Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Alright. Good evening, and welcome to the December 10 City of Bellevue Planning Commission meeting. This evening's meeting is held via hybrid format with both in person and virtual options via Zoom. Tonight's meeting is gonna provide an opportunity for public comment during the oral communications portion of the agenda. All written comments that have been submitted to prior submitted prior to 11AM today, Wednesday, December 10, will be summarized into the record. We have just one agenda item tonight, which is a public hearing. The public hearing tonight is for the housing opportunities in mixed use areas, also called HOMA, land use code amendment. So now let's move on to roll call. Chair Kangloo is absent. Commissioner Geppel? Here. Commissioner Villavasas?

I'm

here. Commissioner Kennedy? I know commissioner Nilchian is absent and as is, council liaison deputy mayor Malikutian. I'm vice chair Lu, and I'll be chairing this meeting since chair Kangloo is, absent today. So first off, can I get a motion to approve tonight's agenda? So moved. Second. Second. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Alright. Any reports no. Well, he's not here, so no reports for him. Any reports from boards and commissions from you, Kate, or no?

No reports from boards and commissions.

Great. Alright. First thing, staff report. Could you provide us with updates to the meeting schedule for 2026?

Yeah. I've included in your meeting materials a draft schedule through March 2026, and I wanted to highlight some of the commission development items. I've scheduled a further conversation about, the survey results for the second meeting in January. And, I'm talking with staff about the best way to implement, your suggestions, so I hope that we'll be able to come out of that meeting with some items for improvement that I can implement in q one of next year. We also have, Puget Sound Regional Council coming to talk about their centers framework, which is kind of the framework that we're all planning in in the Puget Sound region.

And so I hope that that will be especially helpful for commissioners that were not part of the comprehensive plan update that was adopted last year, which I know is many of the commissioners. So, that's kind of the highlights of the schedule.

Any questions for Kate? Great. Let's move on to oral and written communications. Kate, could you provide a summary of the written communications?

Yes. I sent 13 comments that came in after the packet was published before eleven a. M. Today. Most commenters were supportive of the changes proposed in the HOMA draft, although some proposed some specific changes.

There was more mixed comments regarding the changes proposed in downtown. But many of the people who submitted those comments are also here to, give oral comment for during the public hearing, so I will let them speak for themselves. I also wanted to note that there were quite a few comments that came in this afternoon that I haven't had a chance to read through or forward to you. So I will do that, just sort of glancing at them. Several of them are transcripts of what they're going to say during their oral comments. So but as soon as I have a chance, I will send those to you as well.

Any questions for Kate? Alright. Let's move on to oral communications. So we have a total of thirty minutes for oral communications. Each speaker will have up to three minutes to speak. Keep in mind, if you wish to speak about the HOMA land use code amendment, please speak during the public hearing and not during the oral communications portion of this. Staff liaison Kate will call on speakers in the order in which they have registered, either in person or online. If anyone from the public has missed the six p. M. Registration deadline, may you still provide public comment if there's remaining time.

For those of you on Zoom, please use the raise hand function, or motion to staff that you are in person to indicate that you would like to speak. Alright. There is a, we have to keep in mind that there are rules adopted by city council limiting the topics about which the public may speak during our meetings. Under ordinance 6,752, the public may only speak during public comment about subject matters that are related to City of Bellevue government and are within the power and the duties of the Planning Commission. Additional information about the rules of decorum governing conduct of the public hearing of the public during our meetings can be found at Ordinance 6,752. And again, if you wish to speak about HOMA, please keep that to the public hearing. All right, Kate, can you please call on our first speaker?

Yeah. We have one speaker who signed up for oral communications. A number of people signed up for oral communications online. I moved them all to the public hearing because the topic was HOMA. So if you signed up online and I am not calling on you, you're talking about something that's not HOMA, just, let me know. So the first speaker the only speaker is Sameer Master.

Yeah. Please come up if you're speaking on are you speaking on Houma, or are you speaking broadly? Okay. Great. And just make sure you tap the the button right in front of you to switch on the mic.

Go ahead.

Good evening. Samir Master. I run a dermatology practice in the city of Bellevue. We employ 25 people locally, and we are outgrowing our 6,000 square feet of office space on a Hundred And 16th. And, I understand that there are a number of, individuals, developers that are seeking to convert one twelfth and one sixteenth to a 100% residential on a number of parcels.

There's one parcel at the very north of 112th, including 22331 12th, where they would like to take down two wonderful office buildings and make a entirely residential neighborhood. That neighborhood would not be close to public transportation, would not be close to schools. And, frankly, it's a very important corridor for patients to access medical care and to be close enough to the hospital, to be close enough to freeway access. And those properties have sufficient parking. In a given day, we may see between a hundred and fifty and two hundred people coming and going from our office alone.

We have explored a number of options throughout the city of Bellevue, and none of the downtown office developers want small users like us. They want people who will take three to five stories of their building, each with 20,000 square foot plates. And I'm sincerely concerned. I've been looking in earnest for over two years for a larger space for us to move into when our lease expires, and we're having difficulty, doing that. And so I would request that as planning goes on, there are some properties even with a concomitant zoning agreement.

The the parcel that I referred to at 2233 has a concomitant zoning agreement, which, excludes the potential for residential development there. And I would respectfully request that the commission and then make a recommendation also to the city council that that CZA not be removed, because if that gets removed, it gets removed for, I think, an entire 13 or 14 acre parcel, which would then immediately all become a 100% residential. And without that, we can't serve the residents and the employees in the city of Bellevue. Thank you. Do you have any questions for me?

Thank you. We're not allowed to provide a conversation, but thank

you for that. Appreciate it.

Is there anybody who wants to speak about something that's not HOMA? Alright. I think that's the end.

Alright. So with that, let's move on to the public hearing. Tonight, we have a public hearing on the housing opportunities and mixed use areas land use code amendment. The planning commission will first open the public hearing, then the staff will present the proposed changes to the land use code. Then the commission will ask for public testimony. Similar to before, we will only allow three minutes, and we will hear from everybody who has signed up online or in person. Following the public testimony, the commission will close the public hearing, and we will discuss our recommendation to the council. Do I have a motion to open the public hearing?

So moved.

Do I have a second? Second. Discussion? All approved, say aye. Aye. Great. Let's begin with staff presentation. So development services department code and policy director Nick Whipple and senior planner Matthew Menard will provide a presentation on the housing opportunities and mixed use areas land use code amendment. It's a mouthful.

Great. Thank you, and good evening, commissioners. We are here tonight to ask you all to hold the public hearing on HOMA, the housing opportunities and mixed use areas. Wanted to mention, in addition to Robbie Sepler and Matthew Menard being here, we also have Robin Zhao in our office of housing that may be available upon request if there are questions that you might have as it relates to MFTE code in particular. So for our agenda this evening, we wanted to provide a refresher on the background for this project, talk about the process to date.

We'll spend some time discussing the affordable housing options that are included within the packet, the code that's being proposed, and then we have broken off downtown specifically to give us some space to talk through that and then touch on the schedule. So this evening, we're seeking direction to hold the hearing. Following the hearing, the commission may make a recommendation on the LUCA, the land use code amendment to city council. First, with some background about HOMA. So HOMA is a land use code amendment that's aimed at encouraging housing and affordable housing in some of our mixed use areas.

This really originated out of as part of council's next right work initiative where we were looking to unlock more housing opportunity throughout the city. Part of that was doing some review of our zoning code, figuring out which standards might be inhibiting some of the housing development that we're wanting to see, and then also really find the best opportunities to create more affordable housing opportunity. That work was initiated in 2022. And then in 2024, as you all know, since you worked on the comprehensive plan periodic update, the city updated the comprehensive plan. And so another opportunity with HOMA was to align with the updated policies.

A lot of those policies speak to the same geo geographies that are included with HOMA, so trying to leverage those opportunities to create more vibrant neighborhoods by investing more in our mixed use areas. This is a refresher of the geographic scope. All the areas outlined in orange are the areas that council did include as part of the HOMA scope. So this is most of the mixed use areas throughout the city. We are leaving out East Main.

That was a code amendment that council completed in 2021. Wilverton left out as you all just processed that amendment and council adopted it this past summer. Bell Red, there's a separate land use code amendment initiative underway now, which you'll hear more about in '26. But everywhere else is being addressed as part of HOMA. Refresh on the process.

So council initiated this back in December 2022, and it really advanced first as an interim official control that applied to just downtown. And part of the direction for council was let's figure out some permanent code language for downtown, and let's also address the mixed use areas throughout the city. So downtown is really kind of where this all started and an important piece of the HOMA package. The the commission has held five meetings on this, including tonight's meeting. And so looking forward to continuing this process forward with the council deliberation on the the recommendation. So now Matthew's gonna walk us through the remainder of the slides.

Yeah. Thanks, Nick. So continuing on with process. As part of this process, a major part of this process, a significant amount of outreach was done with the community and other, interested parties. So we did six informational sessions at the beginning of this process and then, a couple in the fall. So three of those were virtual. Three of those were in person. We found that we got much better attendance through our virtual presentation. So both of the ones that happened in the fall were virtual. We held meetings with groups and individuals as requested.

We have not turned down any groups or individuals to meet with us through this process. Those groups are as diverse as development groups, affordable housing groups. You can see the Bellevue Network on Aging there, neighborhood groups, as well as some other interest groups, like Eastside Urbanism. There are two affordable housing options being presented with this land use code amendment for planning commission to make a recommendation on. The first option is option a, which would be a mandatory affordable housing requirement substantially similar to what was adopted with the Wilburton code amendment.

So it would require 10% of any project with greater than or 10 or greater units to be at 80% AMI or 7% at 65 AMI or 5% at 50% AMI. There is a FAR bonus for that affordable housing that has been provided. That bonus is for every square foot of affordable housing provided. You can exempt up to four square feet of market rate housing. As we discussed at previous meetings, we do think that bonus alone covers much of the cost of this mandatory program.

With this, there is a fee in lieu option that we are proposing as well as a commercial fee. I'll cover this later in the presentation as well, but we are also have added a land transfer option into this option a to allow developers more flexibility on ways to participate in this program. I do wanna be very clear that this does not apply downtown. Option b would be a voluntary incentive program, which sets the FARs and building heights lower, and you essentially have to buy your way up to those equivalent maximums that would be an option a through the provision of affordable housing. So you can earn point five FAR for every 10 feet or yes.

For every point two FAR of affordable housing you provide, you can earn point five FAR in 10 feet of building heights. In the lower density districts, that's gonna be office, office limited business, neighborhood business, community business, you can earn up to one FAR. So basically two chunks of that 0.2 FAR of affordable housing. In the higher density districts, it's going be 1.5 FAR, or sort of three chunks of that 0.2 FAR. And again, the maximums are equivalent to option A.

So through option B, you would get the same building height and FAR as you would through option A. You would just have to buy your way to get there, essentially, by providing that 0.2 FAR of affordable housing for each chunk of building height in FAR. As I mentioned, there are a couple of updates to this between this meeting and the previous meeting. Robbie has very nicely reorganized the chapter to make it more readable. So it has moved from twenty twenty one twenty eight to twenty fifteen in the code, which puts it in its own chapter.

As we have built out our affordable housing programs and our affordable housing capacity, This one small section of the land use code has become very large and confusing to work your way through and understand where where each section that you would need to look at is located. So we have moved it into its own affordable housing chapter and reorganized where everything is located to make it easier for both development community, development reviewers, and the the public to understand and and read through. Robbie has very nicely, in the notes of the strike got, also shown where all of that has moved from and where it's moved to in this new draft. So that has been provided to you as one of your attachments. So there's not a lot of substantial language changes in there.

It's just been reorganized with the same language. We did close one loophole that was created through the Wilburton program. The way the Wilburton mandatory program was written, if you had 10 or more units in a building, you had to provide 10% affordable housing. What did happen in one case is we had a developer build several buildings with less than 10 units and therefore avoid the mandatory requirements. That was not the intent of the program.

So we have closed that loophole where now if you have 10 or more units on a whole project, you have to participate in the affordable housing program. And as I mentioned, we have opened the existing land transfer option to all of the HOMA districts. So parties would be able to transfer land to the city to provide affordable housing through HOMA. That land would need to be within two miles of the project, and there are several criteria in the land use code, including making sure we get the same yields and that land essentially has value to us before we will accept that transfer. So there are sideboards on that.

You sort of can't just transfer a useless piece of land or a land that's covered in water or a highway embankment to us to meet that requirement. We are recommending option A for adoption. We know this does ensure the production of affordable housing to make sure that we meet our affordable housing targets. As we've mentioned in previous meetings, the city has taken quite an aggressive stance and is looking to produce or maintain 5,700 new or preserved affordable housing units in the next ten years. So this will get us closer to that number.

We believe in the voluntary program, which has not shown to produce as many units in the past. We do know that the comprehensive plan and public input has stressed the need for affordable housing throughout the city. We think not only will this get more affordable housing, but that affordable housing will be more geographically distributed throughout the city versus a voluntary program. It would also increase the consistency of the land use code between different land use districts. Essentially, the program that applies in Wilburton would apply to the vast majority of mixed use areas throughout the city.

And our economic analysis, as we presented at the last meeting, does show that this requirement would have minor negative impacts to residual land value, but that has been negated by the proposed FAR bonus for exempting market rate housing, which allows you to build more square footage of housing on your site than you would be able to otherwise. So we are also proposing what is we are calling the community mixed Use Design District. This is building off existing code. It's currently called the community Retail Design District. So this would apply to all districts except for downtown, Factorial 1, and Eastgate TOD area.

It incorporates existing design standards from several of the retail districts. That's gonna be OLB, OLB two. And it looks at bringing not only those existing design standards, but some new standards around transition area setbacks. So that diagram you can see on the slide there would be the original proposed transition area, which would be a 25 foot setback with landscaping that's attached to property line of any property line that is adjacent to a residential district. So all buildings would have to be pushed back 25 feet, and landscaping would have to be provided between those two districts.

It's also proposing a 15 foot upper level step back for those facades over 80 feet that face those districts. We are also proposing to require pedestrian oriented uses in several of the districts that are intended to be neighborhood or community centers, and that would require either 50 or 66% of the street frontage to have these pedestrian oriented uses within 10 feet of backup sidewalk. There are some districts that this would not be required. Those districts are going to be the two OLB districts and the office district, which were not intended to be those neighborhood centers. There has been some com public comment around the pedestrian oriented uses.

There has been expressed interest to us from many development groups at this point to build townhomes without that commercial element. We do think that commercial element is very important for these neighborhood centers, and we have heard very strongly through public comment that these retail elements that exist on the ground today continue to be important moving into the future. So we have not proposed any changes to those requirements. At the last Planning Commission meeting, the Planning Commissioners did request that we propose an alternative transition area that allows residential buildings that are no taller than the adjacent residential districts to enter into that transition area or be exempted from that transition area. So we have given that to you as an attachment.

It's a standalone bit of language in the agenda memo. It would essentially attach that transition area to the structure that is taller or has commercial uses in it rather than the property line. We are not recommending this option. You can sort of see in the diagram there that you potentially end up with a lot less transition area and a lot less effective transition area. We do think that having landscaping along the entire property line more than just buffering the visibility of the building also provides more sound attenuation and obviously more potential for landscaping and trees, which we do think are important.

So again, not representing or not recommending this option, we do recommend the original transition area that was proposed as a more effective transition area. We've heard from the community, both through our process and through the comprehensive planning process, that there are specific uses in the city that are much needed, and may be lacking throughout the city, or are already in these areas that we do want to maintain in these areas. So we are proposing FAR exemptions for those uses. Most of these uses, other than affordable housing, are a one to one FAR exemption. So for every square foot of this use provided, you would get one square foot of exempt FAR.

Those uses are affordable housing, childcare, grocery stores, nonprofit businesses, affordable commercial space, and then a very small FAR exemption for open space as well if it's over 30 of the lot area. There are a few updates to the code that are being proposed after the last Planning Commission meeting. Something we talked about a little bit at the last Planning Commission meeting was exempting small parcels from the pedestrian oriented use requirement. So we are proposing that parcels under 20,000 square feet do be exempted from the pedestrian oriented uses. Again, this will facilitate small scale, especially townhome development on these small parcels.

Running a very rough GIS analysis for these 20,000 square foot parcels, it looks like there's about 70 parcels that would be impacted by this. Not all of those are buildable parcels. So it's not a huge number of parcels that would apply or this would be applicable to, but certainly, there are some, and it's been expressed to us by the public that there are some that they would like to build townhomes without that commercial requirement, basically stating that they're too small to make both work. We have clarified that projects can use fee in lieu for the additional height in the office, neighborhood, business, and OLB district. So right now, if you provide 15 affordable housing, you get essentially additional building heights.

It wasn't clear in the way the footnote was written that you could use the fee in lieu that's being proposed through option a for that program, so we have just clarified that you are able to use the fee in lieu. And there is a single departure right now in the code in our footnotes that allows you to exempt yourself currently from ground floor retail requirements in the neighborhood mixed use District If you are not on an arterial, and you have topographic challenges, and you are not visible from the adjacent neighborhood, you don't have to provide that ground floor retail. We have proposed moving that into the community mixed Use Design District so that departure would apply to all of the HOMA districts. It is a very strict set of criteria, which I think you have heard through public comment as well, so we don't expect this to apply to too many parcels. It was really just designed to apply to those parcels that have substantial topography and are not on a main road.

There have been some nonconforming updates. Ravi covered these at a previous meeting, but I'm gonna hand it off to Ravi again to, just give you a brief update on them.

Thank you, Matthew. Good evening, commission. So by way of reminder, just what nonconforming code is is it's the purpose of it is to transition projects that were built under old code into compliance with new code. Essentially, the policy is that you want the built environment to reflect current code and policy rather than old code and policy. And so the way that the nonconforming sections work is do this is they do this through a thing called proportional compliance, which basically means that, over time, as the project is developed or the site is is, affected or invested in, you have to make a certain amount of improvements in order to start getting towards compliance with what the current code and current policy is.

So the policy decision, for the council to make with your recommendation is how fast to have that transition occur. What's in the draft before you is a very gradual approach based on what the city currently is doing in both Wilburton and the Bell Red subareas. And the way that the approach in the draft before you works is as follows. We're consolidating into this one approach for the whole city except for the shoreline. The way you go through it is there are several off ramps to make sure that you're only being required to make investments and to bring something up in the code when it actually makes sense.

The first is there's kind of a dollar threshold you look at, and the next is there's a limit on the maximum amount that you'll have to invest at any given time. And so what that cap is is 20%. So in summary, you look at the value of the alteration you're proposing. You figure out what 20% of that is, and that's how much money you have to put in to build bringing the site or the structure into compliance with the current code until the next time that you come and invest in the project. This was a council direction through the Wilburton Luca, and I'd be happy to answer any questions following the public hearing.

Thanks, Robbie. So I'm gonna shift gears again to downtown. So there are some minor changes proposed to downtown, including changes to the amenity incentive program as we discussed previously. So we are including the FAR flexibility that was provided in the intern ordinance of control that launched this whole project, which means that projects in the perimeter overlay can move unutilized FAR within a single project outside of the perimeter overlay. What we were finding downtown is that projects were not able to realize their maximum FAR in the perimeter overlay because of other form restrictions.

So allowing projects to move their FAR that they haven't used into less form restricted districts We're helping projects get off the ground. Projects that provide point five FAR of exempt square footage, so that is a change from previous iterations of this draft and has changed back to what was in the internal ordinance of control. So now what was originally proposed with HOMA is you had to provide 0.5 FAR of affordable housing. What this would require is 0.1 FAR of affordable housing and 0.4 FAR of exempt market rate space as you get a four to one exemption through this program. So back to the original proposal to the IOC, 0.5 FAR of exempt square footage.

If and you're in the permanent overlay, you have some form flexibility around lot coverage and step backs and building heights. It provides a bonus for affordable housing square footage if not used as an amenity. And this is actually a change that we've made to this draft, so you can now use it for both. And I'll talk about that in a moment. And it does maintain the wedding cake, which we've heard very clearly from the community, is very important to them.

So there is an update to both the amenity incentive proposal and this exempt FAR. You can now use the same square footage of affordable housing to participate both in the amenity incentive program and the four to one exemption. So essentially for one square foot of affordable housing, you would be able to exempt four square feet of market rate housing, and you are provided four amenity incentive points, which is essentially another four square feet of building space. That was a request from the downtown development community before the last meeting. So that change has been made.

As I mentioned, we've changed the point five FAR exemption for that design flexibility to that exempt space rather than affordable housing square footage, and that was another request from the downtown development community. We are also finding through our analysis, we're currently requiring 10% outdoor plaza to exceed your trigger height. So basically to reach that maximum building height in downtown. What we were finding is that projects were far exceeding their amenity incentive requirements through this requirement alone, meaning that that affordable housing bonus wasn't so much of a bonus because it was already being met in other ways. So we have dropped that requirement to 7%, consistent with the 7% open space that's required in the Wilburton area.

The schedule for this, as you all know, this has been ongoing for quite a while now. We are at phase three, first step of phase three, which is the Planning Commission public hearing. Planning Commission doesn't have to make a recommendation tonight. You can make a recommendation tonight. I will say if you are not going to make a recommendation tonight, we would like some pretty clear direction from Planning Commission about what they would like to discuss at future meetings so we can make sure that those meetings are streamlined and targeted towards what you all want to discuss.

Staff would obviously love it if you did make a recommendation this evening. After the recommendation occurs, the land use code would move on to city council. City council does have all final decisions on land use code amendments and would be the ones that would adopt the land use code amendment. Once it has been adopted, it is then part of our code and would apply to these areas of the city. There are three decision criteria in the land use code for land use code amendments.

Those decision criteria and more details are laid out in the staff report that is attached to your agenda memo. They are that the amendment is consistent with the comprehensive plan. As we noted earlier, we do think the amendments are very consistent with the comprehensive plan around our housing goals and our goals for mixed use neighborhoods being vibrant and walkable. The amendment enhances the public health, safety, and welfare of the city, which we do believe it meets that criteria as well, especially around sort of our housing crisis and our deep need for more affordable housing. Obviously, it promotes the welfare of the city.

And for many of the same reasons, we don't believe it's contrary to the best interests of the citizens and property owners in the city of Bellevue. Especially property owners in many of these mixed use areas are also receiving a quite large up zone and FAR increase through these proposed changes. So that is a large benefit to them as well. And with that, I will hand it back to you, chair.

Alright. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Matthew. Thank you, Nick. Thank you, Robbie. Appreciate it. Alright. I think we are coming to the public testimony portion of this public hearing. So as a reminder, the testimony must be related to the Homa Luca. So keep the the topics on topic or keep the the testimony on topic. Kate, could you call the first person registered?

Sure. We have it looks like 34 people registered. The first so as I said, I compiled both the both of the lists and that they're in the order that they signed up regardless of the of the list. The first person, is Misha Rodart, followed by Deborah Deutsch. And they are both in person.

Good evening, Planning Commission. I'm Misha Redardi, partner and real estate broker at Legacy Commercial. I'm here on behalf of my fellow partners and ownership of 53520, And 401 Hundred And 12th Avenue Northeast Bellevue, Washington, just across the street from City Hall. Thank you for the Planning Commission for your hard work on this. Legacy has owned in Downtown Bellevue for generations.

In the past, the city has been a good partner, and we look forward to more downtown development in the future. I understand that HOMA plan and the Planning Commission are being asked to consider will impose a new affordable housing tax on downtown development. The new downtown zoning was only adopted in 2017, just eight years ago. It included an affordable housing incentive program designed for downtown. The downtown zoning was the product of many months of discussion and collaboration between the development community and the city.

Many projects move forward under the new downtown zoning, and many are still in midstream or early in the process. At the moment, our property is at a standstill due to many external factors out of our control. However, I do have concerns of the Houma Plan as presented. Here are my concerns. For my fellow owners and currently in development, if you change the rules in the middle of the game, these projects for these projects, you will send them back to the drawing board.

Many years and millions of dollars may be lost. Why would the city adopt a new code in partnership with downtown owners in 2017 only to flip the script and change the rules a few years later? If HOMA gives the rest of the city an upzoning in exchange for affordable housing, why not downtown? Just imposing a new affordable housing tax without providing benefit will increase costs and jeopardize new projects and existing projects. Worst of all, no one from the city has ever called us about this.

In the past, the city has been a good partner, and they would count contact and have an open discussion and lots of outreach. Why has no one called us? And why are we left to be in the dark? If I may, my recommendation, take downtown out of Houma, and downtown needs its own separate process. Tell the city staff to start an outreach program to all of us owners and developers in downtown in 2026. We are willing to work with the city on this as we have in the past, but the city needs to call us first. My phone number is (425) 460-4373, and I'll be expecting a call. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Deborah Deutsch followed by Brady Nordstrom.

Good evening, planning commission. My name is Dipper Deutsch, and I've lived in Newport Hills for over forty four years. And tonight, I am here to express my strong support for the adoption of HOMA, not only for my neighborhood, but for the benefit of all current and future residents of our city. I'd like to address two points this evening. The first is affordability.

If adopted as proposed, HOMA will be a giant step towards fulfilling the city's promises of housing for a wide range of incomes. In my career, I worked in Bellevue in both the YMCA and the Bellevue School District, and it became quickly apparent that working families whose income placed them below the median and above the poverty level experienced significant challenges with housing and finding houses, especially since their income level did not qualify them to be eligible for financial supports from established programs. I believe HOMA would directly provide additional opportunities by increasing the supply of housing options. I fully support the staff's recommendation of option a for the MFTE program update and want the city to maintain its existing MFTE programs and expand them. My second point is that also for this to be successful, I believe it's essential that the city bolsters its supports and resources for small businesses, and particularly those who, a result of HOMA and redevelopment, are displaced either temporarily or permanently due to redevelopment.

As a member of the Newport Community Coalition, I want and believe we deserve a wonderful new development at our shopping center. Please support the comprehensive plan by completing HOMA in such a way that allows that to happen. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next is Brady Nordstrom followed by Jessica DeBarros, who is virtual.

Greetings, commission oh, let me adjust this. Greetings, commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Brady Nordstrom, and I'm from the Housing Development Consortium, and I'm also here to represent the Eastside Affordable Housing Coalition. We strongly urge you to support the HOMA draft a with a well calibrated affordable housing requirements.

And just before I go into some of the rationale there, wanted to clarify potential confusion. Downtown is not proposing this policy. My comments are directed at the mixed use areas where this policy is being proposed. But based on the city's own findings and a pro form a analysis conducted by developers in our coalition, we believe that this affordable housing requirement is not only the best option to create affordable housing, but that it will work alongside market rate development, and this is once the market conditions improve. The analysis shows that almost no projects or very few projects will pencil now regardless of this requirement, So we urge you to consider what will work in the future over multiple economic cycles and not a specific moment in adverse economic conditions.

And just some other points to consider because this is a really complex topic. And affordable housing requirement is common. In fact, the program being proposed by Bellevue is one of the lightest touch versions of this program that exists in our region, And 80% of area median income in King County is basically $85,000 for an individual. So this isn't typically what we think of when we talk about affordable housing, but this is still moderate waged people that it creates space for in the city. So the negative impact of this policy is also very modest compared to other cost factors, hard costs, soft costs, land, financing, etcetera.

And in fact, things like parking, interest rates, and rent levels have a much more significant impact on the development feasibility than this policy, which is supported by the up zone and the bonus and other development cost savings. And further, with the way to support this program, we strongly support NFTE being used to support this program. This is outside the purview of the commission, but we urge you to pass a policy that will work consistently across what was passed through this commission earlier this year in Wilburton. And finally, it's not consistent to say that some of these wedding cake things, buffer zones, and significant cost to development are important in these mixed use areas, and affordable housing is too onerous that that that trade off still exists with those things. And this is especially when the affordable housing requirement is one of the smallest costs.

So, ultimately, this is a policy about people and building a bright future for Bellevue. So we hope that you'll pass this policy that can include moderate moderate modest and moderate wage workers, families, and aging adults and for centering affordable housing. So thank you again for the opportunity.

Thank you.

Next, we have, Jessica DeBarros followed by Valentina Veniva. Jessica, can you raise your hand? Oh, I see you. Can you hear me?

Yes. Can you hear me? Yep. Go ahead. Okay. Thank you. Good evening, commissioners. My name is Jessica DeBarros, and I serve as vice president of policy and intergovernmental affairs with King County Housing Authority. And I'm here to comment on HOMA. Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

King County Housing Authority has a long and successful record working with the city of Bellevue on affordable housing solutions. We own and operate more housing units in Bellevue than in any other city in King County. That's 3,000 units that we own in Bellevue, and that constitutes 25% of our property portfolio. As you are aware, commissioners, rents are very expensive in Bellevue. And unfortunately, what the market can bear is a lot more than what a low income household can bear.

So we really need all of the resources we can find to provide much needed affordable housing in this market. As you consider the HOMA land use code update, please support affordable housing as your top priority. I urge you to support HOMA draft a with an affordable housing requirement in mixed use areas. When land is up zoned, that adds value to the land and the developments on that land, and the added value should result in greater housing affordability. King County Housing Authority supports using a portion of that added land value to create more and deeper affordable housing.

Thank you for prioritizing affordable housing in the HOMA code update. We believe that trade offs are reasonable and worth it to support Bellevue as a welcoming, diverse city that includes moderate and lower income workers and families. HOMA represents the fulfillment of Bellevue's comprehensive plan vision, and that includes bold new residential capacity and tools like affordable housing requirement. And that will help Bellevue meet its ambitious affordable housing goals. Again, please support code draft option a with an affordable housing requirement. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next is Valentina Vaniva followed by Yishuan Zhou. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Hello, commissioners.

My name is Valentina, and I live in Crossroads Bellevue. I fully support the staff's proposal to allow mixed use development in more parts of Bellevue. We moved to Crossroads because it was one of the very few locations in Bellevue where we could walk both to things we need like stores, transit, and cafes, and to cool things like a climbing gym, a park, and a cinema. But even in Crossroads, if you look at the block where the mall is located, can see how amazingly wasteful the whole thing is. It is basically islands of one story high street malls in a sea of parking.

And despite providing so many amenities, the block is actually not that nice to walk around. So I'm very glad that the city is ready to change this sad state for the better. Like, two things I really like about the staff's proposal. First is bonuses for affordable commercial spaces and nonprofit businesses. Again, in Crossroads, I see firsthand how difficult it is to find a business that can afford to lease a large expensive space.

All the smaller shops are still there, but big change big chains that went bankrupt closed their stores, and those are hard to replace, and this is also waste. The only thing that worries me is that the city of Bellevue does not have a dedicated program that would help small businesses relocate when the properties are redeveloped. And the other thing is affordable housing. In terms of that, I hope that you will go with option eight. It does sound onerous, but Bellevue has a great MFT program. And the recent report at the council meeting shown that it is well used by developers. This will let the city get both more housing and general and more affordable units when combined with the MFT program. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next is Yishan Zhou followed by Daniel Nygard. Go ahead.

Hello, commissioner. My name is Yi. I am the president of Imagine Housing. We are the largest nonprofit affordable housing developer, operator, provider here in East King County. We're based in Bellevue. We were started in Bellevue. On top of that, I've also been a Bellevue resident since about February when my family moved here. And my wife and I bought our house in Belle in Newport Hills back in 2008. So I have called Newport Hills home for the last seventeen years, and I've seen a lot of changes. Not all of it has been good.

I was living there when Red Apple was a grocery store when Bill Pace, and I've seen a lot of small businesses have that have tried to make the shopping center work that they have unfortunately been not able to because we don't have enough people. Over the last few years, I have two kids who have gone through Newport Heights Elementary, so I've gotten to know many of the teachers and the staff at the school. And we have seen kind of some of struggles that they have faced, whether it's teacher aides, lunch ladies, bus drivers, and we have seen them kind of leave the community because they could not afford housing. We just need more people, and we need more housing. I wear a lot of different hats.

So kind of in my day job, what I look at is economic analysis of how to provide housing and homes for working families here in our community. And I will say in all the different hats that I wear, I strongly support what the staff had put forward in terms of HOMA, both in option a and all the different pieces around the upzoning. I cannot talk about downtown because we did not actually look deeply into downtown, but I am talking about the mixed use areas. I just wanna highlight how Bellevue has done this successfully in the past. Like I said, I've been here for a while.

I remember before Lake Hills Shopping Center is what it is today with housing and options and restaurants and small businesses, and it's a place that we enjoy going to. I think that what the staff have put forward for HOMA has been a well calibrated option. I think it really kind of puts forward kind of the next phase of Bellevue to be able to provide housing at all economic levels. It provides for a much more vibrant community where we can have small business, where we can have restaurants, where we can have a more walkable community. And it's a place where we can have kind of all the people that make Bellevue great be able to stay here and be able to live here and call this great city home. So thank you so much for your consideration and for all your time on this. Thank you.

Next, we have Daniel Nygard followed by Suzanne Bah.

Good evening, commissioners. My name is, Daniel Nygard. My wife, Cheryl, and I have lived in the Newport Hills area for over twenty five years. So, like the gentleman before us, we've seen many changes to our neighborhood, and, we'd like to encourage you to to move forward with the, the projects and plans that we're talking about here tonight. I'd like to add my voice to those who are representing a large and growing number of neighbors in Newport Hills, Lake Heights, Greenwich Crest, Newport Shores, and other neighborhoods.

We're called the Newport Community Coalition, and we're here to express our very strong support for HOMA and the opportunity it represents for redeveloping the Newport Hills Shopping Center, to bring it back to its former and even probably better state that it was in. Our group has met with city staff. We've met several times with a representative of the shopping center, which is the ownership group. We are all very excited about the vision they have for a future for the Newport Hills Shopping Center. We've been trying for over twenty years to make the shopping center a place that we can all be proud of, and several different developers have made attempts to upgrade the shopping center over the years, but we've been met with numerous obstacles.

We are finally at a point in time when we can actually make this happen and we are so excited. So we cannot believe that we are finally at this point. So provided that we move forward with the HOMA proposal to implement what is envisioned in the new comprehensive plan, we can make this dream a reality. As a reminder, about fifteen years ago, the City of Bellevue asked the ownership group of Newport Hills to conduct a feasibility study of the shopping center and what it should look like for the future. And the ownership group agreed and when finished, the study concluded the mixed use development with housing and retail was very appropriate for the site.

So we're we're kind of looking at the same options again. We're excited for all that is to come for Newport Hills Shopping Center. We're particularly excited about the ownership group's vision for the different types of housing, open space, gathering places, retail and restaurants. So this will create a truly walkable community with gathering spaces that we can all enjoy and we can be proud of once again. I urge you to approve, HOMA, so they can go forward to the City Council for final approval. So thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next we have Suzanne Bah followed by Anne Coughlin who is virtual.

Good evening, members of the planning commission. My name is Sue Baugh, and I've lived in Lake Heights for thirty five years. I'm here tonight to speak in support of the latest draft of HOMA. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. As I mentioned before, I've spoken with the city count with city council members and staff since the nineteen nineties about the need to redevelop the Newport Hills Shopping Center.

But tonight, I'm here again to speak as a member of the Newport Community Coalition, which includes, as Dan said, residents from Newport Hills, Lake Heights, Newport Shores, and Greenwich Crest, and it includes new and long term residents. We support the commute the comprehensive plan as adopted. We need more housing of all types. We support the fact that most recent iteration of HOMA that is before you tonight. And we also support housing that is affordable for teachers, nurses, policemen, police officers firefighters, and our adult kids who might someday want to live in the neighborhood.

In particular, we support redevelopment of the Newport Hills Shopping Center. As I have shared with you before, this is the third time that the Newport Hills Shopping Center has been involved in a redevelopment debate, and twice the antidevelopment contingents' adversarial efforts resulted in a negative outcome. The Newport Community Coalition supports HOMA and the NB zoning three to four floors with amenities and bonuses to get to five floors. And as a reminder, contrary to what you may have heard, no one in our group and no one in Newport Hills shopping center owners ownership supports seven to 10 floors. We also understand the mixed use center includes retail.

In order to maintain a thriving retail center, additional customers are a must, which more housing in our neighborhood would provide. I've met with the owner's representatives, and the project they envision would be a positive step for revitalizing South Bellevue and would be a legacy project for their family. The Newport Hills, the excuse me. The Newport Neighborhood Coalition representing a large group of residents, many of whom are here tonight, support moving forward on redevelopment of the Newport Hills Shopping Center. It's time for our voices to be heard.

The Newport Community Coalition is here tonight to support moving forward with HOMA, which will allow the redevelopment of the Newport Hills Shopping Center. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Next, we have Anne Coughlin, who's virtual, followed by Eric Paulson, who's also virtual. Anne, can you raise your hand? I'm not seeing a hand raised, so I will move on to Eric Paulson, who will be followed by Kevin Wallace. Eric, I do see your hand raised. Can you hear me, Eric?

Yes. As long as you can hear me.

Yep. Go ahead.

Okay. Thanks. Good evening, planning commission. Thank you for this opportunity. My name is Eric Paulson.

I own the trailers in site that's located at the corner of 37th And 156 on the South Side Of I 90 in Eastgate. The property is on a dead end street and is adjacent to a residential zoning, and it is a site that should be developed one day with multifamily housing for the home updates. That being said, we're a little concerned about the current commercial use requirement and departure criteria because it remains so restrictive, and it'll continue to limit viable housing production, especially on challenging sites such as ours. We recommend that the code be revised to eliminate the visibility test off I 90. We know that everything is visible next to I 90, but going 60 miles an hour plus doesn't really always turn into retail business.

And we know that on our site on 37th, it's a dead end street that probably wouldn't support any retail component. Matter of fact, in 2019 when we purchased the site, we had owned Michael's Toyota and Michael's Subaru, and we had the hopes of expanding our automotive footprint in Bellevue. We reached out to three manufacturers who are currently not in Bellevue only to be rejected by all three who claimed that the site was just not viable for retail based on its location and its low traffic volume, which drops from almost 30,000 trips to 8,000 trips just at that Texaco block east of the arterial. It drops off even more significantly past that. Again, we feel that the current departure criteria negatively impacts our site, and we ask that you widen the criteria to promote additional housing for the city.

I've also emailed a letter outlining a lot of our concerns, and you can certainly refer to that as well. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you.

Next, we have Kevin Wallace followed by Anne Brashear.

I'm Kevin Wallace with Wallace Properties, and I have two project sites in Downtown Bellevue that I've been working on for several years. Neither of them are particularly impacted by what we're talking about tonight or what I'm talking about tonight, which is the downtown home the portion of the home ordinance that applies to downtown. The backdrop of this is the comprehensive plan for downtown calls for 14,500 units to be delivered in twenty five years between 2019 and 2044. Unfortunately, though, that would be about 580 units a year. Unfortunately, that hasn't been what's happened in the first six years.

So now we're looking at about 700, 750 units a year in downtown alone need to be delivered over the next nineteen years to meet that target. And if that target's not met, the region's not meeting its housing requirement. Right? So we just need to figure out how to supply more housing in Downtown Bellevue as a starting point. 750 units a year would be like three Avenue Towers buildings.

The project on Bellevue Way in 10th would be like three of those delivered every year. Okay? So this is a massive need. The downtown home ordinance has some carryover incentives that are good if you're providing affordable housing, but for you know, if you're using that affordable housing incentive. But for if you're not, what it basically does is put this affordable housing tax on all of the projects by requiring these amenity points that weren't required before.

And so in looking at that, while it's frustrating, what I look for is, like, okay. How can we get some give for the get? Right? And what I see as an opportunity is to do some tweaks to the code, and that's what it's in that memo that I provided that will make it easier to get through the permit process. And it doesn't significantly change the buildings over what the staff provided in HOMA already, but it does make it easier.

It's things I've encountered and other developers have encountered that make it challenging to get through the code. So we've had some good conversations with the staff about this, just recently, like, couple days ago, and I think there's some positive reaction to it that they need to go through and and think about and get back to you. It's too much detail to talk about in three minutes. But what I'd ask is that we not move forward with a recommendation tonight. Give us a chance to talk through this with staff, get their feedback on whether it flies or not, and come back to you with the revisions if they find it acceptable.

In short, section one is some a few tweaks, like nine tweaks to the existing home ordinance. Section two is 11 things that are in the affordable housing code or in the downtown code that aren't in the home orders yet, and then a vesting request that allows people to opt in to the new code if they've already applied for the MDP. And then the third category are about 20 things that we think are acceptable in the code that the staff has already put, out, and and we think it's a good job. So if you consider that and ask the staff to circle back with us to work it out, I'd appreciate it.

Thank you.

Next up, please.

We have Anne Brashear, and, I can try and return to Anne Coughlin. If I see several hands raised online. If you are not Anne Coughlin, could you lower your hand?

Lower your hands. Good evening, commissioners. Commissioner Kennedy, haven't met you. The rest of you, you've seen me before. And I don't need probably to tell you how important the Newport Hills Shopping Center property and its accompanying commercial properties are to our Newport Hills neighborhood, which I too have lived in for many decades.

The previous attempts at redevelopment that several speakers have referred to would have traded a shopping center, however decrepit and needing a refresh as it is, for a sea of housing, a sea of townhouses. And that is why many, many, many Newport Hills residents and others opposed it. So it's not just we don't want development. It's that's not appropriate for our neighborhood. We need to keep the shopping center a shopping center primarily.

So those of you who were here over the last three years, you've been in the comp plan process. You saw there have been arguments about what density is appropriate for the center of Newport Hills over the DEIS, over the comp plan itself. More recently, during the middle housing discussion, the conclusion that neighborhoods that are not served by transit, which are a neighborhood that is not and is not going to be, should not be the targets of massive density. So the decision, as I understood it, the decision in the comp plan was to keep the mid rise low I think it's no. It's low rise one.

There was a category. And the concept was that that was two to four stories. That was what we all heard. Now we turn around and and the baseline in Houma is five stories and maybe six with incentives. So that's kind of scary. I wanna say to you that we've got the middle housing initiative and the cohousing stuff that's required by the state that's being processed and being digested. There's already a four townhouse project on a single family lot in Newport Hills. Let's not rush for HOMA. All of these properties are different, these little neighborhood centers. Let's take our time.

We wanna redevelop it, but we wanna redevelop it right. We don't wanna trade our beloved shopping center and and the commercial and recreational amenities that it provides for a big housing development. We don't want to create unintended consequences. The Newport Hills shopping center property is actually three parcels, two of which are under 20,000 square feet. Are they exempt from the retail requirement? Do we wanna put the Newport Hills Chevron station out of business by cutting off its access to that parking lot? So I just ask you to let's think about this. Let's do the right thing. Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm not seeing Anne Coughlin's hand raised, so I will move on to Jesse Clausen, who will be followed by Cindy Ju, who is virtual.

Chair Lou, commissioners, my name is Jessie Clausen. Good evening. Homeless goal is vital, which is getting the homes that Bellevue needs. But as drafted, it's not ready for prime time, and it's not ready to move on. I'm asking you to direct staff to make specific changes so that the code actually yields housing production.

First, now is not the time to require mandatory housing affordability in downtown or the mixed use zones. Market rate developers build most of the city's housing, and they build only when projects pencil. With today's construction costs and interest rates, many do not. Requiring 10% of units at 80% AMI lowers achievable rent and further erodes feasibility. In Wilburton, mandatory affordability worked only because the MFTE supercharger offset that cost.

If HOMA moves forward with a mandate, it must be paired with a commensurate MFTe supercharger. Otherwise, we will get no housing in the short term, which is what we need. Second, incentive zoning should be seriously considered, and the Planning Commission should request a table that shows you the differences between the two codes and what they could actually produce in terms of housing units and affordable housing units. Third, modernize the mixed use zones to optimize housing. Many were drafted in the '80s. If they haven't been amended since the eighties, now is the time to do them. When are we gonna do them again? So now is the time to get them right. There are a couple of things we wanna make sure that you're focused on. You've heard about the commercial frontages.

The active frontage requirements are pretty extensive and harsh, and you heard Matthew say that many of the sites, most of the sites will not be able to qualify for the departure. We do not want to see empty retail in places where it doesn't make sense, like the Eastgate Trailer Inn, so please focus on that. The impervious and hard surface limits are very suburban in nature. In Eastgate, there is a 60% limit on your impervious or hard surface that you can develop. That is over one third of your site that you cannot develop as housing.

As an example, Seattle has no lot coverage requirements in those types of zones, and they are producing housing. You should be looking at this. Fourth, you heard Kevin talk about downtown. Those changes should definitely be made as part of this code update. And we should also include that pipeline projects are vested in downtown. There are several projects that are have been in the pipeline for years, and they will be subject to HOMA without having any benefit. You need to direct staff specifically to ask for vesting. Finally, simplify the nonconforming provisions. They're very complicated. We appreciate staff's work. I would encourage you to read them for yourself and see if you

can follow

along. Seattle has little bit less confusing nonconforming provisions, and I would encourage you to look toward those. I'm gonna pass out my written comments that I sent a little late today. Thank you.

Next, we have we have Cindy Ju who is online. If you could raise your hand, and Cindy will be followed by James Brothers who's also virtual. Cindy, can you hear me?

Yes. Can you hear me?

Yep. Go ahead.

Thank you, planning commission members and city staff. My name is Cindy Ju, and I'm with Heinz. We are longtime investors and property owners in Bellevue and are the developers on the home district mixed use project in Downtown Bellevue. I wanted to first thank the planning commission and staff for recognizing the importance of addressing critical housing shortage that we're facing in Bellevue and state that we're aligned in wanting to provide more housing for the city. The city has been a great partner for us in the past, and we're looking forward to collaborating on our current project and future developments.

But the HOMA plan the planning commission is being asked to consider will impose a new affordable housing tax on downtown development. We're in the middle of our development process, and we've invested tens of millions of dollars into Bellevue and have spent the last five years working on the home district project through the pandemic. The city is changing the goalposts in the middle of the game with this new HOMA plan, and it will have significant consequences on our place making project that has already faced headwinds from rather than construction costs and a difficult real estate environment. This isn't just a temporary blip in the cycle. Construction costs have steadily increased for decades and will continue to escalate, making development harder.

The financial impact of the affordable housing tax on our project is in the millions of dollars and quite literally could be the straw that breaks the camel's back in a go versus no go decision on millions of square feet of development, which in turn means millions of dollars of potential revenue that could disappear for the city. We're not just talking about how many units this affordable housing tax will create. We're talking about whether or not there will be any tax to collect if there's no development. As an IOC project, we need to ensure that there will be provisions in the HOMA code that clearly state that these new changes are not going to affect our project. While we understand that the intent of HOMA is to execute on the creation of additional units of housing, some significant changes that others have outlined need to be implemented in the plan to make sure the execution of the code meets its intent to create housing.

Furthermore, the timing in which this HOMA draft is being pushed through does not make much sense given the amount of changes that need to happen to create a workable plan. It's critical to get this code right to make sure Bellevue gets the housing production it needs, and we have one shot at this. We're asking the planning commission to delay recommendation of the current HOMA plan and to instruct staff to reach out to owners and developers in downtown next year. We're willing to collaborate with the city on this as we have in the past, and we expect and deserve to have a chance to discuss this plan given our investment and our dedication over the years to Bellevue. We appreciate everything that the planning commission is doing here and believe that we'll get to the best outcome for the city. Thank you for your

time. Next,

we have James Brothers. If you could raise your hand. Can you hear me? Can can you hear me?

Yes. Can you hear me?

Yes. Go ahead.

Hi. Yes. Good evening, commissioners. My name is James Brothers. I'm an executive vice president at Westbrook Properties.

I'd like to echo the thoughts, and and thank the both planning staff and the city on its thoughtful efforts to update the land use code to help transform underutilized properties to provide for more housing. Our ownership entity purchased The Woodlands at Bellevue, which is formerly the Boeing Eastgate campus in 2021. Site is about 20, 45 acres just north of I 90 and is currently zoned OLB. The site today is vacant and underutilized former office campus. In short, a poster child of what HOMA is attempting to address with its mixed use zones, within the mixed use zones.

However, elements of the current HOMA draft are limiting because of restrictive and outdated suburban standards like caps on impervious surfaces, a lack of flexible departures, ground level use requirements, and certain elements of the mandatory affordability requirements. HOMA should support the removal of these outdated barriers and provide for more flexibility to build more residential dwelling units in areas well suited for growth. We urge you to continue to support provisions in HOMA that remove the limit on the number of structures and dwelling units per acre. We also urge you to remove suburban standards like impervious service and lot coverage requirements. In the current draft, this is echoing a former speaker, the 60% cap on impervious surfaces becomes a major limiting constraint.

The recent Wilburton updates eliminated these provisions and instead opted for a 7% open space requirement, which is much more appropriate for transit oriented housing development. HOMA should also should provide adequate flexibility for ground level commercial and active use requirements and recognize that some of these areas do not have meaningful elements needed to support successful retail. We support the recent draft update exempting lots under 20,000 square feet from the pedestrian oriented use requirements, but stress this exemption should be expanded to larger lots and allow for flexible departures in areas where retail doesn't make sense. There is ample evidence in jurisdictions throughout The US that forcing retail into unsupportive areas is a major negative and that it challenges project financing, takes away FAR from residential development, and can create an effect of negative amenity and vacant ground level space and a downgraded pedestrian environment. Finally, we'd encourage you to be thoughtful about the mandatory affordability requirements.

The scale of density increases in HOMA are much more limited than Wilburton, which paired mandatory affordability with transformative density allowance. Where a site includes both townhouses and apartments, our last request would be to consider updating language to allow the consolidation of affordable units and apartment buildings, which ensures the feasibility of townhouse development. Thank you for your time and my and consideration of these comments.

Next, we have Linda Holler, who is in person, followed by Ian Morrison, who's also in person.

Good evening, members of the Bellevue Planning Commission. My name is Linda Haller. My husband, Mark, and I have lived in Lake Heights for over twenty years. I am here tonight to add my voice to those to to to my voice of support to those of the Newport Community Coalition. We represent the four neighborhoods of Newport Hills, Lake Heights, Greenwich Crest, and Newport Shores.

And we're all very excited to see our neighborhood shopping center finally be able to be redeveloped. I am supportive of adding housing and of making sure we provide housing for new young families and those folks who spoke during the middle housing issue who work in Bellevue but can't afford to live here. I know you have heard the opposition voices who have been fighting the concept of a new shopping center for years. I hope you will now hear our voices of support. I support three to five stories.

I support new housing and housing that is affordable. I support a shopping center that we can be proud of. Our neighborhood deserves that. Many of us in in this neighborhood have worked repeatedly over the years to have our shopping center revitalized. It is my hope that this time a successful resolution can be reached. Thank you for your work on the planning commission, and I hope that you will move home forward so that my supportive neighbors and I can finally see a new neighborhood shopping center. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, we have Ian Morrison followed by Ben Mickle.

Thank you, commissioners. Ian Morrison, from McKellar Hill here to talk about the shopping centers that are not Newport Hills. I wanna echo a couple of the comments that you've heard earlier today where there's a lot of good work that's inside this, and we appreciate the work that staff has done. But in terms of some of these other shopping centers that have not been centered, shopping centers like Northtown on Bellevue Way or as you just heard from the previous comer, pieces out there of redeveloped large redevelopment areas out there in East Gate off of 156. There was just a report released by the lieutenant governor about how do we convert shopping centers to housing.

And there was a great comment in there by Bellvi's own Nick Whipple that says these shopping centers are a great way to redevelop housing, to under to activate underutilized areas, and bring property taxes forward. So it's a win win win. But the number one recommendation that was coming out of the lieutenant governor's report that is coming into legislation next year is to reduce mandates on ground level commercial. And so I echo the comments that we've heard earlier today that the departures while we appreciate the departures and the ability for flexibility for small sites to have commercial relief on pedestrian oriented uses, there is more work needed to be done to allow flexibility for all sites because not every site can support 50 to 60 site 6% of ground floor commercial. And there's also a report from Econ Northwest using 2020 data that vacant retail in areas that are not viable for retail when it is forced to be built into the project, Using twenty twenty data, it was estimated that it cost each renter to subsidize that unit $25 a month in rent.

So on a 300 unit building, that's over $90,000 a year that those future renters are using to subsidize retail that is not viable and stays empty. If you look at the Aurora Corridor, there is far too much vacant space, and so we believe that there's a lot that is good in this HOMA process, but there is still more work to be done to dial in the flexibility so that we are not having an oversupply of retail in areas that cannot support it throughout the city because a 100% of zero is zero. If you cannot make projects financeable, you cannot have the housing that we wanna hear. I would also say that in some of these smaller scale shopping centers, the mandates as as you heard from Jesse Claussen, the mandates for affordability as opposed to incentives in small scale retail centers make it very difficult, especially if you have operating grocery stores. One last part that I will say is we really appreciate the FAR incentives for commercial spaces, affordable commercial spaces, and grocery stores.

But another area that requires more time and commitment is the language as it sits today says that the developer has to sign a covenant that they will keep that grocery store forever, and there is no flexibility. And as you've seen with Albertsons and Safeway and the consolidations, making a commitment that you have to keep a grocery store forever as the industry is changing makes it really hard to finance and get those projects off the ground. So we would ask for you to direct staff to hold this to continue to work on ground floor commercial bill commercial.

Thank you.

Next, we have Ben Mickle followed by William Leadem, who is virtual.

Hello. My name is Ben Mickle. I'm a resident of Downtown Bellevue. At a previous meeting, I already expressed my strong support for the homework. Tonight, I just wanna emphasize the importance of quickly sending miss Luca to city council. I think the staff has done a great job. They've addressed your feedback. It may be tempting to make a few more tweaks, but it's important to get this code in place soon so that we can begin issuing permits for much needed new housing. It's also important to let staff members shift their attention to other important projects that our community needs. Please move forward with a recommendation to city council tonight. Thank you. Thank you.

Alright. Bill, I see your hand raised. Bill will be followed by Yalda Hamidi. Bill, can you raise your hand again? I lost.

Right. Can you hear me?

Yep. I can hear you. Thank you.

Alright. Go ahead.

Thank you, Planning Commission staff. My name is Bill Lita. I'm a managing director at, with Urban Renaissance Group or URG. URG is an owner, manager, and operator of more than 10,000,000 square feet in Puget Sound, including the Summit and 323 High rises in the Bellevue CBD and Cascade Yard in the Eastgate neighborhood of Bellevue. Our Cascade Yard property has improved MVP with the city that will allow for the creation of up to 700 units in the Eastgate area.

Unfortunately, the HOMA ordinance in its current form will not lead to more housing production or redevelopment of suburban campuses such as Cascade Yard. But URG does have some suggestions to improve the ordinance. For example, impervious and hard surface limits are outdated in very suburban. For Escape, for example, the impervious surface limits are 60%. That is extremely low for urban development.

Our request is that staff should review each zone and significantly revise standards to enable efficient housing development. We also have concern regarding nonconforming use provisions. URG has several million square feet in Seattle, and there, the nonconforming provisions are simple and work well. We would suggest Bellevue incorporates standards similar to Seattle's. Finally, the proposed MFTE changes add significant costs and does not add enough FAR to offset the financial burden of these additional regulations.

The result will be less housing production. Instead, we would suggest staff provide feasibility analyses for both mandatory and set of options and adjust standards to ensure housing actually can be delivered in the short term. We, like many of the developers you've heard tonight, are supportive of more housing. We just think that there are need to be some additional review and analysis of what has been done to date and some changes made to it. I appreciate your time, and thank you very much.

Thank you.

Next, we have Yalda Hamidi, who is virtual, followed by Adam Diba, who is also virtual. Yalda, can you raise your hand? Yalda, can you hear me? Alright. I'm going to move on to Adam Diba.

Can you hear me?

I'm trying to unmute.

Oh, okay. Yalda, can you hear me?

Is it Yalda or Adam?

You you are on the list first, so you can go first.

Okay. Thank you. Oh, wow. Sorry. I'm coming. Okay. Hello. My name my name is Adam Diba. I've called, Lake Hills and Crossroads home for the last decade. I raised three daughters here.

I'm the executive director of Africans on the East Side and a housing advocate in in Bellevue. Policy policy a is really crucial for our community as as rents and home prices continue to rise in Bellevue, families across Bellevue are struggling to stay housed and stable. This policy is not just a recommendation. It is a necessity for the well-being of residents who work hard, raise their children here, and contribute to this city every day. In my work with immigrant, immigrant, refugee, and low income families, I see firsthand how many have been pushed out because they simply cannot keep up with the cost of living.

Policy a plays a vital role in creating protections, expanding affordability, and ensuring that equitable access to stable houses is here in Bellevue. Our community depends on solutions that create safe, accessible, and affordable homes for all. Policy a is a critical step towards that vision, and I strongly support this adoption. Like I said, my name is Adam Diba. I am the executive director of Africans on the East Side. I work with the youth, and I also raised three daughters here. And thank you very much for listening to us.

Thank you very much.

I'll I'll return to Ialda. Are you able to unmute, Yalda? Right. I can return to you at at the end. Next, we have Sterling Yoon, who is in person, followed by Alec Nelson.

Does this does this work? Oh, hi. Hi. I'm Sterling, and thank you to the commission for allowing us the opportunity to speak. I would like to speak in favor of option a and its affordability requirements that are outlined in HOMA. I think that it's it's past time for Bellevue to match our neighbors and other cities, around The US in kind of pushing forward our housing requirements. I I live in Somerset. I'm a product of the Bellevue School District. Went to Stevenson. I went to Odo.

I went to Inner Lake. And the only reason I can still live in Somerset is because my family lives there. Rate rents elsewhere pass in the elsewhere in the city of Skyrocket pass the point of affordability for me and a lot of the other young adults who grew up here and wish to move back here, start a family here, and do all the other things that people in past generations living in Bellevue have been able to do on a fort like, on working class incomes. Whenever I commute to, like, the Eastgate Park And Ride or I go shopping in Newport Hills, I see those inefficient spaces that previous commenters have all talked about. And I think they're a great opportunity for Bellevue to kind of introduce more housing and make it so that affordable units are being built in those places.

I see, like, neglected spaces. I see opportunities for urban amenities and all the great things that a growing city like Bellevue deserves to have and that people deserve to have in general. Obviously, your staff and studies from elsewhere have already shown the benefits of density and affordable housing on, like, the utilization of, like, urban space, mass transit, and other amenities that cities should be developing. And I think I just want this commission to support people who live here as well as the small businesses who take advantage of these opportunities and make it so that future generations, like myself included, but also people who might even be too young to come to these sorts of meetings, can still live in a Bellevue of the future. Thank you.

Next, we have Alec Nelson, who's virtual. Alec, if you can raise your hand, that will be followed by Jack McCullough. Alec, are you online? Alright. Let's move on to Jack McCullough, and, he will be followed by Jeremy Liu.

Thank you very much.

Chair members of the commission, I'm Jack McCullough. Thank you for taking the time to listen. I'm here to talk about the downtown tonight and just the downtown. I've spoken a couple times to you before virtually on this topic. I just handed out to you a list that I provided two months ago to you and staff of many of the downtown owners who I'm here on behalf of tonight, over a dozen who have developed tens of millions of square feet in downtown over the last twenty years.

And they have a concern, some of which has been expressed before, but I think it boils down to a handful of things, and I'm just gonna list them off. Downtown doesn't fit into Houma the way the mixed use neighborhoods do for a bunch of reasons. As Jesse Claussen pointed out, most of the mixed use areas were zoned originally in the seventies and eighties. Downtown was rezoned only a few years ago in 2017. The ink is barely dry on this, and we have millions of square feet of projects that are in the middle of their permit process right now and that are not vested, and that we'll have to reconsider their permit structure if HOMA is passed and applies to them.

The mixed use areas in the city don't have an affordable housing program. Right? That's why HOMA is here. The downtown has an affordable housing incentive program that was adopted in 2017, and it should be given an opportunity to work. The mixed use areas around the city are largely being provided an up zone, as you've seen.

Right? Significant incentives to compensate for the additional cost or the additional burden, if you will, of providing the important affordable housing. Not the case in downtown. A couple items mentioned by staff here that apply to the perimeter design district, which is obviously a small subset of downtown, and for projects that are using the incentive for affordable housing, again, a small subset. But for pretty much everyone else downtown, what's happening is that, as Kevin Walda said, effectively, tax is being applied, and there's no compensating benefit in terms of density, which seems like it's the fundamental premise of what's going on here.

And I think finally, you know, I mean, this is downtown is the living heart of of the city. It's it's what's generating so much of the tax revenue of the city, and the city has long had a special relationship with downtown. You know, I would point out that a different group and city staff is working hard on the Grand Connection, and we're hoping to get that done. That's an important feature downtown. And and the thinking is in a couple years, probably, the city, a different group, will be reaching out to these same owners asking them to help fund the Grand Connection.

And I think they're gonna say we already gave it the office. So I would encourage you either to take downtown out of Houma right now or defer the program so that we can work on this. The downtown owners I've listed will sit down and work with you and with staff to get it right. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Jeremy Liu, I see your hand raised. Jeremy will be followed by Sameer Master. Jeremy, can you hear me?

Yes. Yes. Wonderful. Yes. Good evening. Yes. Good evening, and thank you to the planning commission for your dedication to thoughtful housing policy. It's hard to outarticulate Jack, so I'll keep it short here. My name is Jeremy Louie, and I represent Stanford Hotels. We are the property owner and developer for the Downtown Cloudview site at 108 And 8th, which is approved for 2,000,000 square feet of office use and 400 plus residential units.

Historically, the city has been a strong partner, and we look forward to continuing that relationship. I think many others have mentioned that we revisited the downtown zone just eight years ago. Our project is one of those projects. We see many beautiful new buildings as we point our eyes upwards, but there are also projects such as ours, which are in mid stage in the pipeline, so to speak. And changing the rules midstream is is not good for us, especially as we are reacting to a post COVID world where office use is significantly impacted and believe that we need incentives to shift some of our commercial uses to residential, not disincentives.

And so my concern is simple. The way that the framework is drafted creates a tax, without generating any benefits for us and and the downtown. It seems that everywhere else, they get benefits. They get density, but we don't. And and just to add to that, we are already challenged because the cost to construct housing in downtown with high rises is gonna be somewhere in the order of 30% more versus a a wood frame building outside of downtown.

And so my recommendation is that, you know, we support the principle of affordable housing. It is important, but please remove the downtown from HOMA in the existing framework. And as you can see, there's plenty of us here who would be happy to get together and actively engage to craft something that makes a lot more sense, for the city of Bellevue. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, we have Sameer Master who is in person followed by Tony Maurice. Okay. We will move right on to Tony Maurice.

Evening. Good evening, commissioners. My name is Tony Marisi, and I'm a resident of Newport Shores, and I've lived there with my family for the past twenty three years. I am a member of the Newport Community Coalition, and I'm here to voice, my support of the HOMA and opportunities it presents for housing, retail, and other amenities in the Newport Hills Shopping Center. I have heard that there have been comments in the past saying that the Newport Hills Shopping Center is not important, to Newport Shores.

And from my perspective, that's absolutely not accurate, And I know others in our coalition would feel the same. We consider the Newport Hills Shopping Center our shopping center. We're excited for what the future could hold for the shopping center, and currently, we enjoy the restaurants, and we can hope that we hope that we can find a way for them to stay in any new development. Also, I'm a realtor for the past thirty years. I'm keenly aware of how expensive housing is and how unattainable it is for many people within our community.

Adding housing and affordable housing at the Newport Hills Shopping Center and any other shopping center in the city, as called for in HOMA as a way to help our housing crisis makes a lot of sense. I hope you will move forward with the approval of HOMA so that our hopes and dreams for the Newport Hills Shopping Center can come to fruition as soon as possible. Thank you for allowing me to speak this evening.

Thank you.

Next, we have, James Rivard, who is virtual, followed by Nicole Myers. James, can you raise your hand? Are you able to hear me?

Can you hear me?

Yes. Go ahead.

Hello there. This is James Rivard. I am a partner with Sperm Development. We are a multifamily market rate developer. We developed the maiden in Downtown Bellevue.

We have another 1,000 units right now roughly in the either under construction, including the Silver Cloud or at the old Silver Cloud site And but a total of about 1,000 units in the pipeline. We also I'm a partner in SRM Affordable Housing, so we build workforce in affordable housing. So we're well, I don't run that division, Pretty conversant in it. And we recently built the workforce project, Nuovo, over next to 405. So we we participate in both.

Really, just three points here real quickly. And they echo very much Kevin Wallace again or Jack's comments. It's very, very difficult to develop in downtown right now. It's extremely expensive. You can see that by the lack of projects that are under construction.

I think we're one of one or two right now that are under construction. And imposing additional costs and requirements on downtown housing is exactly the opposite of what you need to do if you want to promote and develop the amount of housing that needs to be developed in Bellevue over the next ten and twenty and thirty years. So I don't think it's a very wise time to do this. I mean if the market was booming and things were coming out of the ground, it might make sense. But even then, there should be an incentive, and it shouldn't be a punishment, a financial penalty.

It's difficult enough to get projects going. So that's number one. Number two, I will say that the city of Bellevue, we work up and down the West Coast, is, the staff is very responsive. They're very professional. The city is very good to work with.

But it seems a bit rushed, and it doesn't seem to be to have included the outreach that I would have expected of the city of Bellevue to the developers and stakeholders in the community, particularly in the downtown with this new proposed with the new proposed assortment. So I would encourage you to I haven't seen what Kevin's proposed. I'm sure it's smart and it's representative of what we would all support. But I would encourage you to review that. I would encourage you to take some time to talk to the other stakeholders and to really figure this out.

Because as Jack said, there's no incentive here. It's a stick, but we forgot the carrot. So there's got to be a little bit of a give and benefit to do this in the downtown. The last thing I might say is and I'm not a developer in Eastgate. We've looked at projects up there. But just to echo what some of them, we've developed about 2,000,000 square feet of commercial space, both office and retail. And it's all about location. And the maiden hasn't turned a tenant over in ten years. We very much, other than CVS, which is along Bellevue Way Your time is up. Good. Oh, I'll let you go. Thanks.

Next, have Nicole Myers, followed by Heidi Dean. Sorry.

Greetings, planning commissioners. I had some concerns about the flexibility that Matthew mentioned for downtown when you have excess FAR. If you look at page 67, it looks like this is required to be used within a single project limit, and I don't think that's adequate flexibility for some of the projects that may have excess FAR. As we've seen with the recent Pinnacle approvals, they'd receive an exemption in the tower spacing. And, you know, looking at the example of the fires that recently occurred in Hong Kong, I think it is extremely important to think carefully about what tower spacing we allow to happen here in Bellevue.

The tower that initially caught fire there was actually farther apart than some of the pinnacle towers are gonna be. And, you know, we have rules about how we're supposed to give exemptions for tower spacing. It's supposed to be things that would not result in privacy impacts, which implies that there's at least one solid wall. But instead, there are gonna be windows facing windows and, you know, forty, forty one feet apart, balconies 25 feet. It's just so close together and at a height that might be hard for the fire department to respond to as was, you know, one of the difficulties in their fire response.

I think we can't assume that the excess FAR that is assigned as part of this really ends up on a different site, that they have a useful place to put it. I think you should actually tailor the allowances for FAR to what we really think is realistic for a building using scenarios that, like, come up with an amount of open space that we're comfortable with that, you know, make reasonable assumptions about what is actually likely to be built so that we don't end up trying to, after the fact, flex the form allowances. I I just hope that you will maybe take a slower approach to this as some of the other speakers have mentioned. I think, you know, it is potentially something that has such a significant impact that it would make sense to, you know, treat some of the subcategories separately. I will say that as far as the 20,000 square foot exemption for pedestrian oriented uses, I am in the camp of continuing to offer pedestrian oriented uses for those neighborhoods.

I think, you can see some examples of smaller spaces even on lots that are much smaller than 5,000 square feet. If we can come up with some examples of what that might look like and then, you know, maybe tailor the requirements to promises about affordability so that they're not necessarily creating as much square footage for retail, but that there is some guarantee that, you know, local community businesses that need our support will be able to find a place in this future for Bellevue. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, we have Heidi Dean. And after that, I'll see if there's anybody else that wants to comment.

Okay. Good evening. I'm gonna just start by correcting a couple of things. First of all, it's not been twenty years that we've been working on the shopping center. It's been nine since the first comp plan amendment and rezone attempt.

Yes, the Heartland Study of 2010 did recommend mixed use and what was not mentioned was that the residential that was recommended was senior living and that we had an opportunity for senior living in 2019 and because Rainier Northwest will no longer work with that buyer, we don't have a redeveloped shopping center at this time. They are the problem. They're the ones dragging their feet. Yes, Rainier along with other NB zone properties did ask for mixed use mid rise seven to 10 stories to be the future land use map designation when the DEIS was released. Commissioner Liu, you authored the community club's letter opposing that.

Miss Deutsch raised her hands in support of that letter, and that did not go through. So I just wanted to point that out. I did want to point out that the Newport Community Coalition is a relatively small number of people in our area that's put together by Rayonier's paid PR consultant Sarah Langton, who coordinates all their messaging. And the messaging that you hear from myself and others are truly from us, from the people who live there and experience this, and I also wanted to say that those of us who support or oppose a massive up zone of neighborhood centers are not anti development, and no matter how many times the NCC repeats that, it will never make that true. So and here, by the way, here's what no one's talking about, and that's that small neighborhood centers and strip malls are actually highly desired properties without housing.

Just a basic Google search reveals that. But one of the things I wanted to talk about is the housing bills. All the housing bills that, have passed in the last three legislative sessions had not happened when, the Next Right work kicked off in 2022. So we don't know what the effect of those housing bills are going to be on Bellevue and its neighborhoods because the code amendments have just barely been passed. We have no data.

We don't know what they're going to do. So just one or two of those bills alone will have significant impact on the neighborhoods. You put them all together and you're talking massive density. If that suite of bills works, there is actually no reason to move forward with HOMA at all. Again, we have no data that says that we need this because this is a Council initiated land use code amendment, and it is a choice for you to say to recommend no.

It only addresses the housing element of the comp plan and ignores the other elements. So I ask you to please don't recommend moving forward.

Thank you.

I'm going to turn online. And if anybody would like to make comment on that is attending virtually, if you would raise your hand. I see one hand. Are you able to hear me?

Yes. I'm able to hear you.

Alright. Go ahead.

I appreciate that you are my name is Elizabeth Mopin, and I appreciate that you are looking at mixed use areas. My experience has been that these areas benefit from having greater security when there are residents living in those areas that might otherwise just be commercial and that I have some notes here that I can't read. That after businesses include residences, it's possible for people who are working in a business to live close to the business. That's that really helps people with the commuting. And I also found out that if you make an exception to the requirement that the ground floor be commercial, we need some ground floor residential spaces for people with disabilities.

If they're on upper levels and the power goes out, they can't use the elevators and some of them can't use the stairs. So it's a safety issue If you could allow some use of ground floor for residential even if there's also commercial on that level, that would be a real help to the disabled community. And there may be some adjustments that need to be made, but I'm generally in support of the a project that you are looking at. I don't live in Bellevue, but I've had a lot of experience working with communities that are looking at ways of including more affordable housing and mixed use. So I'm just bringing you what I have.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Is there anybody, in in the audience that would like to speak? Go ahead. You can come up.

Hello. My name is Heidi Shone. I live, in the condos and townhomes that are right behind the Newport, shopping center. My son, he's in fifth grade and has gone to Newport Heights Elementary, and my daughters have graduated from Newport High School. My biggest concern is that, the last study, I think someone had mentioned it was fifteen years ago or maybe it was nine.

I'm not sure. But, anyways, it's been a very long time. And, also, the outreach for what's going on hasn't really been I I mean, I talked to a lot of people in my complex and in the neighborhood, and no one really knows what that is happening. In addition, I'm troubled with how this is going to impact schools traffic and the overall surrounding structures such as water, sewer, Internet, and power, as well as pedestrian and bicycle access, the lack of parking, and public transportation. I do support redevelopment of the area as long as the retail space is kept and the restaurants and the other businesses are included.

It's a space that is used day and into the evening. Some places, restaurants don't even open until four. It is the community gathering place. Also, with this redevelopment, the residential units need to be a reasonable housing number for our neighborhood. And I believe with a more recent development study, that would help immensely with this. Thank you. Thank you.

I if there's anybody else, if you would raise your hand. Okay.

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Lexicon. I live in Bellevue for many years, and I've seen a lot of changes and especially in downtown. I'm really glad that you have great progress there. I would fully support staff suggestion.

Option number one. I had no intention to speak today, but, like, I decided to voice my support and urge you to actually approve the suggestion and move it to council because housing crisis is named crisis because it's urgent. And while home may be not ideal, but we can spend one more year, two more years, like, figuring this out out. But there are people who don't have millions of dollars who cannot wait, and they have to move out. And when you move out of the city, you, like, experience huge costs.

So, like, please think not only about, like, millions of dollars in development pipeline, but also people who are affected by this. Thank you.

Thank you.

I didn't really prepare for this. My name is Ray Osborne. I live in Newport Hills. I've been there for close to twenty five years. When I first moved there, the shopping center was, you it wasn't great. You know, the red apple was there. Sometimes you'd get spoiled milk. So it was kind of a mixture. I'm sure it was struggling when we first arrived, and eventually, it wasn't there. But what the shopping center really did have was a lot of small businesses and community organizations.

There was a dance studio. There's martial arts. I still go to the haircut place, although they're not open as much. There's this affordability of businesses that that is there now. Not that this is the way it should be because the place has been just completely mismanaged for so many years.

I just feel that the current owner just wants to get more money out of the project, and that's why that's continues to just go downhill and downhill and downhill. And, unfortunately, this Houma thing, it it doesn't really address affordability for businesses. And it also doesn't really it kinda ignores that the Newport Hills, neighborhood, it's an island. It's got I mean, it was annexed. It wasn't regularly a a a Belle Bellevue community.

So they when they developed it, they put tiny little streets. We have speed bumps going through our major arterials. It's really hard to get people in and off, and people cut through just to get off Coal Creek. It's it's it's gonna be hard to really, you know, have big, thriving, shiny businesses. And you would put five stories, or even four, it's there's gonna be so many people.

It's gonna just clog up the roads even more and make it just less and less livable, honestly. When I need to find some place that's affordable, you know, services and and don't wanna go through the traffic jam, frankly, I'll just head towards Renton. You know, I'll head towards I can head the other direction on on Coal Creek Parkway. I feel kind of abandoned a little bit by Bellevue by having things like this where there's just so many so many different programs to really boost the affordability of housing, but not really recognizing what my neighborhood looks like. That's that's how I feel. Thank you.

I saw another hand in the back.

Thank you, planning commission. I'm I'm a forty four year resident of, actually, Delmore Woods. My my home is in the last May

I ask?

Sorry. Could you provide your name for the record?

My name is Gary Stutt. I live in Delmore Woods. I'm actually in the last street before it enters, Newcastle. I've been in the home forty four years. So many changes. Originally, Gold Creek one way either way. I used to love going back and forth on that street. I have to avoid that. If I wanna get out of the neighborhood in the morning, which I don't necessarily have to, but on occasion, I do business hours between buses, school buses, the metro line, and just general traffic coming to A Hundred 19th Avenue, which is right through the Newport Hills Shopping Center. It's a parking lot.

I'm I'm 83 two years old. I don't have to go anywhere or whatever, so I can plan my times around whatever. But seeing what's happened to new Newcastle Commons, when I moved into that area, it was 54 acre property owned by Mutual Materials, which was a large brick plant in the West Coast. And now that whole area with the between apartments, the condos, the single family residences, I can see what's gonna happen to the Newport Hills Shopping Center, and I really don't want that to happen. Housing, yes.

And I I look. The four five or six story buildings, it'll just ruin the whole texture and whatever. I'm not against housing. I think affordable housing is important, and I my heart goes out to the young people today, who want to live in here live in that community, which is a Bellevue is a wonderful I had a lot to do with the annexation at the time I moved in in 1981. It was unincorporated King County.

Myself and about 20 residents of the area petitioned to annex to the city of Bellevue, and I was so happy that that happened in 1992. But I have nothing more to say other than I'm concerned about the traffic patterns and whatever else, and thank you. Appreciate your time.

Thank you.

Any more commenters?

I didn't plan to speak, but I, my name is Pam Raider.

Just wait till you get to the speaker.

Hi. My name is Pam Raider. I live in Newport Hills and been there, like, twenty years plus. And I just I love living in Bellevue. I tell you, my son okay. So my son just moved to Detroit. He bought a place. He grew up here, and none of his people could afford something. He bought a place in Detroit because he can afford that. But it it he would love to come back to Bellevue.

But I love living in Bellevue because it works. I mean, that stoplight going down the hill, that's amazing. I sometimes live in Honolulu because my parents grew I grew up there, and my I still have a home there with my parents. So I go back and forth, and the traffic there is just unbearable. But I love living in Bellevue because you don't wait five minutes on a stoplight.

You have to hop in, and it's so it just moves. I never see a place where you could really speak about your living situation and your and and speak to the city council. I I think that's so wonderful. I love living in Bellevue. I just think everything works so well, and you guys really have worked hard to make it manageable.

I mean, going down that I know. Going down that, I, one nineteen Coal Creek Parkway, it can be a disaster, but it isn't. You know why? Because it's all organized so well. It just moves. I just wanted to say that. Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other speakers? If you are online or in person, if you could raise your hand. Chair, I'm not seeing any more hands.

Great. I think we've come to the close of the public testimony. Is there a motion to close the hearing? So moved. Is there a second? Second. May I just go? All approved, say aye. Aye. Aye. Alright. I think we need a break. So let's do, back in 08:40.

So it may be difficult to work things into that work schedule. It's obviously also limited by staff capacity.

Okay. Abilities. Don't know. And and just note one more item that will be coming before the commission is downtown livability two point o. And so that will be looking at downtown more holistically. So that would be kind of another opportunity to look at the downtown standards.

Okay. Thank you. I have a couple I I think I agree with a number of the comments that were brought up today. Ground level uses, I think the intent is great. We don't wanna have ghost streets. Right? But there's other ways to do it just than the other just than retail or storefronts. Storefronts. And it's it is causing some level of discomfort clearly with some of the stakeholders. There's one in particular I wanted to ask you about. Maybe I didn't understand it correctly. The applicability of affordable housing program, whenever you have 10 or more dwelling units, there's a provision that says also whenever you have a project that is more than 4,000 square feet.

Yep.

Of course. That effectively makes everything that's 4,000 square feet required to provide affordable housing because if you do the math, it's, like, 400 square foot units, which are very small units. And that's that particular line item seems a little bit excessive to me, but I I I wanted to know if I'm reading incorrectly perhaps or if there's a specific, context in which, this happens that I'm not aware of.

So at least in the Wilburton context, the 4,000 related to commercial development, and that's how we qualify what's considered a major commercial project. 4,000 seems small to be labeled major major commercial, but that's just kind of the way that the department has been viewing the 4,000 square foot threshold. But it looks like we're having a couple people just verifying the language there to make sure it's really intended to just apply

to that.

This is twenty fifteen one one ten.

Yeah. So it sets out the criteria for what projects would apply. So there's essentially different sets of criteria if you have different project types. So if you were to do something like an all residential project, it would be based on that unit count, I believe. So it's that's when that 10 or more units would trigger. Mhmm. With other projects would have commercial, then you have that 4,000 square feet of commercial, which is also a trigger for the program. This is the same as what is currently required through the Wilburton.

Okay. So it's just a play for 4,000 square feet of commercial space. Okay. I I might have misread that then. Thank you. That's that's that's good. I I think I'll I'll let everybody else speak, and maybe we can get back to some details. But thank you.

Yeah. We'll do a second round after this, so there's more opportunity there. Commissioner Kennedy?

Thank you. And I thank you for all your work on this. There's clearly a lot of interest, and I also shared some of the questions that we heard this evening that that had gotten raised. I wrote too many notes to say, and did we get three points? But I think the first point I wanted to make is just we I think we received 33 comments here this evening in writing plus more that we received after 1PM, several commenters.

And I think it does seem like there are several questions around a variety of the areas that both the downtown and the Houma are for mixed use areas are covering. So I wanted to just ask a few of those questions. I do think it may be worth follow-up on those items, and I know that there is a desire to move this forward to the city council. But I feel like maybe we we I share commissioner Bill Aves' feeling that maybe we need some more time. So one area that I wanted to ask about is in the nonconforming use provisions.

I I'm curious, Robbie, were you able to do some comparative analysis to where what we see in other jurisdictions? I know a couple different commenters this evening raised how Seattle, for instance, uses deals with nonconforming uses. Just curious your thoughts around how what's being proposed compares in those other jurisdictions.

However, I have done a comparison among the city's seven different nonconforming sections that currently exist.

Okay.

And what we have in the draft is the most gradual transition from into compliance with current code, and it's based on what this this commission and also council just adopted in Wilburton. So that was the direction going forward, but certainly can can look into what Seattle's doing.

Great. I I would be curious just because we had it come up a few different times just to hear how that's being dealt with in other jurisdictions. I would be I I would find that helpful and interesting if it's not a huge lift. The other item I wanted to raise is in thinking about the feasibility analysis that we did and the analysis that went into option b. I've I've spent a lot of time and asked a lot of questions around option a.

But in the respect of option b, I don't have a lot of clarity around how we came to the FAR bonus or allotment that is received for the point two affordable housing equaling the point five FAR up to a given height. Where I can you just give a little bit more background on that on how did we come to that and why it seems like a sufficient incentive. I was struck by seeing comments on actually both sides of that issue, both from developers and affordable housing advocates, both kind of feeling like maybe option b isn't providing a sufficient incentive. I And was curious why we can't do that through an incentive. We have to do it in a mandate.

Is there a way to adjust that, and how had you thought about it? Why why is this where we landed, I guess?

Sure. I mean, you know, we're trying to balance the bonus with the amount of what basically, the bonus of with what the city is getting back for giving that bonus. Right? So looking at our values of sort of floor area and square footage that we have through our economic analysis, which you all pro were provided those numbers at the last meeting or the meeting before. I can't remember at this point. So looking

the five.

Yeah. One of the five. One of the more recent of the five. So looking at those numbers and trying to balance sort of that return on investment, we'll say. I think what we've heard from the affordable housing providers is pretty clear, comment in support of option a.

I don't think there's been, much interest from the affordable housing providers in option b, because we know both nationwide and and in the city of Bellevue that a mandatory program is going to provide more affordable housing. You know, we can certainly increase the bonus. The more we increase the bonus, you know, the more the city is giving for what it's getting back in relation affordable housing. The more you increase the the bonus, the more effective a, voluntary program is always going to be. Part of the sort of creating parity between the two programs was to, have them basically end at the same point.

So you're getting the same FAR, and the same building height through both programs as maximums and not privileging one over the other by giving significantly more building height or FAR, through one of the other programs. Building height is obviously also limited by other factors, such as a comprehensive plan. So there's only so far we can push that before we're not in compliance with our comprehensive plan. So Yes. Making sure all of those things are in balance when we look at this analysis using the numbers that we have through our economic analysis.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it is highly complex. And I was trying to think through as we were listening to some of the comments how these different bonus scenarios and as we did that feasibility analysis, which I do remember and really appreciated it, would affect kind of you know, it seems like a lot of developers are looking toward these townhomes and timber frame developments.

How how does it impact that kind of the six foot or the six story building versus, like, the 12 story building that would finally start stone ceiling out again with a nontemper frame? And how how do we think about these bonuses in all of those different scenarios? I think someone or a few different commenters raised this evening to really think through that feasibility analysis for different sizes of buildings. And I was thinking that through as as have we have we thought about that? And and then also thinking about that in different market scenarios.

We are in a tough market now. How does it compare today? And I know we saw that in the analysis, but how would it be in a good market? And I think that was raised by several commenters this evening. So

I think also when we with the analysis we provided to you a few meetings ago, there was the analysis was provided in a better market scenario where the numbers are positive, showing you how much of a gap that makes with the mandatory program. I will note that often, because of the way our building heights are, an incentive for additional building height for, developments that are likely to build townhomes is not an incentive at all.

Not good then.

Okay. You're probably very unlikely to get affordable in townhomes and very much unlikely to get any affordable housing in any ownership project through a voluntary program versus a mandatory program. I think we have seen almost no, owner occupied affordable housing units being created in the city of Bellevue without any sort of mandatory program. In the past, Habitat for Humanity has been basically the only operator of those units, in the city. So there is certainly drawbacks to that voluntary program on the smaller side of the the building height, and it doesn't provide as much of an incentive for those types.

Okay. Okay. My third category of questions had around downtown. There were several comments raised around the affordable housing incentives in downtown being mandatory taxes. Can can you explain whether this is a mandatory tax, which is distinct from how I was reading it and and how it is not and and why so many commenters feel like it is?

Yeah. Sure. It is not a mandatory tax, nor is it a tax at all. It is built in the exact same way that the amenity program is for our current open space. So if you want to argue that this change is a tax, then the open space that we currently require is a tax as well.

It's not. We give essentially, the way the program works is you have a base building height and a base FAR. And if you wanna exceed either of those things, you need to provide us these amenities, which is why it's the amenity incentive. For each of those amenities, we give a certain number of amenity incentive points, which allows you to build that additional square footage above the base FAR. In this case, we are proposing to add affordable housing into that program, and require that the first 25% of those points be from affordable housing.

So if you are to participate in that incentive, the affordable housing portion of that incentive is mandatory. That program itself is not mandatory. I will say that almost all of our developments use it because it is a quite beneficial, incentive program to the developers. So it's it's certainly not mandatory. You certainly don't have to use it.

It is certainly, an incentive, not a tax with the same square foot, being allowed for the exemption program. And for the amenity incentive point, you're essentially getting eight square feet of market rate housing for every single square foot of affordable housing you provide, which we, think is quite a bonus, contrary to what we've heard from public comment, which is saying there's no bonus. It's all stick and no carrot. We think that's a quite large carrot. That one to four exemption goes up to 50% of the base FAR as well.

Currently in the code, it's one FAR with a ratio of one to 2.5. So it is a huge expansion of that bonus and also, an additional four amenity incentive points for every square foot of affordable housing. I think where we're hearing the most concern from the development community, obviously, tax is you know, it's in relation to the fee in lieu. It's for those projects that are in the pipeline, which you've heard, from from many of the commenters today that, we're essentially requiring this fee for those pipeline projects, and that is where it becomes more of a difficulty for developers. I will openly admit that as they've already designed their projects around this open space amenity incentive system.

And now we're saying, well, there's a new amenity that you're going to have to provide us. We have committed to those developers that we would discuss exempting those projects that are in the pipeline from the HOMA requirements. Essentially, they'd have to either choose to participate in the HOMA updates and get all of the HOMA updates or stick with the current code. That's at the discretion of council. Planning commission can certainly make a recommendation that council does discuss that.

It is not in the purview of planning commission. We are not proposing to make any changes to the land use code to to that end. It's very odd for us to put specific projects into our land use code with the vesting language, which becomes outdated quite quickly. In the past, we have exempted projects from updated code. That's basically through the ordinance that council would adopt. They would exempt those pipeline projects from the HOMA requirements. Did you have anything you want

to add?

If I could, commissioner Kennedy, just wanted to also touch on some of the other carrots that were offered up because this has been a root or a a comment that we've been hearing from the downtown community, and we've been listening to them. One of the major shifts that Matthew had noted in the presentation was a reduction in the open space from the 10% to 7%. That was at their request, and that is not something that applies just in the perimeter overlay. I think there was some comments suggesting most of the benefit is going to the perimeter. That actually would apply anywhere in the downtown.

The parking for residential has also been reduced by 50%, and that's not through an affordable housing threshold being met. So that's another big benefit. And then we've also added in more flexibility where upper level step backs are required. So there is, of course, the reduction that's consistent with HOMA when an affordability threshold is met, but there's also a lot of flexibility on where they land that upper level step back regardless of whether there is affordable housing provided. That was also in response to a lot of comments that we've been hearing about the downtown.

And then there's other comments that we've also been hearing as of recent, just as of this week, that we have also kind of scoped already on downtown livability two point o as part of a larger discussion on some of the form changes that might be considered and that the planning commission would want to discuss and likely in relation with a bunch of other kind of form changes and adjustments that the that have been on the list since that 2017 update happened. So just wanted to add in a couple other incentives that we threw in to help with this change for the downtown.

That's really helpful. Thank you.

Commissioner Geppel?

Yep. Thanks for a great presentation this evening. I have I I think overall, I think this is close. I'm leaning towards option a, at this point. And I I have two plus ones, and I have, and I have two points.

So first, the the plus ones. I wanted the plus one, something that, commissioner Bill Ovaisis was saying earlier, which has to do with ground floor level usages. I I mean, the example for the Eastgate trailer in is kind of a a concern for me, you know, and how we how we address that. Because I I think if there's a burden from, if there's a burden from, having retail space that's not, occupied, I would hate to see that happen, you know, with unoccupied space. So that's one plus one.

I also wanted to plus one the the discussion you just had with commissioner Kennedy on the on the downtown area. Because in my mind, I think what's being proposed is fair except for those projects that are in the pipeline. And I I really am sympathetic to them, and I would I I don't know how we do this as a planning commission if it's not within our purview. I I certainly have a strong view that those that are in the pipeline should not be should not be prejudiced by what we do here. So, that's that's another plus one.

The other two pieces that I I I think I'd like to get, some more input on our first, on the, impermeable surfaces because that came up several times, the 60% requirement. Can you speak to that and whether that makes sense with the density that we're trying to, you know, create in some of these areas, and why are we requiring that?

Sure. You know, whether it makes sense is up for subjective opinion. But there are reasons why that has been required in the past, and there are certainly other mechanisms that we could get some open space, as suggested by public comments, such as requiring open space. Generally, the reasons you would require some permeable surfaces is to, manage runoff, is a big issue. Right? So the more impervious surface you have, the more runoff you have, the faster the runoff moves. So, it gets essentially pushed to the city stormwater system often, which burdens our, utilities. There are ways to manage it. There are requirements that the city has for managing on-site runoff, and there's also requirements that the state has. So, at this point in time, it's not as big of an issue as it used to be.

You know, the other reason to maintain permeable surfaces is sort of you know, there's landscaping. There's trees. So, you know, by having a impermeable surface limit, you can't pave your whole lot. So, you know, there's pros and cons to that, obviously. It does limit the space for development. It limits the size of buildings, and it limits the size of surface parking lots. The other hand on that is it does limit the amount of asphalt you're going to have on some sites, so it will limit the amount of urban heat island effect you have. It will also ensure that there is some landscaping open space on every site. I think we are are quite open to, bringing back a different mechanism of of requiring that if, planning commission wishes.

K. And then the last topic, because I've just raised it several earlier meetings, is just in the transition areas. And I I think I've gotten a lot more comfortable about the transition areas relative to, you know, residential development. I'm still a little nervous about, especially those residential areas that are abutting, you know, buildings that are gonna be 80 or a 100 feet tall. And I'm just wondering, can you help me understand, you know, how the the the step back that you've proposed and the size of it really addresses that?

And and, you know, one idea is, you know, should we be looking at maybe a little bit bigger step back? You know, like, if it was a a 30 foot step back with you know, at 60 feet or something like that. Because I'm just a little nervous about the idea of people in residential areas who you know, maybe they've invested their entire life savings in their house, and it's their biggest asset. And then all of a sudden, there's an eight story building behind them. And I and I know we wanna try and maximize the amount of, you know, housing we're trying to get, but I'm also just a little bit sympathetic to people who might get surprised, by that kind of development.

Sure. So we're certainly open to discussions on the size of that step back. The step back was proposed at 80 feet because it essentially puts you above the end of the wood frame building. Much easier to put a step back in if you're building in concrete and steel than if you're building on wood frame, which, much easier to put basically vertical walls. It also impacts housing a lot more if we're gonna start interfering with those wood frame buildings as we've heard that sort of the most feasible housing type at this point for for that apartment building type.

So that's the reasoning why it was set at 80 feet is to get it above that level. 15 feet, essentially would add a little bit more sunlight, so you get that a little bit less shadowing impact. What that exact, you know, step back needs to be or should be is certainly something planning commission can make a recommendation on, you know, between the 25 foot, setback, the step back, and then the setback on the other side. So on the residential side, which is gonna be generally somewhere between ten and twenty five feet, we are starting to create a lot of distance between these buildings, with often very tall trees. Most of these shopping centers and other commercial areas are lined by these 80 to a 100 foot tall trees.

So, keeping that in mind too, when you start seeing 50 foot building separations, the step back probably isn't as impactful as if that building was pushed right up to the property line.

That's helpful. Thank you.

Thank you so much for the presentation and for, keeping with us here. I know it's getting late, so I appreciate you staying and, answering questions. You know, I'll echo a couple of these the points that the commissioners have made. I think the, the idea of, you know, recommending some type of vesting or, you know, being a little bit more clear by the time we recommend to council of what exactly a vesting schedule would look like for existing projects that would be subject to this would be you know, I I think that'd be a great idea for us to have at least a proposal or an idea or recommendation for that. I had a couple of questions.

You know, one's a broader one, and the other one's a little bit more specific. You know, the what you're proposing is kind of a uniform somewhat uniform affordable housing fee in lieu across the board. What's the impact to different levels of different types of development? Like, are we gonna see the biggest impact in, you know, low rise? Are we gonna see the biggest impact in high rise from both a cost and also performance perspective?

You know, I think, you know, it's very our Phe is quite conservative on both regards. The higher density zones, so that's gonna be those seven story and above districts. The Phe And Lou is proposed as the same for the lower end of the Wilburton, districts, and those building heights are pretty consistent between those two districts. The Houma districts don't have the same infrastructure and green building and other requirements that the Wilburton sites do, so we think that number is quite fair and and quite conservative. 10 a square foot is quite low as well for those lower sized buildings.

We haven't heard from those developers particularly strongly that that fee in lieu number is too high or particularly impactful. Where we will see the biggest impact from any sort of requirement is those projects that are gonna be the least feasible at this point in time. What we're seeing through our economic analysis is that high rise buildings are gonna be the least feasible at this point in time. They're just very expensive to build. We also see more difficulty or at least we hear more difficulty from the community, the development community on doing affordable housing and owner occupied type units.

Mhmm. On the other side of that, one of our biggest affordable housing needs and a goal that's been repeated both in our in our planning processes and by our council is to try to find ways to have owner occupied affordable housing units to build that equity. So, you know, there's push pull in each way, but we do think our numbers are very conservative even compared to surrounding communities. Places like Seattle have much higher fee in lieu than we're proposing here.

Gotcha. And remind me are we proposing a commercial fee in lieu? Or is that

We are proposing a commercial fee in lieu. I'd have to pull the number. I don't have enough on my thank you. $16.50.

It's the same as the Wilburton. Okay.

Yeah. It's the same as Wilburton. So that fee in lieu is basically consistent across the board. Yeah. And the fee in lieu proposed for the not tax, not mandatory downtown, amenity incentive is $13 a square foot. So also quick and conservative, consistent with, Wilburton as many of the, districts in downtown, which is gonna be like that downtown mixed use district, is pretty similar in form and scale to Wilburton.

Got it. I think I said this for Wilburton as well, but I'm not the biggest fan of commercial fee in lieu. I think we already have enough problems with creating, you know, retail space. So, you know, that's something I'd I'd like for us to to consider. My my last point is, you know, there were a couple comments around Eastgate and development of Eastgate, and I think people have some varied opinions on that. I wanna get your thoughts on the interaction between Eastgate development and BC's master plan. Like, is because I I kind of view Eastgate as, like, a almost, like, semi accessible area for BC students, and, you know, there's potential there. But, you know, I don't know BC's master plan. So how do those elements overlay and interact? And, you know, I guess, what's the vision there?

Yeah. I mean, I can't really speak that much to Bellevue College's master plan. We will be launching a code amendment sometime in the New Year, to update the zoning where, Bellevue College exists now to, facilitate some of their master planning. That was something that was identified as very important through the comp plan. Right now, that Eastgate TOD area is not really serving them.

For the most part, it is office buildings, and we're seeing very high office vacancy in that area. So, hopefully, through some of these form changes and, raising some of these restrictions, we can see more mixed use development in these areas, which would hopefully provide an opportunity both for businesses that would better serve the college, coffee shops, bars, those types of things, which we don't see so much down there, and then housing potentially for the students. We know through some of the outreach that's been happening through neighborhood area planning and community development who's working on the Eastgate neighborhood area plan that most of the Bellevue College students are commuting in. Mhmm. I'm sure it would be great for them, and it would be great for us as a community in Belle Vue to have more of those college students living in that area and in Bellevue.

So, hopefully, over time, we can facilitate more of that development rather than these very suburban office type developments with very large surface parking lots.

And maybe just to clarify, that that seems to be the incentive behind wanting some retail space there rather than just pure housing. It sounds like there's a bit of a mix proposed for Eastgate in that I guess, like, you guys have incorporated the BC needs a little bit, at least, into the planning.

Yes. And as a TOD, we obviously wanna make walkable communities as well. I do wanna note because we did have one public comment about the OLB area, the Boeing campus, and the basically, to the south of that is zoned OLB 2. We are not proposing to require ground floor retail or pedestrian oriented uses in those areas.

Is that the WeWork area, or is that

If so it's basically to the direct east of the Eastgate TOD area. There's hotels, and there's some drive throughs. Then the Bowen Campus is sort of that large campus complex as recognizing that there are some areas in the city that are not identified through the comprehensive plan and our planning processes as these neighborhood centers and may not be as well connected to the neighborhoods to support that pedestrian oriented use or that retail on the site. So we have tried to be relatively judicious with where we are requiring this pedestrian oriented use to make sure that they are in these areas that are designed to support these neighborhoods that surround them. Got it.

Okay. Great. I'm gonna do another round here. I think we also have a, you know, a recommendation to make. So as you're going through your comments, please kinda indicate whether or not you're ready to make a recommendation now. And if not, then we should be very clear about the directives that we want the staff to follow-up with. So I'll start with you, commissioner Biavezis. So

about the vesting and pipeline, I'm not gonna expand on this very much, but I know we talked about it last session. And I know it was I don't remember, but I remember that the outcome of that discussion was that this price would be not subject to the new code. So I would love to see maybe Kate maybe you can help us or somebody can help us find out what we talked about because it's kinda odd that we're talking about this again. Ground level users, I think the goal really is to have frequent doors and windows. We wanna have eyes on the street, and we wanna, we wanna avoid blank walls.

And we wanna make sure that those active users overlap so you can have shops and retail, things like that with cafes. But that doesn't mean that residential users are inappropriate for this. And that's just really gonna help. I mean, it's clearly a thorn into in in what is happening here with all the comments. And it is good to have that overlap between residential uses, commercial uses at ground level.

They both can serve that purpose, and we should really look into that. There's many cities in the world like New York or Paris that have predominantly residential ground level, spaces with clearly defined street edges that work very, very well at the ground level. There was a comment today about the consolidation of affordable units if it's being provided in projects that have both townhomes and apartments into the apartment portion of the I think that makes perfect sense because townhomes, they don't lend themselves to much flexibility. You're bound by three stories under IRC or or more IBC, but you have just one unit. I mean, no matter how tall you make it, just have one unit.

So you're giving away a lot of square footage and a lot of developed land for a townhome if you're doing an affordable unit that you can you can also provide an affordable unit and apartment. So that makes sense. That that comment really makes sense. A personal one that we also talked before was bike parking. These buildings, especially now, it is written, there's a lot of requirements at the ground level, including all these commercial spaces.

There's a prominent entry, but there's also practical needs like trash and recycling. These rooms take a lot of space. Bike parking to be required at the same level with the same access as pedestrians doesn't like, that's gonna impose and I've seen it. It's gonna impose a big, it's gonna impose a lot of trouble on resolving a ground floor appropriately and being able to include everything that is being required. If the bike parking more than any other use is the most flexible one.

I mean, if you're taking your bike out of the building, you're going around the city, you can certainly come into the building and take it to your unit, or you can take it to the parking and put it next to your car, or you can take it to, parking space for bikes that is not necessarily in the Ground Floor, not necessarily next to the pedestrian entrance. There's really flexibility there. In unit parking, which, we discussed last time, is definitely an option. So when when you consolidate all the bike parking, it just takes a big chunk of area. And accommodating everything on the on the Ground Floor with that, it makes it more difficult.

So that's, one comment. I think to just wrap it up, I think there's a lot of very valid comments tonight. I think the I think it's very, very close. I think it's going in the right direction. I think there's a lot of valid comments from, public comment that I I believe we should address. And if we were to make a recommendation, I guess, I think we need more one more session on this, that's

if that makes sense.

Yeah. Could you provide more detail on, like, specific follow ups that you'd like to see from either referencing, you know, the the comments that we've received? I'd like to

I'd like to have staff coordinate with the stakeholders group so that they can provide answers to the comments that were raised today. I think somebody I think it was Kevin Wallace and Jack McCollney suggested that. I think that's a very legitimate suggestion at at this point.

Thank you.

One final comment.

Sorry.

Go ahead. Just to wrap

it up. I would have loved to see a more a better option b. My kids work better with incentives within mandatory requirements. I I think also in this case, it would have been very good to see, we're saying that the outcome of both options a and b are the same, but the baseline is not. And it would have been great to see an option where incentive is giving more priority, but it seems like it's always been provided and and kinda made so that we all choose option a, which is fine too. But this is just a personal note. But besides that, I think we're very close. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello. Can I just clarify on two things? One, the the follow-up. There was, I think, 34 commenters tonight. When we're talking about responding to stakeholder questions, I just wanna be clear what what questions those were.

And then on the vesting piece, the best recommendation because we have heard pretty clearly from commission some interest in allowing flexibility for projects that are not vested to the code that HOMA would impact. There might be things they are interested in taking advantage of. So we've heard from you all to provide some option for them to jump in or stay out of HOMA if they've already got a project in motion. And so because we are not amending our vesting language, the best path forward would be for the commission, when they're ready to transmit their recommendation to council, to make a very fine point that that is a recommendation that's really important to the package that you're transmitting to council. And then that will direct staff to incorporate that into the ordinance for council to ultimately decide whether they'd like to, you know, include that provision, that vesting, or not.

So that would be the pathway to to get to that feedback. That's why you haven't seen it back in code. But we have been listening, and we, look forward to you all providing that direction when you're ready to make recommendation.

K. Should I respond to Yes. So, I mean, there's a lot of specific comments in these letters from Kevin Wallace, from McCullough Hill that are addressing item by item in the code. I think it would be worth to sit down with them or sit down amongst yourself before I review them. I'm happy to discuss as well if it needs to, but, like, in previous surfaces.

Right? Like, I think I agree with the with the with the comment. A project like this, multifamily housing with the previous surface of 60%, it's just not gonna it's just not gonna work out. And all this, the the intent is great, But once you put it against reality and and and these guys that I spoke today, they're the ones that are dealing with this every day, and they know 60% is not gonna pencil out because then your building's gonna be really small, and then you have tools to provide pauses. Then you have to provide all this stuff.

So kinda go through this, see, okay, which which codes, like, the commercial code in Seattle doesn't have previous surfaces requirements that the and and it works. Right? And in this case, you have other elements that are gonna limit the size of the building, like FAR and setbacks, and those are the limit and and maximum height. Those are the the practical limitations. So when we build in more limitations, we're making it a little bit harder. But 60% in previous, it's it's almost residential. Level. Right? We have 50% here in Bellevue. And and it it creates a limitation on how much development you can provide. Yeah. This is a lot more pronounced and multifam. So I think going through these items would be

Yeah.

Be very helpful.

I think so the Kevin Wallace responses and McCullough Hill and I think the plush committee were the the ones. Right? Okay. Great. Commissioner Kennedy?

Yeah. I I I guess I think I I'm glad to hear that we can recommend in our proposal to the council that there be an exemption for pipeline projects. Still think that that's important to give people regulatory certainty and reliability. So that's great. That sounds like it doesn't need to delay our decision.

I am I am also interested in looking at the comments that we've received. In particular, it appears that we're getting comments on both sides of the issue around commercial space and those pedestrian oriented uses. So concerns when we think about certain neighborhoods around ensuring that there are commercial uses, and I'm curious if we're striking the right balance between that sentiment and the sentiment of several commenters that felt like we would have empty commercial buildings on the Ground Floor. I I think this is an amorphous request because I haven't had the time to go through and give the specific comments that we've received just this evening that are on both sides of those issues. But I think it would be helpful to just look at it and say, yes.

We have struck the right balance. We've looked at the comments that we've received. It is still the correct balance. And I think you have done a wonderful job of considering the appropriate requirements for the given neighborhood. So I I don't know that we're far off, but I think there were comments on both sides of the 20,000 foot exemption saying, maybe we don't want it in our neighborhoods because we need those neighborhoods to have their cafe.

And there were comments saying, it's gonna be empty. I'm on the side of a highway, and no one's gonna walk by my highway. And so I just think it's worth looking at. So if there were one thing to kind of take the time to look at that, look at the comments that were received, and just ensure that we're still striking the right balance. There was one other specific

Is that is that enough direction for you to go off of? Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Comment that I was making, but I can't read my scribbles. I'm I I'm hoping at the end of that review and looking at the comments that we've received that we're ready in the next meeting to be able to take a path forward and say we're in the right place with this downtown. We're in the right place with Houma. We can move forward with option a. We've got the balance right and appreciate your your candor in taking on meeting number six, if that's possible.

Alright. Commissioner Gebel?

Yeah. As I mentioned before, I think we're close, but I I think there was a couple of areas where I'd like a little bit more work and just to focus on those specific ones. One is, you know, the, the ground level uses, and just making sure that we're not, you know, we're not creating ground level uses that are not going to be, occupied sufficiently. So I think a little bit more flexibility potentially in that space, particularly in areas, you know, like that I 90 corridor example was pretty compelling for me. So that's that's that's one thing.

You know, a second thing that would help me is if we you know, when it comes to this, vesting recommendation that we might make, a little bit more specifics on what that might look like, would be really useful, because I I do feel pretty strongly about that as being just a fairness issue for people that are in the process. And I think the, you know, the the permeability issue, I think, is worth looking at. I I don't want everything covered with asphalt and concrete, but I maybe a little bit more flexibility, especially where we're looking at more, density would be, would be appropriate. And then the final thing and I just wanna throw it open, you know, to the other commissioners. Am I the only one who cares about the transitionary thing?

If if I'm the only one who cares about it, then then maybe I don't wanna, you know, make you go on a fool's errand to try and, come up with alternatives. But I I it just continues to make meaner risk because I just think about if an 80 story building went up behind me, I'd have a point of view on it. You know? Or not 80 story, 80 foot tall building went up behind me. I'd have a point of view on it.

You know? Yeah. So, and I I guess I'm seeing some nodding from other commissioners that maybe it's worth, you know, looking at that a little bit more and if there's any other alternatives. Maybe I I don't know if that's a you know, something that could be done with a step back or or anything else, you know, just to give people a little bit of, you know, comfort that, you know, they're they're they're light in the conditions that they came into when they first bought their property are not totally turned upside down. I mean, things will change, and people have to accept that. But at the same time, that's that's a lot of change to digest. So

Just some clarity on that. I mean, it sounds like what you're asking for is sort of a alternative maybe with a larger step a setback or a larger setback. Is that the type of alternative you're looking for? Or

I'll be honest. If if we were talking about if we were talking about, like, a five story building and it was 60 feet tall and we had the step the setback that you proposed, I wouldn't be nervous. It's just when you start getting up to 80 and a 100 foot buildings, you know, that's that's a big difference. And that's that's and maybe you could say that's somewhat arbitrary on my part, but it's it's just a question of scale. That's that's that's my uneasiness point.

And whether you solve that through a slightly bigger setback or you solve it through a slightly bigger step back, I don't know what's the best answer, you know, for purposes of trying to balance the considerations here.

Go ahead.

Thank you for bringing it up. I I think I'm I'm generally okay with the transition, not the alternative, but original. But with that with one caveat, I think we should, look at transitions. How do you say this? If your house is to the south of the building because the sun travels on the south here, and we wanna make sure that it doesn't get shadow.

So if for buildings that are north of the residential area, we should consider whether that setback or the step back need to be increased so that you have sunlight reaching the home. I don't think we wanna be in the shadow of a building for sure. I mean, if you see it, that's part of growth in the city. But especially for properties that are south of a building in a transition area, we should consider what the size of the setback and the size of the setback should be so that this building is not in the shadow. That's, I guess, my point.

Is that enough direction?

Mhmm.

Okay. Thank you.

To that. I just remembered what my scribble

Okay. Go ahead.

I can wait till you hear me.

No. Go ahead.

Thanks. Just responding on the transition areas. Agree and plus one. I'm just checking that. So as as amended by commissioner Villavasas, I think that's a valuable thing to do.

I also just realized what my scribble was earlier, so I would just add to the review The question I raised earlier on the nonconforming uses, just checking that against other jurisdictions and seeing if that percentage is in line with what we see. If that's a very onerous request, then just kind of check check checking that in other ways to ensure that this seems like it is within reason, or just checking at least Seattle, something where we can kind of make sure that that seems like a a reasonable manifestation or if it should be adjusted given the comments that we received. I agree on the comments that were just made around checking on the flexibility that we could have. And so before the next meeting, I do think reviewing some of the red lines that we received to see do we have sufficient flexibility built into that to enable what we're trying to accomplish with affordable housing and then housing build out. And then I just wanted a plus one getting a draft of the exemption language, if that's possible, so we know exactly what we're saying and what we're asking, and we get that in the right position.

We don't end up dealing things and can move quickly at our next meeting would would be helpful. So thank you. Thank you.

Can I just just to manage expectations, we would love to take a look at the Seattle nonconforming code and do a comparison? And what I would also love to do is follow-up with that commenter and find out what specifically they enjoy about that code so that we have a little more focus in that review and and then bring that back for your consideration.

Great. Alright. I don't have too much else to say. I think the commissioners have covered it. You know, I I think a lot of this I I'm gonna plus one the vesting comment. I think we should get at least some recommended language that we can then recommend to council. I'll plus one on the, the the analysis of the the transition areas. I think that's worth taking a look at so that we maybe visually just know what that might look like. I don't know you can do a rendering or something, but I think that would help us make a decision on that as well. And, yeah, I also just wanna make sure that we incorporate the two missing commissioners.

So, you know, I I'm leaning towards we can't table this for now, address it later, and then give you an opportunity to respond to those some of the stakeholders and some of our comments as well. So I guess we don't have to take a vote then if we're choosing to do that. Alright. Great. Okay. Since we're not ready to make a recommendation yet, is there an approval of the minutes?

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Vote to approve the minutes.

Second.

Motion. Motion.

Any discussion? No. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Alright. Is there a motion to adjourn the meeting?

So moved.

Alright. Is there a second?

Second.

Alright. Any discussion? Nope. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye.

Job.