can prepare for it and structure it where it's top notch, top of the line, it's premier, it's the epitome of what other cities might wanna do, look at us, then I think that's where we really put our focus on one of all of you but that's where we should put our focus not to be argumentative onto just state facts i wouldn't have expected my life to turn up like it did i had everything and then i had nothing so that's what i'm considering when i consider these things that are being recommended okay what does it mean and how do we how do we work within the confines of that how we position ourselves for the next level.

And I appreciate that. But what this says, it does not say that the city has to build this housing. It says we have to allow for it. Yes.

That's the key.

Just to make sure we're all on the same page.

To find things that are vacant, that can be restored, and to find a way to work within the context of that, not to build something, of course.

Okay. Thank you. Can I make a comment? Please. It looks like the term transitional housing is much broader in scope than the chart indicates. A simple thing like adding rentals changes it. As you mentioned, most people don't pay rent. So maybe that whole section, transitional housing, needs to have more attention paid to it, fleshed out a little bit more as to what we're going to really call it. It might just be housing with subsets of transitional set aside for the homeless or transitional set aside for those people in a transient situation between buying and selling a house. Depends on how specific we want to get in regards to the tournament. All I'm saying is we need to look at that whole subset as to what it really is.

Thank you.

Okay, two more slides for the River District specific area plan. So that's the plan that they put together for the River District. Review for compliance and consistency with the rest of the city's development code.

Essentially, do what we're doing in the development code, but also mirror it in the river district sub area plan because it's kind of a separate overlay so just will have to do it into places and making sure that those two things are consistent.

Well, will the two ever combined into one. Hopefully.

I was ambitious that we would be able to do that with this update, but then things changed and we had to revise our scope. We have talked, I specifically have talked with Greenstone about their interest in doing this, and they are interested and willing to come to the table to talk about how we can integrate the SAP into the development code so we don't have these two separate things. And they're on board to move forward, but there's just... It was just a little bit bigger than what we have the bandwidth to do right now. So I suspect that it will come forward in the near future when we resume our regular annual amendment cycle. But for now, it's just what do we need to do to get this whole thing across the table? And then we can look at what we want to do.

Is the River District actually specifically identified? Yes. Okay, so there's actual streets, etc. in the district.

Yes.

Are there significant design standard deviations between River District and the rest of Liberty Lake?

There are some differences, the biggest ones being in parking and landscaping.

So when you get to the point where you've identified these issues, You may find yourself at a decision-making point where we're going to continue on with this with Greenstone and fold it into our development code when we're not. We're going to keep them separate. And that's still a possibility, is it not?

It is. If we were to integrate the two, so take the specific area plan and put it into our development regulations, and there were certain differences in the standards that we didn't want to then combine, we would just call it out separately as this particular topic in the river district is beholden to these standards. So we would just include that in the development code as a kind of a caveat. An overlay is what we like to call it. It's functioned like an overlay. Yeah.

And why do we call it the River District other than the obvious because it's next to the river?

That would be a question for Greenstone. They named it.

They named it. Okay. Are there federal rules that apply to the River District that don't apply to us?

No.

No. No. So what's the differentiation?

Um, well, so Greenstone had kind of a vision for this area. And so they did a specific area plan that had some different, that has some different development standards. There are, there are differences between the two, um, parking and landscaping are one of them. They have different, um, they have like different land use designations and they have different allowable uses within those zoning districts. Those we wouldn't get rid of. We would just add them as a new zoning chapter in our zoning in chapter two. And so essentially we have this because Greenstone had, has this land and they had a vision for what they wanted that to look like so they still wanted it and the city said okay it's really common to have different overlay zones and to have different kind of development or you know just different vibes in different neighborhoods and you you accomplish that through your development regulations and so they had a vision for how they wanted to see this develop And it was a little bit more of a walkable, urbanized area than what maybe we've seen in some of our older neighborhoods. And so they, rather than changing our existing code, they just added a different set of regulations for this particular area.

Okay. I guess the reason we're asking is the district to me implies something other than just a name of an area.

And there are different departments.

Legacy Ridge. Why is Legacy Ridge not a district? What does the term district really mean?

Well, for them specifically, it was, it had very discreet boundaries. It had very discreet edges of this is, you know, this is the land that we have available. So this is where this would apply. Um, there's is also a little bit different because they have commercial components and they have other components than just single family residential that distinguishes it from a subdivision, um, because they have different mixtures of uses happening all across the river district area. So.

did i answer your question yes okay last slide here landscape code three items under the landscape code so update the tree schedule in coordination with the city's arborist ensure the tree species selection and planting guidance are up to date to be resilient to climate change and revisit required landscape areas for new developments to confirm if they are sufficient. Oops, I lied. We have a couple more slides. Okay, other code updates. So this pertains to definitions and the critical areas ordinance. So on this slide, this is a list of updated or, you know, need to be updated or missing definitions. And you can see that there are a lot of critical areas related items, but then there's also just general definitions that we need to add as well.

I would say please add transitional housing to that. Yeah, I was going to say.

I'll make a note of that. I do see that we have all four types of step housing.

So we'll, yeah, there's a. Yeah, that would be included in that.

Okay. Okay, Amy, can you go to the next slide? And some other updates as recommended by the Department of Fish and Wildlife. So add subdivisions in critical areas and mitigation and survey requirements section. Recommend using the site potential tree height mapping tool for determining tree heights. Ensure no net loss of ecological function and value to fish and wildlife species, conservation areas and habitats. adopt the Spokane County's published priority habitat and species list for reference, and ensure all state priority habitats or species are protected, including shrub steppe.

Again, these are recommendations, not requirements. So I'm all for conservation and all that, but how much extra is this going to add? I would just question that, that if it's 100% necessary, it's recommended, it's not required. So. That's what grants are for.

And are you talking about budget and time? Yeah.

I'm talking about everything. Yeah. All of the above. Is this a two paragraph thing in our code or is this going to be pages and pages? Why make it more complicated? Maybe it'll be required in the next four years. Then we'll have to do it.

There's another part of that that I suspect the language could impact how an insurance carrier responds to giving you insurance if you're in a critical area or in some conservation area or habitat or those words can be used in a not positive manner as it relates to insurance i mean i'm just looking at the like the tree height mapping tool that seems complicated to me and unnecessary if it's just recommended so that would just be my example all right i would agree with that but we'll dig in all this at another time is that the goal here yeah

So our next steps, and to Phil's point of getting into this at another time, we have this matrix developed that shows all of these updates that we've talked about today. We're going to comb through the code. see what those requirements are going to look like for you all, document it. And then I think, like we said during the presentation, we can find out where the flexibilities are and talk through anything that we have a flexibility on. But again, we have mandated things and recommended items. And so we'll have to sort through that. And that is the end.

Well, thank you. That was lovely.

Well, thank you.

Okay. Are there any citizen comments this time? There are none. We'll move on. Any online? Sorry.

Online.

Sorry. Thank you. All right. Move to secretary's report. Drum roll.

The only thing I really wanted to point out was the updated schedule in your guys' packet. I was able to remove some, to kind of limit some of our double meetings, but there is a double meeting, I believe it's in July that, yeah, that will be important. That will be important just for our timeline of adoption. So I apologize for that. I know it's two meetings in the middle of summer is not ideal, but I tried every way I could to kind of move the pieces around and still hit our target. And it was, we just, we need to have that meeting to get through the review of what comes. So once we send the comp plan, the draft to commerce and they give us their feedback, we have to then incorporate that feedback and then present that. And so in order to keep our timelines, that's what will happen on that second meeting in July.

Shorts and flip-flops.

whatever it takes to get you here.

All right. Do you have any planning commissioner report?

Well, some people were asking me to ask you, what is happening over with the school and the mode and development of this stadium thing?

It is in various stages of working on it and working together, trying to work together.

How's that going?

There's challenges with every development.

Great answer. Okay, I love it. So is there going to be like a public hearing or what's going to happen?

Yes, there will be a public hearing. We have it scheduled now for June 3rd. I just need to get the notice out.

Okay.

So there was, there was a request for an administrative interpretation. We provided that interpretation and they have, they disagree with it. So they have appealed it. And so the hearing examiner will review and, and provide.

How much does this cost in the city?

I do not know the answer to that.

Another great answer. Yeah. Okay. Any other estimates or any other comments?

Who to adjourn?

second motion second all in favor say aye aye thank you everybody