Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening, and welcome to October 22 City of Bellevue Planning Commission. This evening meeting This evening meetings is held via hybrid format with both in person and virtual option via Zoom. Tonight's meeting will provide an opportunity for public comment during the oral communication portion of the agenda. All written comments that have been submitted prior to 11AM today, Wednesday, October 22, will be summarized into the record. We have only one agenda item tonight, a public hearing.

The public hearing tonight is for critical area ordinance land use code amendment. Following public testimony, the planning commission will have the option to make a recommendation to counsel on the LEWCOM. Now let's move forward with roll call. Wasser Lu?

Present.

Harris? Here. Commissioner, Goppel?

Here.

Commissioner Kennedy? Here. Commissioner Villavesses?

I'm here.

Commissioner Lilchian?

Here.

Okay. And deputy mayor Manakwitian? Sure. And I'm chair Hanloo. Can I take a motion to approve tonight's agenda?

So moved.

Is there any second? Second. Any discussion? All approved, say yes. I. Any report from deputy mayor, Madaguchi?

Yes. Absolutely. Thank you so much again for everything you guys do. We had two study session last night that one of them was actually, was presented to you guys, the strategy for our housing and affordable housing. We found, like you guys, that if we do everything as usual, we are going to have 2,000 units less than what we are trying to achieve from now to 10 from now.

So, hopefully, those strategies that they're going to bring us back to us is going to address to get to those deeper level affordability. The second session was all about m MFTE program, and I think we are going apparently, a supercharger program in Wilburton that we worked on is very, very popular. We already went through all of the catalysts that you guys had, and it seems it's working. And how can we extend extend that, expand on that, and be more encouraging development happen in whole Bellevue. So that was another recession that we had.

Housing and housing and affordable housing was the last night team. Any questions?

Great.

Thanks, deputy mayor. Any report from boards and commissions? No reports. Thank you. Staff liaison Tara Johnson will provide us with update to the meeting schedule.

Thank you, chair Keown Lou. Good evening, commissioners. In addition to the meeting schedule, I have quite a few announcements, so bear with me. We only have, a few topics, programmed at this point, so staff's still working on your extended schedule for 2026 tonight. Of course, we have the public hearing on the critical areas ordinance, and then really looking forward to the retreat with all of you on November 5.

And then as commissions directed, we have the public hearing on the housing in mixed use areas, land use code amendment. January, we have some tentative topics where we'll talk about the bell red Luca, provide you with an update on where we are in the process, and then really introduce several comprehensive plan amendments, including a privately initiated amendment that we've received. And then the second meeting in January, we have a presentation on the economic development plan. That's a little bit tentative because that schedule has has changed a little bit in the last few weeks. So more to come on your 2026 schedule.

Few additional announcements. Kate Nessie, your PC liaison, has sent out a survey in advance of the retreat. So if you could if you haven't, completed it, please do. It's really important, to PC staff as we support you to get an understanding of what's working well and areas for continuous improvement. So, really encourage that that if you have the time and you you haven't had the opportunity yet.

Another upcoming opportunity, we have scheduled, the Jurassic Parliament training, and I think maybe commissioner Ferris is the only one that's ever taken that. Oh, you've taken it too. Really and really helpful training. Sounds like we've had a few. And the presenter really does a great job making it interactive. It's an in person training. So that's been moved to December 8. And then we're also gonna be setting up briefings on in advance of the HOMA public hearing. So we've sent an email out. If you haven't responded, please let us please get back to Kate with some tentative times.

We have quite a few weeks between now and December 8, but as you know, Thanksgiving falls that falls in between now and the the meeting. And then lastly, I believe a email was sent out about essentials for all food and hygiene supplies drive. So we have a flyer that's that's here as well. So please take advantage of that.

You, Tara. Any question from Tara? Okay. We can move to oral and written communication. The total time for oral communication is thirty minutes. Speakers will be allowed up to three minutes to speak. Staff liaison, Tara Johnson, will call in speakers in order in which they have register either in person or online. If anyone from the public has missed the 6PM registration deadline, you may still provide public comment if there is a remaining time. Please use the raise hand function in the Zoom if you are attending virtually or motion to staff if you are in person to indicate that you would like to speak. If you wish to speak about critical area ordinance, please speak during a public hearing, not during the oral communication, which is now.

There are rules adopted by city council limiting the topics about which the public may speak during our meeting under ordinance 6,752, the public may only speak during a public comment about subject matters that are related to city of Bellevue government and are within the power of the duties of the Planning Commission. Tara, would you provide a summary of the written communication for us?

Absolutely. So I believe between the time your packet was published and today, we received probably about eight to 10 additional comments, primarily all on the critical areas ordinance. So we've forwarded that to you. And then I believe since then, we've we have one additional comment. The commenter has provided additional comments, so she her her other comments are included in the packet. We'll include the additional email in your next packet, so free your packet for the retreat.

K. Tara, I see that audience is saying they cannot hear us. Do you mind to adjust the not online. I think here in the room. Do you mind to adjust the volume a little bit higher?

Hopefully, works well. Is it better? Is it better? Okay. Okay. Now we are moving to thirty minutes for oral communication before our scheduled business meeting. Each speaker will have three minutes to speak. As we mentioned earlier, topics are limited to the matter that related to the city of Bellevue government, And it's within the power and duties of the Planning Commission. Tara, can you call on the first speaker oral communication?

We do not have any speakers signed up to speak at the meeting. We do have a couple folks attending virtually. So if you would like to speak and provide comment on topics not subject to the hearing, please raise your hand. K. So I don't believe we have any any public comment.

Okay. I don't see the cheat sheet for the pop sorry. Go ahead.

But I've been related to the

Critical area?

To the topic.

Yes. So we'll we'll have an opportunity for public comment as part of the public hearing.

Thank you. Appreciate it if you could speak up also.

Me too. Please. Okay. I'm trying. I think the volume is not good.

Have fifteen years till I hit a 100, so I only have my hearing is only so good.

Thank you.

According to my wife of fifty seven years.

Thank you. I appreciate it. Tonight, we have a public hearing on the critical area ordinance land use code amendment. The planning commission will first open the public hearing, then the staff will present the proposed changes to critical area ordinance. Then the commission will ask for public testimony.

Each speaker will be limited to three minutes, and we will hear from everyone who has signed online or in person. Following public testimony, the Planning Commission will close a public hearing, and we will discuss our recommendation to the council. I don't see the cheat sheet for the commissioners about taking a motion on the table, Tara, but I can I can can I have a motion? Somebody open for the public hearing? I know we always have a two chits. Okay.

I'd like

to move that we

open the public hearing on the critical area areas, Luca.

Second. Any discussion? All approve, say yay. Aye. Aye.

Development

services department stream team program administration. Laurie I'm sorry, Laurie. I cannot read your last name. Didn't give me your name ahead. And senior planner, Christine Mantz and code and policy planning manager, Christina Galantz will provide a presentation on the critical area land use code amendment.

Sorry? Lori requested that she bring up the presentation.

And, Laurie, you're from utilities department?

I am.

Thanks for joining us. I appreciate it. I used to be environmental services. Mhmm. Good to see you.

Quick begin, or is there

I was going to do just a bit of an intro. Yeah. Give give you a bit of a setup. So yeah. Chair Han Liu, vice chair Liu, deputy mayor Malakutian, we are here this evening.

Happy to be at the public hearing for the draft critical areas ordinance. The draft being reviewed today, we believe, represents a great balance of expanding environmental protections where they are necessary, but also balancing the need to encourage redevelopment in degraded conditions. Critical areas are fundamentally always site specific, and this proposal provides baseline protection supported by best available science to support no net loss of function, balanced with pathways for flexibility on sites with degraded conditions. But before going into our more standard staff presentation recapping recapping these these specifics, specifics, we wanted to first take the opportunity to remind everyone of why these code provisions are so important, what amazing environmental assets we have throughout Bellevue. And we also want to elevate the work of others within the city who work towards advancing our streams every day and give them a chance to show their work in their own words.

So with that, I would love to pass to Lori Devereaux, Stream Team program administrator in our utilities department, to share another perspective on streams.

Thank you. Before I formally introduce myself, I want to invite you to lean into this picture and see if you can find any animals. And while you do that, I'm going to turn the lights down. I will turn them on as soon as I'm done, but I promise I'll Did do you see it?

Is that a beaver? We have a beaver too.

Yeah.

I don't have all of our meetings.

They better.

Alright. Maybe some of you saw the beaver right in the middle. This is Kelsey Creek in the spring. You can tell that the leaves are out. It's a spring day, but that's starting to set. There's some shadows. Maybe you noticed in the background there's a great blue heron fishing. Maybe you saw a couple ducks. What you can't see in this picture yet is the fish. The stream was full of spawning fish.

My name is Lori Devereaux. I work in utilities in water quality, and I get to help our community protect and take care and learn more about water quality through public outreach and education. I specialize in streams and stormwater. Yeah, definitely keep the lights down. There's going to be a bunch of videos, and they are a million times better if we keep the lights down a little bit.

So Bellevue's urban streams are vital home and highway for local fish and wildlife. And tonight, I'm going to give you a view that you probably don't get from reading reports. That's my goal. Actually, I'm going to start here with this picture. This is a great blue heron in Kelsey Creek, who has just snagged a pea mouth minnow. It's a native fish. My perspective, I'm just going to try to share a lot of different perspectives tonight is that I sat on the stream bank for two hours to get this one photo that it was worth sharing with you. It's really hard to capture wildlife. I shared this one photo with a coworker and his immediate response was Oh, no, that poor fish. I said, Oh, no, I understand your perspective, because he was worried it was endangered, or I was worried because I'm kind of a fishy person.

And I said, No, it's okay. Because when that bird looked down at its feet, this is what it saw: it was like a conveyor belt at the ultimate sushi restaurant. One after the other, all you can eat buffet of pea mouth minnows were swimming up to its feet in Kelsey Creek. This is a perspective most people don't get to see. But we're going to just pan out for a little minute and get a little perspective on the city. And that is, here's the city of Bellevue. You're all familiar with this map. But I love this view with just the streams on it. We have over 85 miles of open streams in Bellevue. If I just kind of pop out the Kelsey Creek, the Greater Kelsey Creek watershed, this entire area drains to Mercer Slough.

It is more than a third of the city. It is 40% to 50% impervious surface. And we're going to focus right here for a moment in that little pink rectangle. We're going to zoom in on let's see, on the left side is 405. The next line is the Wilburton Trestle. There's Southeast State right through the middle, but we're going to walk down to this little yellow dot. And if you're standing on the sidewalk, your back is to traffic. It's quite noisy, but you look forward and you see Kelsey Creek on its way to Mercer Slough. This is the water draining a third of Bellevue. And if you walk down those stairs, you'll notice, especially on a summer day, the temperature drops.

It is cooler and far more comfortable under the shade of the trees in the summer. And you get down to that lower platform and look back up, you might see up by Southeast State, there's a wooden post. And perched like a bird on top is a camera. It is connected to the street cameras, but this one looks at the stream. And with it comes a bunch of videos.

Sorry that we're having trouble getting everything going earlier. See if the next one. Oh, I'm gonna back out and reopen and see if I have better luck going right from the file. Oh, there we go. We're just gonna go back one opened right where I needed it.

So here's a view looking straight down from the camera on Kelsey Creek. You can see a blue heron coming in on the left, and right near that blue heron is gonna be a spawning cutthroat trout. This is February. It is freezing cold. No one wants to hang out by the stream, but luckily, we have the camera to have a sneak peek. And this is when the winter cutthroat trout come in from Lake Washington and spawn in our streams in the winter when really nobody's watching. The camera there's been a camera out there for about ten years, but about almost two years ago now, we replaced it with one that has night vision. Can you see the little white lines? Those big white lines are cutthroat trout. They are in the same family as salmon.

They're in the same genus as our Pacific salmon. Unlike the coho sockeye Chinook, these can spawn more than once. They're coming from Lake Washington to spawn in our streams. They spread out into the far reaches of Bellevue. I see them way up, Kelsey Creek, West Tribb, Richards Creek, and, it's a fun thing to watch online in the winter. I am not the only one watching. Can you imagine who else might be looking for cutthroat trout in Kelsey Creek? Who's that?

Otter?

They're river otters. And they travel through the city almost every night. They're coming from Lake Washington and Mercer Slough. They go all the way up to Larson Lake, several miles through the city, several miles through our parks, through our neighborhoods, through our industrial areas to get all the way to Larson Lake, where a lot of them spend the winter. I was frustrated by these two because they passed that fish right in the middle. Did you see that? There's a fish right in the middle, and I I should have known, They had a plan. Keep watching. It is really caught Oh, there goes a fish. They work together to herd the fish into a small area.

For size reference, that pipe in the background is a two foot King County wastewater overflow pipe. So that's your size reference for how big this fish is. A nearly two foot long cutthroat trout. Sometimes all we see is the evidence on the stream later, because otters will sometimes strip the skin off of a fish and leave it like an inside out sock on the side of the stream. But we watched this one.

I

apologize buttons are tricky. The animals are also interacting with our built environment. This night, this group of otters, a group of otters is called a romp. How cute is that? This group of otters has decided to see how many of them can fit inside of this overflow pipe.

So tell me how many you think there are. Just when you think, you know there's another one that popped up in the back. I have no idea. It's five or six, I think. Someone else who's fishing in Kelsey Creek.

A bald eagle with a cutthroat trout in its talons. A national symbol fishing in the middle of our city, in the runoff of a third of Bellevue, 50 feet from a major road, in the shadow of the Wilburton Trestle. And this isn't the winter. This is March. It either has a partner, or it has eggs, or it may have some juveniles in a nest nearby.

And I love that the first thing this bird did was not devour that fish, but look around suspiciously, making sure that no one else saw it because it doesn't want it to be stolen. The next day, this little critter came by. You're looking in the top left corner. When someone tells me that something really adorable and small and brown was in the stream, I know it was a mink. They're in the weasel family like an otter. They are incredible swimmers, webbed feet. They can go 100 feet underwater. They love anything. They're carnivores, so anything small, while cute, not very approachable. And it goes over to the beach where just the day or two before that eagle had consumed part of that salmon, that cutthroat trout, which is a salmon, and it's inspecting.

I'm sure it smells a little fishy right there. Here's another scene from the older camera. You've got a wood duck in the background, great blue heron in the middle, and here comes a deer. This kind of emphasizes for me the importance of the entire riparian area. It's not just the aquatic creatures that really like this. The birds can fly in and out. But the terrestrial animals also are using our riparian areas to move around the city because they don't want to be in our streets, in our parking lots, in our sidewalks, in our neighborhoods. This is their neighborhood. I imagine these three going to their own animal commission meeting downstream to talk about living with humans. Here's another view of spring.

This is a pea mouth minnow spawning event. They are a native fish to Lake Washington and Lake Sammamish. They are common they are abundant. What's really cool about them is other than being attractive, they show up in Kelsey Creek to spawn in the place by the hundreds to thousands. This spawning event lasts twelve to forty eight hours, and if you blink, you'll miss it.

But it's really impressive, and it's like a wildlife party at the stream kind of erupts when they show up. The eagles, the herons, the otters. This event was not happening until here, until 2003 when the Mercer Slough Fish Ladder was rebuilt. Prior to that, the P Mouth minnows could not make it into Kelsey Creek since the drop of Lake Washington. Once again, here's one of those great blue herons taking advantage of the open buffet of pea mouth minnows.

Now a great blue heron weighs five or six pounds. Even though it's a big bird, it has hollow bones like all birds. And a pea mouth minnow might weigh a half pound. This bird has already eaten probably five fish, so nearly half its weight. And the ones that really know how to fish, they grab a pea mouth, they've got to turn it head first and swallow it whole.

It's got to go head first because you got to get the scales and the fins and those rays going down the right direction. But what this bird doesn't seem to care about is whether or not that fish is dead yet. Usually this is a much longer process, but this bird already has a really, really full belly. If you go down to the stream in the spring and approach this bird at this time, it will likely just walk downstream away from you because it is too full to fly. Yeah, this seems that was we're approaching the holidays.

This really does make me think of the those days when you go to multiple holiday dinners. Then this is really that second dessert that you should not have eaten. But it was your favorite. And choices are hard. But you can imagine, you know, in the winter, it's cutthroat trout in the spring, it's pea mouth minnows that are these wild spaces, these streams, these riparian areas provide these buffets when these animals needed the most. It is not down yet. It actually six minutes later, it walks away. I'll give that one away. So here's another view of the stream. I'm watching for P mouth minnows. But here's a beaver. There are plenty of beaver in Bellevue. They are superheroes. This animal should be wearing a cape. They are really good for habitat.

When they create a dam, it creates a pond that creates incredible habitat and enhances the riparian area for countless other species. It also improves water quality. As our urban waters flow through a beaver dam, it gets filtered. Also, those beaver ponds are quite heavy, the water pushes the water, the weight of it, just more water down into the ground. It gets filtered. It also cools down. And that makes our streams with beavers more climate change resilient. Here's the otters again. I was wondering if there were pea mouth that day. That's what I was really looking for.

One, two, three, each of them has a pea mouth minnow in its mouth. Our streams are also climate refuges for animals and people. Our parks are very popular in the summer heat wave. This was a heat wave in July 2022, and several days in a row, this raccoon was up to its armpits midday fishing in Kelsey Creek, looking for crayfish, small fish, amphibians, other invertebrates. These are not trash pandas.

This is its natural environment. It doesn't really want to be in our neighborhoods. It just needs access to these open spaces, and this is where they live. And they're here almost nightly as well. And you they do really also love P mouth minnows if the timing is right.

So I don't have cameras on any of our small streams, but I've visited a lot of them and we sometimes do summer fish surveys. So on the left is Yarrow Creek. It is a tiny tributary. It flows along 405, it flows along 520, and even in this tiny bitty stream, we can pull up huge cutthroat trout. This is Richards Creek, two resident cutthroat trout.

So we have these migratory ones that come and visit in the winter to spawn in our streams for months, but our streams are absolutely full of resident cutthroat trout that live in our streams year round. If you stand in the stream right where I took this picture of these two fish and you reach out in both directions with really long arms, there is a building in an industrial area 25 feet on each side. Wherever there is enough habitat, these animals find refuge. This is also a favorite for those migratory cutthroat trout in the winter. Here's a video from this year sent to me by one of my Stream Team volunteers, Chris.

This is a Chinook in Mercer Slough sniffing its way at Kelsey Creek. Chris later went up to the trestle site, the next site up that volunteers watch in Kelsey and watched two Chinook come upstream. One of them might have been this one because it was only maybe ten minutes before. Two days later, I went to the stream looking, hoping to see the salmon, and I saw this. I'll see if the we'll give it a moment. You can see just the back of it right here. Does anybody know that bird? It's a barred owl that's been fishing in Kelsey Creek for at least the last month. It's so loud down there it can't use it. It's incredible hearing it has to use its sight.

And it's looking for crayfish and small fish and amphibians near the stream. This is a reminder that whether our streams are big or they're small, wherever those riparian areas are I think, you know, we're a city in a park we have this network of green throughout Bellevue But I'd like to argue that our streams are our shiny little gems all throughout. And while some animals fly from one spot to the next to the next, some swim, some walk, they're all using these areas. One last video. You can see the bat in the middle flying around and in the background is a fairly common but quite elusive creature.

You'll see it in a minute. These spaces are here because, you know, like back in the in the 60s, when the city was growing and growing rapidly, the council decided that we would have our open streams as part of our stormwater system to help with flooding, but also to protect the environment. And I'm so thankful for those choices then because we get to see scenes like this with a bobcat walking along Kelsey Creek. There's a lot of beneficial insects in our streams, and when they hatch out, they are food for fish and birds and those bats that come by every night. The Kelsey Creek camera has its own web page.

If you Google Kelsey Creek camera, it'll pop up, and you can watch this whenever you'd like. So that's it for me. I just wanted to share that Bellevue's urban streams are vital home and highway for fish and wildlife. And thank you. Thank

you.

I did bring some swag. There are chocolate fish. No fish in the chocolate. There's some stickers and bags over there for you guys. I I I left left it by the tea

and hot

water, and there's some for anybody at the other table. Yes. Yes. You're welcome. Any questions for me? Or

Thank

you, Laurie. Thank you.

I know. Good luck with your dry subject. It'll be a little bit more dry.

Right. So we're here tonight to talk about the critical areas ordinance at this public hearing. I wanted to give a brief overview just of kind of where we began with the project in terms of, you know, what are we here talking about, what is a critical area, and then an outline of sort of where the code is at now. So the direction for tonight is to of course hold the public hearing on the proposed land use code amendments. Following the hearing, the commission may make a recommendation on the land use code amendments to the city council.

I'll give a quick recap on our September study session since it has been a month. Again, a little bit of that project background just as a refresher since it's been a while. Just a big quick overview on engagement from the summertime, straight stretching back to April, an overview of the land use code amendments, and then next steps and schedule. So at the last study session, there was a general discussion around site flexibilities and applicability to a site and options there, questions about buffers, the extent of the ability to produce buffers, especially in the context of best available science, so discussion around mitigation and fill pathways, the structure setback we had a discussion around, and then some further discussion on the innovative mitigation projects option and how to potentially make that applicability a bit clearer if possible, and then some discussion around visuals and case studies to potentially show applicability. So we have a site plan to kind of give you a sense for when we're looking at a site and delineating things, these are what we're talking about.

So again, as a oh yeah, I can minimize that. So when we're talking about critical areas regulations, just as a reminder, there's five major areas. In terms of the ones that we're really looking at conserving the functions and values, we're looking at wetlands, fish and wildlife habitat conservation areas, which is streams, and other habitat. Critical aquifer recharge areas, so that's our sort of underground water, and then for geologic hazards and flood hazard areas, that's a lot about public safety and protection. In terms of the process, this is a periodic review requirement under the Growth Management Act every ten years.

It has to have a basis in best available science, which we've discussed in the past, and that has to be updated as a part of the project as well. And then we utilize that to do a gap analysis to identify what we want to update based on any changes to the science, changes to law, and then scope and direction from council, as well as public engagement. So this we talked about a bit last month, but as a reminder, just kind of the breadth and depth of all the engagement that we've done and what we've heard really has a wide range, and we feel like we've gotten kind of a good middle ground from all of that. So, of course, development stakeholders are important as well as the general public and our residents, agencies and tribes like the Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Snoqualmie tribe provide comment, and then other city work like with Lori Devereaux's presentation, our stream teams and utilities folks that work on surface water and watershed management and utilities. In terms of the timeline, we kind of kicked this off at Earth Fest way back in April.

I can't believe it's already been that long. And then we had a couple of open houses throughout the summer. The first one was in person here at City Hall, really well attended, had some great discussions just to kind of intro the project, answer questions, do some Q and A. We had a follow-up virtual open house for folks that couldn't come in person or would prefer that format, similar, just taking Q and A to discussing the project. And then after the release of the draft, we had another virtual engagement session to take Q and A on the draft and answer questions on the code.

And so getting into some of the components of the draft, one thing that was really important was to look for opportunities to provide general development flexibility. One of the things that we're we have removed in the proposed draft available tonight is the density intensity calculation. That's a citywide requirement in the critical areas overlay that reduces density capacity based on the relative presence of critical areas on a site. We felt that, you know, you're still delineating your critical areas. You still have to provide a buffer and a setback.

The area left over, we shouldn't further penalize, for lack of a better word, in terms of yield. So that felt kind of like a simple win. It sounded like it wasn't reducing yield a ton, but it was also kind of wonky and adding complications. Kind of an easy fix. Similarly, the lot coverage calculation currently is limited for parcels in the critical areas overlay where you have to base your lot coverage on the net versus the gross.

So, again, that felt like an easy kind of simplification. And then this is a cleanup item kind of carrying on from middle housing. Related to the density intensity calculation is to remove the dwelling units per acre calculation in our lower density residential land use districts and just let the minimum lot sizes control for those. And then there's a restriction on applying middle housing code to parcels in the CAO, again that we kept in because of the density, density calculation from the middle housing codes removing that limiting factor as well. And the reasonable use exception we've talked through a little bit before, so I'll be a bit brief here.

Again, a reasonable use exception is basically a required tool to make sure that we're not creating a takings situation. Our current section is quite complicated, and we wanted to simplify that down just sort of generally. And then also recognize that the base densities in the city have changed because of middle housing. So we currently have perm, you can have up to two dwelling units as a reasonable use exception for residential, again, as long as you're maintaining the same limits of disturbance. So those aren't gonna change depending on how many units you have.

So you have your limits of disturbance, can do up to two there for residential. And then there's some limited commercial and office uses, mostly to kind of contain what can be there. So you can have like outdoor kennels, things like that. And then also streamlines the maximum limits of disturbance down to not be quite so complex like they are now. For streams, so again, we've talked about this quite a bit. This is the same as we've been discussing. This is really gonna be applicable to non degraded conditions. So we have our flexibilities for armored streams and other similarly degraded stream channels and pipe streams. These are really for those open channels that are in good shape. They may or may not have fully vegetated buffers, so there's a standard buffer.

When you're meeting those vegetated conditions, those can be existing or those could be proposed. So you can say, hey. If I infill the buffer and make it better, I'll get our standard buffer. If you choose to not meet the vegetated standards, there's an increased buffer. But speaking from past experience at my past jurisdiction, everyone always went for the plantings for the standard buffer.

This we really feel represents that middle ground that Christina mentioned between our current code and the WDFW buffers that we've discussed in the past. Again, bringing back the topic of that FEMAT curve that showed those diminishing returns on improvements when we got to a certain point, and that was where we got to with that 150 kind of sweet spot. And then also we're splitting out the type end streams to perennial and seasonal. The seasonal streams will stay at 50 feet, the perennial will go up to 75, fish bearing streams up to 150, and then those type O streams we're recommending to remove from regulation. And this is the picture of the Mercer slewfish ladder mentioned earlier under construction.

I think that's a cool one. So for degraded streams, we do have a bunch of flexibilities built into the code. You may reduce the buffer up to 50 feet subject to the improvements and requirements to functionality in that section. We also have added some streamlining for review for daylighting projects that are longer segments. You can also utilize buffer averaging with this, and then after application of all of those, if the buffer averaging is still not really working for the site, there's an additional 25% reduction.

But again, you kind of have to go through that mitigation sequencing process to show why you can get to the next step essentially. For wetland buffers, this section needed a little bit less change, but we did need to update our habitat scores consistent with Department of Ecology. We also added the same vegetative buffer standards for wetland buffers, and the same kind of pathway of the standard buffer has to be vegetated. If it's not, it has to be larger. Or you can say, I'm gonna vegetate it and get the standard.

We also added some, various language on mitigation timing and mitigation ratios, and then the habitat corridor requirement for wetlands with a high habitat score, and that's, again, a Department of Ecology requirement. And then we also added a pathway for fill of smaller wetlands. This is pretty much taken directly from recommended code from Department of Ecology. So those are smaller wetlands that are category four, what I think has a lower habitat score as well. It's kind of lower quality systems.

They may be just conducted hydrologically from larger systems and they're small, so they may not be contributing much to the greater habitat area. And then as we've talked about at the last meeting, we have added the innovative mitigation pathway. This is kind of if all other pathways are still not working out and you have a really difficult site condition, you can go through your mitigation sequencing and document why this alternative approach is warranted for this particular site, and it allows you to use the edge of existing improvements, whether that be pavement or structures, as the edge of the buffers. However, you would need to compensate for equal function and values of the standard buffer. So that could be on-site.

You could choose to bump out the buffer from the edge of those improvements and provide some on-site improvement, some off-site. And that mitigation does have to be within the Raya 8 watershed. That's where we have our interlocal agreement for the Chinook habitat. And then there's also an option to coordinate. So if there is a local organization or multiple applicants that want to come together and do a project through this, that is an option as well.

So an example of applicability, have here a sort of sketchified parcel in a very high impervious surface area. So what you're seeing here, the blue line is an open channel that is in a degraded condition. The blue buffer is just a standard 50 foot buffer off of that open channel. The hash line is kind of showing you the delineation of the edge of those impervious surfaces with a red line. And then the full buffer is the one fifty foot.

So it's that area between the edge of improvements and that one fifty foot edge that is what you'd be needing to mitigate for. And then your options start with preference for on-site replacement, followed by on-site enhancement, and then there's some off-site options. And mitigation could be a mix of these things. You could do some replacement, some on-site enhancement, and maybe do the rest with other mitigation banking or some kind of an in lieu fee program. So again, just a lot of options for flexibility depending on-site conditions, site geometry, what what you're trying to do, essentially.

And then for critical aquifer recharge areas, this is the same as we had last time. We have some pretty simple protections in there. We really only had well hug protection areas, we don't have any major CARAs. Really baseline protection is just for best management practices for storm water infiltration, and then prohibiting some uses we know are really polluting like gas stations. And we have had this reviewed with the Department of Health as we've going through this process while to make sure we have their input.

And then buffer setbacks, we discussed this at the last meeting, so we now have one standard 15 foot setback. The setback is not considered a critical area and it does permit some structural intrusions into that setback area depending on their height. So things that are lower to the ground can go a little bit further, things that are higher off the ground, not too much. And then for steep slopes, again, is going be the same as we discussed last time. So really we were just looking for, again, those flexibilities to make sure we're maintaining safety and protections for residents and visitors' infrastructures, but also looking for opportunities to where we can be a little bit more flexible.

So one being the man made slopes buffer exemption. We also have criteria for when a buffer may be reduced by a geotechnical report. And typically, the process for that is an applicant will bring the report, the analysis of the soil typologies. We usually do, like, two monitoring wells in a year to make sure that those are safe. And then if they are, they can kind of propose a reduced buffer pathway.

And our staff will review that typically with a third party reviewer to make sure that we agree. And then there's also a pathway for modification of these hazards that could be potentially modified in such a way to either remove or reduce the hazard. If the hazard is just reduced, it's just the reduced area that continues to be regulated as a steep slope. And then we also simplified geological hazards to just have a buffer inclusive of the total distance needed to provide that health and safety. And then there's a minor work exemption as well for some small activities that would be appropriate in a steep slope.

So for next steps, we are really in between phase two and three, I suppose. We're having the hearing today, hoping for to get a recommendation that we can bring to council next month to meet our deadline for the end of the year. And that is all I have for the presentation this evening.

Thank you so much. Well, we will now turn to public testimony. Sarah, will you call the person who registered in order? Thank you.

So now call speakers in the order they have registered. Our first speaker is Morgan Kruger, and I believe they're attending I think I saw them attending virtually, followed by Sahar Amini and then Joe Cantrell. So, Morgan, I'm gonna, enable you to speak. Give me one moment.

Thank you, Tara, and thank you, chair, and good evening, planning commission members. My name is Morgan Krueger. I'm the regional land use lead, with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife for this area.

Morgan, could you hold on a quick second while we pull up the

Yeah. Definitely.

You. Issues here, it's a little loud, so just give us give us a quick second, and then I'll let you know when when you're ready to go.

Sounds great.

Thank you. Appreciate that. Okay. Can you try again?

Yeah. Testing.

Okay. Okay. Go ahead.

Perfect. Thanks so much. Again, my name is Morgan Kruger. I'm with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, and I'm here today to follow-up on DFW's previously submitted comments. I wanna emphasize that the decisions made by the commission today will have lasting impacts on the health of Bellevue's waterways and, by extension, the survival of our region's iconic salmon.

Bellevue plays an especially critical role in this effort as it lies within tier one and tier two priority habitats, areas for federally listed Chinook salmon, a responsibility that few neighboring jurisdictions share. With Chinook populations below 10% of their historic levels, it's more important than ever that Bellevue's policies reflect the best available science to ensure our actions today support the recovery of these species for generations to come. Many of the city's waterways, including Kelsey Creek, are listed by the Department of Ecology as impaired under the federal Clean Water Act, meaning they are not meeting basic water quality standards under current regulations and city practices. These listings are not abstract designations. They represent real declines in ecosystem health that affect our salmon runs, our residents, and the long term resilience of the city.

DFW's new best available science demonstrates that a 100 foot vegetated buffer is the minimum necessary to effectively filter most pollutants before they reach our streams. While the city's proposed amendments include vegetation enhancements, the widths currently proposed, 50 feet for type n s streams and 75 feet for n p streams, remain insufficient to protect water quality functions even if fully vegetated. This is particularly concerning because these smaller type n streams are often heavily degraded and flow directly into Lake Washington and other fish bearing waters, meaning inadequate buffers here directly contributes to pollution and habitat in impacts across the watershed. As environmental protections face ongoing challenges, it's often local leaders and planning staff who serve as the last and sometimes only line of defense in protecting Washington's natural resource. Your decisions here carry weight far beyond city limits.

We strongly urge you to to incorporate DFW's best science and, at a minimum, adopt the 100 foot buffer standard for all type n, p, and n s streams in alignment with other local jurisdictions to ensure adequate pollution filtration and long term ecological resilience. Thank you so much for your time and for your attention.

Commissioner Farris, can you hear us? No? Oh, okay. Good. Good. I think we just lost the connection. Yeah. Okay. Good.

Zoom connection. Morgan, are you are you still online?

Yeah. I am.

Sorry. We lost you.

About that. Give me one moment, and I can pull up the timer again.

I think It was around forty five seconds left.

Why don't you just wrap up with your comments? We have about forty seconds left, forty five seconds left. Morgan? Alright.

Yeah. Yeah. Let me just start. It's hard for me to know exactly where I left off.

Filtration.

Slant of defense. Sorry?

What's that?

She was talking about my slant of defense.

You were proposing a 200 foot

A 100

Or excuse me.

A 100

foot buffer. I think that's where you left off recommendation.

Okay. Yeah. It was just my final paragraphs, it sounds like. So, yeah, just to summarize, we strongly urge you to incorporate DFW's best bill of science at a minimum adopting the 100 foot buffer standard for type n, p, and n s streams in alignment with other local jurisdictions to ensure adequate pollution filtration and long term ecological resilience. And thank you so much for your time.

Thank you so much. Sorry for the technical issue. So I covered you.

Alright. Our next speaker is Sahar Amini, followed by Jill Cantrell, and then Tim Hay.

Thank you. Good evening new commissioners, deputy mayor. Great to be here. I'm Sahar Amini. I'm with Habitat for Humanity. It's been a while since I have, testified here. So I want to say officially welcome to Commissioner Kennedy, Annel Chian. We are so lucky and excited to have you and look forward to working with you. Also sad to see you leave us, Commissioner Ferris, but we will pick your brain when we have the opportunity. I'm here to express support for staff's proposed updates to the Critical Areas Ordinance.

We appreciate that this update reflects the intent of the Growth Management Act and aligns closely with the city's comprehensive plan policies. The staff proposal strikes a thoughtful balance between environmental stewardship and responsible development by incorporating flexible science based on alternatives such as site specific critical area studies and transfer of development potential. It supports both sustainability and predictability for property owners. We urge the Planning Commission to recommend adoption of the proposed nine use code amendment to council. This update strengthens the city's commitment to environmental protection while providing clear and consistent guidance for future growth.

Also, that was a fantastic presentation. Thank you so much. We need more of it just for mental health even. Thank you. Thanks.

Right. Our next speaker is Joe Cantrell followed by Tim Hay.

Another song. Alright. Dear Chukanlu and members of the planning commission, on behalf of Columbia Pacific Advisors, I would like to express our sincere appreciation to city staff and the planning commission for your time, collaboration, and responsiveness throughout the critical area ordinance update process. Our team has been working on a development concept that would partially daylight a portion of Gulf Creek. This is the type of action that the city's goals desire, growth creating environmental benefit.

Under the previous iterations of the critical area ordinance, as you heard in our previous public comments, this type of habitat enhancement was not incentivized, making it difficult to pursue a design that both supports ecological function and fits with the urban development goals for the Bell Red Subarea. We are very pleased that the updated regulations now incentivize this type of approach and provide the flexibility needed to allow habitat enhancement and development to occur in concert. This is truly a win win outcome for the neighborhood, supporting both environmental stewardship and thoughtful urban growth. We look forward to working with development services on our plan in a manner that implements these incentives and flexibility. Once again, thank you to city staff and the planning commission for your careful work in crafting a critical area ordinance that fits Bellevue's unique context, one that both protects and enhances critical habitats while enabling appropriate development around the light rail and within the Bellevue area.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Yep. Tim Hay followed by Chase Prapula and then Kramar Kenop.

I'm one

of these people who is fortunate enough to back up to the critical areas of both, both, Kelsey Creek and, the, Gulf Creek. So here we go. My name is Tim Hay. I live in Tall Furs between Northeast 8th and Bell Red. Facet Engineering was the city's choice to provide a current set of baseline stand ecological standards for our critical areas.

Return they returned to report using best available science. But city employees, for reasons of their own, have amended Facet's best available science so as to tweak some of it in subtle ways to generally conform to the future needs of developers. First, I urge you to get behind and enforce all of the precise recommendations from Facet Engineering. We as a city have requested their expertise, so let's not undermine their work. Second, I urge you to remember the reasonings that Phyllis White has within the letter that she wrote you today.

Third, Gulf Creek meets the west branch of Kelsey Creek, about 60 feet north of the city's nineteen eighties eighties era closable concrete dam sitting behind the big Bellevue Estates condo complex. The condos are along Northeast 8th and are and the equivalent of a Hundred And 28th Avenue Northeast. John Carlson used to invite neighborhood kids to see the migrating salmon. They came up Golf Creek at the border of his backyard, but no more. For beavers have closed off salmon access to Golf Creek with their own five foot high dam.

I urge you to walk the eight foot wide path from the condo parking lot out to see the Beavers Dam, which the city has not yet removed and may not. Beavers are apparently a protected species, but so are salmon, and so are the orca whales that depend on these salmon for food. So which do we wanna protect or overprotect? The beavers or the salmon and the orcas. If you choose the salmon and the orcas, be sure to designate to as designate Gulf Creek as fish berry.

Enjoy your walk. Oh, and I can walk it with you. Just call me.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Chase Prapula followed by Kramer, Kenup, and then Jessica Rowe.

Do you mind to start the timer?

Hi, council. Hi, planning commissioners. I appreciate your time. My name is Chase Prepeula. I work with Trammell Co Residential, and I'm a multifamily developer, who's recently started broke ground on a 388 unit development in Eastgate neighborhood.

And I'm here today to talk about your critical areas code and some of the challenges we're running into while looking at a site here in front of you at the corner of 112th Avenue in Southeast 8th. What we currently have on this property is a eighties asset office building with a large surface parking lot. And what we're trying to do is multi create a win win for the city where we repurpose the parking lot and add 321 units of housing just down the street from the East Main Transit Station. We think there's a great opportunity here, and there's a few tweaks to the critical areas code that could unlock this housing. And so what I'm trying to convey is that the parking right now has a what's classified as a category three wetlands in the middle of it, which essentially serves as a degraded runoff for the parking lot.

And what we want to do is find a way to create flexibility within the critical areas code to rework these to classify similarly to a categories four so that we can mitigate and improve the more impactful category two wetland that directly connects to the waterway, Sturtevant Creek to the East. We believe there's a real win win here and to create a positive net ecological benefit where we would transition the parking lot and treat every bit of water that runs off that surface lot under our project, improve this the category two buffer and the stream at the same time while also adding much needed housing to the East Main TOD, which is currently lacking. As a developer, I've worked through these similar challenges in Bellevue and other places often, and I feel like this isn't that that big of a challenge if we get some minor revisions to the critical areas code. With you, you'll see a memo that kinda highlights the minor revisions. And I think that we've spoken with several leaders leaders amongst yourselves and council, and we've heard a lot of very optimistic opportunities here that there should be a way to make this work.

And so we've hired professional engineers, SoundView, to kinda come in and provide, data based off, the best available science in the Department of Ecology, and that's what a lot of these recommendations are based off of. So I'm asking you to take action and provide your leadership to help get these small revisions into the new critical areas code so that we can we can create a win win win and, really help East Main TOD. Thank you.

Thanks.

Next, we have Kramer Tinupp followed by Jessica Rowe and then Charlie Baumann.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Kramer Knut, and I'm senior environmental scientist and project manager with Soundby Consultants. I've been supporting Trammell Crow Residential with the recommended code amendments.

Do you mind to talk to this like, just talk to the mic? Sorry. I I see Hold up. The people are

Okay.

Saying that can't hear.

I have been supporting Trammell Crow Residential with the recommended code amendments for the critical areas ordinance update. We appreciate the Bellevue's the work that Bellevue staff and planning commission has put on the update so far. As we have mentioned, we believe that we have a win win opportunity for the city that would provide 321 new housing units within the East Main transit oriented development zone while also providing extensive client funded on-site reservation of the large category two wetland and Sturtevant Creek on the east and north portions of the subject property. However, in order to achieve this win win opportunity, the small degraded category three wetlands located within the paved parking lot on-site would need to be impacted. However, since the city Of Bellevue's code makes no allowance for impacts to degraded category three wetlands, the project is currently infeasible, and the city's vision for housing in Eastman may not be achieved, and the site will ultimately remain as an underutilized office building with a large nonconforming paved parking lot on-site.

And I'd like to discuss that the stream that we're focusing on the east side of the property is much different to the ones in those videos we were watching earlier. Currently, there's no trees adjacent to this stream, and there's no substrate for salmon or any fish to spawn within this creek. It's currently being choked out by invasive species, and the funding provided from the developer would be utilized, and we're talking like a $100,000 here to restore the creek channel and the whole wetland complex on the east side of the property. So based on best available science and guidance from the Department of Ecology, we have proposed proposed a code amendment that would allow impacts to low functioning category three wetlands, which would remove a major barrier to urban development within the East Main TOD zone. The proposed code amendment is targeted towards specific zoning districts that have been designed for high density residential development within the city's comprehensive plan.

The details of the proposed code amendment are outlined in the public comment that was completed by Soundby consultants and was submitted to city commissioners and planning staff yesterday and shared with you in your printout packet now. The proposed code amendment is consistent with the best available science while supporting the city and meeting their housing targets. Soundby Consultants routinely supports development projects throughout Puget Sound where impacts to category three wetlands are proposed, permitted, and approved. Ultimately, it is not uncommon to impact degraded category three wetlands when a net ecological gain can be achieved through well planned mitigation. We encourage city commissioners to include our recommended code allowance for direct impacts to degraded category three wetlands within the draft critical area critical areas ordinance and to bring our recommendation to city council.

So let's work together, bring some housing to the Eastman TOD zone while restoring a large segment of fish bearing stream and wetland on-site.

Thanks.

Thank you, commissioners. I'm deputy mayor and staff. Thank you. I'm Jessica Rowe, land use attorney for McCullough Hill representing Chairman Crow. You just heard Chase, my client, talk about their innovative proposal to add TOD housing on this nineteen eighties office site.

The Pat and Kramer just discussed, the best available science behind our proposal. The packet we handed out to you is the same public comment that we emailed yesterday with just blown up images of the site plan that were from our prior comment for the last study session, just so that you know everything is in the record for you. But we just wanted to visualize it for you. So first, I wanted to say we agree with the pro pro's updates that staff has worked on related to interrupted wetland buffers and wanted to thank you all for your leadership on that one and for staff for working on it. That's great.

The second thing in what remains to be addressed here is our proposed fall wetlands, exemption, which is we've written out a draft proposed code that would go along with the code section that Kirsten talked about in her proposal with the category four wetland exemption. So this is a small expansion upon that. We think it's reasonable. We've included criteria that would really make it limited to TOD zones that make it result in housing and also net ecological gain. So we hope you will consider it.

We do think it's the right policy call and consistent with best available science, but Soundview has provided a memo to you in that comment talking about all the best available science behind, the rationale of our code amendment for your consideration. So that's what we're asking for you today. I also wanted to address in my public comment, we talk about a shoreline code issue. That's a technical issue. The shoreline code currently references the old 2,000 eight critical areas code.

We think that that should have been, along with this process, updated to now reference the new critical areas code that you're going to adopt. However, for the purposes of tonight, we are asking you just to focus on our wetlands exemption amendment. We're going to continue to work with staff and city attorney and city council on the path forward in in fixing this technical issue that's a reference to the old code, for the shoreline. But I did wanna be clear because in the last meeting, it was implied you wouldn't be able to address other wetlands on this site due to the shoreline. So I wanna be clear that we do need these wetland exemption code amendments to be able to make this project and probably other projects be able to work.

Thank you. Thanks.

Our next speaker is Charlie followed by Martin Seelig.

K. Good evening, commissioners, deputy mayor. My name is Charlie Baumann, a Bellevue resident working on redevelopment options for a six acre property in Bell Red next to Laira. I wanna start by commending staff for recognizing unique conditions and opportunities in Bell Red and for crafting this draft of the critical areas ordinance which addressed that. For years, this area has faced a kind of regulatory paradox.

It's one of the most transit accessible housing ready districts in the city, yet also one of the most constrained largely because of degraded stream corridors and the rigid, often project halting requirements attached to them. This update finally acknowledges that reality. It recognizes that these are not pristine environments. They're heavily altered urban systems, and that real ecological gains will come not from restriction but from voluntary redevelopment guided by strong science based performance standards. That's a huge step forward.

The draft succeeds by creating multiple flexible paths for restoration and mitigation. It now makes it possible to both restore habitat and unlock housing where it's needed most. For our project, which will require creative engineering, thoughtful design, and buffer flexibility, this framework finally provides workable options to move forward. The new stream restoration and innovative mitigation sections together create both a prescriptive and a performance based path to permit approval, offering projects real optionality depending on-site constraints. And the ability to use compensatory mitigation when full on-site restoration isn't possible is an excellent backstop, allowing complex projects to proceed while still delivering measure measurable science based improvements throughout the watershed.

This kind of optionality and flexibility should serve as a model for other degraded urban areas across the region. This is a major first step in transforming BellRed and leading the way on how to restore and reimagine urban stream corridors. It's not an exaggeration to say that this draft combined with the forthcoming and and hopefully similarly pragmatic BellRed Luca could directly enable thousands of new housing units along the Gulf Creek corridor in Bell Red alone, in addition to nearly a half mile of restored stream and significant new open space. Thank you to this commission for your leadership, and, again, thanks to staff for producing a balanced practical framework. I strongly encourage your full support of this draft.

It's a great example of how smart modern code can advance both ecological restoration and housing goals together. Thank you for your time.

Thanks.

Next speaker is Martin Selig followed by Neil Molnick.

Good evening. I'm Martin Seelig. My oops. Sorry. Can we start again? I haven't started.

Give me

one second.

Thank you. Good evening. I'm Martin Seelig. My wife, Annis, and I are fifty five year residents of the city of Bellevue. I'd like to commend your staff, particularly for the incentives and the flexibility which they're trying to offer.

I cannot overemphasize the importance of flexibility and incentives. None of us have all the good ideas. We have to be able to provide for other people into the future who've got ideas for those of us here at the meeting this evening or the city council, wherever we might be, into the future to provide incentives for innovation. The phrase I heard this evening was innovative mitigation. That particularly pertains to, one of the areas that one of that miss Devereaux spoke about this evening was daylightings with with streams.

And she had plenty of presentation about streams, but there was no pre at least I did not hear any of it incentives for opening streams which are now not daylighted. So providing incentives to open streams that are now closed up in con culverts should be something that we I hope that you'll look into. In terms of creativity, economic incentives are probably the most important, but it doesn't have to be economic incentives. You can have an incentive. You can have a medal that you award to somebody who comes up with a great idea that nobody here thought of or a plaque.

Use your own creativity to come up with ideas that will encourage people for creativity to make the city of Bellevue a great city, a continued great city. The other major item I'd like to speak about is an effort to try to split the downtown areas from the other mixed use noncontroversial areas, especially those close to major traffic centers. The the downtown is gonna drive the economics of this plan. There's no question about that. But there's plenty of other areas that are not controversial.

You can split them off and get them going. Why wait for the rest? Why wait? The the downtown people got plenty of ideas they have to create for you. They haven't done it yet, but they're wet they're gonna. But the rest of us are ready to go. Mister may deputy mayor, councils, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Neil Molnick.

Good evening, chair, commissioners, deputy mayor. Thanks for the opportunity to be here. I just wanna echo some of the last few speakers and commend staff on really the collaborative process to get here. I think a lot of what the last speakers have been talking about are the number of streams and creeks that don't look like the videos we saw before but are really in a degraded state. My name is Neil Molnick.

We own about 200,000 feet of asphalt parking lot that abut Sturtevant Creek. I can't think of a worse condition. We could have kind of a competition tonight who has kind of the worst degraded site and what would be better. And this draft code puts forth a plan that will work to enable development, but also to fund improvement for these to give some back to the environment. And I think taking that kind of nuanced and balanced approach based on best available science and performance standards and everything else that's in the code is what's going to enable that in the future.

I think when you look out across the rest of, you know, Wilburton and Bell Red and a lot of these potential high growth areas and you see kind of how stunted they've been over some of the last cycles, this is a really important key to unlocking a lot of housing development. So I just want to thank you for your time and all your effort and staff's approach on this. Thanks so much.

Thanks.

That concludes our list of speakers to that have signed up to speak. Are there any is there anyone else that would like

to speak? Thank you, team. Okay. We have them. Should we ask online if they want to raise their hand if there's anyone who would like

I believe there's anyone on. Okay.

Hello. Good to see you. I'm glad I'm glad that you are here to hear all this that I've got to say, which isn't gonna be much. I appreciate all the work that you put in so far in this particular area, and I appreciate what the staff has done. It's been terrific.

And I think that, to me, the difficulty sometimes becomes what people do when they come into these areas. My experience is in our neighborhood, for instance, we have people who have decided that the area that they live in doesn't need such things as grass or trees and that sort of stuff. And one neighbor has Astroturf on their property. It's common for people to think that way. It's common for people to think, well, I don't need nature to do it.

And as we've demonstrated here, there's nature available to us in this area, and it's productive. It's useful. But we also need room for people to be to live, especially as time goes by and the people grow. So I think that what you have done for the most part has been to balance that schedule and look at things from both sides in a very productive way. And I hope that you understand that I'm I'm for you, but I'm for the city too.

And I think that's what you're for too. Thank you.

Wait. Could you could you state your name for the record?

My hearing is bad.

Could you

Oh, yes. Yes. And I didn't say that, did I? Least urgent. 16246 Northeast 24th Street, Bellevue, Washington. Forty six years.

Thanks, Leen. We know you, but for the record. Is there anyone else who would like to speak, Saura?

If not Give me one moment. It looks like I may have a I don't see any hands raised virtually or in the room. So I think our

Then we have to come to close the Okay. Public testimony. Is there any motion to close the hearing?

I move to close the hearing. Is there a second?

A discussion. All in favor?

Aye. Aye.

Should we take a break for Yes. I don't know. Five minutes and come back? Thank you. Lauren, do you want to sit with us too, please?

We would love to have you. Thank you so much. I think now I will call she loves me to doing that, to bring the mic back. Now I will call up on each commissioner to first ask question, and then the commission will have the opportunity to make a recommendation on the comprehensive plan amendment. Would you mind to keep your questions or comment to two, and we can go couple rounds, but that gives, like, a little bit to have the conversation more dynamic, and then we can go more round of that conversation. Okay. I'm gonna go start with Vice Chair Liu. I know. Shocking.

Cool. So first of all, thank you for the the presentations. It was really helpful. And I I also wanna just specifically say thank you for two specific code amendments that I really, really liked. The first was on the innovative mitigation, pathway and allowing for the approval of the innovative mitigation to happen at the same time as the critical land use, permit, application or a decision. I think that was that was a great change. I just appreciate you guys putting in the the effort to to update that there. Same thing with the, the reasonable use exception. I know that's not gonna be used as frequently, but I thought it was a really good update to make that be, or to have that allow for severe economic impact rather than just all economic viable use. So I think those are those are great.

Just a general question. I think you answered this a little bit last time, but, could you tell us again the the difference between what you would classify as a class three versus a class four wetland and, kind of just distinguishing features there and why the, the exemption there kind of stops at the class four.

Yeah. And for that one, since we do have Dan, from Facet on hand, I'd, ask him to kind of answer from his perspective on, you know, how we evaluate those and the habitat scores and what all that means when it comes to what we may or may not allow for impacts.

Maybe you need to give the mic. Will

will that pick me up if I talk loud? Will that

Online people can hear. And Are we good? Commissioner Ferris, can you hear? Okay. Switch. Yeah. Quick. Yeah. You.

Alright. I I will do my best Yeah. Perhaps. To describe these. I I'll I'll put it out there. I am not a wetland, biologist. Mel Lund, who is our our other individual who's been with us, is more proficient at this. But, wetland categorization really is defined, and we follow Department of Ecology rules on this, in terms of how we categorize wetlands. There's a whole rating system. It's very detailed that looks at various types of wetland functions, habitat functions, hydrologic functions.

We need to look at all of these things. You know, an adjacent land uses is part of the evaluation of how a a wetland functions. And there's four categories, you know, one, two, three, four, and many different qualities that go into this. And so when we look at a wetland and compare a category one to category two and so on and so on, there are some general perceptions. Right?

You can pretty much can tell, like, what might be a category one versus a category four. But when we're getting close to those category three to category four or category two to category three, it's maybe somewhat less clear. So you have to go through the rating system that ecology has put forward to really understand what are the characteristics of that wetland, and they have a very detailed system to get at that rating score. And that ultimately tells us what what the categorization is. And so it's really tough to say, you know, what it was in particular to a given property or given site where a wetland is, what the particular metric was to derive a category three versus a category four.

What we do know is that a category three has a a, you know, a higher bar, a higher value when it comes to wetland functions. Department of ecology has done an extensive amount of research on, you know, wetlands in particular and the the differences between these categories, and they have made recommendations and allowances for you know, there are some allowances to fill category four wetlands that are very degraded and low functioning. But when we compare those category four to a category three, the category threes are just a higher bar. And so it's not recommended by ecology to be able to do those type same type of modifications that there are allowances for for a category four.

Alright. So without the detailed description of the differences there, maybe the question then for staff is would, you know, if they're able to come up with a way to, follow the innovative mitigation, pathway, that that would qualify now or no? Or they wouldn't?

The innovative mitigation. Sorry. The innovative mitigation pathway is more around how to deal with buffers, not necessarily for wetland fill.

Okay. Super helpful. Thank you. I'll I'll see my question time for now.

Commissioner Ferris?

Thank you. Just a couple of quick comments. One, I have to do a huge shout out to Laurie Deveroat. That presentation rocked. I couldn't see the pictures very well because we were I was looking at the screen remotely, but just your description. Anyway, it was fantastic. It really, really brought things to life, so I appreciate that very much. Also, just I'm struck with because I obviously, Morgan Kruger, you brought a lot of great points from your perspective, and I really, really appreciate it. I was very moved by that. But I I'm also recognizing that we have to balance, you know, what would be perfect for our wetlands and our environment with the fact that we we need to develop.

We need to be able to continue to grow. So having a balance here is the crucial part of that. I think staff has done a fantastic job of really taking in all of the input, all of the perspectives, and coming up with a model code that I think is gonna be really, really helpful. Love the flexibility features of it. Anyway, I think you've done a terrific job. Then lastly, I'm inclined to support the amendments that were offered by McCullough Hill on behalf of Trammell Crow. Again, trying to be flexible, recognizing that nothing is a perfect situation. But right now, I'm I'm inclined to support that, and that's all I have.

Thanks, commissioner Ferris. Commissioner Kennedy?

I think this is the mic. We'll see. Can you hear me okay? Alright. Thank you for the fantastic presentation. Share the the things for the Stream Team presentation, and just thought you did a wonderful job, Laurie. So thank you for taking the time to come and join us tonight. I hope you come again. Hopefully, this is just your one and only cameo. That was really helpful.

Thank you.

And really just to echo what we've heard from many commenters, including commissioners tonight, which really appreciate the work of staff to come up with a difficult balance in in in putting forward the proposals for the critical area ordinance updates tonight. So thank you, and thank you to FACIT for for informing those. I wanted to follow-up on a question that commissioner Liu had and just better under and also going with the the comment that commissioner Farris had around the several comments we've received this evening and in written proposals associated with the category three wet wetlands Can you just explain a little bit more around the differentiation between when the innovative mechanism innovation mechanism would come into play versus what's being proposed under that the comments that we received, but more broadly, changes that would be proposed to the category three or category four requirements under the critical areas ordinance, why can't we use that innovative mechanism, and how have you thought through that? Yeah.

So the innovative mitigation project section is really just speaking to buffers. So that's looking at what are the existing delineations of the critical area, what are the standard buffers off of those delineations, and then where is, the existing impervious surface. It's really not getting at the allowance for wetland fill. That's kind of a bit of a different beast. Typically, wetland fill also has some kind of federal level regulations on it.

And then as Dan noted, Department of Ecology has really specific guidance and model code for wetlands. They don't do the same thing for streams. It's really specific to wetlands. And I also want to note as well that it's not a super common thing as far as I'm aware for category three wetlands to be filled in their entirety. I might ask Dan if he's had any experience of seeing that as an allowed approach, but it really is that standard category four for smaller degraded wetlands that are isolated. It's really typical in a code for a

full fill. Got it. Dan, appreciate your thoughts on

I would just in in that, the filling of wetlands is a possibility, but you still have to go through mitigation sequencing to get there. And so you have to document, you know, the rationale behind avoiding. You know, did you avoid? Did minimize the impact? There's a whole sequence of that to go through. And so it's possible given a given site and the allowances for that property to be developed.

And when you just sorry to interrupt. But when you say that, when you say it's possible, you mean under the code as proposed, there is a there is a mechanism you would walk through to determine how and how much and what you can do on a given site. Is that what you're seeing?

Well, correct. I mean, I'm saying that that that wetland fill can happen. It's usually in a variance process or sometimes in a reasonably used situation. Got it. That's where it's possible. But the requirements still would stipulate that you do need to go through mitigation sequencing to get to that

answer.

So it's a different mechanism.

Okay. Yeah. And the the category four exemption is the way the kinda easier way, for lack of a better term, to kinda get around having to do that, and that's why it's reserved for much smaller, lower quality wetlands. They aren't really providing much hydrological benefit or riparian function. Okay.

Okay. Which are these category four?

Yeah. Mhmm.

Okay. Yeah. Understood. That's an incredibly helpful clarification and my main question. So I'll cede my time.

Thank you. Commissioner Ning Chan.

Thank you. I guess I'll start off by expressing my support for commissioner Farris' comments and also for highlighting a few of the changes that you made that are really, really good. I love the innovative mitigation pathway. I I think you guys have done an exceptional job of threading a a very complicated needle here and giving as much flexibility as possible. So I'm very thankful for the work that staff has done here.

I wanted to follow-up on something that you just said regarding this category three wetland situation. You mentioned that the amendment as proposed might have some potential ramifications with federal funding and, you know, other funding mechanisms. Is it your understanding that we might run into some issues if we were to adopt this amendment? Or

I don't think I mentioned anything about funding, but I think we do have some concerns that that kind of a blanket exemption may not really be in alignment with what ecology would wanna see. And particularly, you know, just having that blanket exemption and not having to go to the mitigation sequencing is a bit of a concern.

And we're not the only jurisdiction that permits things like that. So it'll be the army corps. Like, there's a federal state review, so it's not just our permit someone has to get. They have to go through that federal and state permitting. But they have their own requirements.

I think that's what was being spoken to. And one thing I'd point out too is often what I find and when we review these reports, the the the threshold from where you go from a four to a three often comes down to, like, one point on this huge rating scale. It's, like, one or two points we're talking about. So that's a very fine line between, you know, being fillable and not. And that's, you know, that's why it requires a consultant who's got, you know, years of experience, qualifications to do that work.

And that's, you know, that's why it's not as light of a yeah. It's very nuanced, put it that way.

Okay.

Great. And then my second question was around the distinction between the perennial versus seasonal streams. My understanding in since the previous meeting when we talked about it is that we're kind of a unique jurisdiction in in this proposal. Can you talk a little bit more about the difference in buffer for each of those and and and kinda how those numbers were in effect, how those would, you know, affect these streams?

So the difference would be instead of now just coming in as a nonfish bearing stream, you would have to show whether or not you were perennial or a seasonal stream. So, basically, just if they're water year round or not. And if there is water year round, it's just a little bit higher of a buffer than if there's not water year round. And then as again as part of that flexibility, the type o streams, which essentially are kind of like isolated ditches, which a lot of jurisdictions don't really regulate, we recommended to just remove those from regulation.

One thing I could add too is, like, type o is kind of like we made that up in our code. We're actually aligning with what the state like, the methodology of of how they want us to regulate the streams. And the other thing I'd point out too is under the current code, there's a buffer and there's a setback. Mhmm. Which so that often ends up being 50 to 75 to a 100 feet of total regulated area. Some of that's buffer. Some of it's setback. So there's still even under our current code, there's still a large area that's still protected. That's not really being reduced by this. It's just being kind of swapped instead of it all being it's all buffer now.

Okay. Those are all my questions. Thank you.

Thanks, commissioner. Commissioner Velavasis?

Thank you. Thank you for the beautiful presentation. It's inspiring to see to see this. And and I think it puts everything in perspective because we're here advocating for flexibility for development and degraded insights that have degraded streams, but we're also trying to make sure that we protect this. Right?

So I guess the first question is, what are your thoughts on the comments from, Krueger Morgan Krueger from Department of Fish and Wildlife today. She's saying that we need bigger buffers. Like, do you feel that the code here is protecting the current diversity and and, environmental, elements of the city? Or I mean, I'm not talking about Belgrade and urban streams. I'm talking about just the general. Do you think that code is doing a good job of of protecting that, or what is, eliciting her comments?

Yeah. We've had a couple of conversations with DFW and then a lot of adjacent jurisdictions as well. The challenge is that we're really working to try and balance the recommendations from Department of Fish and Wildlife, which are really based on a fully forested condition with the reality of being in an urbanized environment. And those are some of the discussions I've been having with other jurisdictions as well as Department of Fish and Wildlife. We've talked about site potential tree height before at this meeting.

The minimum 100 feet is kind of the generally established area for infiltration. But as we've also talked about, there's techniques you can utilize to make sure that that runoff is protected. Our concern was making sure that's happening, and then there's also enough area for riparian function. We've been working really closely with Facet on this topic in terms of reviewing the best available science, evaluating that against what we're proposing, and we do feel confident that we have a good package for that and that it meets the intent of the GMA. I don't know, Dan, if you have anything to add to that.

Yeah. I think that was really well well put. I mean, the I would just emphasize the fact that what what Morgan was talking about is, again, from the perspective of a of a trying to achieve as full of function as possible. So if you look at the best available science, that baseline metric, a minimum value of a 100 feet is what Department of Fish and Wildlife has determined, and the science supports that, that a minimum of a 100 feet is necessary to protect for water quality. It's also important to recognize that in that 100 feet are all these other functions, habitat values and soil stabilization and temperature control.

You get all of those things as well in that 100 feet, but the baseline is really based on water quality, which is very important for the streams in Bellevue. So, going below that is generally perceived as deviating from best available science. And so what Bellby has tried to put forward is is a is a a code that looks at flexibility, yes, but looks at enhancement and trying to emphasize that we want to be able to improve our corridors as best as we can. So we have a, you know, really developed, built out condition. So how do you do that? You allow for redevelopment. You do it in a way that enhances functions over the existing condition, and I think that's what has been proposed.

And I can also just add that's part of the reason why the buffer approach for streams and wetlands has an increased buffer when there isn't a fully vegetated buffer. So that's kind of that incentive push to, you know, give the rest of that vegetation, make sure it's really good quality, and then shrink it down a little bit. Okay.

Great. Thank you. Another question? Now talking about the flexibility, I I I love the fact that you've been listening and receiving input and really kinda thinking about this because I know it's a dry subject, and it's not it's not an easy one. But, I mean, you're providing all kinds of different paths for flexibility, and this is gonna be reflected when these projects start to develop. And, I mean, these are not easy projects. You're gonna have weird geometries. You have streams. You have all these things, but you're gonna have teams of people putting their minds together to come up with some really interesting things happening. So so congratulations on that.

I I I I'm really liking how this is, turning turning up. Now on on that same note, if we're providing all this flexibility, that is based on the fact that we're providing net ecological gain. Right? That's the baseline. Or the baseline is not no loss, but we're requesting gain.

I think the the request I I'd like to plus one commissioner Ferry's comment. The the request that is being done for the TOD side makes sense. It is there's three isolated small wetlands in a parking lot that are serving as the drainage for the parking lot. I understand they're not connected to the main wetland. What I understand is the proposal is let's remove this so that we can provide housing, and let's instead improve the adjacent large wetlands and make it better.

And let's provide net gain overall. Let's get housing on the TOD. So it seems to me that we should somehow open the door and to that flexibility to wetlands as well. I mean, I know the code is referring to buffers right now, but there's no real reason why we shouldn't be able to apply some of that flexibility, excuse me, to dealing with wetlands. Now I do have a caveat about the the proposed code.

I think it it makes sense, but it it seems like it's very specific to this site. So I would let you, of course, write a code that is perhaps not specific to that site, but something that can be applied. But the intent of it is let's think about this and do something that makes sense. I mean, if we're repairing ecological function and providing net gain on function while we're providing housing and allowing these sites to be developed next to TOD, then I I don't see why we shouldn't be considering that.

Yeah. One of the challenges is, again, just kind of that blanket exemption for fill. I think as Dan mentioned, there is a pathway for fill with mitigation. It's just not a fill and then just improving an existing area. I think we're also a little challenged by that specific proposal just because it's wetland fill to provide surface parking rather than a potentially more innovative approach where maybe those wetlands are enhanced and parking is provided in a different part of the site and a structure.

I was going to mention that.

That's a little bit of part of the challenge. I'm a little challenged to see it as like a TOD site. I think also in reviewing the code specifically, it is the low density zone for that sub area, and it was intended as such because of the critical areas. There is actually language in the purpose that says that we need to take precedence of the ecological functionality over development. And it's pretty new code too, so I mean it's not like that consideration has really changed. So we have spent some time talking through that, and that is part of the challenge on this topic.

I'd actually love to, I might take the chance to read aloud. So in our East Main code, which was adopted in 2021, I December 2020. Yeah. So we have a purpose statement specific to the district of the subject property, which I'm glad you noted as well. But also just a general caution around, with this body, we want to be thinking at the policy level, not necessarily getting too site specific.

So anyway, it's a bit, but it says, while within a reasonable walking distance to the Sound Transit East Main Station, East Main TOD Low Land Use District does not provide the immediate access to the station provided by the East Main TOD High Land Use District. Mercer Slough and the associated wetland complex are prominent in East Main TOD Low, and development is intended to maximize connections to these natural features. Mercer Slough and the associated wetland complex are shorelines of statewide significance pursuant to RCW ninety-fifty eight-twenty, which places the statewide interest over local interest and the preservation of the natural character above all other land use preferences. Based on the presence of these natural systems, this district is intended to be supported by transit use and access, but at a lower intensity. So that's established in our land use code now.

So

yeah. No. It it makes sense. I just wanna I mean, it is it's like the median is in the parking lot. So that should not be preventing 300 housing units to come in. And and there should be I think I think you have a point. I think we should at least question the design and say, okay. Is there any other option than just surface parking? Is there what can you show me that so that we can work through it? But but there should be somehow if there's no, compensatory mitigation or what like, even a deportable aspect to this. It's like, hey. We cannot meet this. Let us let us propose something that provides net gain, and let's review it together. That's

think that's

really what Dan was speaking to with mitigation sequencing. So for example, a site, that I had I did work on in Bothell a long time ago. We had a small isolated wetland in the front of the parcel with a really great system in the back. We have permitted them to fill the one in the front, but providing a bunch of compensatory mitigation to the rear of the property to develop the front side. So I think through mitigation sequencing, you can often achieve some of these site designs with fill. But, again, it's getting at having a blanket exemption for fill is where we're being a little challenged

to But what I understood, and correct me if I'm wrong, is you were stating is that it is technically possible, not that it is possible under the code, which is, I think, what commissioner Kenny was asking.

Well, mitigation sequencing is built into the code.

Okay. So there's a path forward for this project if they chose to provide a mitigation alternative so that

I can't guarantee that there isn't or isn't a path. But for any site with critical areas, you do have to go through the mitigation sequencing process. It's kind of a blanket baseline requirement to kinda show, are you creating an impact? Can you avoid the impact? If you can't avoid the impact, what are kind of the next steps? It's a bit of a different process.

Does that mean sorry. I just want to retalk what about the time. Does that mean we have past and we have scenarios, but based on what's the outcome of those come out, we cannot guarantee what's the result, but there's a path to go through that. Is that the correct understanding? Mhmm.

Yeah. And and I think what Kirsten's getting at is if if this truly is a good outcome as noted that could come out of the mitigating mitigation mitigation sequencing process, yes, there could be a path. But that's a question that can only be known once you go through. It really is like we keep saying, it's just having a blanket a a blanket option to avoid to step out of that process is something where we have concerns. And we'd caution again, you know, this proposal, it's not currently we don't have an application in place, so this is all still at the conceptual level. Perhaps this means, you know, fill the wetland or give up 300 units of housing. We don't know that for sure. So I just caution there.

And I would

add one thing that a good number of the wetlands in Bellevue are category two and three. So it's not just this site that we're talking about. If we if you Right. So you can't I mean, we can't plan for just a site in the total code. It's gotta take into account all of it. But, I mean, that would have serious impacts beyond that. And then oh, shoot. I lost what I was gonna say.

Yeah. I mean, even if it sounds like a great idea in this specific case, we have to remember we have to make it available to anybody else who comes forward. So, that's that's another caution.

Sorry. Can we finish the round and okay. We can come back again.

Clear to me, Yaniv, if there's a path forward with this. Yeah.

Yeah. Commissioner Geppel.

Okay. First, I I just wanted to commend staff on this draft. I opened this on Sunday, you know, with my usual sort of critical eye expecting that I was gonna figure out ways to improve what you came up with. But I I thought you hit a home run basically at a time when our home team could have really used another home run. Oh, two

triggered triggered.

Oh, two two two

two two.

Thank you for, for what you, what you put together. I I think it was really good. I I think especially when I look at the, when I look at the degraded streams and the, you know, the kind of additional flexibility that you built in in connection with that, you know, not only the, you know, the 50 foot setback, but also the, you know, the the possibility for a 25 reduction in that, you know, and then some of the other, features in terms of the setbacks. I think I think it really, is a good balance, you know, going back to what, you were, mentioning at the beginning of the presentation. So I commend you on that.

I, the next topic I wanted to cover was just this, proposal that came in. And while I would like to figure out a way to provide, some more flexibility, to enable, housing, of this sort, I felt like the proposed, amendment goes way too far in terms of trying to do that. I mean, I was surprised to see, for example, the the mention of, you know, of 10,000 square feet when, in fact, the largest, the largest wetland on this property is, that is is an issue is less than 5,000. I'm also kind of concerned about the fact that these wetlands, you know, instead of being in the middle of where a building is gonna be, it's gonna be a surface parking lot. You know?

And I I'm I'm for the kind of flexibility that would bring, you know, bring to bear this kind of opportunity, but not in the way that it's proposed here. So I I don't I don't know quite where that lands us because I I would I would like to see the result. I just don't wanna see it this way because it's not just this property. It's additional properties that can be throughout the city of of Bellevue. And and 10,000 square feet's pretty big, I mean, for a class three wetland.

So I'm gonna I need to think about this some more to think about whether we have some whether there's some kind of proposal or changes we can make to this that will achieve the result, which I'd I'd like to see, but I'm not sure that I wanna see it in this form. That's it.

Okay. Thank you. I think it's my turn. Lauren, thank you so much for being here, and thank you everybody for all efforts you have put out here. Lauren and I go back to Environmental Services Commission. First of all, this map is pretty off. I don't know if you guys if you open your Google Map, please, this building is here, and this parking lot is way smaller, and there's another building here. This map is a little bit off if you just open up your just open up your Google Map and search for Surrey Down Park, and you can see that. I know this property pretty well. I walk this in this area a lot.

And, Lauren, I want you to talk about because I saw so many questions about this property. As you know, Mercer's Lou is here. Right? I wanted to hear from you. I know that about Mercer's Lou and how you guys are going above and beyond about that space, and what is that wetland doing for us and all the wetlands connected to it. If I don't wanna put you in the spot, by the way. You can say, it's important one and done.

What is the specific

I think we are, like, literally looking at the parcel on the North side of the Mercer Slough. Kinda there's a wetland on the north side of the I wanna say Southeast 8th Street Avenue and the intersection of that one with the Hundred 12th Avenue.

I am not familiar intimately with this site. What I will say is that I view all of these spaces, all of these critical areas, like, anything that is wooded and shrubbed, especially ones with streams or water as part of this bigger network, even if there is not a really clear and obvious connection. As I showed, there's there's there's animals. There's wildlife that is using these little pockets wherever they are as refuge throughout our city. So I can't speak to this specific site, but clearly Mercer Slough is a significant piece of habitat and refuge in this city.

It is a gateway. It is the reason why I can show you all the videos that I can show you because animals are moving through that space on a regular basis to access the rest of the city. It is a gateway. And just as that I didn't touch on is that everything that drains out of our city goes toward, like, Washington and eventually Puget Sound. So we are part of that much greater ecosystem, and we're just seeing the salmon come back into it now. So

Okay. Thank you. I just wanna hear from you, insist on the Mercer Slough. It's like a rare big one, which is literally here. It's And this is the wetland, and the stream goes down to Mercer Slough, which is here. Okay. Sorry.

Go ahead.

In terms of regulation, Mr. Slough is, like, one of the most complex areas in the city. It's got all of it. It's shoreline. It's wetland. It's stream. It's, like, it's floodplain. I mean, it's got, like and there's even geotechnical concerns because a lot of the development was built on fill. Yeah. So and that's, you know, it that that's kind of the legacy out there is there's development that, you know, happened a long time ago. And, you know, is that that's that's kind of the question is how does that coexist? That's kind of the question for the whole code is how does the development coexist with requirements we have that may or may not have existed when those things were built.

Great. Thank you. That was my main question. Please feel free to open this map on your Google Map and look at it. Should we go for a second round? Okay. Vice chair Lou.

No further questions on my end. I just wanna echo what, commissioner Gopple said about applying a broad brush kind of to the code, when we don't know what the implications of that might be. So, I really would love to see a path forward. I don't know about applying that path to the entirety of Bellevue, but no further questions for me. Thank you.

Commissioner Kennedy? You said commissioner Kennedy.

Well, yeah,

I was the next. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Just just two two two thoughts here.

One is I I didn't have an opportunity on our first round to mention the comments we received both in writing and verbally this evening from WDFW, you've mentioned a few times the different requirements and conversations to ensure that what we're proposing in the critical area ordinance is in compliance with state law and recommendations for the protection of the environment. And one of the the comments that we received from WDFW had to do with the reduction in the buffers from a 100 foot buffer down to the fifty and seventy five for the nonfish bearing streams. There was also a reference earlier from Tim Hay, which was cross referencing written comments we received from Phyllis White that also discussed concerns associated with that reduction in buffer. And I I believe facet was brought in up, and I I think the comments were relating to the or at least it reminded me of the of the of the graph that was contained in the report that you provided from FACIT that kind of looked at the asymptotic end where we see that a 150 foot buffers are really ensuring that sufficient filtration system to ensure water quality and the necessity of having that, which, of course, maps to what we're proposing for fish bearing streams.

And we are increasing that buffer for NP and NS streams. However, not to the 100 feet or the 150 foot buffer. And I think it was really helpful earlier. Some of the commissioner's comments kind of questioned why why we're proposing the fifty and seventy five. Is this a sufficient buffer?

And I just wanted to revisit that for a moment and think about why we're proposing these buffers in respect of our streams to ensure that appropriate filtration system. It did sound like earlier your your comment was this we'd feel this is sufficient. We've had a lot of conversations. We've had months of review. I wanted to just maybe, if I could, see if we could get both your and facets response to have we have we struck a good balance here on that buffer providing what it needs to for those nonfish bearing streams to to ensure that we can continue to see the environmental quality that that the city has done a good job of protecting to date.

Let me go first, miss.

Sure. Yeah.

There's a few points here I I'd like to make, and the first being the stream typing system that the city has. It's very common. Most jurisdictions use a similar approach. But Department of Fish and Wildlife, their view is a stream doesn't matter if it has fish in it or not. It still functions as a stream.

It still contributes to downstream, you you know, habitat values and all the things that that happen in that corridor. Doesn't really matter if fish are there or not. So their perspective is that's where they came up with, you know, what do we need to protect our stream functions? And they came up with this site potential tree height methodology to really assess full function. That is where we looked at, you know, the higher values of site potential tree height in the city are actually pretty high.

They're up near 200 feet, and that's where we get that FEMAT curve and assessment where we came to the conclusion that at a 150 feet for type f, we're we're abiding by or at least consistent with the lower end of of what best available science would say. If we're gonna keep the the typing system and we're gonna keep with a a nonfish bearing stream scenario, again, the minimum that comes out of Department of Fish and Wildlife's guidance is to stick with a 100 feet for water quality purposes as that's the minimum standard. Now in urban settings, it's always a balance, and some jurisdictions have used a 100 feet as a minimum in that case. Some have used something lower than that. And it's usually based on an evaluation of where do we draw the balance in, you know, housing needs and existing conditions and what are we looking at in the future and how we implement this code.

That is ultimately a decision that is unique to most jurisdictions, and to evaluate that. And I think that's where the city has taken that perspective to say, okay. We have a system where our type n streams have all been 50 feet. We recognize that that perennial streams may have a slightly, higher value and function because of their continual stream flow, so we're gonna move that up to 75 feet. It's a little bit higher than what we currently have.

Is that enough in terms of, like, meeting the full best available science information? It's not at its face value. But with the provisions in the code that really talk about enhancements and the, you know, the the benefits that can be achieved through some of that, that's where that balance comes into play. I don't know if that's

Yeah. I can also add the recommendation also is derived from some of our earlier study sessions at the beginning of this process back in the spring where we discussed site potential tree height with this body, and it was generally just agreed upon that that was not super feasible for the city, which is why the recommendation ultimately wasn't for the minimum 100 foot. So that really came out of discussions with this group.

Okay. Okay. And then and so we landed on 75, which is an increase from where it is today with these innovative mechanisms that are intended to say, we're in an urban environment. We are trying to improve and increase the viability of the environment within these these preexisting systems. And that's where we came to this to this current balance. Yeah. Which is tough because what we're hearing from from others is, well, if we were in if all things equal and we just could just rip up all of the concrete in the city, then we'd want a 150 feet or or or more. Yes.

And and then the other context too, I'd say, is a lot of these streams don't just exist on their own. They're in a ravine. There's wetlands adjacent to them. They have a floodplain. There's habitat. So our our current buffers that we had tried to say all of this is stream buffer. We're the code now takes a more nuanced approach. So, like, the stream has a stream buffer. The wetland has its own. You know, the slopes have their own, and there is some overlap. But it's not like you just have usually a stream on its own isolated. So you would There's other

the buffers be appropriately laid layered off. Yeah. There's overlap. We're looking at each Mhmm. As an appropriate layer.

Yeah. And it's not to say that there aren't streams that are just, you know, on their own, but that's usually been a developed condition. Like, it didn't exist like that in nature. And that's kind of the difference, I'd say, between the fish and wildlife. You know, they're looking at it with the lens of these are the trees that could exist here if we had nothing. Like, if we had, you know, predevelopment, presupplement, like, that's what the tree was then. You know, Bellevue is an urban area. You know, it's got two major growth centers. You know, it's under this is the growth management act as well that dictates, you know, what we have to do for critical areas, but the first word in there is growth. Like, it's not saying you can't have growth.

It's just saying it's balanced. That's what I think that's it's trying to do. Mhmm.

And I appreciate you you talking about the layers because that kinda got me to my second question, which is we're we're we've we've spent a lot of time on stream buffers. Tonight, we're spending more time on wetlands. I I wanted to better understand. We're we're we're creating these stream buffers for ensuring water quality. Wetlands, of course, are there also for ensuring water quality.

Nothing that we've been talking about for these buffers for stream beds is saying we should go in and fill the stream bed. We're talking about areas where we've had pavement come up to the streambed previously, and we're enabling that flexibility. But it does sound like we do have provisions within the code that are intended to enable flexibility associated with wetlands. These are different areas of the code, so they're not up for our review tonight. What we're really reviewing tonight is what we're proposing for these preexisting.

I would say the mitigation sequencing stuff is in the code. Okay. And, again, this is why some of this code is really tricky is because, as Dan and Riley mentioned in terms of when we're looking at the evaluation of a site, there's so much nuance and difference between every site. So every site does really have to take a site specific approach, which is, I assume, why mitigation sequencing was developed in the first place Great. Which was to say, what do we have based on that and what you're proposing to do? Show us how you're meeting the sequencing to maintain no net loss of function or for some of these incentivization cases providing a net gain. Got it. Okay. And that's in there.

It's in the code. It's an available opportunity to review and walk through. Got it. And the enhancements that we're proposing will enhance that, but in in different areas. I think it's just important for me to better understand and take a step back and think about us setting up this policy that will cover the entire city of Bellevue for the next when was the last time we did this?

20 Every ten years. Okay. For the next ten decade. And that that is going to apply to every project, every wetland, every stream that flows through our entire city for the next decade. So it sounds like what we're setting up here for that policy that's going to be an overarching policy for years to come will still enable the flexibility on a site specific basis, which really isn't a role. We're we're looking at the overarching policy.

Yeah. I do wanna mention too, as noted in the comments, we will be updating the shoreline jurisdiction code, which adopts the critical areas code by reference. Great. So that will be happening over the next I think we have to adopt it by 2029. That's our deadline. So that is another opportunity to look at this as well. Okay. You know, if there's concerns around if we want a pathway for some kind of isolated wetlands approach, that could be you know, since we this was brought on pretty late in the process, so we really haven't had time to think through a potential change that could potentially be within the scope of review for that project.

Okay.

And, again, would be something we would be reviewing on a policy overarching policy perspective and not on a site specific basis. Mhmm. We allow these mechanisms that are intended for that site specific review that allow for us to walk through and do something particular to a project to work on their own. Got it. Okay. Thank you.

Thanks. Commissioner Ferris, I want to go with you, but can you give me a motion to extend the meeting?

I would like to give a motion that we extend our meeting until 10:00, 10:30.

Can I have a second? Thanks. Any discussion?

Yeah. I'd I'd like to get out by ten. Yeah.

Yep. Don't tell me. I don't ask long questions for commissioners. Any discussion? Any more discussion? Okay. Yeah. We got it from Nilchian. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. No. Nay?

Nay.

Okay. We move until ten.

It carried. It it It majority.

Okay. Carry to 10:30. Sorry. I I heard ten from commissioner Farris. My bad. Oh, 10:30. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Farris, please go ahead.

I will, again, only comment. I do wanna do a plus one to commissioner Gopal and commissioner Liu in terms of their concerns about a broad too broad of an amendment to address that one site. So I personally approve of the code the way it's written by staff and really, really commend them for the work that they've done.

Thank you. Can we share?

Was thinking about, you know, this sorry. It was on. I was thinking about this piece about flexibility in relation to wetlands. I mean, I would be I would be more open to the idea of being flexible on buffers and setbacks for sites that meet these criteria rather than a big, you know, exemption to allow fill. Would something like that be a possible approach, and would that be would that potentially achieve some of the objectives that we're looking at while also being a little bit more nuanced in terms of an approach?

Yeah. And that's really the the goal of that innovative mitigation section is to be able to utilize the eggs edge of existing improvements as your buffer edges as long as you are providing compensatory mitigation as if the full buffers were in place. So that would be flexibility that applied not just to stream buffers. It would also apply to wetland buffers as well.

Oh, wood. Okay. Mhmm. I didn't realize that.

Yeah. It's in a it's not specific to the stream section of the code. It's in one of the overlay wide sections of the code.

Okay.

I don't I don't have any further questions. I just I'm I'm nervous about this about this proposal, and I would I'd like us to come up with a nuanced approach that is going to provide for flexibility, but not necessarily this one.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Commissioner Villavasys?

I agree with what they've been saying. I have a question. The mitigation chapter of the code says projects or proposals to redevelop a previously developed site where existing legally established structures or in previous surfaces encroaching to require critical area buffers. That's what a lot that's the applicability of that mitigation chapter. So is that not what we're seeing here? My understanding is that this would not be applied to this property, but under this language, it seems like it would.

I guess I'm can you can you say that again? I'm a

little confused. Okay. Proposals proposals, I can request mitigation options.

Do you mind to tell us which page of the document?

No. I have it in my notes. I don't have the page.

Okay. It's

it's 20Dot25 ADot225. Okay.

In the innovation mitigation. Okay.

So applicability, it says that it applies to proposals to redevelop a previously developed site where existing legally established structures or a peer review surf surfaces encroach into required critical area buffers. Mhmm. I'm not sure if that definition is exactly correct. In a way, it seems like it's only if the extra structures that are there, qualify for mitigation, but not the proposed structures.

I'm not understanding your question, but I would say

I think the language speaks specifically to buffers and not to wetlands. I I think that's the distinction here.

Okay. I'm

I'm gonna leave this issue here. I have a question about reasonable use exemption, but I would I agree. I think we should find a way to deal with urban wetlands in situations like this. Take a look at what we can do to to see if we're not, shooting ourselves in the foot, not allowing, any flexibility for wetlands. But, it's not clear to me whether this is in the court yet.

I think and and since you noted it's not clear, I wonder if it would help for Riley to maybe walk through, like, what our current mitigation sequencing system is. Because because I think it's, you know, we can't tell you definitively this is how it would look for this specific proposal, but I think we can talk about it conceptually to kind of explain how you can get that kind of site specific stuff.

Yeah. So I I I think it from talking about the current code, you know, you have allowed uses that are listed in the chart. They have more flexibility than other uses. So there's reasonable use. There's vegetation management. There's broad, you know, infrastructure, roads, parks, trails. You know? Those kinds of things, like sound transit light rail that had wetlands that were filled for that project, and they probably had compensatory mitigation that happened in a mitigation bank somewhere. But those are allowed uses. They're not none of the allowed uses anywhere in there are gonna say development.

They're all public projects, utilities. Development usually falls into the critical areas report analysis, net improvement area. But there I mean, currently, there's a there's a prohibition flat out on filling wetlands through that process. So there's, you know, a lot of flexibility for buffers, for setbacks. That's been carried onward.

I would say, you know, the the regulatory structure is generally going to frown on filling a wetland. And that's except for those ones that, you know, the state had says, you know, category four, these are fine. When you start deviating from that and what the state is saying, that's where you run into, well, we're leaving best available science behind. You know, we're we're causing impact. We're gonna degrade a site.

You know, there's all sorts of flexibility in there. But at some point, you know, you have to draw a line, and that's where the mitigation sequencing comes in. That's looking at, you know, have you how can you avoid doing this entirely? You know? If you can't avoid it, how do you minimize the impact?

And then if you can't minimize it or avoid it, then how do you mitigate for it? But there are still some, you know, parameters on what you can do. The other thing I would I would say too that I'm gonna forget what I was gonna say again. In the situations where you've got developed sites, you know, it's it's there's there's multiple things that apply. So, you know, a critical area's code might not let you do something, but it doesn't mean you couldn't incentivize, you know, through a zoning code or through some other like, Bell Red code, for example.

You know, these are the critical areas, but to avoid them, we we can allow other things through zoning or or development standard flexibility. You know, that's that's the kind of flexibility, I think, that is sought here. You know? And there's also just how you design a building. That gets into the avoidance and minimization as well. And maybe some designs aren't, you know, the best for that site in particular. And, you know, there's things that are driving design, like economics and, you know, cost return return on investment. You know? Those are not things that our code is focused on. It's focused on ecological improvement.

So there's a lot of flexibility in there in the old code. There's a lot more, I'd say, in the new code, but there's still some you know, there there are still some bars or, you know, lines that have to be have to be drawn.

Well, thank you. And I guess there's been enough discussion for this that, hopefully, we could get some some conversation back into in the next session or something. But but this is this is how

There's no next session. We are supposed after the We are supposed to recommend to the council by end of this year, and this is our session. After that, in November, we have retreats and one session in December. There's no other session. Just you know? Whatever is happening is today. I think there's a fine associated with that if we don't do it by end of I don't remember. Matt, I don't see you.

It's not a blank it's not a blanket flatten. We would be out

of He was just like, what?

We we would be out of compliance. Okay.

We will be out of the compliance.

He sat down. Okay. Go ahead.

If those are risks, I would obviously defer to Matt on what exactly those are, but it's generally grant funding for the most part.

Matt, we we should it's good for city of Bellevue to do it by December. Right? We should

Oh, the deadline is

Okay. The deadline is with the council calendar. Right? Okay. Chair Conlet. Sorry? Could I just ask one question? No. We are not timing? No. We are not in the sec so we go for the third round. Let's figure out this one and

Oh, that's what I was gonna ask is it sounds like that maybe

I should know, but you can go. Oh, okay. Okay. It's okay. Matt, please go ahead.

Yes. So so the deadline is a growth management act based deadline for council to take final action so that the city remains in compliance with the deadlines imposed by the growth management act. So the scheduling problem for the planning commission is both the commission and council have a very limited number of meetings prior to the December recess. So if the planning commission were going to actually need another meeting to consider this, you would most likely need to schedule another meeting that's not currently on your calendar in order to do that, probably at at, I mean, at some point in time in the very

Probably in the next couple weeks.

Yeah.

Can meet the end of year council schedule.

Yes. So so so it's not you know, it's the planning commission doesn't violate the GMA. The problem is that you're not giving council enough time to process it, particularly when council has a budget discussion that's also going on at the end of the year, if if you can't, you know, properly submit your recommendation.

Thanks, Matt. Commissioner Villavicas, do you have continuously a question, or should we go for another round? Because I just wanna be clear that it's good to finish it today. We can ask the commission later.

I agree. I agree.

But if you have another question or we can go another round, or we can see if we wanna do working with the nod that you guys feel you're not prepared and you want another session get added on our calendar, I won't be available. You need to find a chair. But yes, Kristen.

I was just gonna offer one other reminder too that if you do opt to provide the recommendation today, that can be, you know, as part of that discussion, you know, some notes to counsel on. This was an item that we discussed but didn't have a chance to kind of get through.

Oh, we can have, like, a note about this specific site is

We can just tell Moe.

I won't present that. The city staff will go for this item to the council, but okay. Do we do do you have more question? If no, I know commissioner Kennedy wants to go on the no let's go for the round. Sorry. I just wanna be respectful of the time and do the round. Yeah. Let's finish it.

Reservoir, you

need I just wanna go with the round.

I know public improvements like sidewalks and right away improvements do not count within the area of intervention. Does driveway count?

I I don't recall offhand. I do think there's some exemptions for, like, private roads and driveways, but I can double check the code on that. Typically, the limits of disturbance are really specific to, like, a house and, like, a yard and things like that. But access points, I believe, are exempted from that, but I can

take a look.

Thank you.

That's it.

Are you good? Okay. I I think one of my main question is about the WDF too. That's my understanding is it could be the case of, like, a lawsuit. It could be Snoqualmie. Tribe have a lawsuit for us. Is that the correct understanding or I'm

off? Christine or Chris? I think we feel confident what we have would withstand some kind of a legal challenge. Should that happen? Can I predict whether or not it would? Okay. I really don't know. Okay.

I mean, just generally, I'll say too, like, we just had the Washington State Planning Conference last week. Mhmm. We've been talking with other communities, and I I don't think there's anybody adopting the full site potential.

Well, is one jurisdiction that did because of litigation, which was the city of Anacortes. Okay. What they proposed is definitely more extreme than what much more extreme than what we're proposing. And there's kind of a range. I'm not sure of any other city I can think of that's fully adopting site potential tree height. But there's a lot of cities that are kind of behind us on this as well. So a lot of those are still in motion.

Yeah. We do feel confident that what we're proposing is well supported.

I just wanna have your expertise to just tell us. We will be fine. We're going for the third round. Westchair Lou?

I'm generally supportive of what staff has recommended, so no further questions for me. Thank you.

Kosha Farris?

No further questions for me, and I'm also in support of what staff has recommended.

Commissioner Kennedy? I support what staff has recommended. I was going to respond to the idea on timing for commissioner Villavessas. If more conversation is needed instead of putting a note on this that could raise questions on this proposal, Would it be possible? It sounds like the Shoreline Management Act is another time where it and is also required in order to get this through where this could be revisited and reviewed both for the mitigation mechanism and in in the shoreline. Would that be an appropriate time?

Yes. I can I can add on? So, if the planning commission has a recommendation or just, some feedback for council, that can certainly be incorporated into the resolution that gets advanced to counsel. And so and then that can be part of the presentation. We've done that in the past.

Okay. I guess I was proposing an alternative to not muddy up this with a site specific thing that is also going to require something with the Shoreline Management Act, but to put that into a separate conversation, is that possible?

Yeah, and I think actually one of the advantages of that is because the Shoreline code update is a little bit different process wise because Department of Ecology does have approval authority on that code, it would be an opportunity for us to speak directly with ecology on this topic and maybe talk through what those potential flexibilities may or may not be and what they could support. And I think that is a good reminder as well that this code will ultimately need to be, I guess, readopted by the Department of Ecology and approved by them. So it's important to keep that in mind in terms of where this goes. Alright. Thank you.

Commissioner Gueppo?

Oh, can I

make can I Oh, yeah?

Go ahead. Just a quick response to that just just so everybody's aware, Department of Ecology is going through rulemaking right now under the Shoreline Management Act. So they're revising, their Washington Administrative Code guidelines related to shorelines. And one of the provisions that they're looking at doing is making sure that critical area ordinances and shoreline master programs are no longer tied together. So one of the recommendations they have, and I think this Bellevue, forgive me for not knowing this, adopt by reference.

Mhmm.

Okay. That's not gonna be allowed anymore according to the current rulemaking that's happening. So what that means is that in the 2029 shoreline update, critical area regulations are gonna have to be embedded or, you know, an appendix or some other mechanism, which ultimately means that you wouldn't necessarily have to open up the critical areas ordinance and adopt something new or look at that again. So you can just have to deal with that in your shoreline master program. So you can do it at that time if you want to,

but you don't have to.

Sure.

Thank you. Commissioner Gueppo?

Yeah. I'm supportive of staff's recommendation. And if we wanted to include a note on this

Do written down something?

We could we could do that.

Okay. Let me finish the round, and I come back, and then we can go with the motion. Commissioner Valavesses?

Same here.

Okay. Commissioner Neisha?

Yeah. I'm in support of what staff has proposed, and I'd be open to a note too.

K. O. Commissioner Geppoldt, did you write down the motion with the note? I saw you were writing something.

I have I have the motion.

Okay. Go ahead. Are we ready to do motion? Commissioner Farris, are you nodding? Are we ready? I heard everybody's ready. Okay.

So I I'd like to move that the planning commission recommend the critical areas ordinance land use code amendment to counsel set forth in attachment a to the agenda memo in tonight's planning commission agenda memo for critical areas ordinance land use code amendment and to be accompanied by a note in relation to potential additional flexibility with respect to wetlands and wetland mitigation. I'd like to second that motion.

A motion has been made to recommend the critical area ordinance land use code amendment to council set forth in attachment a. Is there any discussion?

I do have a question.

This is Carol.

Please go ahead.

Do we want to make the note specific to the site for TrimalPro or a more broad note to say that this is gonna apply to everyone, everything around the city?

Any discussion come vice chair, Lou, what do you feel about that? I don't I prefer personally don't do specific sites because it's just we're in the policymaking. But if we are going down there

I think I think just because of our responsibilities as planning commission, we should be a broader note rather than site subs site specific note.

Any nodding? Any I have concerns with the the the addition as noted. It seems too broad. I'm concerned with us not knowing what we're proposing with Wetlands with that note. I'd like to get staff's recommendation on Do

you guys have any wording? Any anyone else has any discussion?

Again, I think as I mentioned earlier, it's it's tricky just because this was brought up so late in the game that we didn't really have a chance to really evaluate it and come with up with something we think is defensible. I think our preference would probably be to look at integrating that into the scope of the next time we have look to at the critical areas code. I'm not sure if that's something that could even maybe go in the omnibus. I'm not sure. That's a little bit more policy based, and we're really hoping for that project. But

Yeah. Yeah. What a consideration with Shoreline. Yeah. Yeah. Because, I mean, ultimately, council will be Jeff. Providing us direction on the scope of the Shoreline master program update, probably launching in 2027. So, you know, that note could be something more like asking council to consider looking at this in the scope at a future date.

Comancheh Nisha?

Probably be the cleanest.

Yeah. I I just have a clarifying question. So deputy mayor Moe was here for most of our conversation here today. Can he not just give the council kind of what our thoughts were when it comes before the council?

The way that works, actually, typically, the chair will will come with us and deliver that. And the the council, usually does a great job of asking a lot of follow-up questions and really, getting into what the discussion was that went into that recommendation.

Yes. Go ahead.

Yeah. I was just gonna suggest, can I just withdraw my motion?

Okay.

And give a clean motion, and then you can

Sure.

You can speak to this issue, you know, as something that

It's okay. We are basically discussing, and you can basically a little bit amend and change it if you want it. But if you wanna withdraw a thought, or what do you prefer for your record? Would you like to withdraw that?

Yeah. I think that would be cleaner just to withdraw it and then restate the motion.

K. Can I can I restate a motion? Yeah. So I'd like to move that the planning commission recommend the critical areas ordinance land use code amendment to council set forth in attachment a to the agenda memo in tonight's planning commission agenda memo for the critical areas ordinance land use code amendment. I'll second.

A motion has made to recommend the critical area ordinance land use code amendment to counsel set forth in attachment a. Is there any discussion? K. Can we vote for it all in favor?

Aye.

Motion moved. Yep. Is there any motion to approve the minutes for September? Thanks. Thank you so much, everybody. Moved. Second. Any discussion? All in favor?

Aye. I would like to move that we adjourn the meeting.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye. Aye. It finished at 10:05. It was not even well, 09:05.

09:05.