Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right, folks. I'm calling us to order. It is now 6:30 on April 1st, 2025. So, welcome to the April 1st, 2025 Planning Commission meeting. Can we move on with the role? Acting Chair Chatters, Acting Chair Atkins, please. present. Commissioner Ballard here. Commissioner Sullivan here. Commissioner Shelby here. Commissioner here. Commissioner Welch here. Thank you. All right. I will read the land acknowledgement. We acknowledge the original inhabitants of this place, the Shahob's people, and their successors, the Tleup tribes. Since time of memorial, they have hunted, fished, gathered on, and taken care of these lands and waters. We respect their sovereignty, their right to self-determination, and honor their sacred spiritual connection with the land and water. We will strive to be honest about our past mistakes and bring about a future that includes their people, stories, and voices to form a more just and equitable society. All right. Uh moving on to approval of the minutes for the March 18th, 2025 meeting. Um, would anyone like to offer an amendment or corrections to the minutes? Would anyone like to make a motion for approving the minutes? So moved. Second. It has been moved and seconded. Um, can we go on to uh roll call vote? Oh, we don't do that. Sorry. With school board, we still do that. So, um okay, hearing no objection for the minutes. Um they are approved. And then moving on to reports of commissioners. Does anyone have anything they'd like to

report? I have an item. I think I I emailed uh Cherters and I think she forwarded it to you. Um, I would like us to discuss uh potentially amending our presented zone to council along Airport Road um from what is that 100thish all the way down to 99 um either the parcels that front airport road or roughly 500 ft uh to from light industrial to uh MU7 and I can go into why I think that would be beneficial but you know I'd like us to discuss it. I think we discussed it back in November and December. Um, I was under the impression that that was agreeable to us, but a formal movement thereof and and what have you, I think would be beneficial as we present this to council and to the state as well. And are you asking for that to be discussed at this meeting or at a future meeting? Uh, this meeting would be fine by me. I I'll leave it to staff to tell us whether or not we can do it now or later or yeah the discussion is is appropriate uh today and so yeah if you wanted to start with with some explanation of the of your thoughts there and staff can give some of our thoughts and we can go from there. Sure. So my thought is that um along airport road we have you know the future movement of our light rail we have the one uh paid for train station that's going to come there. the one at 99 is not guaranteed. It's provisional station. Uh we don't know how we're going to pay for it. And so when we're planning for things between now and the end of 2044, to not have the flexibility that I think MU7 would grant uh property owners there, I think does a disservice when we're looking at maybe doing transit oriented development or you know when you get off and you want to uh you take light rail to the airport, you want to find some place to eat or you want to find some place to stay or similar and none of those options would exist in

light industrial zoning if it's maintained as it is. And I think that does that area of town a disservice economically as the airport continues to grow. Couple of pieces of context for this. Um our action plan and this was goes back real quick. Oh yeah. Can we get the get those streets again? Sure. So it's along Airport Road. Um and then it's from uh 99 all the way to the city boundary which I think is 103 100 essentially all the airport. Yeah. Anything on the in the on the city side. So that's on the north side of uh airport road. Everything else is the county presently. Y pulling up my own map here. Um so one piece of context for this in our work program in the actions identified in the urban form element includes sub area planning for the southwest ever industrial uh manufacturing and industrial center. This is a work that's a little bit overdue from the regional council's requirements for maintaining that manufacturing and industrial center designation and procedures for it. Um, we had I don't think this is written in the plan, but as we have been thinking about that work, which is not the area that you're talking about, just north of there, it's the the large heavy industrial and some light industrial as well around the Boeing production facility, Hardison 75th. Severe that whole industrial cluster. It does extend into Payanefield and some unincorporated county land. So, this would have to be a joint project with the county. um they're aware that this is something that we're both overdue on with uh Puget in Puget Regional Puget Sound Regional

Council's framework. So, we're planning to do that as soon as possible. That might be one of the very first ones because we're overdue on it. when thinking about the scope of that work. Um, and when we're going through the use tables as part of, uh, as part of this periodic update, there's a lot about our industrial uh, regulatory framework that we were interested in looking at. Uh, uses that are allowed in the heavy industrial, the light industrial, and the light industrial mixed use zones. um what used to be LI2 and LI1, now LI and LIMU. Um where those zones are and how to best implement the policies and goals of the urban form element, economic development and all the rest. Um a little bit of scope creep, but uh seems well in line with studying our biggest concentration of industrial area. So, we were thinking to do the manufacturing industrial center sub area plan and tack on to it a review of our overall industrial zoning framework. Um, that could get into the uses. That could also get into things like setbacks and lot coverage. We're still wrestling a little bit as we put the final touches on this um on this plan with the Southwest Everett industrial area and the LI zone. What is currently LI2, what we're proposing to rename as LI had in the past been envisioned as like a business park kind of a place with lots of landscaping and lots of land prohibited to be covered by buildings. heavy growth targets, lots of jobs

needed, intensification of land is the overall goal and the overall thrust of the comprehensive plan. And so having I think we're at like a 50% maximum lot coverage by building in the LI zone and 20 plus foot setbacks and landscaping around buildings and all those sorts of things valuable. We want to maintain a green character in that part of town and everything. But that's among the examples of the things that we would be looking at um as part of this review of industrial zoning. And then one more step of potential scope creep but I think valuable would be studying the needs of a growing pain field. We are very curious ourselves where what the right answer is. Um, Payanefield just completed a master planning process about a year ago. Um, and is planning for substantial growth, not astronomical growth in this cycle, but substantial and steady growth that eventually is going to reach a tipping point where you're going to need hotels and car rentals and uh, airport serving um, maybe even cargo. That was kind of a question mark for us. How much Panefield is going to have a cargo component to it. So, those were the three. Um, I've wondered if those are the types of uses that we should try to uh support on Evergreen Way right down 100th and have like a shuttle to a little commercial cluster that serves folks who are uh popping into town for a little bit down Airport Road or Airport Way in the direction that you're talking or even farther down there. Uh, or what? Um, so I offer that that was an opportunity that we were considering to review all of those things all together in one big project. Uh, probably next year. Overall, um, we have a regional

and local policy framework that puts a high value on industrial land. Um, and I professionally agree with it. we have pretty scarce industrial land that's of the size and shape and location and everything to support uh a really important part of our economy that produces uh brings capital into the region and has big multipliers and everything for other jobs. So I I'm personally pretty hesitant to um release any industrial zoning um without very careful study. So I think uh the staff recommendation will be at this time to to leave it as light industrial. Um there are also some of the implications of that include that all of the uses that are in the mixed urban zone which are lots and lots and lots of things and I could definitely see a situation where um other non-airport and non-industrial type uses uh start to locate there and and we don't get any. So, I'm not exactly sure. That's why we would need to do some work on what the right answer to get. Uh, if we do want to transition some of that area into airport serving uses, which is jobs, it is tax revenue and tax base and all of those things. Um, so some context and uh an initial staff recommendation on that. Uh but happy to hear what other thoughts uh you and the commission have and we can definitely raise this with the council and and broaden the conversation within city government as well. Check in with our economic development folks and um the county would be a part of that whole next year study as well. Can you remind me as part of the sub area planning process what could come from that planning document zoning changes or Yeah. Yeah. It would be an element a sub element of the

comprehensive plan. So just like we'd have gold goals and policies and maps that would have implementing reszones and uh changes to the development regulations and everything localized policies. Yeah. could have infrastructure needs uh more specifically. So this comprehensive plan covers the entire city, but when you start to zoom in on a particular area, you pick up on particular projects that had been missed or maybe rep prioritize some things now and and conversations with the community and the businesses and everything there too. How many different areas would we be looking at? Just the airport area or in this study? Yeah. If we when we get to this Yeah. I I I see it as the place of the Southwest Everett Industrial Center, which is north of the area that we're talking about right now. The concept or the the industrial zoning wherever it is in the city. Yeah. But like where's into the airport? So it's Boeing the airport, the port, the other side over by Snowish River, the industrial areas. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much the entire waterfront and riverfront all around the peninsula. all of Smith Island, a little bit down by Lel along the railroad tracks uh heading south along like Smith Avenue and and some of those areas. And then the big the big one which is the Southwest Ever Industrial Center which has a a finger going south on Airport Road. So I could see like these are actually different areas of the city, right? So the zoning that bumps up to these is going to be okay different. I the biggest questions that we have is around the southwest. Um, I I feel like the river side and waterfront and all of that is in a pretty good place and Smith Island. Uh, it's probably worth its own sub area planning process at some point. I'm not sure that that's ripe yet, but um, so I think the focus of this whole thing

would be mainly in the southwest. Cool. Any additional remarks? Yeah, I'm happy to hear what what other kind of thoughts you have. Um and uh and and the basic idea was to start to move in the direction of the airport and start to recognize its growth and start to capitalize on it a little bit, right? Uh yeah. Also, you know, prepping for for the light rail, right? Because if you look at at least as a consumer I mean not necessarily industrial it's not going to happen um next to light rail in terms of its use but for movement to jobs I was thinking about you know with what's planned out uh you know you're two to three stops away after you get to Painfield from like meal lodging recreation at a minimum and that seems not friendly to a pedestrianoriented uh you know method of transit. So correct and Sound Transit has just published a set of TOD oriented policies and programs for putting together the plans for those station areas and they are more mixed use than industrial sighted. But at the same time we will have to be focusing on the primary uses of that area. And so there might be some pocket that gets a commercial entity close to a stop, but the rest stays or something to that effect. You know, I'm not knocking that. I I'm wondering if it's in the best interest of the city though to give two of them to Light Industrial, right? Because we're going to have we have paid for in the expansion the one here at Payfield and the mowing stop which is going to be at Seahurst, right? Like I know there's not a ton of land there. We've got Hardison and the rest of that and you know

whatever ends up being operation maintenance facility north and then the station uh over potentially by Fred Meyer or what have you and 526. But I'm just curious if it is staff's opinion or the city's opinion that the best use of those two stops is all light industrial because I think as it is now that's what's going to happen and we're two years away from the draft EIS for rail. We're less than 10 from deployment and you know this is supposed to take us seven years past in planning. So it's something to think about right like nowish that's all I mean that's that's my concern right it'll be a 2026 2027 sort of project. Yes. and our economic development director has um is interested at in the potential of reimagining the Southwest Everett in station. Southwest Everett station, Southwest Everett, Southwest Industrial Station, S SWI. Um, depending where it locates, that's the one that has the biggest uh separation between its potential all the way from 100 at the south, uh, the one in the middle that nobody really likes, and then the one right across the freeway from Boeing. Um, those two on either end are very different locations with very different relationships. the one that the city is pushing for, the one right across from Boeing, um which I think has has the nod as the preferred at the moment. Um that's where at least I've heard some conversation around could that be broken up the super blocks and made into a small block uh mixeduse kind of an area. Um when I'm in those conversations, I remind folks the importance of our industrial base. Uh half of that land is

institutional. It's uh bus yards and and maintenance bases and um there's a couple of school bus yards and things like that. Yeah. So, I think it's it's absolutely something that we need to think about. Um I uh the staff's recommendation only is time and pace on that to make sure that we're um very thoughtful about how we do it. So you're so if I understand you're wanting to wait to make that decision. Is is it is it the hopes that it wouldn't change while you're doing that and and as industrial it would less have less of a chance of changing? So and if you change the zoning that you would lose something or lose control of that. That makes sense. I wouldn't want to change zoning and change it back. Okay. Not that that's the worst thing in the world. I mean, it's it's within our authority. Um, industrial to mixed use is a comprehensive plan. So, we have our uh residential, mixed use, and industrial are the three designations in the comprehensive plan. So, you can change intensities within those without going back to the comp plan. But when you switch from one to the other, it's a comprehensive plan change. that would be okay as well to go back and forth with this uh with the sub area plan that would be touching the comprehensive plan. Anyways, uh you could definitely see permits come in for something that was neither airport serving nor industrial and then that land would be um converted from industrial. Uh we would hope to potentially see industrial development uh during that time. Um, so those would be kind of the hesitation, uh, stability and the potential of change.

That wasn't what we were looking for. There is the light industrial mixed use zone that is one step closer than the light industrial zone. Um, and that was was that the I believe that was my intent. Yes, you could do both, right? Like light industrial or mixed use. So I apologize for using the wrong terminology, right? Yeah. No. And I I Yeah. Um would we be able to recapture if if this were to go to the MU or to the to a mixeduse would um would we replace the industrial in another part of the city or would it just be lost? It would be difficult to do that on this timeline of the next couple of months to identify another place to redesate as industrial. In the draft use matrices of 1905, we have um light industrial use allowed in the mixed urban zone for the first time. mix urban zones um that is intended to permit mostly smallcale manufacturing and assembly not the big uh warehousing is a different use and would not be allowed but uh assembly and manufacturing and other non-noxxious types of industry. So, it couldn't be uh big smoke stack stuff, but it could be we've just run into a lot of those uh food processing, mushroom production, uh could be someone wants to churn out lawn gnomes or something and that would be just fine on an evergreen way or something like that. So we are broadening our industrial base in a small way with that and that could be a balance for this. Um I could go down the uses that are allowed in light industrial mixed use but not light industrial if that would help kind of clarify this. I do

think it's a different story light liu versus mu. Um so sorry if I had heard the wrong No, you did. I was in I was I had previously said at both an email and here MU and my intention was light industrial mixed use. So yes, like the allowing both of them or or a combination of those for those properties, not forcing them all to non-industrial use because I agree that losing that much industrial property would be a disservice to the community as well. Uh, so if if you'd like because the the next agenda items are relatively short. If you want to linger on this topic for a moment, I could work through a couple of those uses or I could send it to you in an email afterwards for your review for the next item, too. I think this is the kind of thing that can be changed uh up until in our next couple of meetings as well. Well, on the land use map, it still would show as industrial. So, it's not a comp plan change to go from L1 to LI mixed use. So, that is easy. It's so we don't have to do a major change there. It's more the zoning category and that way you can see exactly what's permitted which gives a wide variety but it does not allow um under mixed use you can have a lot of automotive related uses which would not necessarily be appropriate car washes those kinds of things which this would not permit and so it would give but it and it doesn't necessarily allow ow a cafe or a deli or something to serve those areas. But we have under um development agreements permitted those in other areas that are industrial so that people don't have to go for miles

to get a sandwich. Hotels, one example, allowed in light industrial mixuse, not allowed in light industrial. That's probably the most uh obvious airport serving use. There's some that go the other direction. Um uh automo impound storage and towyard allowed in light industrial not liu. Same with heavy truck and equipment sales allowed in light industrial not liu. Entertainment and recreation enclosed in buildings allowed in limu not in liging. You can have your trampoline in the center or your indoor pickle ball. There's not a lot of difference. I mean, this is kind of what we're hoping to sort out next year. What is the real uh half of the stuff is in the setbacks. We had the area under uh under US2 at the river that cluster that's not the ever station district but it's across um I5. We had that in as light industrial um which was fine because it's less of a mixeduse appropriate area but the setbacks and those business park type development standards for light industrial would have made development impossible there. So just because of that we switched it to light industrial mixed use. Um I for some of this was made north versus south more than like intense versus not. Some of it was Everett station district and a area in transition in time and place between light industrial and mixed use. Um and I

we just need some time to sort that out. In the meantime, I tone down some of the concern uh going from light industrial to limu. Um quite a bit of that I guess compared to mixer. So if it's something I mean this is something that the planning commission could put on the record as a recommendation. Uh even if you don't I will surely um staff will take a closer look at this. We will put together some uh it's a good exercise anyways to better understand this so we can put together some information on it and share that with the council as one of the topics too. Yeah. And if we could you know if we could ask them for some direction as well right if they think this is an important thing to take a look at like we already assigned to us we're here to help them. So Right. Yep. And did we want to take a formal position on this though? I I would not ask that of this body at this time. Any additional uh reports of commissioners. All right, we'll move on to staff comments. Most important one almost done. We have our and this is a milestone. I'm not sure how many elements we have 12 maybe 13 14 in this comprehensive plan. Tonight we have the very last one uh goals and policies and actions for you. Public facilities and services. Uh and this was a doozy uh to get through in the last couple of weeks. Lots of coordination uh city departments, lots of uh and outside of the city. Um so anyways, I won't get into that, but I'll just say that this is the last element. We are planning to publish the draft on uh Friday of the comprehensive plan and the

development regulations that are proposed as part of Ever 2044. We had said last Friday, but needed a little bit more time to get that done. Um we met with the council there uh earlier. I think it was on uh March 19th meeting was extended to March 26th to work through uh council amendments to the early draft package. Um most of those amendments were focused on the on the proposed zoning map. Uh a couple more were uh moved by the council and approved by the council to amend this package that will go to the state and to Pugettown Regional Council this Friday. And those include uh 19th uh has been from 100th at the north to 128. So just north of Fred Meyer. Um everything that was mixed urban 15 has been reduced to mixed urban 7 at the request of council members Arlingo. Both sides of uh of 19th. cited in that were as reasons for traffic. People just cannot figure out how to turn the wheel when the road turns and they keep running into the lake. And more traffic and more people would result in put more potential for issues. Although I think we've got uh maybe some design work to try to handle that even for the population that we do have. Uh and then just some kind of compatibility and adjacency. We've talked long about the uh next door being uh single family zoning in the county and some other places like that. Uh so that was reduced um in the central part 15 remains uh on 132nd or is it 130th there? 32nd and up north from 100th to

[Music] um the I can't remember the name but north the red part. Yeah, it's a freeway pretty much. Um that was balanced with an increase for the Bethany Northwest property and there is a road uh Shore Heights Lakes Shore Heights Lakes Shore Heights with a couple of I don't know 12 or so parcels on it. So that was included and all of this went up from UR4 to UR7. And then uh there's also a property that's not Bethany. It is a apartment or condominium complex. Water waterford. Yes. Um so Waterford, Bethany and then the parcels along Lake Shore Heights were all increased from UR4 to UR7 which kind of matches that means most of the corridors at about that seven. So the council uh uh moved voted and approved that change. [Music] Um there was some more discussion about neighborhood commercial and the council continues to consider limiting neighborhood commercial to arterials and there was one kind of compromised position discussed which was within a couple of blocks or 500 ft of arterials. Arterials would be all the classifications down to collector. There's also a couple that seem oddly missing from the arterial map which is Walnut 100th and uh section of federal. So the discussion was around producing it. They did not come to a decision on that. This will continue uh at their at some upcoming council meetings. We'll continue to um support that discussion. Um

I think I I can't remember if it was done in the 19th or on the 26th, but there was also a row of properties south of Everett High School on Hoy that were increased from seven floors to 15 26th. 26th. Thank you. And then the parking lot across the street from the Everett Public Library was increased from 7 to 15 also, I believe. So overall, Muckleio Boulevard and Muckleio Boulevard on the 19th was decreased from UR4 to NR neighborhood residential. Glenwood Kenwood were increased from 4 to 7. The mobile home park policy was added asking staff to develop regulations to protect mobile home parks from conversion to other uses and that discussion about neighborhood commercial and arterials. Wait, hold on. Go back to the mobile home thing. Yes. Where where are you with that? There are three mobile home parks in the city and we were requested to look at putting overlays on them, right? I did a whole host of research after that meeting and actually during the meeting, sorry. Um, and discovered that we can put overlays on them. It does not necessarily protect them. I see. Because I one of those requests came during our uh neighborhood meetings about the winning. So, it's like saying to a business owner, you have to o run a business in perpetuity, which you can't make somebody do that, right? And if they choose not to run that business, that there is a ramification for unfortunately for the people that are there. But there are under state law there are options for buyouts for how long it takes that you sell the property

um and those types of things. And so and it you can also limit the number of uses that are permitted in those in those overlays. And some of them are schools, television antennas, um really mundane type of things in order to basically say you're using your highest and best use essentially, but we can't require them to continue to operate a manufactured home park. So, correct me as I go. So, let's just talk about the one in Silver Lake on both sides of the freeway. Mhm. So, we're going to move those to your four. There would be a new uh So, what we've done so far, we've added a policy looking at older map. So, please pretty close. Um we so far we've added a policy that reads protect manufactured/mobile home parks from redevelopment into other uses. So, that is what kind of sets us on this path and that is what will be in the package that goes to the state this Friday. We will have to catch up with regulations. It doesn't have to be as part of the periodic update. It can lag by weeks or months or something like that. Although I know this is an urgent situation in some cases. Um it would entail, as I understand it, putting a zone called mobile home park on certain properties and deciding which ones is one of the biggest pieces that we need to figure out. Not necessarily deciding which ones, deciding how you decide which ones fairly and appropriately. then that mobile home park zone would say the only use that is allowed here is mobile home park. So you cannot compel them to continue to operate but you can remove the opportunity to uh to close the park and redevelop it into town houses or houses or something more value. Okay. Okay,

that's good. I think that from the initial conversation that's essentially you know anything is better than nothing. Yeah. So, it won't protect um rent increases, uh tenant protections, all those things are separate. There are some things that we can do under state law. Lots of things that we can't do. Um there's also uh working with nonprofits to try to help. I I guess that fell through for Silver Shores or maybe an early uh attempt did, but opportunity to the residents to purchase or things like that. This is a small step that will um remove one threat, if you will, to the park, but not all of them. Silver Shores, I think, was one of, or if if not the genesis of this. So, I would expect that one to be on the list. Which other ones um within the city, I don't know yet. That's where the turtle crossing happens. That's right. Yeah, that's right. uh shows the value of uh of neighborhood meetings and bringing people together. They need to get an endangered species. That's right. Right. Right. So that those were so far at least um and it this was a partial package so they didn't have everything in front of them and certainly not in the most easy to consume format but you can get a flavor of what those uh early issues that the council saw. Um they may still make more changes. uh they will uh when we send this out to the state and everything, we're going to launch the biggest uh comment period of this process. Uh which means we will spam everybody. It's not spam at that point. It is valuable information. We will send notice of the comp plan and the development regulations and I would expect people who have not been engaged

so far to maybe take notice of it. I would expect potentially some press around it. That's the kind of thing that will find its way to the council and maybe to you as well. We are preparing public comment reports to organize everything that we've received over time. So, we've been collecting, considering, and working this kind of public comment into this whole project. Uh, but we want to make sure to share that in summary and detailed form with both the planning commission and the council. So, uh, Danielle is working on that right now. Hopefully not right now, but these days. So, that was the March 26th meeting. All right. Do we have anyone signed up for public comment online or offline? No, we do not. All right. Moving on to Everert 2044 public facilities and services element. I'll turn it over to staff. Okay. Thank you. Last element, public facilities and services. That is uh our proposed name for what the growth management act calls the capital facilities plan element and the utilities element in our existing 2015 comprehensive plan. Uh those are combined into the capital facilities and utilities element. So we propose keeping that combination uh and naming it with something a little bit more accessible to the general public. uh requirements for this el these two elements are laid out in in RCW state law and in the Washington administrative code agency rules and they include uh inventories, forecasts of needs, proposed locations and capacities of expanded or new capital facilities, at least a six-year plan uh financing plan for delivering needed facilities, and a requirement to reassess the land use or urban form element if probable funding

falls short of meeting the needs. The types of um just a quick moment. The types of public facilities and services that are included include uh provided by the city of Everett, police and fire protection, library and general local government services. uh provided by the city via enterprise utilities are the water system, the sanitary sewer service and storm water management provided by uh special school districts, our public K through2 schools, Everett and Muckleio school districts. And then we have uh parks provided by the city and transportation provided by the city both of which have their own elements. The parks recreation and open space element and the transportation element. Then there are utilities which include electric utility provided by Snomish PUB, the gas utility from Puget Sound Energy, solid waste provided by contract through Rubino and Waste Management depending where you live. um and telecommunications provided by a whole bunch of providers. We have uh that going down that line is kind of um more control, less control, more control at the front, less control at the end, more dependent and more important for uh managing growth in the beginning. and uh utilities. It was a little bit confusing to me what the difference between a capital facility and a utility is or a public service and a utility. As I gleaned from lots of reading on this, utilities are kind of always available, not usually capacity limited in any major way. You have

development, you run a uh power wire to that development and you can handle it. Yes, there are transformer needs and there are uh ultimately you could run out of power at some point. PUD is working on all of those things. Um but they are more immediately demand responsive. The water and sewer and storm water have long lead uh expensive durable facilities and equipment that needs to be planned for. So they are in that capital facilities bucket. The element helps ensure the practicality of our uh land use plan. Make sure that we have the ability between all of those different providers to uh serve the housing and employment growth and other needs of the city and cure existing deficiencies if there are any and then meet those uh growing needs. The farther out you get in the planning period, the less uh uh definition we have and we expect. So most of the financing plans are focused on the first six years with a little bit less of an adequacy test for the full 20-year planning period. Um the short version of all of this is that we uh do have the ability to serve the urban form element and the projected population and employment growth. uh there are in places some need for new revenues or demand management or some things but it is within our capacity to deliver. We have goals and policies and in your packet you see uh three exhibits. We have the goal alignment sheet that you're familiar with that looks at uh upstream regional and state goals for the function. We have draft goals and policies. And then we included a policy change tracker in this one

because someone might otherwise wonder where did all the policies go. This one was a meaty element. Um I don't know that I've counted the words on all of these, but the public facilities or the capital facilities and utilities element of our existing plan had 5,500 words of goals and policies and objectives and implementation actions. Um, I think we trimmed that down by about 80% to the goals and policies that are proposed that you have here. What happened to all the rest of them? Um, we tracked just about all of them down elsewhere in our current proposed comprehensive plan and they were repeated a lot even in the same and there were some who were repeated. Yeah. uh some of them seemed appropriate that were kind of more explanatory than a policy. So maybe they were appropriate to move to element text which we have done. What's an example? I'll give one example. Um in our current capital facilities and utilities element policy 6.4.1 4.1 says, "When adverse impacts to the environment are considered likely as a result of the capital's facilities project, the city shall use a preferred order of mitigation per the city's critical areas ordinance, which is avoid, minimize, rectify, reduce overtime, and compensate. We had a very similar policy in our proposed urban form element. Maintain a policy and regulatory approach that mandates an overall net no net loss in functions value or area. For aquatic resource critical areas, use the Washington state definition of mitigation, including a mitigation sequencing approach. Avoid, minimize, rectify, reduce over time, and compensate for unavoidable impacts. So, we thought that that covered uh this topic. at the urban form element and this policy applies just as well to

capital facilities and utilities as it does to private development. So that is kind of the thinking there. The bold text that you see in a lot of these help to wade through uh 5500 on one column and another uh 3,000 words in the other column and try to zero in on what the topic of the policy is. So that's kind of where you that is not going to stay into the final plan, but it kind of helps draw the eye to what uh any given goal or policy's main topic is. I don't think I wouldn't say that we had any major changes in our approach to capital facilities planning as part of this update. Um we evaluate our capital facility needs across all of those continuously. We are in the process of uh the very last stages of updating our uh sanitary sewer comprehensive plan that is with the state department of ecology for their review and will be adopted pretty soon. So that's one example. Our last water system plan was just a couple of years ago and will be adopted again in a couple of years. as parks, recreation, open space, same thing. You'll notice the very first policy is uh a direct link to those other elements that uh themselves address many of the requirements in state law. And those are the comprehensive water plan, sewer plan, surface water comprehensive plan, and then the two school district capital facilities plans. Those are the uh capital facilities necessary for growth. So that's why they have a little bit of an enhanced reference there. And the entire element um did not share that with you because we haven't been, but that will be in the package this Friday and will include lots of tables, inventories, maps, discussion,

and all of that. So you can learn all about what helps make the city run. That is all I have in terms of an overview of this. Any questions or comments from commissioners? I got a quick question on the on the comp plans from like the the schools and stuff. Um are do we need to be concerned with and I don't know if they produce what comp plants from Ever CC and the Wazoo extensions or not since that's at there's any more growth or something like that like do they have comp plans that they share with us? They have master plans. Yes. And we do work with them on theirs. Okay. Yeah. So we have I I would call it informally. I we met with uh Washington State University just a couple of weeks ago at Everett Community College is currently updating their their master plan. So we coordinate closely with them on both local zoning issues and how you know can we build the buildings that we would like to on this campus as well as understanding the future enrollment possibilities. Any additional comments or questions? Going once, going twice. Although those plans exist, they are not required under the WAC to be incorporated here. That's what I was wonder. Thanks. But for land use purposes, we do coordinate with them on their whole plans. All right. Do we have anyone signed up for public comment in person or online? No, we do not. All right. Well, that finishes up with uh the public facilities and services element. Now, on to regulations. Yes, this was uh an optimistic or this was based on our uh trajectory.

Um I was been cranking very very hard on the comprehensive plan and the development regulations themselves. Um, we I think wrapped up chapter 8 this morning finally completely uh with the land use team. Chapter 8 is the one that is the neighborhood residential zone. I was thinking to potentially walk that through with you this evening. Um, but I don't think I was able to put it together in a way that would have been productive. Um, I think what would be best is if we have the rest of the week to complete everything and then give you some time to read it ahead of time. Um, because having you follow along in the meeting would not have been a proper use of time. So, I apologize for having that on the agenda but not getting to it. Um, we are racing the clock. I think we are going to uh be okay here. So my request would be to defer this item until our next meeting at which point it is going to grow into a massive item. Uh at that meeting we can expect the complete we'll give you a striketh through drafts of everything as well as a clean copy of everything. We'll also have the complete comprehensive plan with all of the elements to discuss. Um, so if we want to talk at all about what you would like to see out of that other than clearly more time with it than we have been able to deliver agenda packets for you, but I think we can send you for example uh you will be CCD and we can consider that kind of part of your packet for the April 15th meeting would be the the package that we put together uh this Friday. Uh so if that's okay I would uh we can talk about other parts about this if you would like but from staff's perspective we could defer this into a larger conversation. What goes to the state is a draft and it is intended

to be a draft and they will put their comments in at the same time that you will be reviewing and putting your comments in. So it does not become final until the council says it's final. But we can't do it without and we have to give them 30 days. So although or 60 days even more. So although you haven't seen the entire draft, you've seen all the goals and policies and everything else. It's just the explanations around it. So I have one question that I've been thinking about. Um, at the end of the day, are we making building houses easier? I know that's like a little general, but go ahead and re change the word you want. Are we taking removing barriers that don't need to be there? Are we streamlining processes? Is it going to be easier for somebody to walk into the permit office and get a permit for something because it's clearer and straightforward? I can say unequivocally from my perspective, yes. Right. On both the the big zones and the little zones, they're different tracks and different paths. But with both of those, um we have set it up in a way that is both simpler, clearer, more consistent, more permissive in many ways. Uh we had kind of expected that at the final stages is often when things get dialed back. Um we're doing our capacity analysis to see where we're at with with reasonable capacity. Um but I short version yes that yeah I think that's really important because we can't grow unless we can actually build and are we taking the things that are stopping people from building out of the picture

because they don't make any sense and I'm hearing yes unequivocally yes and that was what we um it'll be interesting and I've done it a couple times looked back to when we chartered and scoped and began this project uh Commissioner Atkins kins would be the one who's uh stuck with it this entire time. And uh it started and it will end with housing. That has been our focus and that has been our guiding light throughout this entire thing as the predominant crisis facing the city. Any additional questions or comments? All right, I think it seems like we're ready to get out of here. Um, do we have any uh public comment online or offline? We do not. Oh, we do. All right. You know how this works. Yes, ma'am. Uh, my name is Ishmail Muhammad. I'm a developer and builder invested in Everett. I want to thank I was going to stay quiet today but I do appreciate your commissioner your question and your question was very pertinent to the planning department but I think a more reasonable answer or realistic answer would be to ask the community who is building it rather than means the department is trying their hard level since last six eight years that I've been watching But it would be good that some comments are taken from builders and developers and architects and people who are actually involved in the entire

process. So that would be a suggestion that I would give. Thank you. All right. I think we are ready to adjourn. Well, thank you everyone for coming.