Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

It's for the 30? Good evening, and welcome to the April 22 meeting of City of Bellevue Planning Commission. This meeting 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 agenda. All written comments that have been submitted prior to 11AM today, Wednesday, April 22, will be summarized into the record.

We have two items on the agenda tonight, the beret look forward, Luca, and affordable housing strategy. Now let me move forward with the roll call. Have a echo. Kate, I do have a echo, I think. Okay. Thank you. Vice chair, Liu is absent. Commissioner Ferris is online, and she's joining later. Commissioner Geppold?

Here.

Commissioner Valavesses?

I'm here.

Commissioner Nilchian?

Here.

Commissioner Kennedy? Here. Council liaison, council member Bhargava? Here. And I'm chair Han Lu. Can I get a motion to approve tonight's agenda?

So move.

Is there a second?

Second.

All in approve?

Aye. Aye. Chair.

Commissioner Ferris is just Commissioner Ferris?

Yes. Thank you for joining us. Council member Bhargava, do you have any reports for us?

Nothing very specific to report today. All I can say is yesterday, I wanna just give you a little bit of a summary, was a working session on the budget, the by name. And, it was a really good, staff presentation, really good discussion, laid out a little bit of the foundation of how the budget is put together, for the city. The focus was on transportation, and so, staff was able to lay out, some of the, key strategic initiatives and priorities, call them STAs, strategic target areas, and then, talked a little bit about some of the gaps that they have within the budget specific to transportation, including, a little bit of focus on the on the grand connection. And, they talked about some of the, sources and uses in some ways, for the budget for the year.

And they also laid out some of the mechanisms that they have, with the specific focus on a transportation benefit district and what that would yield. The council is able to give pride some guidance on some of the puts and takes for that and what they'd like to see in terms of a framework and, how we can think about the budget. This is only the first cut at it. It's gonna go through, numerous cycles here. Eventually, the hope is to get it approved in November. So that's just a quick recap.

Thank you. Any question? Okay. Kate, are there any reports from boards and commissions? Would you want to provide us updates that meeting is scheduled for 2026?

Sure. I am very glad to have been able to accommodate the affordable housing strategy presentation this week, since it was pulled from the agenda last at your last meeting. As BellRed moves forward, we can see if it makes sense to include an overview of the MFTE program, which is what's going to be tonight. It's also looking like we will not need an August meeting. So I appreciate your flexibility, but we'll give it a 90% chance no August meeting.

And I also wanted to mention that, one of the process improvements that we talked about was having that set briefing time, and we have had good consistent attendance over the last three months. So if it's okay with you, I'll just schedule those out through the end of the year.

Thank you. Great. Thanks. Let's move on with the OR and communication. Kit, do

you have any summary of the written communication that you can share with us? Sure. We've received nine comments since the packet was published. I've forwarded six of those to you. The last three came in too late for my final communication with you before the meeting. Two of those comments are regarding the StreetGrid in BellRed. No. Three of those all three of those comments are regarding the StreetGrid in BellRed, and, I'm sure that Nick and Christina will be able to address

those. Okay. Thank you so much. If you submit your comment after 11AM, we will not get it for the packet. We have a total of thirty minutes for oral communication.

Each speaker will have up to three minutes to speak. A staff liaison, Kate Nessie, will call in speakers in order in which they have registered either in person or online. If anyone from the public has missed the 6PM registration deadline, you may still provide public comments. 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. The 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 public comment about subject matters that are related to the city of Bellevue government and are within the power and duties of Planning Commission.

Additional information can find in ordinance six seven five two. Kate, can you call on the speakers?

Yes. So we have 10 speakers signed up. So if we use our time efficiently, we should be able to get through everybody. The first speaker is Leila Kademi, who is in person, and, it will be followed by Diana Leo, who is also in person.

Thank you. K. Good evening, chair and commissioners. My name is Leila Kademi. I'm a land use attorney at Hillis Clark Martin and Peterson providing comment on the updated draft of the Bell Red look forward, Luca.

To start, it's important to applaud all the ways the code builds on the hard work of Wilburton and implements those standards. Going forward, the commission should ask why anytime the Bell Red approach deviates from the Wilburton approach. My comments tonight focus on the street grid, access corridors, and flexibility for existing warehouse and manufacturing uses. BellRed is a light rail served TOD area, yet the draft code continues to require a rigid street grid dating back to 2009 that city transportation staff have already said is not necessary to meet transportation needs. The street grid has been a significant barrier to development in BellRed and should not continue to impose unnecessary burdens.

If the goal of the street grid is walkability and block braking, the code should rely on block limits and flexible pedestrian and bike connectivity, not mandatory fifty and sixty foot roadways. The enhanced shared use path was an encouraging addition to the updated draft. However, the proposed standard needs additional work. A 26 foot shared use path is far wider than necessary and more burdensome than Wilburton's 14 foot standard. The proposed Belgrade standard includes a 14 foot path with a 12 foot amenity strip.

The amenity strip is perplexing since it does not serve a function of separating pedestrians from vehicles, and it is nearly as wide as the path. If the existing standard for the enhanced shared shared use path remains, projects will favor the flexible access corridor framework instead, which is less expensive, narrower, and more flexible, but will result in a pattern of alley typologies as opposed to active transportation paths. Finally, in in recognition of Belarus industrial past and expressed policy intent to allow ongoing industrial uses, we urge the commission to review the nonconformity code and allow the following without triggering proportional compliance. Modernization and internal expansion of existing warehouse and manufacturing uses when there is no net increase in external impacts, conversion from higher impact industrial uses to light industrial and service uses, and upgrades required to meet other laws or permit requirements. In closing, council direction for BellRed was walkable connectivity, not a conventional vehicular focused street network.

Respectfully ask the commission to consider our comments to more closely align BellRed with the successful approach in Wilburton. Thank you.

Thanks.

Next, we have Diana Leo followed by Derek Bottles.

Good evening chair, Kanlu, and commissioners. My name is Diana Leo, and I'm the VP of government affairs for the Bellevue Chamber. On behalf of the Bellevue Chamber, I'd like to highlight several concerns with the proposed Bell Red Code update, particularly where the transportation framework is misaligned with transit oriented development goals. First, the proposed street grid lacks a clear transportation purpose. The chamber's transportation analysis indicates that these additional roadways are not needed to support auto mobility in a TOD area centered on light rail that matters.

We should not be requiring an extensive network of 50 to 60 foot streets when they are not serving a mobility function. Instead, what's needed is connectivity, not roads, and that can be achieved more effectively through pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure. We strongly support shifting toward shared use paths similar to what has been successful implemented in Wilburton. That model delivers access without the cost and land consumption of unnecessary streets. Second, the current grid is not only unnecessary, it's actively preventing development.

As outlined in our letter, the alignment runs through constrained areas, conflicts with existing parcel configurations, and in some cases make sites functionally undevelopable. This helps explain why large portions of BellRed have seen limited development since the grid was first introduced. Third, the proposed green streets are not cons are inconsistent with both planning best practices and the city's own sustainability goals. These are not true green streets. They are still designated primarily for vehicle traffic and include on street parking, which runs counter to TOD principles.

At the same time, we're seeing a reduction in meaningful green street elements, not an enhancement. Fourth, the system as proposed does not function cohesively. Streets do not consistently connect, arterials are not sufficient to justify the grid, and the overall network does not reflect a clear or efficient mobility strategy. In short, we have a framework that adds costs, reduces developable land, and does not deliver transportation value. We urge the commission to realign this plan with TOD principles, prioritize people over cars, use flexible pedestrian connectivity standards, expand shared use paths, and remove requirements that are not supported by transportation need. Thank you for your time and consideration. I yield the floor. Thank you.

Next, we have Derek Bottles followed by Paul O'Sullivan who is also in person.

Thank you, commission, for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Derek Bottles, as has already been said. My parents and their partners moved their business to 1732 132nd Avenue Northeast in 1996 and purchased the building and land associated with it in 2008. This property is at the heart of the Bell Red neighborhood being discussed tonight. We appreciate that the memo in the Luca look forward document from staff identifies many of the issues with placing a new street grid over the existing properties, including timing issues for the street building when tied to private redevelopment, differing ground elevations between the properties, fragmented ownership of the land, and misalignment of the property lines.

We are concerned that it will be tempting to overlook these issues when under pressure to move the new code forward, but wishful thinking will not solve these problems. To expand on that thought, our particular site is 50500 square feet on paper. But after accounting for critical areas associated with Gulf Creek, only about 22,400 square feet of developed land may remain. If half the proposed local street in the plan was placed on our site, the that would reduce the developable area by additional 4,000 square feet. Basically, in our case, a new street grid would take 18% of the usable land.

This is a big burden on private land, and that is before accounting for fire lanes, property line setbacks, and other details. In plain terms, the proposed street grid is likely to make redevelopment of our site less feasible. And without redevelopment, the goals of the land use code update will not be fully achieved. We asked the city council to or the sorry. The development commission to continue to work to find workable solutions to the problems identified in the memo and as just discussed for our specific lot. The six ideas put forward by the Bellville Chamber of Commerce seem like a good place to start. We're looking for real workable solutions. Thank you.

Thanks.

Next, we have, Paul O'Sullivan followed by Cody Lodi who is virtual.

Good evening. My name is Paul O'Sullivan. I'm employed by Albertsons Safeway, and I'm responsible for the urban redevelopment of projects throughout the country. I'm here to speak tonight about the land that we own at the Northern end of the Spring District. You probably remember we used to own all of that land, where our ice cream plant and our dairy is.

Importantly, that's about 20 acres. It's a rare opportunity that you get 20 acres close to a light rail, And we have a vision that we create a master plan on that 20 acres of mixed use development, which is has the great advantage of being adjacent to the light rail. It's a wonderful opportunity to create a spectacular development without lines, without grid. And I we really appreciate the steps that have been made up to date with regards to the grid. But there's one road, I would call it a canyon, which slices right through the middle of our site, dividing it in two, which would utterly destroy the goals of porosity, pedestrian movements of in a master plan.

Later, you're gonna hear from our civil engineer who's here this evening to talk about the details of that. We see a fantastic opportunity to create a pedestrian environment, and this road between it just destroys that. It goes from a hundred and twentieth to a hundred and twenty fourth. It has no purpose. It's just a shortcut, and it would rocket cars through the middle of a planned development.

So we would gratefully ask if that road is removed from the plan. This site deserves better than having a road through the middle of it. We have a great team of designers. We've engaged a lot of people here to help us with that. Some of them are here tonight this evening. So we'd like you to consider this carefully so that we can create something really special here. Thank you.

Thank you. Next,

we have Cody Lodi, who is virtual, followed by Jesse Clausen, who is in person. Cody, can you hear me?

Yes. Can you hear me?

Yes. Go ahead.

Great. Thank you. My name is Cody Lodi, an architect at Weber Thompson working on several projects in the Wilburton and BellRed neighborhoods. I appreciate the outreach and the progress the city staff, has made to date and look forward to the Luca getting adopted in the coming months. I do have a couple comments regarding the Luca language and the realities of transforming this up and coming neighborhood.

The Bell Red neighborhood has a diverse land base with a lot of topography, creeks, and fragmented parcel configurations. As discussed, in some of the other comments, when overlaying a rigid local street grid over these extremely unique constraints, developers are left with few options to integrate diverse urban design that activates and connects the public realm while delivering successful new development. From a design perspective, I strongly encourage the commission to give staff flexibility to approve alternative street network configurations on master plan sites. That's why we have the NDP process. The design teams working with city planners hand in hand will be able to provide the best locale specific solutions that will realize the BellRed vision.

The block size and the connectivity standards themselves are the right metrics. But how those standards get satisfied on any given site is a design question best resolved through project level review. The mechanism for substituting local streets for private access corridors will be just discussed later tonight, and we hope and I hope the commission uses it to give the the staff that flexibility. I also applaud the staff for adjusting the maximum floor plate sizes allowed for mass timber residential buildings, aligning that with the realities of building with this highly stain sustainable building type. I would, however, like to see a clarification in the language in section 20 dot 25 b dot zero four zero dot three b regarding floor plate sizes in building with mass timber as it supersedes the conflicting language in part c that follows it regarding this regards to connecting portions of towers over 55 feet in height.

It contradicts the unlimited floor area given to mass timber buildings up to a 100 feet in height, and it would severely reduce the viability of many of these promising height constrained residential sites. Lastly, I would also encourage the commission to have staff reassess the need to impose a minimum floor to ceiling height in above grade parking structures with mixed use development. Development. It unnecessarily adds cost and, more importantly, takes away available building height that would otherwise be devoted to housing. Many of these sites, BellRed, have impactful groundwater conditions that will require above grade parking to meet market demands, and we'd we'd like to see more housing in this neighborhood. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, we have Jesse Clausen followed by Jeremy Phebus.

I never do that. I'm Jessie Claussen. I'm here representing the O'Brien Auto Group, which owns a 7.72 acre parcel in the BellRed district that is directly impacted by the proposed street grid network. I've passed out a little map showing their holdings. As we all know, this is supposed to be the BellRed look back and the look forward.

We all agreed that BellRed has not had the success that was anticipated. A major reason for that is a rigid street grid network that failed to account for existing conditions on the ground. While portions of the grid have recently been removed on a few large parcels, Most of the grid remains intact despite the fact that Bell Red is no longer a theoretical plan. It is now a living, breathing, transit oriented development area. We are asking a fundamental question.

Why do we need prescribed roads here at all? Transportation staff has stated there is no transportation need for a local vehicular street grid in this location, yet private property owners are still being required to carve out forty five and sixty foot wide roads through their land, roads that are not needed to serve their own development. Pedestrian connectivity is critically important in a TOD, but that's not what's being proposed. What's being required are auto oriented streets, not safe pedestrian connections. The required street grid raises serious nexus and proportionality concerns, which must be addressed and written in the code.

These roads cost millions of dollars, and there is no impact fee credit or offset being offered to private property owners who are effectively being asked to build private infrastructure for the city. The situation is especially problematic for the O'Brien property. The site is already constrained by existing North South private easements in blue that serve interior lot conditions. That's in addition to a road grid network that's not shown on the map. We don't control these easements and can't compel the easement holders to modify or improve them.

Only the city could do that. Requiring us to build full streets in addition to navigating these private easement constraints directly undermines the ability to redevelop this parcel. The current approach takes precious TOD land and uses it for pavement and cars where it could instead support places for people to live, work, and shop. Finally, the notion that a private property owner must provide additional public benefit simply to waive or modify unnecessary local street requirements is problematic. The city is asking with no transportation justification or compensation for private owners to build roads.

The street grid should be eliminated or flexibility granted should be based on the actual conditions of the property, not additional public benefit. We respectfully ask the commission to look forward, direct the staff to remove the street grid network, consider a pedestrian network, and substantially reduce pedestrian pathway widths, aligning BellRed and Wilburton together. It's notable that Wilburton allows taller and denser development, but it does not include the street grid or these pedestrian path widths. They should be aligned. Thank you. Thank you.

Next, we have Jeremy Phebus followed by Cassandra Courtney who's virtual.

Thank you, chair and commissioners. So I am a professional civil engineer, licensed in the state of Washington and practicing frequently in the city of Bellevue with numerous projects in Wilburton and Bell Red. I am currently consulting for Safeway Albertsons property owners on their 20 acre site in the middle of Bell Red corridor. I primarily want to speak about the 17th Avenue Street corridor that is currently prescribed through the site. I think most of you probably very familiar with a Hundred And 24th and the wall that's not too different from, like, the height of this wall that runs along the west side of that street.

Above that wall, there's another 15 feet of grade. So two and a half times the height of this wall along the edge of that corridor. If we set a 10% road going back there, which is incredibly steep and not very conducive to vibrant, active street grid. We're going more than a city block just to get up to the crest of that site. It's another 10 feet.

So this wall again on the west side of the site, by the time we've run it at at 10% grades on both sides, we've used half the site to create canyons through the site that would require walls and retaining structures, again, like twice the height of the wall in this room. It will be technically accessible because of the exceptions granted to public right of way, but it will not be accessible in any practical use of the word. Again, I've I I'm on my fifth project in the Bell Red area alone. And despite whatever flexibility is inferred in the sub area plan, in my experience, if there's a line shown for a road despite whatever constraints or site specific proposals are made, staff will follow that line, and it will be required. And so I strongly encourage you to set priorities, set goals, set objectives, but leave design up to the the property owner, the design teams, the the design professionals working with staff to achieve something that will, at the end of the day, be in the in the best interest of the public in City Of Bellevue.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, we have Cassandra Courtney followed by Mark Craig who is in person. Cassandra, can you hear me?

I can. Can you hear me?

Yes. Go ahead.

I'm Cassandra Courtney. I am the land manager for Heidelberg Materials or as many know it, Capital Materials, the ready mix plant in Bellevue. It is one of the larger parcels in the area that is currently operating as the second largest production in the Seattle market for our ready mixed operations. While Heidelberg sees value in remaining in the Bell Red community as long as development builds up around us so that we can continue to be a local supplier to, the construction that will occur. I nor my employer are developers.

However, as industry is being pushed out, we must look ahead at the impacts of planning that would affect our property in the future. Over the past several years, I have attended multiple meetings with neighbors in the Bell Red area and also with the planning staff. And I've heard from those who do build the properties, those that Bellevue is actually looking to bring in for your residential, for your arts district, that the conditions that are in the planning code do not allow the projects to pencil out. Therefore, those projects are not getting built. The community is being stifled.

It's stalled. One of those conditions that we are hearing from is that the street grid causes that issue. We are seeing impact on our site because of topography. We have an adjoining road that stops at the edge of our property because you have that elevation difference. Additionally, we're impacted by the light rail, adjacent to our side as well.

We currently have several, streets that are already going through dividing our larger parcel into four sections. And one of the things that, you know, as we aren't developers, is we don't know what the use for that property will be. So by having the street grid already put on a line without any kind of on-site input, restricts any future use for any developer that would come to the site. We are requesting that instead, that grid be removed. So that way, when Heidelberg does leave the site, that we will be able to have that flexibility and bring in that growth that the city of Bellevue is looking for in the area to be able to build.

Thank you.

Can you share the address again one more time?

The address is 17011 30th Avenue Northeast, Bellevue.

Thank you.

Next, we have Mark Craig, and our final speaker will be Joe Cantrell.

Good evening.

My name is Mark Craig. I'm president of Anbar Real Estate. We're a family office real estate company with long standing ownership history in the Bell Red neighborhood, specifically at 1 32nd In Spring across from the 1 30th Street Station. Appreciate the commission's time tonight. The 2,009 street grid framework, was undoubtedly a well intentioned, but, was well intentioned.

But after fifteen plus years, it's clear that a rigid, car centric street alignment doesn't reflect how this neighborhood is actually developing or perhaps how it should develop. The market has moved towards walkability, mixed use density, and multimodal transit oriented connectivity, and we believe our land use code should reflect that reality. Our project, our site has run into these limitations. Mapped vehicular street alignments create feasibility problems on our site, not because we're opposed to connectivity. What we're asking the commission to support is a straightforward is straightforward.

Redefine the grid as flexible, multimodal network that prioritizes pedestrian and bicycle connections. Allow shared use nonvehicular pass to satisfy local street requirements where full vehicular streets are infeasible. As part of this, we support giving staff authority to approve alternate street network configurations, including substituting local streets with other approved street typologies. And this is important where a master plan develop development, interferes with the map grid, but otherwise satisfies block size and connectivity requirements. Rigid adherence to the map grid on master plan sites hinders better urban design outcomes that the block size standard itself is designed to produce.

The existing arterial network can handle build out traffic, and I don't believe that's in dispute. Mandating streets that serve no capacity purpose simply traps development potential and leaves properties in the neighborhood in limbo. We encourage the commission to take a practical forward looking approach. Thank you.

Thank you.

Our final speaker is Joe Cantrell, and that will bring us to our thirty minutes.

Hello, everyone. My name is Joe Cantrell, and I serve as an associate for real estate equity at Columbia Pacific Advisors. We are working through a master development plan for a large nine acre assemblage in the heart of Bell Red just south of Spring Boulevard directly adjacent to the light rail. I'd like to express our thanks to city staff for the hard work that has gone into the drafting of the Bell Red Luca, and we are very excited to be at this point in the process. There are a few points I want to make today as it relates to the street grid.

The street grid is not necessary for transportation in a transit oriented district. BowRed is planned as a transit oriented development area centered around light rail, not a car oriented suburban district. We have not seen a clear transportation rationale explaining why a full vehicle street grid is still required in this context. The current also, the current street standards prioritize cars, not people. 60 foot private streets reflect auto oriented design assumptions that are inconsistent with a light rail served neighborhood.

Pedestrian and bicycle connectivity can be achieved through finer grained pathways, mid block connections, and shared streets without building wide roads designed primarily for vehicles. Pedestrian connectivity does not require full vehicular streets. Safe direct pedestrian access to light rail stations can be provided through, Paseo style connections and pedestrian priority corridors. Requiring full street sections to achieve basic walkability is unnecessary and counterproductive to a truly transit oriented urban form. Next, one size fit all street requirements undermine TOD goals.

A uniform street grid applies across applied across BellRed, ignores site specific conditions, development patterns, and TOD best practices. Flexibility is essential to allowing projects to respond to their context and prioritize people over pavement. The public benefit standard for waivers is also incorrect here. Requiring additional public benefit in exchange for deviating from oversized local street standards is problematic, especially when these projects are already delivering housing, transit access, and walkability consistent with city goals. Next, pedestrian connectivity, not car throughput, should be the priority.

In a light rail served district, success should be measured by walkability, safety, and access to transit, not by vehicle circulation or roadway geometry. And lastly, the city should refocus the BellRed framework on TOD fundamentals. We urge the city to revisit why this vehicular street grid remains, clarify its purpose, and redesign standards to elevate pedestrian connectivity, urban design quality, and house feasibility rather than defaulting to auto oriented street requirements. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, everybody, for being here. The first study session item in the BellRed road, look forward land use code amendment. This, look how implement implements the update to the Bay Ridge sub area plan and future land use map adopted in 2024. Tonight, the staff would summarize community engagement to date and introduce the first set of the proposed Luca pro components. Code and policy planner manager, Christina Gullins, and code and policy director, Nick Whipple, will provide a presentation. Hello.

Hello. Thank you, chair Conlu, and good evening, commissioners, and council member Barkava. It's nice to be here tonight. We are, excited to be at this key milestone. So you may recall we published the first Bell Red Luca draft on New Year's Eve, December 31.

And we've been receiving a lot of feedback since that draft was published. We've also hosted a code lab where we got people kind of really engaged on what are the ways that we can improve the code. And we feel like we've made a lot of good progress, and we're happy to publish, just last Thursday, this version two, that you're hearing comments about this evening. So really looking forward to kinda moving through this process tonight. We wanted to focus on, mainly the local streets, but we'll orient you to some other topics and then looking for some feedback on some of the components we're presenting tonight on.

So for our agenda, we wanna cover the land use district's approach that we'll be taking here. We'll also talk about the mixed use land use district standards that are going to apply in BellRed. Then we're gonna dive into the meaty topic. You heard a lot from property owners tonight on the local streets. Hugely impactful if you own property in Bellevue, of course. So we wanna be able to kind of walk through how we've evolved the map, also where we want to invite you all to help us design some flexibility criteria. You heard that was really important from stakeholders tonight. And then we'll touch on our Luca schedule. So just first, wanted to orient because this is a big draft. We came to you all after we published the draft, but we're here really just information, just letting you know.

We're gonna start some more detailed outreach now that the code language was developed. So tonight, we're ready to present on a few topics. We're breaking this up into two installations to get us through, and looking forward to a public hearing, hopefully, getting that direction after that May 27 study session. So tonight, as we noted, we're gonna focus on the structure of the land use code amendment, the land use district approach, the standards that'll apply within BellRed, and then the street network. So that'll be the big, big topic.

And then we'll come back at the May and talk about how we're going to be implementing an amenity incentive approach that's gonna be based on neighborhood districts. And we'll also touch on that arts district intensive area. And then we've got some other specific details. It's not all about streets, so we also wanna get into what's our affordable housing approach, what are some of the incentive priorities in the area, and some other standards that are gonna really help, shape what BellRed turns out to be. So, with that, we'll have Christina walk us through the the topics planned for tonight.

Thank you, Nick. So tonight, we've got a really in-depth agenda for you. We're just going to kind of jump off from our January conversation, getting everyone oriented to BellRed and move move into it. But as a reminder, we are working with this new approach to our overlays building on what we started with with Wilburton. So up here, this is to represent kind of this this hierarchy of code standards that's getting progressively more specialized.

So in our general standard section part twenty ten to 20, that's covering some topics that have a broad degree of applicability across Bellevue, things like our approach to the nonconforming code and permitted uses, etcetera. We then move into this new part twenty twenty five b, which is going to have our standards that apply to all mixed use land use districts. So that's standards in both Wilburton and BellRed. The way to think about this, this part is gonna have everything that we established in Wilburton that we believe is also applicable to BellRed. We're gonna spend some time touching on what those components are.

A lot of that is things related to designs of buildings, structures to kind of say, you know, functionally, a mid rise building in Bellred is probably similar to a mid rise building in Wilburton, for example, and there's a lot we should regulate similarly. So we'll cover that. And then at the most specialized level, we have now two parts, separate overlays where we're isolating those things that we wanna keep specific to Wilburton, those things we wanna keep specific to BellRed, and they're getting fairly limited. The the most substantial pieces, it's generally the amenity incentive system and the approach to access connectivity local streets. So moving on to land use districts, and with that, a bit of a discussion about overall capacity.

So as a reminder, again, so this BellRed look forward is an update to a sub area plan that was first initiated in 2009. And back in 2009, our housing goal for BellRed was to encourage BellRed redevelopment to result in a diversity of housing types and prices, including a significant share of workforce housing. We'll note that's workforce not affordable, reflecting a much different, less urgent approach to the the our our housing needs. And so what we saw by 2017 when the affordable housing strategy the first strategy was implemented, we'd had about 1,800 units built in Bell Red. Of those, only 89 or just under 5% were affordable to 80% AMI.

So that's kind of a a pretty easy to reach affordability level, though had some money generated in fees in lieu. By 2025, that's bumped up to, in total, about 3,000 units built across the district. So there's activity happening, but certainly not as much as we would like to see and need to see. And that's also another thing to note, which we'll talk about more much more in our next section on affordability and the amenity incentive system is that production is even with affordability established as a first tier amenity once you get past your base. So that's kind of a preview to the conversation about why we're going to be recommending mandatory housing affordability here.

So now on to 2024, when we adopted our updated sub area plan. Our new goal here is to accommodate people of all stages of life by meeting the housing needs of all housing types, sizes, and incomes wanting to live in Bellred. So with our updates to the land use districts in Bellred, we are looking to add capacity to accommodate 7,900 additional housing units and 14,200 jobs by 2044. That represents a quarter of our citywide housing growth, 20% of our job growth through that planning period. And with our updated affordable housing strategy, we're also estimating that in order to keep up with BellRed's share of our affordable housing need over the next ten years, almost 1,300 out of the 3,100 units we're projecting need to be affordable to 80% of median.

So big leap there, which and to to meet that need, we have been in we are implementing some incredibly significant increases to buildable capacity across the district. So we are implementing zoning that's gonna match one to one with the future land use districts that you see on this map. These are the future land use districts that were implemented with the 2024 comp plan update and follow the kind of naming approach and and consistency that we move forward with with Wilburton. So you'll see that most of these mixed use districts are all designated as either high rise, mid rise, or low rise, and we have a consistent approach to the maximum heights that we're allowing in these districts. So those high rise districts, so all the dark brown, the dark burgundy that you're seeing throughout the central core of Bell Red, in those areas, we're allowing heights up to 250 feet.

Currently, as a comparison, in very limited areas, primarily just the I'd say about not even a half mile around Spring District Station and Bellred Station, we allow heights up to a 150, 125 feet, and that's at the very highest. So we are going a 100 feet beyond that, and we are significantly expanding the footprint to respond to the opportunity and need in these TOD areas. For mid rise, we are sticking with the standard of a 100 feet for mid rise. And for those low rise districts, that will now be at 60 feet, and GC is at 45. Those are also substantial increases in height over what's allowed now, so both to accommodate capacity and also to better align with actual housing types.

A 125, a 150 feet is not a height that is gonna actually enable you know, setting aside economics, that's not a height that's gonna enable true high rise development. That's only gonna be consistent with mid rise. So there's a really we talk about the grid a lot, but we can't understate how impactful this update is going to be for supporting development just at that capacity level as well. Okay. So now we are pivoting to walk through components that we are proposing to maintain from Wilburton and apply to BellRed as well.

A lot of these we'll just be touching on, but we're gonna be spending some more time with nonconforming uses as well as with car dealerships because those are two of the hot topics. So first, a bit about just kind of what is nonconforming code. Why do we use it? Why is important? So when when last June, I wanna say, council gave direction for us to develop a citywide consistent consistent approach to nonconforming uses to be adopted with HOMA and also gave that direction that BellRed and other future subareas would align with that approach.

So in March, we adopted our new citywide nonconforming code, and I that code in itself was based on the framework we have currently in BellRed. So in BellRed today, you'll see existing uses, but you can swap in nonconforming. It is a nonconforming code. So a bit more, what is the nonconforming code? Nonconforming uses structures and sites, these are things that were allowed when they were first established but are no longer allowed or are prohibited.

And what's important about having this kind of a code is that it allows those nonconforming things to remain, operate as usual, even conduct repairs and upgrades without being forced to leave. But it is acknowledging that need, especially in districts like Bell Red, where we do have a new vision that's implemented, to eventually encourage them to move on. That code also prevents new nonconformants from being established. But the way our code also works is that when these nonconforming structures and sites might be making significant upgrades, and that is set in terms of value, they may need to make some progress towards conformance. Proportional compliance is the term.

So that's kind of part of that gentle nudge towards that transition across the district. And then moving on, so a related topic is permitted land uses. So currently in BellRed, we have a traditional approach to establishing permitted uses, which is very detailed. We have a long list of uses, which are all specified as either permitted, conditional, or prohibited. We are proposing to shift to the approach introduced with Wilburton that all uses are permitted unless prohibited or conditioned.

And those limits are really focused on those uses that are potentially hazardous, likely to impact neighbors, or not compatible with transit oriented development. We do have a, what we call a craft friendly approach to manufacturing. So across BellRed, same as Wilverton, manufacturing uses are permitted outright when they are up to 20,000 square feet in size. We've added extra wiggle room up to 25,000 if it's combining educational facility. And we are also maintaining a pedestrian friendly approach to car dealerships.

We'll share a bit more on that on the slides to come to say the issue is not with car dealerships. The issue is with traditional acres of asphalt car dealerships. So we'll share a bit about that. But at the same time, we are proposing to retain extra flexibility for the BellRed General Commercial District. So in that district, we are retaining that car dealerships, warehousing, and storage uses are all allowed outright.

Okay. So a bit more about car dealerships. So as noted, you know, the issue is not with car dealerships in general. We have actually moved forward to say anywhere in BellRed, you can you are permitted outright to do a car dealership subject to some standards to make it more compatible with TOD. So that looks like no outdoor storage between the building and the public right of way.

And that outdoor storage area is limited to 10%. If you do have outdoor storage, it's limited to 10% of the lot area, though you can seek an administrative departure to increase that. We think this is a really solid compromise that we worked through with a lot of discussion with stakeholders through Wilburton, and we feel it's appropriate here. So just as a few examples to show that this is absolutely happening, up top here, we've got the Audi dealership from the U District in Seattle. You can see you still have you've got those nice big windows with the dealership behind there.

You can't see in the background. There's structured parking for for car storage, and then you have that building still aligned to the sidewalk. And then an even more urban example from Vancouver. This is a Toyota Toyota dealership downtown. You can see it's in kind of a larger high rise complex with some really lovely pedestrian condition outside.

So both of these, I'd say, are are are exactly what we're talking about here. So but again, as a reminder, the traditional kind of auto dealership is still permitted outright in BellRed GC. I'll pause here. So an another confusion is, you know, because we are introducing some new land use districts, we've changed where things are allocated around the district. I wanted to point out how things are changing both for dealerships and for those manufacturing warehousing uses.

So up north there in the bright red, that is the area that is currently BellRed General Commercial and will be staying BellRed general commercial. So up there, dealerships and warehouses are permitted outright. Manufacturing is permitted outright. And we will say today, I I we are noting that already currently, under the current Bell Red Code, the majority of manufacturing uses that we permit are currently limited to 20,000 square feet. So that's not a change substantially, and we're now expanding that allowance across the district.

So that's that area that's crosshatched in that kind of salmon color, that's the area that is currently Bell Red commercial and is proposed to be rezoned to one of these higher intensity mixed use districts. It's kind of hard to see on the screen here, but you can see, you know, central there, I've got the BellRed station. So you can see how you know, where that trade off is happening and where that really substantial capacity increase is happening close to the station area. The light blue the light blue shading, this is a current district called BellRed Commercial Residential, which is going to be replaced with mixed mixed use districts. This is a lower intensity district currently.

It allows dealerships through an administrative conditional use permit process only with limits on outdoor storage. So still some still not an unlimited permitted use, and you have to go through the administrative process today anyway. Again, some manufacturing is permitted here, all limited to 20,000 square feet. Warehouses are not permitted. So we've got some change, but in many cases, it's not as substantial as you might think.

And you've gotta keep in mind the trade off for, yes, we're losing some of these areas, but we're also adding some really substantial capacity for housing and shops. Other changes to note on the positive side. So all this area underneath in the dark blue, it looks like black on the screen. These are districts that are now going to be proposed to be mixed use land use districts, so they will all get that permissive approach to pedestrian friendly dealerships, getting the permissive approach to craft friendly manufacturing. However, new warehouses and storage are not permitted in these areas.

Existing ones, of course, can remain, can continue to be improved subject to that nonconforming code. Alright. And so now we're gonna move through a set of standards that were established with Wilburton, few more that we want to retain. First up, in the access and connectivity section, we have standards for allowing buildings to cantilever over and connect across private access corridors. We've got an example from Meta's headquarters in the Spring District showing, you know, a building connecting over a private access corridor.

It also has basic public access requirements for these corridors, including easements and public access requirements. Next, on to site organization and public realm. This includes standards for landscape areas, including street tree planting requirements. This includes the green and sustainability factor, which is required for all development, a number of public realm standards for blank walls, exterior lighting, weather protection, bike parking, and also landscape buffer requirements along our freeways. There's a lot in in building design as well that we want to carry over from Wilburton.

So all of our flexibility on floor plates for medical and life science uses in mass timber. I think as one of the commenters noted, we have bumped up the maximum floor plate for residential mass timber responding to some really helpful input we got there. Also, standards for connecting towers, minimum tower separation, standards for active use spaces, so the actual where active uses are required will be in the overlay specific components, and some standards for parking garages. We do have some limited facade modulation requirements. We're adding some new exceptions consistent with state law, and also our standards for screening mechanical equipment.

Next up. So there are some very limited details on the amenity incentive system that apply to both really just setting up the system and kind of directing you to where to find what. So in both districts, you may only exceed your base FAR through participation in the amenity incentive system. However, building height, there's just maximum. So if you're you just have your if you're working within your base FAR, you still have that whole building height to work with.

Additional pieces are that it establishes that in both districts are active use spaces of active use up to one FAR of active use space, and then the full amount of affordable commercial and affordable housing are all exempt from your total FAR calculation. We also establish our recording requirements, but, again, most of those amenity provisions are overlay specific. We'll be getting into that next time. So bit of a lightning round getting through all that because we wanted to spend some some focus on the street network this evening. So as we've heard again and again and again tonight, we know there are a number of challenges with the current grid as it stands.

We will start with what's good about it. So this this grid that was overlaid, it has a system of roughly 300 foot square blocks, which is really excellent for walkability. Because it's so even, you know, we're maximizing outcomes for consistency and access. It makes it really predictable where future access will be available, maintains intersection alignments. The trade off, I think, as we all know, is that this was really put forward with the assumption that we would see a lot more lot parcel assembly, master planning, because that's where this becomes more more workable.

But that wasn't the case. In actuality, it's most of the development so far has been through individual sites, and we know a lot of these segments can be really challenging. A number there were some in this grid that take up an outsized portion of a site. They don't align well with parcel boundaries, etcetera. So in working with transportation and other staff, we looked at the grid to think about how it could be paired back in a way that still preserved what we really needed advance with the grid.

So as a starting point, we maintain the green streets. We'll talk a bit more about green streets later on in the presentation. We see those as being really core to the the BellRed vision, really core to providing those linear parks, East West connections, and natural systems and drainage in BellRed. Used that as a starting point. Looked at giving a bit more flexibility on the maximum block length to say we could tolerate perhaps up to 600 feet, and then from there, look at segments that were both most important for preserving access and segments that were most challenging for development conditions.

So while we're here, I think I hopefully oh, yeah. My mouse is here. So just as a few examples to talk about what we're what we're saying here. I think we did receive comment from one property owner. It may not have made it into the packet, but what was noted was you see where my mouse is here?

So extending from this existing this existing interim street east. We currently, under the current code, have a street required here, which takes up a really significant portion of this site and has been challenging to resolve. So understanding that, we removed it from the grid because we say, you know, the impact to the site is not justified by the trade off. In other cases, I think I'd pause. We hear a lot about the grid not being required for transportation needs.

It's true, and it's not. So where that statement comes from is that in order to accommodate our traffic needs at a system scale, these streets are not needed. But where they are really important and do serve a transportation purpose is in local access. So remember the context in Bellred. In many cases, you know, in this area between Northup and Spring, we do not currently have streets.

We have systems of, know, private easements, parking lots that are connected, agreements between properties. And a lot of those, if they're developed independently without adequate assurances, can create landlocked or parcels that are lacking access. Couple of other conditions in the mix. So 1 30th, that shopping street, and Spring, we both have policies adopted to limit the number of driveways. So on 1 30th, that's envisioned as that shopping street.

So to help support pedestrian compatibility, we have a more limited number of driveways possible. So what does that mean? For a lot of these sites in here, in order to have that access, this is a really important connection. One of the other commenters also met mentioned this site. This connection also enables these sites to develop without running into conflicts with the stream. That's not something that this land use code amendment is going to address. That's critical areas. The street grid, in this case, the street grid actually helps. So it's just very complicated. The way we look at this is there are different ways to approach access.

This is the the our department's take on it doesn't fix every issue, but it fixes many of the most pressing issues we were seeing. And regardless of how development proceeds, we feel confident that this framework can maintain access on individual sites without impacting future development. So that's just to get it started and introduce the grid. But moving on a bit to the the kind of the network overview and then walking through some of the specific components. So today, we just have a lot of defined segments.

What you saw in this previous map is that we have defined segments, and we have this shaded area in gray. So the way that works, those defined segments are ones that must be provided by development as dedicated public local streets or as green streets, and that that connection has to be provided. But adjustments to the specific location within a project can be incorporated through development review and transportation analysis. We've expanded the language quite a bit there to support different proposals. The key is that in many cases, you know, if the intersection's moving, we do have to have some additional transportation analysis to ensure that's not creating undue impacts to some of the neighboring properties.

For those parcels that are sites within that gray shaded area, in that area, a block size limit applies. So in addition to those defined segments, if you're moving forward with a project that results in areas larger than a 105,000 square feet, areas between current streets and define new public segments. Those areas need to be broken up further into blocks, and we have an array of private access corridors projects can also choose from to define those blocks. In addition, some other flexibility is that streets or corridors that line up on property lines can be built as interim streets. So the first project in doesn't need to build the whole width.

They do need to build more than half to accommodate some of the infrastructure in the road, but they don't have to accommodate that full width if they can align the street on that property line. So now a bit more on the public street types. So first up, this is the most numerous type. Our local street typology, this is one that provides essential access routes for vehicles, contributes to neighborhood livability and safety. Again, it's publicly dedicated.

We're working with a 20 foot vehicle area in the center surrounded by we have a five foot amenity zone. That's the area between the sidewalk and curb, eight eight foot sidewalks. When on street parking is required, which is the default for our public streets, though there's flexibility on that requirement, there's also an eight foot parking line required. So we have a rendering here from the BellRed Streetscape Plan showing what that full local street section roughly looks like. And I'll talk a bit more about the amenity zone in just a moment and what that means.

So this is another rendering showing a similar typology to a local street. It is showing 10 foot sidewalks here, not eight, just as a notice. But the other alignments for that 20 foot travel lane and the parking lane and the amenity zones apply. And I included this just to note, you can see a reminder that in BellRed, we are mostly talking about a vision that's mid rise and high rise. So here, we're seeing what that local street typology looks like in a higher density section.

So our other public typology are the green streets. These are envisioned as urban trails and provide these really important East West Streets throughout Bell Red, kind of that linear park concept. These have a pedestrian priority in design. They have a curbless design, so that means I've I've got some pictures on the next slide. I'll show what that looks like.

The the the key difference from a from a local street, the sidewalk and the travel lanes are the same. But in this case, we have an 11 foot amenity zone to account for more significant planting, natural drainage, and then any parking is embedded within that amenity zone. So to show, we've got kind of a section here showing that total width. A couple examples to illustrate that further. So we get some sticker shock about 60 feet, but one example I do want to point to, so Bell Street in Downtown Seattle, if you're familiar, very kind of famous Woonerf typology.

That's about a 60 foot right away. A lot of those street components, we're talking about a pretty similar scale to the Green Street typology. And similarly, here on Bell Street, you can see those planters in the landscape area with some of that parking embedded within. And on the right is a rendering from the BellRed Streetscape Plan showing kind of what that concept looks like. Oh, yeah. And the curbless part is kind of what you see in the gaps between the planters by the parking area. You have that seamless transition. Okay. So the amenity zone is an important concept. This is a required component of almost all of our streets and access corridors.

This is generally located between the curb and sidewalk. We have a new citywide definition for amenity zone establishing that this includes street trees along with landscaping and can also accommodate pedestrian supportive amenities. We have also updated the planting requirements there, noting to ensure we've got street tree planting requirements. Because a big consideration for BellRed, because this is a historically kind of light industrial district, it's got some of the lowest tree canopy in the city. So something to keep in mind is that these amenity zones are places where we are going to be accounting for a lot of our new tree canopy in an urban setting.

So the amenity zone really plays a critical role in places for landscaping and trees and also contributing to a comfortable pedestrian environment. So on the right here, this is an example right by Spring. This is about a six foot sidewalk. You can see the the line of people. And to the left there, you can see that that planting area providing some separation from Spring Boulevard.

This is another example. This is also off Spring Boulevard by BellRed Station. Here, we're showing a 10 foot sidewalk with about a four foot amenity zone, and you can see we've got interspersed some benches, lighting, etcetera. Okay. So now moving on to the other options where there's some more flexibility for private streets.

As mentioned before, sites that are larger than a 105,000 square feet, so that can mean either an individual parcel or a larger assemblage if it's going through that master planning process. Those blocks have to be broken up further, and you those projects do have the option to use private access corridors. The options that we're proposing to move forward with in BellRed are the flex access corridor, active transportation access corridor, enhanced shared use path, and service corridor, which I'll explain in a moment. The project developer can choose which corridors to use for their project based on some very specific limits, which I'll outline. So first up, the flex access corridor.

This one is very similar to a local street in terms of the sidewalks and the traffic area. But instead of having two five foot amenity zones, there's just one four foot amenity zone. This is a typology that was carried over from Wilburton. In this case, you have also some standards for lighting and parking. On street parking is fully optional and would have to be an additional parking lane to accommodate that.

Next op option is the active transportation access corridor. This is another typology that's brought over from Wilburton. This includes a 20 foot shared path that can also accommodate emergency vehicles, so it's not envisioned for consistent vehicle use, but you can use it to help meet that emergency access need. It also includes a 12 foot amenity zone with lighting and bollards to keep out vehicles, and this rendering up above indicates, you know, what that 20 what that 12 foot scale looks like. And remember, we're showing it here in the condition that between buildings, because you've gotta remember we're dividing blocks, there could be development happening right up to the edges of those access corridors.

Next step is the enhanced shared use path. This option is the same as the active transportation access corridor, and that it's that, except we're using a 14 foot path. So in this case, the the key consideration with this one is that this can't be used in blocks where you need to have emergency vehicle access that has to be fulfilled elsewhere around the site, but provides for that pet only option. We also have added some criteria that this can also be counted as an outdoor plaza under the amenity system if you're bringing in the additional design components, which we'll talk about next time. So we think that could provide some really cool uses.

This rendering is showing a 14 foot plaza with some some wider areas around it, again, showing that in the context of some surrounding buildings. Last one, service corridor. These are basically alleys intended to fulfill back of house functions, emergency access only, really were designed to give some extra flexibility for sites to kind of squeeze in a connection that's a bit more narrow. They're only intended for vehicular access, maximum 20 feet wide. So we some of limitations, these these cannot frame more than one side of a block.

They cannot provide a primary vehicle access except on small sites or primary pedestrian access either, but help kind of provide a range of options for sites to manage their access needs. So this will pivot a bit. A lot of the comment we hear, one of the big sticking points we've had around the public street grid is, we recommend this retaining this grid in many cases for those access in public realm benefits. And so a lot of the comments we hear are, well, Okay, if our master plan can resolve those challenges and provide those benefits, could we have a path to replace public streets as private streets, which is a conversation we wanted to open tonight? And we we think this is something that could be done in a way that has some solid outcomes, and we'll talk through some criteria.

But we want to start with just kind of outlining some of the considerations we're working through and what really needs to be weighed when we're talking about this option. So the advantage side for giving this flexibility, the big one really is that this opens the ability to provide pet only or shared streets. Currently, we don't have those public street typologies for that pet only option. And, again, the kind of the grid we've retained is limited to those places where that vehicular access is still needed unless it's resolved otherwise. But if you're thinking creatively, it this could be possible in this scenario.

It provides projects with additional options to choose from. Those private street options are narrower because we have more flexibility in what can be allowed there. And it could hopefully result in some more creative approaches and master plans to do something really interesting. Disadvantages, we our big concern is that if we make it too open, the green streets could be sacrificed, which is one area that we're concerned with. We know while individual master plans can resolve a lot of issues, there's still some risk about future unintended impacts on other developments in the area.

There's some potential for fewer new street trees. A lot of those access types some of those access types don't require that amenity zone on both sides of the street. There's a risk of inconsistency in future maintenance. So today, if on a public street, your light goes out, transportation will be out that same day. Hopefully, you'll have that responsiveness if it's on a private street, But I think the reality will be varied.

Not to say every project is not going to meet the standard, but we know there will probably be some bad actors there. So it's not certain, but it's just an unknown. There's also an inherent risk of reduced future public access. We have design standards and easement requirements to ensure public access as best we can, but, you know, it's going out of our hands. And finally, more complex access for any public utilities that would be going behind that street.

So generally in balance, you know, things to consider. Most of these advantages benefit project feasibility, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but most of these disadvantages are impacts to the public realm. So our recommendation is that if we move forward with this option, we really wanna think about additional considerations taking this balance into account. So as a starting point, the minimum recommended conditions that staff propose are that, first, swapping out public streets cannot be by right. Any of these alternate proposals have to be reviewed by relevant city teams, both transportation, fire, among others, that fire access and whether or not a turnaround is needed is always a big one.

And in addition, we want to see that any to replace the defined public segment, the applicant has to demonstrate all of the following. That proposal needs to meet all applicable requirements for emergency vehicle access. So that can kind of be at the project scale. So again, individual segments might not have emergency vehicle access, But as long as whatever is applicable to your site is addressed where it needs to be addressed, that can work. The proposal also needs to avoid creating adverse impacts to the surrounding neighborhood or circulation system, though we're noting here those impacts, like potentially creating a, quote, landlocked parcel can be resolved through a legal agreement with your neighbor.

So if you're doing something that impacts your neighbor, but you have legal proof that the neighbor is Okay with that, you've worked it out, we can work with that too. And finally, that the proposal meets applicable ADA standards for public rights of way on any of those replacement private corridors. So we say that's the bare minimum. And then to go a bit further to say, how do we ensure that these places are getting ideally even better outcomes for the public realm, we recommend some additional assurances. So first up, we would say service corridors are not acceptable as a replacement for any of those public streets.

And one suggestion could be that active uses must be provided along at least 75% of the frontage along those replacement corridors to make sure we're getting that activation. But perhaps that could be optional if the project's daylighting a stream, just to acknowledge that challenge and give some flexibility there. So with that, we wanted to pause and say, you know, couple questions for discussion and direction. First, does the commission support offering this option? And second, if supported, does the commission recommend changes to conditions? So we can pause there or move on to do it at the end.

Yeah.

Didn't think through the best flow. We're basically at the end

after the schedule. Maybe Yeah. If you'd like, we can wrap the presentation, general questions, then pop back to this slide.

Yeah. I think I think let's go couple rounds of the one question, and then after that, if you guys want to discuss about this. Let's see where the discussion Okay. Goes. Yeah.

We're almost to the end. So schedule, we have completed two phases of engagement with the public. As Nick noted, we got that first working draft out December and have been working through working in a lot of input from stakeholders over the last few months, including public open house, code lab, and a number of meetings with stakeholders. We are going be coming back with a second study session in May and public hearing, hopefully, in July or another study session, which would move us towards some early fall review with the council. So with that, direction we're seeking this evening is to provide feedback on the key components of

the Luca. Thank you. Do you mind to bring commissioner Ferris on the screen? I feel I'm missing her.

Sorry, commissioner Ferris. Oh, yeah. How do I

Do I go to two? Two. Yeah.

Two of

them. Right.

Yeah. Help me.

There she is.

Oh, yeah. Of course.

There she is.

Okay. Great. Let's go round of the question. And if you keep to one and maybe one follow-up, then we can go the second or third terms if you wait. Patricia or Ferris, do you have a question?

I have so many questions, but I heard the direction, only one. And this is you probably made this evidence, and I've simply missed it. But for those landowners where you're at this point asking for either the Green Street or a local street, something that is doesn't exist today, what are you giving that landowner in return for that? So do they get greater development capacity, which I'm sure with the comprehensive plan, yes. But there are other parcels that are also given greater development capacity. They don't have to do a street. So help me better understand what are those landowners that have to create roads that don't exist today. What are they getting in return for that?

Sure. So just as kind of a starting clarification, these the local streets and green streets are not new. The the larger grid has been in place since 2009. So it was a requirement that was first put in place then, remains in in place today, and we've we're proposing to reduce the number of local streets. The additional components so with this, Luca, we are increasing capacity across the board.

That's not specific to those sites with a street connection, but it's a really massive uplift. And there are there is some flexibility around being able to what am I what am I looking for?

It's okay. Yeah.

Yeah. You get to so they are as Christina noted, these are existing segments. So where we've maintained a local street or a green street, you also get credit for the land even though you're going to dedicate it to the city. So the land area that the street will occupy, you can use in terms of calculating your FAR, the yield on the site. So you're not getting kinda penalized for having to set aside and dedicate this off to the city.

So that's a that's a benefit that we're also going to be maintaining. But, yeah, the important point is that there are no new segments. We are maintaining the policy. We've eliminated several segments, and where we've chosen to continue to maintain those segments, we are increasing across the board capacity, both height and FAR, and then still allowing the flexibility to count the land where that dedicated street is going to be conveyed to the city. And then to the point on the nexus and proportionality, we also have some language in our code that was developed as part of the Wilburton process.

We heard the same comment. You all heard the same comment in the Wilburton process when the local street networks were proposed there. That language is carried on through this process as well. So we do feel like we have that that coverage in terms of that argument you heard this evening.

I have a follow-up.

Chair, would

it can I ask another

Yes, please? Yes, please.

Related to the very same so I recognize you're saying that it already exists, but the road doesn't necessarily already exist. It was the requirement for the road already existed, if if I'm understanding that correctly. Is that right? Before I

Yes.

That that encumbrance on the property Yes. Existed before, and it will continue.

Okay. And at least in my mind, we know that BellRed has to date not developed to the capacity that was originally envisioned for BellRed, and it's certainly not just this road grid. There's a whole bunch of other factors that have come into play, you know, economics and all sorts of other things. However, it is possible that the road requirements have at least have had some level of impact. And where I where my head is going is, let's pretend we're starting just with what exists today.

We know that there are parcels that, right now, they get they get a big lift in their development capacity because of our comprehensive plan changes. They don't have to build a road. We've got other parcels that have the big lift. They do have to build a road. And I just wanna be clear for those landowners that we even though it's been existing for the last several years, assuming we've got a baseline of what it was before that, are we giving that landowner anything in return for essentially building out the infrastructure on behalf of the public?

Yes. The the capacity increases, another opportunity. You know, we'll be having conversation on the amenity incentive program. You could potentially look at maybe there's some even though it's a required element of a site to provide a local street, perhaps maybe there's options where the commission wants to look at providing bonus FAR for delivering that required amenity. But we do wanna make sure when we're thinking about, you know, how we maybe missed our targets in terms of housing and job growth from that 2009 period on, that was also a tough market, 2009 when the code was brought online.

We saw a lot of development activity, as Christina noted, between 2017 and 2025. The city, you know, saw a lot of development activity during that period. So it's hard to pinpoint kind of what the specific issue is. I would argue, as Christina noted, some of our heights in FARs were just so misaligned with what building typologies would actually be built. And in a lot of these areas, we were seeing maximum FARs of 2.5 or three.

And

so we're jumping all of those up. We're doubling FAR in in almost all cases. Some districts in Bell Red had a point five FAR with a 40 foot building height that was a half mile away from a light rail station or even closer. So this is a massive shift to unlock more capacity, and then it's also maintaining some of the segments where it's critically needed. But, again, taking that acknowledgment of let's let's try and maximize housing in our two d areas, so let's dial back kind of the the requirements around local streets and then amp up the FAR and height that could be allowed in these areas too.

That's that's very helpful. And I I should have started with the acknowledgment of the enormous amount of work that you and the rest of the staff have done to be able to really look at existing conditions and making sure that that you're balancing the need for the public and the development. Right? So, again, I really applaud the work that you've done. So thank you. And one last quick request. Would you mind taking off the screen, the slides so that I can see the room?

Mhmm. Thanks. Commissioner Firs, can we come back to you? Is it okay? We go first round. Maybe someone else ask your third question. Sorry. Commissioner Giphol, do you have a question?

Yeah. I have a

speaker. Sorry. Yeah. I just have a a statement at the beginning and then and then a question. You know, I this this was a very good, presentation, especially, you know, highlighting some of the, you know, advantages and disadvantages of the different alternatives.

You know, I I would have to say I'm leaning towards the public street option based upon the presentation. I mean, I think a lot of the disadvantages associated with the private streets are are significant. I also have grave concerns about the public access piece. I have assurance if you're talking about a public street and about sidewalks and the like that I will have access to those on a much more regular basis than in relation to, private ways. And I have great concerns about the fact that, you know, we're increasing density and capacity in this area to a huge degree, And I would like to see some public benefit that's lasting as a result of this and something that the public can count on for generations to come.

This is a one time opportunity for people and for this community. And I I do have I do have concerns about going too far in the direction of trying to just make these private areas. I think the other thing I would say, though, to qualify that was in some of the speeches, tonight, I I was a little bit concerned about specific site specific conditions. You know, in particular, when I heard about some of the grade issues and some of the circumstances where, you know, those public those public rights away, if done without some measure of flexibility, might create circumstances where you're not providing that much of a public benefit. And so I I wonder about whether you've thought about whether there's some way that you could provide flexibility, but still, maintain the assurance associated with a public option here.

And and so I I wonder about another option, I guess, in a way, which which would be a public option but with some greater level of flexibility, especially to deal with site specific requirements.

Explain current. Yeah.

Sure. Actually. Yeah. Because yeah. Thank you for that.

I I think we did wanna expand a bit about what flexibility exists today even for the public grid and how that's evolved with this draft. So under the current code, there is a flexibility for kind of the alignment of the street within a site, kind of how it moves within the site, but there's less flexibility around where that intersection connects. So what you kind of see is that on smaller sites, you have pretty constrained options for how much you can adjust that. On a larger site, there's more that transportation can work with. We've expanded the language for flexibility to make it more open to say that public connection has to be provided, but perhaps even that intersection can move.

Where we struggle with getting more certainty in the code on that language is that the potential impacts can vary so widely just depending on, you know, what's the scale of the project happening, where is that intersection ending up. Is it really close to another street where maybe there's a high volume? A lot of those things can be mitigated or addressed, but exactly how and what can be approved is something that really has to be site specific and can be done, can be reviewed, but it's where we struggle is getting that certainty into the code. It's it's it's you you can't give that much more assurance without actually kind of analyzing every outcome, if that makes sense. So all that is to say, it kind of depends on how much flex you're looking for.

You know? Is it to remove a segment? Is it just to move the alignment around? Because if it's, you know, moving the alignment around, we have we have a lot of that flexibility today. Yeah. Is anything there else you'd note there?

Well, I would just note too that I think the civil engineer that had made some comment also recalled some of their experience under the current code. And so one of the big changes under the current or under the proposed code is that we are introducing a new option where it's it's actually the developer's choice based on their own site layout if they want to move the road around. Before, it was based on very specific conditions that our transportation department had to evaluate and kind of confirm, yes, we'll apply some flexibility there. And we have gotten some pretty loud feedback that that was a very onerous process on their part, and it wasn't allowing the department development services to take a look at outcomes. And are we getting a better outcome if maybe they meander the road a bit because they have an interesting building form they'd like to land on the site?

So that is a huge kind of flexibility add that we've included in this version of the draft that we are hopeful that's gonna address some of those concerns. But that's kind of still preserving that public street option, but still kinda introducing another way that a developer has a little bit more agency in how they are getting to see their site redevelop.

That that's super helpful, and I hope I think helps to address some of my concerns. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Nilchia.

First of all, thank you for that really in-depth presentation and also, the engagement report that you guys gave in preparation for this meeting was also very helpful, so thank you for that. I'll start off by really echoing a lot of the points that commissioner Gepple just made. I tend to agree with him in having a preference towards public streets here to maintain that public benefit and ensure that, you know, the disadvantages that you had already raised in your presentation are thoroughly addressed. I'd also like to ask a little bit more about that flexibility that you were just talking about for those kinda site specific changes to potential roadways there. Can you just help me understand in what situations a private developer can make use of those potential variations?

And what situations are they able to do that versus what's just rigidly set for them?

Yeah. Well, I can walk through a hypothetical scenario that we were talking through. I won't get into the details of the specific site, but this was inspired by a specific site. So what's set under the proposed code is that if you have a public defined segment, it has to be provided. So it might be east west, north south.

It has to be there. The way the flexibility looks like is, say, that alignment might come further down within your property, and you'd like to move it up along your property line. If you go in and propose to do that, which this would kind of happen in the predevelopment process, What happens is that that intersection is now moving closer to perhaps another intersection, another driveway. Another impact here, we've got kind of requirements on how far apart driveways can be. So say your neighbor to the north has a driveway that's very close.

That could be a challenging condition. But, you know, if that can be resolved, you can get some traffic traffic modeling done to understand what the impacts to circulation are. That can be reviewed and managed. So that's kind of one scenario of what we're talking about here and also starts to get into where things get really complicated. I mean, perhaps that could even be, say, your neighbor hasn't developed yet, and you would like to do an interim public street instead. You work with your neighbor to make an agreement. They say, that's fine. They're willing to commit to providing that other interim condition. You have some a legal agreement affirming that. That's something that we could look at too as well.

So that helps give a little bit more flexibility. But again, there is that uncertainty of it's still subject to review. So much depends on the circumstances of the site. Do you have fire access, etcetera, that it's hard to say blanket, yes, this will always make everything magically perfect, but we do know this is a tool that can resolve a lot of challenges.

I see. And just a really quick follow-up on that. So from what it sounds like is it's possible, maybe not always practical, but in in actual practice, it could actually happen. It's not something that's

Another major piece I I do need to note when it comes to that, the flexibility standard, is that the standards that we're putting forward for, especially for the vehicle roadways, that 20 foot vehicle standard is one we can't deviate from in the public streets. So if you're wanting to, say, do a narrower vehicle street I mean, anyway, there's there's a lot of those components that are pretty set. So that's an area where you can't get as much flexibility, and those some of those private street typologies have a bit more more wiggle room, or you could do an option that's, like, emergency vehicle only. So that's not not an option through public streets. So we have to note that's a that's a consideration here.

Thanks.

Can we send Kennedy?

Thanks. So two part, one question. Mhmm. Yeah. It's what we're going for, right, as creativity.

So my main question was to hear it sounds like you've thought through emergency vehicle access. Curious if you've consulted PSC or waste services in the consideration of these options, and what's been put forward. Are both solutions workable? It sounds like the public street options, there are very clear and designated widths that would enable utility access vehicles to get there and ensure safety if there were an issue with undergrounded electricity lines, etcetera. Will that same assurance be ensured through the private street options, and what was the response from those stakeholders?

The the second part of the question was a follow on to a comment you had just made around the private street topologies. I wanted to make sure I understood when you were walking through the different types and topologies, for instance, the service corridors, etcetera, were all of those things that we could either have as a publicly owned access or a private access? Or are some of those either ors? If you could clarify.

Yeah. I'll start with the last point. So that is the key distinction, that any of those private street corridors, those don't meet our current public standards for streets. So those do not have the ability to be dedicated dedicated as public streets, which is kind of this is the main reason why we're proposing this option for discussion is acknowledging that. And then going back to the utilities piece, so all of the private street typologies, we do have provisions for access easements and development standards to provide access.

It's just those public streets do provide a measure of extra certainty and assurance. So they're workable either way, but the public streets are ideal. Yeah.

So just to make sure I understood your answer. So if we went with the private street option, on the map where you were showing that there could be landlocked parcels if we removed some of those access points, we would not end up with landlocked parcels that would be at risk of not being able to get Yeah. One of the utility service vehicle in.

Oh, yeah. So so one of the key conditions for, like, we would say, if the option to allow specific public streets to be privatized, this would be under the condition that we're fully resolving any access conflicts, addressing emergency vehicle access, etcetera, just as a bare minimum condition. And that on small sites, we anticipate that's probably going to be pretty challenging. Where we see this being potentially more attractive would be on those larger master plan scenarios, where they might have multiple blocks in play.

Yeah. Thank you. Commissioner Valvesas?

Thank you.

Excuse me. So a couple things. One is, I was a little bit concerned to see so many emphasis on car dealerships in a TOD district. So that slide that we were showing with the a proposed land use, uses, there were four sections. The first word in each one was dealerships.

So I'm not sure if we should be focusing on that. I think it's important to allow them to phase out, but I wouldn't necessarily encourage that use. Even though the pedestrian, I think, is a good, idea to promote that, it's not the same as retail or some other uses. So car dealership does not really, like, create much dynamic or activity or street fraud activation or something like that. But the the main point I wanted to bring up is I'm not really sure or, I guess, I wonder if we're trying to optimize the wrong thing.

I I don't know where the street map is. Like, I've seen it a few times, and it's this, like, small map that looks like drawn with a Sharpie with this black streets. And, I'm not really sure if that's the right starting point. I wonder if this should be something that we look at now with fresh eyes, with new infrastructure built in the in the in the neighborhood, and we should really just start to look at that and see how this could be either master planned or be addressed like Wilburton. But this seems like a halfway solution.

And I'd like to know where what your thoughts are about the original one. I mean, is it relevant? Is it is it pertinent to be looking at that as the basis of this design that you're proposing? And and part of the question is is, like, who is designing these streets? Is it, one of your urban design consultants? I mean, this is I was just measuring here. It's 10,000 feet, in the in the long direction and then about 2,000 in the wide direction. This is twice as big as Downtown Bellevue. So it's it's pretty bad. It's it's pretty big.

So it needs when you were saying it's, like, it's difficult to resolve this, I yes. I agree. That is probably not an easy task, but it's also probably some it's a task that requires a level of, specialization for something like this. So I'm wondering where the street plan is coming from, and whether you think it's a relevant starting point for I mean, this is a big project. It's gonna have a huge impact, and we wanna make sure we're focusing on the right things because, it's gonna have consequences. So

Yeah. So I think the original grid, I'd say, is highly relevant. It is looking at focused on the areas within the district with the highest access to our transit stations and with that original intent, just with the goal of breaking up some of those really large blocks we have today, I would say that I believe that grid that we're proposing today does look at that with fresh eyes. This is a grid that our transportation and other staff really looked at with the perspective of what do we need for both connectivity within the district and for walkability to find a better balance there. So from my perspective, I think we do have a lot of that expertise.

And these established local street and green street typologies, these are ones that have been developed over the years, exist, were developed under our I think under the BellRed streetscape planning process, and have been developed as a full kind of transportation department standards.

Don't know if

you were about to reach for the button to

add something there. But yeah.

Okay. Thank you.

Good. Thank you. I think I have two statements. Just kidding. I feel one of the thing that I want to thank you for two other commissioner to mention that. I think council is doing public policy, and this is a public matter. I think it's bothering me as a person who got a PhD in public policy to hearing what's a benefit for public. Basically, Citi is in charge because of public. Then I understand the partnership between different entities from the private, nonprofit, and public, but the public business public, then I want to say it should be a public benefit for the people who live in the city of Bellevue. And we need to do it feasible for the developers to develop.

One of the main question that I have at this, the Spring District is private owned road. Right? Most of the roads inside the Spring District, I know they are private. Just one or two of them?

Mhmm. They're just one.

Okay. And then is it doable? I understand spray industry is bigger. I don't know how many acres. You can correct me, Nick, if you know. I think 2 Streets is private owned, but you correct

me. Okay.

Thank you. I'm like, I might be wrong. What was that model? I feel it was successful because I see they have a prep like a public garden. They have some, like, area that people can gather. I went to someone event there, and they're doing a good job. Like, Is it possible we have similar model? Or it's not because the loss sizes that we have at the smaller or it's going be more complicated? How can we replicate that model if I think it was successful in my opinion? Correct me.

Yeah. Yeah. No, and the Spring District absolutely is something the city should be really proud of and the development teams. It is a very different scenario because that whole area was developed under a and please correct me if I'm mischaracterizing anything, under both a development agreement and a master plan. So they they also got some provisions under the the catalyst code that went forward in 2009 that granted some additional considerations, including providing for that DA because they were the first to move in before anybody else was doing anything in BellRed.

So when you have a development agreement, all those public benefits get negotiated along with the private benefits. So you're able to look at that entire beautiful district as a whole, not just site by site. So trade offs there, that that DA process can have some really good outcomes. But it's a council process. It takes a lot of time, a lot of negotiation to hammer out who's doing what and what's public, what's private. So I'd agree, super successful, not something we can easily replicate, and also a benefit they got because they were willing to move forward before anybody else.

Yeah. And it was roughly, I think, 30 acres. So it's a pretty significant site, so a really great opportunity. And then because they were you know, this was 2009 when the code was being adopted and we had someone that was willing to take a bet on Bell Red, that's where the city was willing to also provide a little a little more flexibility to catalyze some of the development and really build you know, they were a TOD without a train for the longest time, and they kind of had that commitment to the vision. And so that was kind of honoring that that commitment by offering them a bit more flexibility too.

Okay. How many private road? I just wanna know.

He wants be right.

His lessons. I would say the scale of those roads, though, because I was getting out because I was finding all these example pictures and measuring things. Whether they're public or private, those main vehicle streets, you're still talking about a similar scale in terms of that vehicle area, the sidewalk area, the amenities area. So overall, really similar kind of corridor scale to our, like, local streets, green streets.

Yeah. And it looks like I mean, it depends on if you count the connection through Meta, because that was supposed to be a local street that was converted over to a pet only path. So then maybe if you count that, it looks like potentially three, but the segments are not

Yeah.

Not significant.

Kinda looks like corridor. I think we can go to the second round, but I just wanna say because I heard from two other people, maybe we can have another option. I don't know how you guys can get the good part of that, bring the streets and just see if we can figure out something. I go to the second round, commissioner Ferris.

Not much to add. I really appreciate the comments of my fellow commissioners and also from staff. It's been very enlightening. I mean, it's as we all know, this is such a difficult balance to strike. We want to have a walkable pedestrian friendly, bike friendly, also car friendly area where people can get around and engage, but we also want to allow development to happen.

So I guess I'm leaning more toward, trying to be as flexible as possible after putting forth really, specific goals in mind in terms of what we want to accomplish. So all that being said, I don't I don't have more questions. I just am leaning more toward, can we come up with a compromise in a way that allows development to happen in a in a positive way towards that district while we're maintaining the vision of having this pedestrian friendly walkable environment that really does not exist today. So that's that's all I'm gonna say. And, again, thank you to staff.

I know this has been a really, really tough time, and I appreciate all the work that you put into that.

Thank you. Commissioner Gepper?

Yeah. I was just gonna add on the on the the flexibility point that we talked about previously. I mean, if there are other ways that you can think of within the context of a public option to create additional flexibility. And I I guess one other thing that I wondered about too was, you know, the the the street typologies. You know?

That's another thing that could be a lever. I don't know if that's gonna be something that's gonna come before the commission at a later date to provide some level of additional, flexibility too to deal with, you know, site specific conditions. You know? I I think the, you know, the sidewalks, the planning areas, those are important. Whether or not you need, you know, parking on both sides of the street, I I don't know.

I mean, that's you know, I'm just wondering if that's another way to build in some level of of flexibility, again, to accommodate development considerations and try to create something that will create a lasting public benefit, but also help to enable, you know, more more flexible development for for different property owners. And so what whatever you can think about in that regard would be helpful.

Thank you. Commissioner Nietzsche?

Yeah. I agree with the comments of commissioner Ferris and commissioner Goeppel. You know, you mentioned at the beginning of the presentation that in 2017 to 2025, we had I think it was less than 1,500 new units. You know, it's some activity, but it's not a lot. And we have the goal of additional 7,900.

You know, I think due to a number of factors, BellRedda hasn't seen the growth that we would like to see it have. Like you mentioned, the the bad economic conditions from 2009 up until now. But, you know, introducing any new flexibility or options for developers in this BellRed area to develop but but develop quickly, I I think that's that's gonna be very important. So any additional incentives or flexibility that you can input in, I would be supportive of.

Thank you. Commissioner Kennedy?

Yeah. So I I have a a similar feel. If we if if we could keep these it seems this might be my question. It seems like the issue here isn't that it's a it's a public road or a private road, but the ability to have the flexibility in where and how the road is built. And I similarly support that these roads would be kept in public benefit, maintained by the public, insured open access for the public for safety and a variety of other reasons.

If there's an ability to redefine what a road is to enable additional flexibility for the development to happen while keeping those roads clearly in public benefit, owned by the city, protected by the city, that would be fantastic. I don't I don't know what street, you know, topology types, what what we're working on, But being able to increase those so that we have that additional flexibility and keeping it in public would be great.

Commissioner, I'm gonna assist. Thank you.

I'd like to plus one on measure Kenny's summary of public roads and locations and having the flexibility to do that. And I'd like to ask you a question that one of you I think it was the first commenter today, asked, which is if there if there's an important something that is different from Wilburton, in this case, the road planning, we should ask ourselves why, and that's the question I have for you right now. It's like, why why are we doing this, differently? I'm not saying that it's wrong. I'm just wondering what why.

Oh, yeah. No. Good question. The the kind of road alignment is different in BellRed. We do have a very different condition when it comes to all of these parcels that don't have public access and could get cut off.

So there's that kind of lack of grid permeability, lack of needed connections, a ton of comments from the public as well, which I didn't even have a chance to talk about, about not feeling safe navigating around Bell Red while walking or on a bike and really needing to add in a lot of those critical, especially East West connections. You know, BellRed is much bigger, so we're also working with a lot more real estate here where we're intensifying and adding connections around the light rail station.

Are you gonna add Yeah.

I was just gonna add a couple other things because, yeah, the Belred is bigger. It's important. It is three times the size of Wilburton in terms of geographic area. And then, also, I just wanna remind the commission that you all did forward a recommendation to city council to include a local street network in Wilburton. So that was not different.

You all did decide that that was the right call in Wilburton. The council kind of made a different choice when it was brought to them. So that is another kind of p key piece. And then I don't want us to lose sight that I would say 95% of what's good for Wilburton is good for BellRed, and Christina tried to highlight that with all the approach with the mixed use land use land use districts. And not only are we kind of moving more towards BellRed, but we are building on that.

So you heard the floor plate increases as an important piece. I know you were commenting on car dealerships, but we've heard a lot of comments about car dealerships. And so we have expanded car dealership allowances everywhere in BellRed, which, you know, it is important sales tax revenue for the city. It does have its place. It doesn't do the best at activating, so there's trade offs with that.

That's why we try and put an emphasis on that pedestrian type of car dealership. But I just wanna make sure it's clear. We're really not trying to be different. So we'd love to have some follow-up conversation with the chamber. That's the first time I'm hearing kind of that really pointed comment at us, and I'd love to talk that through with them and understand where they're seeing some of the major difference differences because we are just not feeling that way. So

Great. Thank you.

Thank you. I think I have a couple of comments. Yeah. The car dealership is the first sales tax budget line for City Of Bellevue budgets, which is which we need them. So one was, like, I don't know if we can come up with some mini master plans for the loss that is bigger or a couple. I think we need to figure out something about mini master plans if we can. I'm gonna go trust on your creativity. I know you guys can do it. Once we focus on the streams, I really don't want anything get sacrificed, and I want we remember the north star of housing. And I know everybody was saying that housing was not doing well.

Actually, the first number was around 1,800 and we made it to 3,000, which is 1.6. And then we are supposed to make it like 709 7,900, which is going to go be multiplied by 2.6. I think we can make that happen based on what you had in your slide. And the other thing is I do care about make it feasible for developer to development happen. We can come up with the bonus FAR, make it as tall as you want.

Like, I think just go tall, but let them to keep their connectivity and TOD in a good way. And again, when we were talking about this during a comprehensive plan, we always like talking about between 01/2030 to 01/1932 that we have a station, we really care about max development there. We care about having affordable housing and housing there. Just want to remember about like that between the street 130 to 130 was really, really our focus with Bare Red when we start the conversation during the comprehensive plan. And then oh my gosh, I cannot read my own handwriting.

That's it. Should we, for next session, Nick and Kristen, do you guys need anything from us? Should we ask you guys to come up with some creative options and talk with the stakeholders more, see how we can come out to some common ground. Is that the good one? Oh, the other one was the ownership.

I don't care about the ownership of the street at all because we have Avenue in downtown, the state and avenue that Road 103rd, it's private. Actually, I love walking through that. I don't go to 102nd because it's creepy next to the Kyivsky at 9PM, but I love to go to 103rd From Avenue because it's not creepy. Come walk with me downtown at 9PM. Then I don't care about ownership, I care about to be good for public because this is my personal experience again. Should we come up with some action plans, or do you, Nick and Kristen, need anything from us at this point? Or you got everything?

I think, you know, this has been good feedback. I also want to just note or acknowledge, you know, some of that interest in different typologies, but maintain that public dedicated right of way, which is a little different than what you were describing, but what I heard from some other commissioners. That is a conversation that's been ongoing with our transportation department. They're pretty limited in taking on new street typologies. They don't really have a strong budget going into this next biennium.

So they're a little bit reluctant, I would say, to take a look at some creative street typologies that they're going to have to now own and maintain. And so I do not expect we will have success on that front, which is why we kind of prompted this conversation around, should we go private on these streets? That's where you're gonna get the most flexibility. That's where you're gonna get the Avenue Bellevue typology. But then, of course, that's where you introduce those disadvantages where you're now creating some risk.

You know, they've got to be able to ensure there's not that landlord piece. There's there's a lot of other pieces that come with that. So I think what you know, we heard a lot of good discussion. We were also proposing to kind of approach this as we're collecting sort of the questions, the issues, but we're gonna keep that forward momentum. So we're gonna come to you with a new slate of kind of code topics to discuss on May 27. We'll collect kind of those questions and issues, and then we'll come back and and have kind of a discussion to talk through and resolve kind of those issues at that third meeting, I guess, from now Yeah. If that approach sounds workable to everyone.

Yeah. I think I trust you all as expertise in this matter. And I know you guys have we have the best expertise and talent in the city of Bellevue. I trust you guys, and I trust our stakeholders that you can talk to each other and come up with the better creative options if it's doable. And, again, some master plan, mini master plan. I don't know. Whatever you wanna call it. Option d. I know when we were doing comprehensive plan, we have, like, one option after Vishal, Barkav. We have option scenario after you remember that council member.

I know you guys come with something, like, I think that'd be helpful. And again, I personally don't care about ownership of the road. I care about to be a good one, have a public safety, have a emergency standard. Commissioner Farris, are you good too online? Okay. Should we take a five minutes break? Thank you, everybody. Thank you. K. Let's come back.

08:41. But I don't have a chance. What? I'm sorry. Yeah.

We are starting. Alright. Let's give some second. Okay. Thank you, everybody.

The affordable housing strategy is the city's citywide train my god. Strategic plan for housing work. In March, city council directed the staff to bring the 2026, 2032, oh my gosh, AHS back to council for adoption. The strategy implementation policy direction from the comprehensive plan and aims to meet the target of building or preserving 5,700 affordable units in ten years. We had to pull this item from our agenda at last meeting, and we are so happy that we can have Hannah back to share this update with us.

Affordable housing planner manager, Linda Albe, and senior planner, Hannah Bonmiller, will provide the presentation. Hello.

And council member Bhargava. We're excited to be here, with you tonight to, present for you the affordable housing strategy. The strategy was approved by council early this year. And next week, the intention is to have the consent item for council adoption next week. So kudos to Hannah for getting us to the finish line. Without further ado, hand it over to Hannah.

Thank you, Linda, and good evening, commissioners. I'm very happy to be back with you again. I believe our last formal interaction was last October when we were really rounding the corner into the last phase of the plan development. I'm really excited to be back here with you tonight. Thank you for the grace in my absence and being able to accommodate me now.

But this is a really exciting opportunity, as Linda said, although it's not formally, signed off and adopted yet, we are very, looking forward to, next week's council meeting, and then passing it on the consent agenda. So tonight, I really, I will go through some background as a brief reminder about some context on the project, what the update looked like, and but really, this is an information only item, and the intent is to give you a glance into items that might come back before the planning commission. And so I will try and reserve most of our time to actually walk through some of the strategies and actions that will come back to this this body for further direction and refinement in the next couple of years. So as I mentioned, we'll breeze through the background, talk about the strategy update, but really focusing on those implementation items and next steps. And, of course, welcome any questions or can return back to any of the context if you wish during questions.

So the affordable housing strategy is the city's citywide strategic plan on housing. We did adopt our first strategy in 2017, and since then we have done lots of really great implementation work, and in November 2024, Council launched this update. And this document, while it does serve as an overarching, housing strategy for the city, it does focus heavily on that income restricted affordable housing. And as we have this conversation, we do really like to frame it, that there is a spectrum of affordable housing that has different needs and different solutions. And so as we developed and thought about the affordable housing strategy and housing needs within the city, we are very cognizant that different levels of affordability have different needs, different housing types, and often require different solutions to make that housing type possible.

So the strategy update was a fifteen month process, as I mentioned, launched in November 2024. And this was really an opportunity to build on the success of implementing the 2017 strategy. We actually were able to implement all of the actions within the 2017 strategy and then implemented a subsequent next right work program. So lots of really good work to build on. And when council launched this work, they recognized the continued need for affordable housing in the community and wanted to set a explicit target for the affordable housing strategy update to move towards in terms of affordable housing growth.

So that is that 5,700 number mentioned by the chair. And the goal is to develop those affordable units across ten years, but also to meet some sub targets for the different income bands below 80% AMI. Also, a key piece to this work is going back to, the substantial effort, in the comprehensive plan process, both to build on the engagement done there, but also to implement the policy goals and changes that were instituted with that update. Speaking of engagement, while the comprehensive plan did a lot of engagement and heard a lot about housing, actually in the citywide statistically valid survey, the comp plan team heard that housing affordability and availability is the number one issue in our community. So we were able to build on the things and priorities that we heard in comp plan, but also do project specific engagement to really understand, within those priorities, how do we balance and weigh different issues, acknowledging we can't take on everything all at once.

So we did this engagement across different stakeholder groups, our organizational partners, residents in general, and also folks who are dealing with lived experience of housing issues. And there are a lot of different varied perspectives on housing, and so we really attempted attempted to drill down and find what are the key themes that resonate across these different groups and where are the tensions so that we can understand those as we, put forward different actions. So the affordable housing strategy document is structured under five high level policy goals. And under each of those goals are different strategies that help us achieve those goal objectives. So we've identified 24 strategies within the document.

Under each strategy are specific tasks to be implemented by different departments across the city, and we've identified over 80 specific tasks that the city can implement over the next seven years. And to be clear, the Office of Housing is not the only implementer of this plan. This is a department wide effort. So many of those actions are other departments across the city, most notably development services. The strategy is also accompanied by an action plan document.

This is really where all the real detail of how this work gets done lives. So that includes things like timelines, potential resourcing, estimated impact, and phasing of these actions. We also, as part of this, process, acknowledge that 80 actions is a lot of work. We may not be able to get to all of them. So how can we identify what are our highest priorities or things we want to make sure get done during that seven year period?

So we did identify 20 actions as high priority actions to really, emphasize over the implementation period. And then finally, as part of that action plan as well, we know that we can't just put actions on a page and that that work gets moves forward. We also incorporated both outcome and implementation metrics to understand how our context is changing overall and then the specific outcomes of the actions and their work. So this is just a brief snapshot of our action plan and give you a sense of some of the information that you'll be able to find in there. As I mentioned, this includes lead department, type of investment, and also those implementation metrics at the end, so we can track actually the success of implementation.

Again, we do think that tracking this work over time is very important to understand how effective we're being and if we're really meeting those five overarching goals. And so as I mentioned, each goal area does have a high level outcome metric associated with it. Some of those are seen on the screen, but they really focus on overall production preservation, impact on key metrics within the community. An important part of this conversation as we're talking about tracking is really what impact do we expect from this plan. This was a key part of our conversation with city council and them wanting to understand not only what work we set out to do, but what we think we can achieve from that work.

And so we wanted to be very clear and transparent with them about what we think this strategy can achieve, and we're showing that on the screen here. And just to talk through this a little bit, at the very right side, you're going to see our total estimated impact in the next ten years. It's shown in those blue colors divided by 50 to 80% AMI and under 50% AMI. The orange bar or the orange square is that affordable housing target that we've set out. So you will see that we do see a continued gap between what we expect to achieve with this plan and the affordable housing target.

But when compared to what we think we can achieve without the plan, we are still really shifting our trajectory not only towards greater unit production overall, but really towards deeper levels of affordability. And just to add a little bit more nuance to this, when you look at the difference in breakdown between under 50% AMI and 50 to 80% AMI units, we we see real difference here. We think we're going to be very successful at those higher affordability levels actually exceeding that sub target, while at the deeper affordability levels, which take more resources and more effort to bring on. Again, we are shifting dramatically, increasing that number by over double of what we think we'd expect without the strategy, but still falling short of what is a need based target based on the needs we see for this type of housing in our community. So that's the background and context I wanted to share with you all.

So I'll shift now to talking through some of the work that you can expect to see, before you in the next couple of years. So I mentioned our 20 high priority actions. And while this is really key work that we plan to emphasize throughout the planning period, we cannot do all of it on day one. So we do wanna be clear. We have suggested phasing for all of the actions, including the high priority actions over that seven year period.

And we know as conditions change, opportunities emerge, we may need to modify the action plan either in terms of the timing or the action specifics, and that's something that we'll be able to do as a department as this goes forward. So I want to talk through some of the work that you all will be commission. I tried to pull out shorter term, near term items. There are some longer term items I also called out here. But the first action is actually something that we are queuing up to launch next year, which includes defining safe parking uses in the city as part of our homeless services land use code.

So currently we do have defined emergency housing and shelter services within our code, but we do not have a land use code definition for safe parking uses. The city has implemented some emergency measures that allow us to operate the city's pilot safe parking program, but we do need permanent standards to implement for that use to, be allowed in the city in the future. So we are queuing up that work for next year to advance a land use code amendment to define safe parking uses within our code, so that they would be an option, for, use going forward. The next action I wanna call out is related to what we are hoping to re term, formerly known as C1 program. The C1 program offers a density bonus in low density residential areas to faith owned properties.

We have seen a lot of interest and success in this program, and we want to further catalyze it. And so we, in this action, are recommending two potential changes. One is right now to qualify for that density bonus, religiously owned properties need to provide a 100% affordable housing. We are, recommending looking at if there is a mix of market rate and affordable housing that would still be appropriate for that bonus, but make these projects more feasible so, they may be able to move forward faster. Additionally, we do think there are opportunities to see if we can extend this bonus to nonprofit owned parcels within low density residential areas.

So we are going to be exploring, whether that, is appropriate and what extent an impact of of that change may be. This would require both a comp plan amendment, and a land use code amendment to move forward, and we plan to advance these, next year for your consideration. Another priority within the affordable housing strategy was how to reduce the time for projects to move through this process. Two actions related to this, are how can we, get affordable housing projects out of design review, and moving through the process faster, as well as how can we have a staff person who really works with a project from predevelopment funding to doors open so that they have a continuous contact throughout the city that is always able to work with them through the process. This is something that we are looking to build out processes to identify an existing staff person to do this in the near term and then potentially build out future positions to support this work.

Another item I wanted to talk about, which is a very close top of mind for you all, is around land use affordable housing programs. So we are recommending expanding can you give

me a second? Can I have a action? Can I get motion to extend the meeting? Sorry. I apologize. Thank you. K.

I'd like to make a motion to extend the meeting until 09:30.

I can Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Hannah.

Thank you. Thanks, Kaye. Thank you, chair.

So we are recommending two actions to expand land use programs, affordable housing programs in the city. The first is really around implementing a recent state, bill, which is often referred to as the TOD bill that requires mandatory affordable housing in areas next to frequent transit. So we have listed that as an action for implementation, know, really looking at in our tier two area as how can we find that right alignment. We have the benefit of having queued up a lot of that work already. We're also thinking about how can we expand some of our affordable housing programs to some different districts.

Currently, we're talking about HOMA, housing opportunities and mixed use areas. We do have some residential only districts that may be appropriate for affordable housing requirements as well, such as our mid rise residential areas and a to be created high rise density excuse me, high density residential area. So as that high density residential Luca gets launched, I believe it's slated for next year, We'll be thinking about if it's appropriate to advance land use affordable housing programs as well. So that was under our affordable housing goal area, which does contain the bulk of our strategies and actions, but there are really important work under our other housing goals as well. For example, under housing equity, we are thinking about ways that we can think about fair housing in the city, not only about the instances of housing discrimination when tenants are seeking units, but also if there's any unintended consequences of our codes and plans that we have at the city.

We've been able to identify some pure examples, for example, from the state of Oregon that outline a way to just thoughtfully review your code and think through any unintended impacts that might have a result on fair housing. For example, in one of the peer examples that we identified, they had jurisdictions review how they defined group homes and other certified residential facilities that serve people with disabilities to identify whether there were any unintended consequences or restrictions that may be barriers to them in development and in the community. Another big priority under housing equity was affordable homeownership. This is something we hear a lot about, a desire for within Bellevue, and so we are thinking about ways that we can further incentivize that, within our code through additional density, or other mechanisms. Under housing stability, one policy I wanted to call out that does relate to the land use code, most of these are programs or educational efforts, but we do have within our MFTE code a, requirement to stabilize rents for existing tenants.

Oftentimes, we can see in affordable units when those rents are tied to changes in AMI, there might be more dramatic changes that can lead to more dramatic rent changes for individuals. So in our MFTE program, we have limited rent increases to 3% for existing tenants, and we'd like to explore and consider whether that might be appropriate for our other land use incentive and requirements. Under housing for unique needs, similarly recommending existing codes and, building standards to identify any ways that we can potentially improve access, especially under a term that's often referred to as visitability. This is, you know, acknowledging that we want our homes to not only, be able to be accessed by people of all different abilities and types, but also be able to be their residences as well. If there are ways that we can incorporate small changes and base standards to make that possible, This would be an opportunity for us to review our code and identify those potential changes and recommend them to leadership.

Another priority under this, goal is family sized housing. We know that a lot of our affordable housing is towards the lower bedroom count. Are there ways that we can tweak our incentive programs to further incentivize the larger unit sizes, is another action that we are recommending. And then our last goal area, and two actions I wanted to call out here. These are more long term, implementation items, but one is to, think about decreasing minimum lot sizes in the city.

We have slated this for a longer term action given not only our recent middle housing code updates, but also some near term lot splitting code updates that are advancing. And so after those changes, we would like to monitor, see how things are going, and then potentially think about if there's ways to further emphasize or further incentivize smaller development by changing our minimum lot size standards. Also, a long term item is thinking about innovative building technologies and further leveraging wood frame construction. This is something that I do think we are, doing in some of our code updates now, thinking about those continuous floor plates, also thinking about building heights to maximize developments, but this is something that we can further lean into and also explore if there are other innovative technologies that we can further, integrate into our work. So you all have a lot of really exciting work up ahead of you.

This will not all be in 2027, but we wanted to have you start thinking about some of these ideas. And, also, there may be opportunities to advance some of these items sooner rather than later. So as these, actions advance, the ones that I highlighted for you are primarily going to be coming through the planning commission through our loopy work plan. There are other actions that are going to come before council or the public in other ways, such as our legislative agenda, our budget process, or another major council project launch or initiative. We're also very committed to reporting out on this work with a biannual update to our council, and we are also working on as one of the actions of this plan to develop a public facing housing dashboard that'll give some real time information about the impacts and outcomes of this work for the public.

And with that, I'd love to take any questions or go back to any slides and chat more.

Thank you. I think I can go around. Commissioner Farris, do you have any question or comment?

Somehow, I knew you were gonna come to me first. Just a couple of very quick comments. Hannah and Linda, thank you so much for all of the work that you have done, having you folks in the roles that you are in. We've already seen dramatic improvements in terms of what the city is doing and able to do, and I know that's gonna continue. So, again, thank you for all of your work.

Couple of things, and Hannah, I've mentioned this to you before, so I'll just make it more public. I would really love to see us track that preserved housing versus new affordable housing separately as opposed to lumping them together because I think it keeps us more accountable for what we're actually trying to accomplish. Also, I would I when I think about c one, which will be renamed, which has we had some preliminary great success, which I and I think that there is much more opportunity out there. But one of the big barriers to that is that we know that especially faith owned properties, most of those folks, a, they're not developers. Leadership there is not necessarily focused.

So being able to have both an education program and potentially a liaison, some way to reach those property owners, if you will, to be able to to inform them about what's possible. Anyway, we can't just essentially say, we build it, they will come. I think we need to reach out to those organizations and leadership there to be able to inform them and help them through the process because it's it's very complex. And I love the dashboard idea because it keeps us all accountable. So that's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Kennedy?

Just a couple comments. So thank you so much. This is fantastic, and I I I share the appreciation that we have people focused on this and ensuring that we're moving forward and able to to meet the city's goals and to support our community members in the way that you have thoughtfully outlined tonight. So thank you. I I appreciated the action oriented approach that you have with the you didn't use the word KPIs, but being able to ensure that that we're hitting those goals, particularly welcomed the conversation that you had around just ensuring that we are really supporting the increase in housing stock.

Noticed on the snip that you brought up, but not in your detailed rundown of several of the items, the opportunity that it looked like you were highly investing in looking for funding opportunities for additional affordable housing and and was curious how how that's going and and if we'll hear any more about that. I was also glad to see that you'll be doing biennial updates to council. We'll also be hearing from you on the success of these items outside of, the request for the zoning and comprehensive plan amendment.

There we go. Thank you so much for those questions, commissioner. Yes. Funding is a key piece of this the strategy, and, I apologize. I did focus some of our action items on, things that would come before the planning commission for your consideration and direction.

The funding piece is really critical to this work. Even within the impact that you saw represented on the screen, we are assuming some new revenue to be able to support that, achieving those production numbers. And so we do have, as a priority item that we're going to be starting on in the near term is exploring new funding mechanisms for the city. We've outlined a couple of different options about what that might be, but we really do need to do more in-depth research to find out what's possible, feasible, and at what time for the city. So that's work that's, honestly undergoing, right now is we're preparing for the next budget conversations.

So that is kind of exploring new revenue is one piece of it. And then we are also thinking about ways that we can leverage other resources in this work as well through partnerships, through working with other entities, and then, also seeing about how we can, you know, further leverage our programs like fee and lieu to make sure that, those are being, resources that we can utilize as well. Thank

you so much for the presentation. I I had a couple of quick comments and then a question for you. First, I just wanna express support for, you know, the a lot of the suggestions that you made here tonight. Specifically, I I like the idea of expanding the incentives and and bonuses for, you know, a mix of affordable and market rate housing in those faith based properties that you've mentioned. I think that's a great idea to try to, you know, expand the the the pie there.

I also had a question for you on you mentioned the safe parking program. This is something I'm kind of unfamiliar with and would be interested in hearing a little bit more about what that entails and how that's implemented and just how that works.

Yeah. Thank you, commissioner. If I may, I just I I realized I totally did not answer your second question, commissioner Kennedy. In terms of coming back to planning commission for future updates, I think we as a team have, tried to stay in contact to make sure that those regular updates are happening. So I think that we could commit to an annual update, for this group just on strategy implementation in general.

Yeah. Apologies. Now, commissioner, let me get to your, question. So safe parking programs are, a way to address homelessness in the community for people who are already living in vehicles that may be in more unsafe locations that don't have access to, key hygiene and other facilities that folks need. You know, recognizing the, you know, both resource, and space challenges associated with setting up transitional and emergency housing, there is a very low barrier, low cost way to help support those individuals who are living in vehicles, but by providing them a safe place to stay that's associated with those hygiene and other facilities.

So the city had recognized the value of these types of programs and did launch a pilot safe parking program that had been operating at the or is operating at the city's Lincoln Center. We are currently exploring a new location for that program, but that is operating under, as I mentioned, those emergency rules that allow safe uses within the city. And so we would need a formal, permanent definition to continue those types of operations or to expand them for different entities and organizations.

Thank you. Commissioner Geppel?

Yeah. I had, one thing that I was gonna, just kind of amplify from, you know, one of the, public comments you got. And I'm I wanted to say too that I'm really supportive of, of what you're of what you're doing in the affordable housing space. But one of the, one of the comments, that was in the that was in the public, in the public testimony that I think was pretty compelling was about and it was it was about options to downsize within within the city of Bellevue, and it was by a woman who was talking about how, you know, she and her husband, you know, don't don't feel that they're able to continue to live in Bellevue, in in the Bellevue area where they've worked and lived their entire lives. And she goes on to say, I hope more senior communities like the Silverglen model may be built by the city, and we can afford to continue to stay in the city we love.

And, you know, that's an example of a a cooperative housing model. And I know that was mentioned in your piece about, you know, affordable ownership alternatives. And I wanted to find out more about what the city of Bellevue is doing to encourage that because I have great concerns about the direction that this country is going in relation to seniors, in particular, dealing with downsizing opportunities. Basically, what's happening happening is private equity is getting in big into real estate investment trusts, and they're owning an increasing number of assisted living facilities. They're reducing staffing.

They're focused on generating maximum returns. And you could see that as a model for basically eroding generational wealth within this country. And if you want to help to encourage continued working class capabilities to actually have an ownership stake in this in this economy. We need to make sure that we are creating alternatives like that where people are not sucked dry at the end of their lives, by groups that are doing that. And an opportunity like the cooperative housing, for example, is not only an effort to really create community, but it's also an opportunity to create affordable locations where people can own own property.

If you look at the site for Silver Glen, you know, the costs of units there are very affordable compared to what's, available broader in the community. So can you tell me how how we're doing more in that space?

Yeah. Thank you so much for that question. We actually had a great opportunity to go out and tour Silver Glen and talk with several board members and residents during this process because we had heard from the Bellevue Network on Aging and from folks in our engagement very similar stories, struggles, and desires for more senior living that allows them to retain those resources and independence. So we went out and toured the facility, talked with them, learned a little bit about the history of the development, and then based on that conversation actually had some conversations with some other cooperative advocacy organizations in the region to better understand some of the issues. And one of the things that we came across in these discussions is a lot of the barriers to making a new Silver Glen in Bellevue is really around financing and the comfortability of banks and financing agencies in the Pacific Northwest to invest in this type of model.

Because it is not a very prevalent model in the Pacific Northwest, we don't have a lot of entities at scale who can build these larger projects or finance them. When talking with some of, the, cooperative advocacy organizations, you know, they've been able to point to other regions in The United States where they've been to build more trust in these types of models and therefore have gotten more financing to be able to support those types of development. That is not the case in the environment that we're operating in right now. And so brainstorming internally about what we could do at a city level to further incentivize and generate trust in these types of models, one low lying fruit that we identified is really just to showcase the success examples that we have in our community such as Silver Glen. So it is a small action within the plan, but we do have an action to actually profile these cooperative communities within Bellevue and maybe across the East Side to be able to bring them to legislatures, financers, and be able to say that this model can be successful and it is successful in the city.

So that is one thing that we identified, but it was a conversation that we explored and tried to identify some of those hurdles. And I think there's opportunities as we build out our partnerships with banks and other financing agencies to continue those conversations, at a at a larger scale.

That's that's helpful. I I wonder if there's more that we could do beyond, the showcase, the showcase, piece in the communication. I think that's a great start. I I wish there was some other way that we could actually put resources behind it to actually help financially to make it happen because I I think that's a more scalable benefit in a lot of cases than, you know, the individual the individual support that's provided for people to to to purchase units.

Yes. Yeah. Thank you. I I definitely agree. And I think as middle housing opens up some more opportunities for smaller scale development, we are seeing some smaller scale cooperatives come up in Seattle. And so there may be some opportunities as, there are more smaller scale cooperative style developments that it will also build trust in in that development type. But definitely, Commissioner, resonate with your desire to further support those those uses.

We did have an interest from a small developer for one of our funding programs to do a program where they purchased a property from us, someone a senior landowner, single family lot. And then they're now allowed to build, you know, up to six units on that lot. So the owner would get a free get a free, unit in exchange for the you know, building the additional housing on the lot. So that's a pretty creative idea, and we'd like to see more of that because that maintains the ownership model.

Yeah. Good.

We have ten minutes left. Thank you. Commissioner Valavesses. We can extend. But

Thank you so much for the presentation. As always, very comprehensive. Within the faith based organizations, I like to close one commissioner, Neil Sheen's, comment about opening the door for market rate housing as part of that effort. I want I wonder if it makes sense to also consider not only mixed markets, but also mixed use,

like

commercial and retail that might make those places better. The other thing I I wanted to talk about is you have some chapters within all your actions for codes. Right? And, I don't know how much this can fall within your realm of expertise or influence, but, there are cities like Seattle. There's just a few cities in the country, Seattle, New York, Honolulu, that allow six story buildings to be serviced by one single stair.

So the single stair code allows you to build cheaper, quicker, and better units with let with, actually kind of bypassing land assemblage, which is usually required if you have two stairs required because just because the small lots is inefficient, and then you need to assemble this. So that alone can unlock a huge amount of housing, which it has happened in Seattle. It it has happened in New York. So it's a I think it's a state code, and I don't know how Seattle went through, updating that, but I don't know if there's anything that Velvet can do to do this. This would be a huge move to get more access to affordable housing.

Yeah. Thank thank you, commissioner. And, you alluded to, the barrier, and I can speak to, what we're see as the solution within our realm. So, city of Seattle, I can't speak to exactly why, but they do operate under a different set of building rules. The rules that city of Bellevue operates under, are uniform across the state.

And so we, right now, cannot change our own rules around single staircases to my understanding and based on my conversations with people who know a lot more about that than I do. But we there are a lot of conversations at the state level, both around how to reduce costs from elevators and also single access stairways. So within the plan, we have an action that is supporting advocacy at the state level to think about single stair reform so that that would be implemented at the state building code, then we would be able to implement those provisions. So that is how we're supporting further innovation in that way.

No. That's awesome. Thank you so much.

Thank you. I have one comment. One if for the c one plus one to commissioner Ferris, I feel even, like, having a recording of someone explain about that people can watch it. Like, have a material that people can watch and study, like, designated website or the Canvas page in the city of Bellevue that these leaders and that faith based or eventually nonprofit, they can even go and watch, like, five hours videos or 20 videos, each of them five minutes. That'd be helpful for them.

And I think some material will be able to help. And then designated staff, that'd be perfect, but I don't wanna have burden on the city of Bellevue. The other question that I have at when we were working on comprehensive plan, probably some of our fellow commissioner remember that. We had a had a youth who came two youth actually came to us and specifically talk about the homelessness that they're facing because of having unstable housing. And they were talking about like they need to go to the youth homeless shelter, which is going go be zero to 30% AMI if we can have a zero to 30% AMI for them.

And their school is in the Bellevue, then they're gonna go miss the school. It's really hard and all of those. Do we have any action plans? Do we have anything? Because in comprehensive, specifically, I remember we had one policy for seniors and elderly and youth. Do we have anything in your action plans regarding the youth in Bellevue who are facing homelessness?

Yeah. Thank you so much for that question. I think I was at a council meeting when I heard a similar testimony, definitely really, really moving. And so in terms of homelessness, the affordable housing strategy, we had to take a very, intentional approach. The work of homelessness extends greatly beyond the realm of housing.

There is a lot of outreach services, a supplemental work that really does support the homelessness system. And so recognizing that we were not able to capture all of that within the affordable housing strategy, we did really try to limit this to permanent affordable housing. I think the one exception is around land use code items. So for example, looking at the homeless services, code and that safe parking use. But in in general, the affordable housing strategy does not address homelessness outside of supporting homelessness prevention by building more permanent supportive housing.

What about adding to the affordable housing to 0% to 30% for them? Can be that something in that one? Because most of them, they have a job in coffee shop and stuff, they can afford to live in those affordable housing. Can we have a line for that? Is that something that doable for zero to 30%? We have some housing for the youth who just need housing. They are totally fine to have a co living event, but they just need housing in Bellevue.

Yeah. So we hadn't necessarily called out any specific target for youth housing, but I think what you're saying is that priority on focusing on the deepest level of affordability and building those units will hopefully, you know, also make options available there. I will also, on a side note, say that we have a really great YouthLink, action team on housing. There are some really, bright and amazing students, who are thinking about this, and I know one of them is actually, like, doing a research project on youth impacts to housing right now. So I'm really excited to see what they all bring to us for items that we need to take on in the future.

Okay. Thank you so much. Do we need a second round or we are good to close the meeting? Okay. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Can I have a motion to approve the minutes from March 25 meeting?

So moved.

Second?

Second.

Any discussion? All in favor?

Aye.

Commissioner Perez, I will let you to take your motion.

I would like to make the motion that we adjourn our meeting.

Can I have a second? A discussion? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Thank you, everybody. Thank you.

Great birthday. Keep on hand. You made a fair emotion. I'm