Heritage Commission - Regular Meeting

I think because I am starting this a little later, the apples might be very slowly trickling in as attendees. So Yeah. We got a couple.

Everybody that Gary

Gary messaged me saying that he's not going to be able to join today.

Any reason we can't just

I think there's someone walking in right now.

K. Greetings. Hey. I'm Michael.

Hi, Michael. Hi, Michael. Welcome. Me and you. Welcome. Thank you. Hello, Lorena.

Official. Yeah.

It It was very exciting when I got to place the order for both you. Oh,

I did get one.

Thank you. Okay. Your pass was that way. Good. Did a shortbread.

I'm a sucker.

Brittany always has. They're it's really good. Yeah. I'm not I didn't bring any water with me either.

Here's the water fountain. And I'm going to eat. Thank you.

Thank you. I'd ask directly, not wish. I needed something.

Oh, know what I

mean? Right.

K. 05:30. Let's call this meeting to order.

Britney, would you mind doing a roll call? Okay. Chair Miller.

Present. Vice

chair, Hicks.

Commissioner Knight.

Present.

Commissioner Patrick. Here.

Commissioner Becker.

Hello.

And commissioner Carter.

Present.

And commissioner Shepherd?

Here.

And commissioner Bowman? Present. Lovely.

Okay.

And I think I had already marked it on the page, but commissioner is Excused that. Excused that. Yes.

And Audrey's the dog. Right?

Yes. Yeah. It's nine of us. Right? It'd be nine.

That was delicious. Did somebody make those?

Britney did.

Yeah. Okay. Well, I'll give everyone just a minute to look at the agenda. Mhmm. Approve that.

Anyone's a physical copy, I

have one paper. I I would like one. Thank you. I didn't bring my computer.

Thank you. I killed some drinks. So Anyone

have any questions, additions to the agenda? K. Let's approve the agenda by consensus. K. Looks like we've got two minutes to approve. We didn't approve the retreat, or did we think there was a retreat? Because I don't remember.

I think

might have not I don't know when we looked at them in January. I think we just didn't think we had any, but but then I got a little note that says, hey. Can you please approve these? So, yeah, they need to be approved today.

Okay. So the first one was the approval of minutes. Apparently, we had minutes at the retreat in December. Take me a minute to look at those. This was kind of a problem getting in that we approved the next October.

Any question, correction, additions to these minutes? K. Hearing none. Let's prove these by consensus. Thank you.

Next, minutes from our last meeting in February, just so everybody on March got canceled because of the supposed storm that was super violent.

That was that never not

not came. It

did rain a little bit.

It did rain a little bit. It's true. So I do the second, like, like, in February minutes. Anyone have any questions, comments, additions, corrections? Alright.

Hearing none. Let's approve those by consensus as well. Next item, public comments. Unless there's anyone online. We don't have any public tonight.

Do not see anyone online. Announcing. Oh, I have so many announcements. Oh, okay. But I'll keep it brief so that Joyce can start her presentation.

That's fine.

No. She's patient. Okay. First announcement. We were contacted by someone looking to partner with the Heritage Commission for some walking tours of downtown for preservation mode. This would take place on May 17. That was the day that they asked if we could you know, if anyone wants to volunteer to lead a tour or be on the tour as one of the guides. And so is anyone interested in more information?

Definitely interested in more information.

I'm gonna be out of

time. That's Tuesday. Okay.

No worries. Sorry. It's a Saturday. Can you repeat

the date one more time? May 17.

I'm out of town that day.

I have to confirm it, but it's

not me that. You can you can put

me down too if I need my information.

So I will send a an email out just sort of with the date and sort of what the tour is, I suppose.

Can can you share who's requesting this?

Yes. This was a request by Shanna Stevenson on behalf of the I wanna say it's it's not the Olympic Olympic Historical Society specifically. It was that group in partnership also with oh, I feel kinda bad.

I forgot the name of

the specific group. It might have been it was a different group, but there's a third yeah.

A third historic. Mhmm.

Oh. Yeah. There's something doing walking tours out there, some the flyers for it too, and I can't remember the group name either. So

Oh, nice. Okay. Well, I'm glad that there's flyers for it.

Were they looking for us to, like, leave the tournament? Or

Yeah. So it would be probably a couple of time slots, but not posting it. We would just be, like, guest tour leaders.

Not necessarily. Confusing knowledge like Shannon Stevens because, you know, we can

Yeah. Hopefully, there's a script. Yeah.

That that was a good question. So

Oh, okay. So it's the Olympia Arts Heritage Alliance, the Oleaha, and the Olympia Historical Society, Bigelow House Museum.

Okay. So those are the two groups. And

we are also, as the commission, providing some physical pamphlets for the tour, so we are already participating. So if anyone wants to lead a tour or be part of a tour, then that would be awesome. There's also a grant that was applied for separately. Next topic. This is a grant for diversity and local history that was applied for by the Big Little House Museum, O'Hopital Historical Society, and in partnership, I guess, with the city, because the idea would be to have an intern hired to do some scope of work relating to diverse histories.

This specific application was made so that if selected to move forward, an intern would update our downtown historic district listing to include more sites and history and details on groups that aren't currently in the listing with the end goal of having the intern person create and move the document forward, but then possibly passing it to the commission to move through the public process to have it listed.

Do you is your job to guide?

No. My guide is to just provide supplemental support. And I think I'm reaching out to this group to see if anyone is interested in the topic of historic register listings, historic districts. Because if selected, I believe they're going to try to put together, like, a board of folks to support the intern or be a panel to, like, discuss things with them. So if anyone is interested in these topics, please let me know. But this one is not time sensitive yet. I don't know when we're gonna hear back about the grant. But

Is this the same intern or different?

This is a different intern.

I can see.

This would be a totally separate our our yeah. Our thing is Good. Different. So if anyone's interested in that, please let me know. Another announcement, the Heritage Gala is tomorrow. The Heritage Gala is put on by the Olympic Historical Society, Big Little House Museum. So just wanted to give that one more shout out. I will be attending. I'm going to. Nice. Okay. If we've got representatives from the commission that is and if anyone online is going or anyone else in the room, let me know. It would be nice to link up and represent the commission to

They also have really nice auction items that you can bid on, and I think some of the auctions are even live now. So they have, like, a nice variety of stuff Mhmm. Which is always fun. So

Really interesting.

It's not mansion. I

haven't been in there yet. I'm excited.

Very cool. And I believe the rest of the announcements are actually business for specific things later in the agenda so we can move on.

Okay. Back to the interim grant thing, I kinda feel like maybe we all should could be on some level participating with that.

Think in the application materials, it was listed that this person would present to relevant stakeholders. K. And the additional interest would be if you've got extra time to provide feedback or resources on how to do research or where to go for certain types of the I guess, doing the work part of it. So I definite if if this moves forward, I definitely would like to see what they're producing and having them come to the group and staff here. Okay. More later. Thanks. I'll let you know if it gets awarded when I find out.

K. Moving on to oh, does anyone else have any questions? Okay. Business items. New heritage commissioner appointments.

Welcome. Yay. Welcome.

Anything formal?

No. But this I think it's I wanted to put it first to do some introductions Yes. Appreciate it. To celebrate that you're here. I think it's really exciting. This is the first time in a long time that the commission has all of the seats filled, and everyone is like, we're we're fully stocked and ready to go. And Right. So I'm excited to have you. I know that everyone else is also excited. Maybe introductions? Yeah.

I think maybe you wanna do how about all the current or this last year commissioners do a quick introduction about yourself, and then you guys can introduce yourself. I can keep it pretty brief. But I'll start. Garner Miller moved to Olympia in 1996. I'm an architect here in town.

Then on the Heritage Commission, like, Oh, I figured this out. And let's see. I've been this is my first year as the chair. I've been the chair of the design. Yeah.

That is me.

Stacy. Hi. I'm Doctor. Stacy Hicks, vice chair of the Heritage Commission. I think I've been on for a couple of years now too. I'm being appointed for a couple more years. Moved to Olympia in 2012. Love it here. Served on the Arts Commission for nine years as well before I jumped over to Heritage, which is my other love is history. I'm on the education and outreach marketing.

I forgot how many names we have for it. Committee here. And I work for Sound Legal Aid, providing legal advice, free legal advice to low income populations in five counties. And I work part time still for the Washington Center for Performing Arts too, so you see me there behind the bar or managing the show for the arts because I just love the arts and all of that. So

I'm Mark Shepherd. I've lived in Olympia since about 2011. I work for a local builder. I serve on a couple other boards for affordable housing and building industry type stuff. I got three little kids. They're one, three, and five.

Those are little stuff. Awesome.

You go online next? Just making circle. You guys would know it's a circle. How about Eleanor?

My name is Eleanor Knight. I am a well, I've been on the commission for a year. I moved to Olympia a couple years before that, and I am an archaeologist by training but currently work in building preservation for the state. And that's all there is to me.

Yeah. Steven?

I'm learning how to unmute. Let's see. I've been in Olympia a couple years, Washington about five, six years now. Moved here after a nice stop in Hawaii for about six years. I'm born and raised Californian and, done a lot of historic preservation stuff.

I was my last kind of relevant job, I guess you could say, is, executive director of the California Historical Society, which sounds like a big deal, but they just went bust. They no longer exist. Anyway, all their stuff went to Stanford. Anyhow, so I've done a lot of work in historic preservation, but interestingly enough, I am, trained as a folklorist. So I like a lot of vernacular architecture kinds of things. And that's me.

Thanks. Bill?

Hey, everybody. I'm Bill Cotter. I moved to Olympia in 2022. I've been on the Heritage Commission for a year now. I'm an anthropologist by training, but I do artificial intelligence research for the federal government. That's me.

Think that's everybody online. Back to live.

My name is Melissa Patrick. My formal education is in architecture with a minor in historic preservation and also urban geography. I I'm I'm actually curious person, so I have a lot of different interests. And right now, I'm really interested in urban planning. So I did a lot of research on that, different things. But I think my true passion really just boils down to humans and the built environment and how the built environment can support us or or the converse. So those are those are the types of things that I spend my time looking at.

And hello, everyone. I'm Michael Bowman. I am I've lived in Olympia for about six years now, and I live in the far Northeast corner, just a couple blocks away from the from the city line. And in my day job, I work at the office of the secretary of state here, and I work in a relatively new program called the civic engagement program. I do rural civic engagement work.

So working with libraries and colleges and community organizations throughout the state, trying to get them involved at all level of politics. Before that, I was a faculty member at the Evergreen State College for four years, teaching undergraduate classes in education and history, and teaching the teacher education program in social studies and civics. So the big I do I also do a lot of historical work and trying to bridge a few different passions around the history of places and the built environment, but also what those places teach us and how teachers and other educators can use local places to teach about diverse histories. So that's me.

Excellent. Okay. Well, welcome, Mark and Michael. Super excited to have you guys on here. Also excited to have a full commission. And also, I just I've said this before, but I really love the variety of backgrounds that I'll integrate to our work here. That's that's super cool.

My son actually just graduated from I guess this is he's in his third year of teaching. He's going to bring to the gala tomorrow night. Nice. So I don't know if you would have him or not. His name is Kit Patrick.

I do know.

He's in his third year.

That's exciting. Okay. We're gonna connect afterwards because I would be great to reach him. That's awesome.

Awesome. Very cool. And before moving on, just on the topic, if you've got five minutes after we're done, I would love to run down that packet with you. Great. Yeah. Cool. Yeah.

I was gonna ask, is there we've done training for new commissioners in different ways over the years. I don't know your thoughts support for that.

You've got an onboarding packet with some

of the basics. It's sort of the bare bones to start off with sort of who we are, what our work plan is, our bylaws, and how to or what the city's advisory body general guidelines are for the expectations of the group. But I think it might be conversations to see what committees Mhmm. Folks are interested in to have a deeper dive in materials to teach you and provide. And then I guess this will be a fun spoiler for next event.

Next month meeting, we're gonna be doing a recap on our CLG training with Michelle. It's been a long day. So recap on that training with Michelle, and then I think I'm just going to hold you all hostage and do the OPMA training as part of the meeting so that we're all done and we have it current and ready to go. So we'll watch it together.

Speaking of committees, it looks like you got a copy of our

I did. I

would there. So maybe between now and our next meeting, just kinda think about communities, and we should probably think about what communities are right now. But yeah. And first and foremost is where your what your interests are. And the three of them, you know, marketing and outreach is kinda getting out in the community and, you know, spreading the the word of the heritage and policy ordinance, governance, you know, kind of work.

A lot of that work is working with the city and coordinating with their efforts, like things Joyce is gonna talk about tonight. So then we have heritage review, which is kind of the more technical permitting aspect of the work we do. So, yeah, just kinda think about what piques your interest in the next next month come with some ideas where you how you wanna contribute in that way. Okay. K. Anything else on

appointments? No. You'll just continue to hear from me as far as I'm still introducing materials to you. They didn't get the big handout full of windows yet. Just now that it's it's on the way.

I couldn't get information about windows. That would be pretty much all I got. Yeah. Was like, what? Was this the windows commit commission?

Yes. The guys

I I trust that I trust that next month, everyone well, all the new folks will have to take a a quiz or a test of some sort on the Windows and

All Windows. The parts of the Windows.

Okay. That's our ascend. Okay, Joyce. Thank you for patiently waiting for us to get through this business here, but we are on to the middle housing briefing.

Alright. Well, thank you. Thanks for allowing me to come tonight and give you an overview of, some zoning code amendments that the city is proposing primarily in response to changes in state law. The state law requirements are very specific and a little different than the types of things we're used to working on, so it's a a a bit different for staff as well. I am used to talking to the planning commission and doing a deep dive on, like, code and comp plan materials.

So if I do talk about something that sounds unfamiliar or if I use any jargon, it's it's a slightly different world, and I don't wanna, you know, take for granted that you're just gonna know all of the words that I might talk about. So holler if I say something that's a little bit odd. I have about 17 slides to share with you tonight, and, I'll do my best to cover 103 pages of proposed code amendments in 17 slides. So we'll see if I Joyce, can

if I could jump in just like a tiny bit of background on this. So Joyce has been going out to neighborhoods as well and presenting the slideshow so that, you know, different groups within the city are aware of what the changes are. Britney and I joined here in the South Capitol neighborhood, which is the oldest historic neighborhoods. And, of course, a lot of community members from South Capital, whoever deep interest in preservation showed up. Yeah.

I think we learned a ton, and I think we kinda realized, wow, there's a ton of what's going on in our zoning code that is gonna affect to the sort of neighborhoods in the city. So we kinda thought this would be really good for the whole commission to hear that that story. So thanks, Joyce, for doing this

for us.

Yeah. Sure. And then a lot of this is we're required to allow it, and that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to fit either. So I'll have some remarks and some commentary along the way. I'm going to try to point out where something was proposed.

Mostly we're doing this because the the state law requires it, but some of the places we did make a policy decision in deciding how to write the first draft. So I'll try to point out those locations. And then some of the policy choices were based off of input from the city council. Some of them, there's still a little bit of wiggle room. And so we do have a survey that's open right now where people can go in, and we're just we're targeting the questions that we're asking in this survey on those places where there's discretion for how we move forward.

So, we'll talk a little bit about that as well. So, again, tonight, I just wanna give an overview. There's a lot of details. I'm gonna try to kinda keep it high level, but I'm happy to answer questions, to help, you know, you understand it better. And then also point out some places where I have information that's available if you wanna do a deeper dive on any of this.

So, let's see. Just dive in. So I I wanna focus tonight on, the biggest changes that we're proposing, where it's required by law, where there's local discretion, and how we move forward. We're not gonna cover everything that's in the proposal. So I do encourage people to review the draft and the background materials that are available on the web page that's located at the bottom of this screen.

But I do apologize because it's a 103 pages, reading code language is not that exciting. So it's in track changes in a bill format, so you can see where there are proposed changes. You can propose new text, underline proposed text to be deleted in strike through. Also, I just wanna say since I, started screen sharing, can't I see you guys. So if you have questions, feel free to let me know. Just kinda holler.

Okay. Great. Okay.

So I'm gonna talk a little bit about the estimated timeline for this work. I'll provide a brief background. I'm gonna talk a little bit about accessory dwelling units. I'm gonna talk about co living housing, middle housing, which you've all probably heard about off and on for a few years now. I'm gonna talk about unit lot density, which is a new provision for Olympia.

I'll talk about, the provisions of being either a tier one or a tier two city, And, hopefully, this will make more and more sense as I get through the presentation more. I'm gonna talk about, our population growth projections for the next twenty years. I'm gonna describe a little bit, how the city uses frequent transit routes. And then I'll also talk about unit lot subdivisions, which is also new for us. Then I'm gonna show a few graphics about what this type of infill could look like at the block level over time.

And so one of the things, I should mention is middle housing refers to duplexes, triplexes, four plexes, five plexes, six plexes, courtyard apartments, cottage housing, and townhouses. So, when I say middle housing, I'm talking about a basically small scale multiple unit, structures. So, the proposed work addresses the code amendments to implement the new requirements for housing, and it is to help address the state's housing crisis. So it is, it's assertive. It's it's, you know, it's not something we don't usually get bills that are this direct in making us, you know, do something so quickly and, you know, it's it's fairly narrowly written.

But under the state law, some of it has to be adopted by the 2025, and the majority of it needs to be adopted no later than June 2026 for us to be compliant with the state law. And but the main reason, I bring about those dates is because if we do not adopt local regulations by those dates, then the state law, applies and supersedes our local codes. And that's not something I've ever seen in in, legislation before. And so we're trying to address the state requirements, but in a way that is, more specific to Olympia and the types of processes and standards we already have in our codes. So that's that's one of the reasons we're trying to do this before before the deadline.

The first draft was issued in January. We do anticipate a public hearing draft being issued in June. And so to help us craft any revisions for the next draft, we're soliciting comments through the May, and we do have the public survey open. It opened on April 1. We were gonna close it at the end of the month, but, we were able to get an insert into, the five things utility billing thing that's going out May 1.

So we're extending the deadline to May 15 to allow folks who haven't heard about it already to still be able to participate. It's possible that a public hearing could occur as soon as June or I'm sorry, as soon as, like, July or August, and it's likely that the council will take action by the end of the year, just so that we don't, get superseded, really. The draft focuses on the middle housing provisions of house bill eleven ten, and then as it was amended again in the following year by house bill twenty three twenty one. But because there are related bills, for accessory dwelling units and co living housing, and because those would also amend the same sections of the Olympian municipal code, we're proposing to address all four of the housing bills at the same time. And in addition, we are, including the proposed amendments to the city's subdivision code to allow for unit lot subdivisions, which technically isn't really a housing bill, but it's specifically related to the housing bills.

And so because of all of this, we are amending several titles of the Olympia municipal code or OMC, not just title 18, which is where I do the the majority of my work. So, I do have copies of all of these bills on the project web page, and I share the bills rather than the links to the RCWs or the the state laws for several different reasons. First, I think it's easier to see where the new requirements are added into the existing language, because it's either a whole new section or the new language is underlined, you can kind of see what's new. But I also really like to include them because the bills include the legislative findings and those don't usually get codified into the statutes and so it shows you some of the thinking behind the legislature and their intent when they pass these laws. And so I think it kind of shows some of the urgency the state of Washington has around housing, and, quite frankly, Olympia is in that same boat.

So many of the new statutes for accessory dwelling units or ADUs are we've already addressed those in our code, so we don't have to make very many changes to our ADU requirements. But we do have to allow two ADUs per lot. We currently only allow one. And then we have to allow ADUs on on residential lots where there is already a principal unit. Currently, we only allow ADUs on lots with a single family detached home.

Now we will have to allow them where there are duplexes or triplexes or so not only do we have to allow them in more places, we have to allow two per lot. There's also a new provision in the statute that says, basically, cities have to allow ADUs to be at least up to a thousand square feet in size, and that's bigger than a lot of homes that we have in the city. Our standard is currently 850 square feet, and so we will be increasing that to at least a thousand square feet. And quite frankly, we've had a lot of people say, why even have a size limit anymore? A thousand square feet is a house.

So that's part of the survey questioning as well is should we retain a size limit on ADUs? There's also some provisions around ADUs that says cities cannot charge more than 50% of the impact fees for the ADU of what we would charge for a single family home. We don't currently charge more than 50%, but to ensure that that doesn't happen, we are proposing some amendments to title 15, which is where we have our impact fee language as well. So, a lot of the ADU provisions we have are staying the same. So, for example, detached ADUs can be up to 24 feet in height.

That will stay the same. We we do require a paved well lit pathway to the entrance of the ADU. That will still be required. We do allow parking, but it's not required for ADUs. That provision will stay the same.

We will still require design review when the property is located within the Infill Design Review District. And then the historic preservation standards will still apply in the historic districts and for designated historic properties. So there's not really a change in those aspects of it related to ADUs. So co living housing is defined by the statute, as essentially being what we call in our code as a single room occupancy. So if you had or, like, what people tend to think of, a boarding house or a lodging house where, you have your own room, you have your own space, you probably share you may share bathroom, facilities, and you do share kitchen facilities.

And so we currently call it a single room occupancy. We're changing the name in our code to match the the state. So we're calling it co living housing, which may get a little bit of a little confusing because we have something in our code currently called co housing, which is really cooperative housing. And so we're trying to make the distinction, between those. We the the amendments here are really specific around how we calculate sewer connection fees, how we calculate density, the parking requirements for this type of housing.

But the the probably the biggest thing is when we have in our code currently, if someone comes in with a proposal that has five units or more, five residential units or more, we have a different process they go through. They go through site plan review, land use review process, and they're required to do things like provide what gets called a tree tract, but our code technically calls it soil and vegetation preservation area. I cannot remember if it's preservation or conservation. But so what we're doing under this under these bills, we we can't have a different process for middle housing than we do for someone who just wants to build a single family home on their lot. So we're raising that threshold to seven because, again, the middle housing is gonna talk about six units or less being middle housing types.

So our process will change for when land use review is required, when a tree tract is required. We'll still have protection measures in place, but it would be the same type of tree protection measures that would be required of a single family home on the same property. Actually, I wanna change this slide because what's not changing, we currently allow co living housing in r six to 12 zoning, which is a residential zoning district that covers most of the South Capitol neighborhood, and then any zoning district that has a higher density. So middle house, I'm sorry, moderate density, high density zones, commercial zones, those types of things. But again, the design review standards will apply if it's in a design review district, and the historic preservation standards will apply if it's in a historic district or on designated properties.

And then the other thing that's, specific about these, all of these codes, I don't think it's just the co living housing one, is that there's really very limited ability for people to appeal these local actions, and that's primarily because they're required. The state is saying you have to do these things. So they've also said, and you very likely won't be appealed because there's a very narrow opportunity for that. So the middle housing is where the majority of the work is actually occurring to address these bills. We're proposing amendments to the definitions in our code so that we match the newer modified definitions in the growth management act.

And some of these housing types are defined, some of them are not. So we're, trying to align with the state's definitions. We're also proposing to amend our zoning provisions to allow something called unit lot density, which is new for us, and I'll talk about that. But, basically, it's a new way for us to calculate density. We're required to use it, and it allows a certain number of units per lot depending on which city which category the city falls within, and it doesn't really necessarily matter what size the lot is.

So we'll talk more about that on the next slide. But there are also several processing standards that have to be revised, and again, it's because we have to use the same process and standards we would use if someone were building a single family detached home or middle housing units on the same lot. So those changes will impact our design review process, when the land use review process kicks in for residential developments, and how we address tree protection. It will also affect the types of subdivisions we allow to separate the land into lots when there are already constructed units on them. And I wanted to the currently, we require design review for single family homes if they're in the infill design District, and then we require design review for middle housing regardless of where it is in the city.

So we won't be able to do that in the future. We can require design review in the Design Review District, and but we won't require design review for middle housing outside of the Design Review District unless the city decides they want those design review standards to apply everywhere, and then all residential units would go through that type of design review. Another thing to consider that's not necessarily specific to, the local codes, but, private covenants of a homeowners association cannot preclude these housing types unless they already have those, that language to preclude them in their current homeowner CC and Rs and bylaws or CC and Rs, I suppose. Any new or revised, covenants cannot preclude these types of housing units. And, again, limited appealability.

So unit lot density is is required for us to use, and it's a very different way of looking at density for the city of Olympia and probably most cities in the state. So unit lot density is really the number of units allowed per lot regardless of the size of the lot, and it doesn't necessarily we'll still look at density when someone comes in and goes through land use review or when they do a subdivision, but all existing lots of record will have the ability to add additional units to their lot. A few other things to kinda think about around this unit lot density provision, and I and I apologize if I'm kind of skimming over it quickly. Technically, ADUs are not included in the middle housing bill. In the state guidance on middle housing, they suggested that cities should state whether or not ADUs do or do not count towards the unit lot density.

Our current draft says that yes, they do count towards the unit lot density, but that's just something to be aware of. And then under the the state subdivision law, we have to allow unit lot subdivisions, and that would allow the subdivision of existing units to be sold independently of each other. So, for example, if someone had a house and they built two ADUs, they would be able to sell off the two ADUs independently of the main house. So they might retain one. They might sell three units.

And and it's essentially looking at if the if the development standards of the parent lot are satisfied, then the individual unit lots do not have to meet minimum lot size, or you don't have to each have every single provision of the zoning code satisfied on each individual lot as long as the whole parent lot satisfies those requirements. I've got a couple graphics in in another slide or two that I think will help show that, and it's really a way to promote homeownership. You could still go through the process of doing a condominium type of development to sell them off independently that way. But I think this is perhaps a little more straightforward, and you don't have to deal with the condo association type stuff. Alright.

Oh, this is where it might get a little bit confusing. So under under the state requirements, the cities across the state fall into categories. So under the state's definition, Olympia is a tier two city, and it only requires cities to look at the city population. But when we do planning and we do our comprehensive planning, we look at the city and the urban growth area. And, so that oh, I don't think I brought a copy of that map.

I apologize. But, essentially, it includes additional land outside of the existing city limits that Olympia may annex in the future. So if you look at our current requirements, we are a tier two city. We're at about 57 I can't remember. Just shy of 58,000 residents, I believe.

But the reason this matters is because the number of lots number of units allowed on a residential lot are different depending on which category your city falls within. And so if you look at our city and our urban growth area, we're projected to meet the tier one city population by the year 2030. And with these being adopted at the 2025, that's not very long before you would be amending your code again. So, the members of the council's land use and environment committee, suggested we might wanna go ahead and just draft the the first draft to meet tier one city requirements. So our first draft is written so that we would allow four units per lot on any residential lot where single family homes are allowed, and then that would increase to six units per lot if you were within a certain distance of transit, and we're gonna talk a little bit about that in a minute, or if at least two of the units are designated for affordable housing for a period of at least fifty years.

And there is a an affordable housing covenant that would be required to be recorded that would apply to the the property in those units. So those are policy decision points right there to I mean, we would have to meet tier two city requirements, but proposing to meet tier one city requirements is a policy decision. So I'm trying to point that out for folks. We do ask questions about that in the survey specifically, and I do think that this is probably one of the areas of the draft that we will receive the most comments on. But the other thing I wanna point out is it raises to six units per acre if the property is within a quarter mile of a major transit stop.

And the reason I want to talk about that is because technically Olympia doesn't have a major transit stop. So we're gonna be looking at something a little bit different in that regard. So keep that in mind. This is just the population projections. Oops. Sorry.

Oh gosh.

Okay. Sorry about that. Thurston Regional Planning Council does the, population forecast information for the county and all of the cities within it, and we use those results for our growth management planning purposes. And so, you know, these are the numbers we're all using as we update our comprehensive plans. And we are looking to have approximately, you know, just over 75,000 people within our city and UGA, by year 2030.

And so that is really one of the main reasons why, we were encouraged to meet tier one provisions in this first draft. And then the other policy decision that's related to that is we technically do not have a major transit stop as it's defined by state law for this particular provision. So we have proposed using, what a provision we have in our parking code that talks about, if you're within a half mile of a frequent transit route. And so we were encouraged to use the same definition. And so if you were within the within the areas shown in this kinda highlighted pink buffer that covers a a large significant portion of the city, then you would be allowed to go up to six units per acre or I'm sorry, per lot.

I'm that's still gonna be hard for me to get used to. Or, if you're outside of that area and still wanted to go up to six units per lot, you could do so with the if two of the units satisfied that affordable housing requirement. And, again, this is this is sort of beyond the requirements of a tier one city, so I wanna point that out. But so it's just one of the policy decision points that were used in the draft, and we're we propose using a quarter mile instead of a or I'm sorry, a half mile instead of a quarter mile so that it would match with the other provisions we have in our parking code. That's a policy choice.

So just pointing that out. When it talks about unit lot subdivisions, it's it's it's new to us. Our code is completely silent on this type of, subdivision. And an example we might see is, like, if someone had a, I hope you can see my cursor moving on the screen here. But in this first example, this this whole area is the parent lot.

They choose to build a triplex in the back because they can have four units on their lot. Later on down the road, they decide they wanna subdivide it and sell it off independently. Maybe they wanna give one to each of their three kids or they just wanna sell it or what. Who knows? But you could come in and do a unit lot subdivision because this parent parcel meets all of the requirements. They've got some tree protection, on the lot that satisfies the city's minimum requirements. They've met the setbacks. They've met the lot coverages. They've met the building heights. So you could come in and do a unit lot subdivision and then sell each of these four parcels of land independently of them.

Each lot would be its own individual sellable legal lot of record with its own tax or parcel ID number. There's an example of doing that with cottage housing. We actually kind of already allow this with cottage housing. You can subdivide it or not. We already allow this with townhouses and then this in this example in number four, there's a duplex.

One of the units is smaller than the other and then they added an ADU in the back, But then they proposed to divide the units independently of each other. That's the intention of a unit lot subdivision. I'm still working with our public works department, utilities department to make sure that we are kind of trying to think through what are the utility implications because we currently allow a single family home in an ADU to share utilities. But if you sell them independently of each other of each other, you know, what what, if anything, might might we need them to change or think through or require if there's some sort of a a maintenance agreement or something. So I have just a couple of examples of what this might look like as middle housing infills into a neighborhood, and these are at the block level.

This is an example of a 220 foot by 260 foot block. Most of the blocks are we have are bigger than this, but I like it because it does show an alley running between the lots. So you've got street frontage and alley access. In this example, the existing homes are shown in in the white color, and different types of middle housing are shown in in color just to show over time what that might look like in this particular block. And in the next block, it's slightly larger.

It's 340 feet by 280. It's a little more typical of, some of the blocks in our older neighborhoods, probably still a little bit on the small side. But, again, just an example to show what this type of development could look like over time. Usually, it takes ten, twenty years to start to see this type of development come into neighborhoods. Most likely, it's it it would happen on vacant lots initially or on lots where there's room for someone to add, you know, another unit or two or three in the back.

But this is an example of what that could potentially look like. And then the third example is a is very similar. It's a block that's about 370 feet by 250 feet. It's a little more common to the typical sizes we have in some of our neighborhoods. And in this particular example, there's no alley, and the property is sloped.

These graphics are really just meant to be for illustrative purposes only to help people kind of visualize what this could look like over time. And, ultimately, each individual property owner will decide whether or not they want to add units or build middle housing. And then what they do will be based on not only what they want to do, what they can afford to do, and what the code allows. Each applicant will need to demonstrate that they can meet the code requirements, and that includes, you know, setbacks and impervious surface coverages, building height, and things like that. They also will need to address stormwater and and provide for a certain amount of trees per lot.

And so all of that could result in fewer units being allowed on a lot than what is allowed by the code. I think most people, if they picture their own lot, if they live in a single family detached home, trying to think about three or five more units being added to the lot, it's it's very difficult to think of where that might go. And especially if you have easements or if you're on septic, you know, that just makes it even more challenging. So things to think about. But I hope the overview provided you with insights into what's included in the proposed code amendments.

There's there's a lot of background information available online. There's an FAQ that was posted at the beginning of the month, and then we just updated it. I think the updated version was posted online today, and that was based off of some of the additional questions we got at the q and a session that we held on March 31. We're working to pull together a recorded presentation so that we can put that online for folks who can't attend public meetings or don't want to. We've got the community survey open, and we really are trying to kind of hone in on those parts of the draft where there is room to propose a different outcome.

That's you know, we're looking to see what the public thinks, and council will consider all of that. There there will ultimately be a public hearing. We anticipate the public hearing draft coming out right around June 10. The the deadline for the under the terms of the grant that we have with the state is that we'll have that out by June 15. So, but if anybody wants to learn more about it, our web page is olympiawah.gov/middlehousing, and there's also a link to the city's Engage OlympiA page where where the survey is hosted.

So that is the general plan for how we propose to address these requirements right now. I think there will definitely be some modifications, coming in the next draft, but I'm happy to answer any questions, and I hope I haven't bored you too much. It's better than reading it. I'll tell you that.

Anybody have any question? I mean, I do. And

Oh, I would like to thank you, Garner, chair Miller, for coming to the South Capitol neighborhood. There were a lot of questions about the historic preservation aspects of this and so Chair Miller and Brittany were excellent at helping answer some of those questions because we're not proposing to amend those sections of code, and I don't know those sections off the top of my head as readily as the ones I've been working in. So thank you for that.

Yeah. And it's possible we may need to think about amending.

Mhmm.

This like we could as this moves forward. Well, I'll start off with one question. I'm just curious about kind of the fine line, I guess, between the definition of ADU and the definition of middle housing. And if there's enough difference in requirements and process, do you even have an ADU designation anymore? Or is that just have to stand there because of state law?

We talked about just saying, look, six units are allowed or four units are allowed or two units are allowed and they can be whatever you want them to be because at a thousand square feet, it's not that much different than what we're seeing in a lot of you know, if if there's a if there's a single family home with an attached ADU or or if it's a duplex and it's two attached units and one of them is less than a thousand square feet, there's the difference is what you call them. The main reason we decided to go ahead and keep the provisions for the ADU is primarily because we have to address the impact fees for ADUs differently. And so kind of for that reason is why we decided to stick with the the thousand square foot maximum limit, but it's it's really very similar in impact and size to many of the other units we're already seeing in town.

So I guess the corollary to that then is if it's not an AV, are there have you discussed what either square footage or height restrictions might end up being placed on additional units?

So the height restrictions are vary by the zoning district, but most of the zoning districts have a height limit of 35 feet, and that's essentially from the average grade to the midpoint of the pitch of the roof. We currently limit it to two stories. We did eliminate the the maximum number of stories so that in some cases someone may be able to do three stories. Some of the zoning districts, I believe, RLI residential low impact, which there's a significant amount of ROI zoning over on the West Side. I believe that has a height maximum of 40 feet.

And that particular zoning district also allows apartments already. So we do have more duplexes and triplexes and fourplexes over there. But I believe they've had a higher height limit, and they don't have the I believe they were limited to three stories instead of two.

Okay. So it sounds like the plan is, at least at this point, not to significantly change height restrictions or story restrictions.

Yeah. We're not proposing to change the maximum height. We just eliminated the the row in the development standards that had a maximum number of stories. And then we're not proposing to make significant increases to the amount of impervious surface allowed on any individual lot. There is a provision in there and it's a percentage of the lot and it's based off of the zoning district and in some cases the size of the lot.

But there is a provision in the draft that states if you have adequate soils on-site and if you can demonstrate the ability to meet the provisions of the drainage design and erosion control manual, then you could perhaps then then we would allow you to increase the amount of impervious surface on-site. But we're still trying to get some better language around that particular provision. We're working with engineering staff and current planners to try to dial that in a little bit. We don't want it to be a 100%. And right now, it doesn't have a maximum amount shown with it.

Most people don't have soils that wouldn't allow that type of, impervious surface coverage. And most people, you know, you have to have tree protection, and most people wanna have some part of a yard, or garden or, you know, lawn, at least between the house and the sidewalk or something.

Thanks, Grace. Any other questions?

Yeah. I I I guess I have a question that's less technical and more kind of educational and outreach related. Sure. And just thinking about and selfishly in this commission to think about the role of history, historical knowledge, historical preservation in in this work. I'm right? And because I I think middle housing, ADUs, co living can kind of seem like a new idea, but it's actually a very old idea.

Yep.

Just being the language is changing. And so I wonder if some of the reluctance or reticence or pushback, if you're receiving that kind of pushback, is due to the fact that people don't understand that this has a long history in Olympia and other sort of commercial centers. Yeah.

I I think

And the role that you maybe think for us or other historical organizations in helping make that clear.

Yeah. I think that we would be receiving a lot more pushback on it than we are if we hadn't have already made so many code amendments to I mean, if if my perspective is that if other cities across the state had made as many changes to their code to try to allow more middle housing types as the city of Olympia has done, we did some from 2016 to 2018 and then we did some more I think between 2020 and '21. We no longer I don't believe we have any zoning districts that don't at least allow a duplex. So I think we're I think if more jurisdictions had done that type of work, we wouldn't have had these type of, you know, statewide bills pass. But, this is very similar to the types of housing that we used to allow.

You can drive around some of the neighborhoods in in the city where duplexes haven't been allowed for at least twenty years or more, but there are duplexes that there because we used to allow them. And so, I think it's it's certainly getting closer to the types of housing units that were allowed across the community years and years ago. And I think as far as historic preservation, one of the things I know off and on, I've heard that, you know, for historic preservation's sake, we may need to make some potential changes to, you know, right now an ADU can be in the front of or to the side of an existing home. And is that really appropriate in a historic preservation district? The zoning code allows it, but are the teeth that are in the historic preservation sections of the code adequate to address whatever those issues or concerns might be.

Some sometimes I mean, some people come in and the ADU looks a lot better than the existing house does and but that's not always the case. And so or at least initially as it's proposed. So there's just there's different ways to look at that. I'd like to have I actually have several examples of photographs that show middle housing types that we already have in the city of Olympia. A lot of them are older and maybe not necessarily containing all of the cutesy types of things that you see on some of the newer construction, but it's just because of the age of when they were constructed and the type of development that was being constructed then.

And then some of them, of course, are spectacular. And I think some of the best examples we have of some of these housing types are in our historic neighborhoods. So

I've got some questions. I'm concerned that the, the design of of a new construction might not be compatible with or, you know, sort of match the style of a historic structure that it's next to. I understand that probably is easier to deal with, in a historic district, but we have a lot of wonderful little neighborhoods that have not been made into historic districts yet or have individual, properties listed. So I think you mentioned something about having the design review be the entire city rather than just within certain areas. So I could see, you know, a wonderful little bungalow suddenly being towered over by a, you know, an apartment house sitting right next to it.

So I'm I've got concerns about that.

Yeah. And if if it's on a different lot, that's I I have less control.

No. If it's I'm talking thinking about being on the same lot. Right. And then the other thought I had was, well, you know, what about a nice little bungalow? Some developer comes in to buy it and to make those ADU units or those, extra units on the lot. Do these when you get a permit to do that, does it have to be an owner occupied decision, or could anybody just come in and take an empty house or a bunch of houses and start doing that? You know what I mean?

The property owner can apply for an application to to build an accessory dwelling unit or some other type of a duplex or something on the back. If there is an accept it most I actually am not positive. I could work with Britney on this after the fact. I believe all, if not all, most of the historic neighborhoods are are within the infill design review districts, and so we will be applying the infill design guidelines, which are chapter eighteen one seventy five of the Olympia Municipal Code. And and they do take a look at what's on the lot, what's on this that what's within a certain distance of the lot within, I think, 300 feet on either side.

And so there there are some things that the property owner or the applicant would have to up submit with their application. And so that's when they look at things like the roof style, the roof pitch, the color, the materials, the windows. You know? So and that's in addition to the historic preservation review. So those those types of things occur.

I would have to work I I don't have the maps up in front of me to compare the historic district boundaries to see if there are any of the historic districts that are not in the infill Design Review. So we have the Infill Design Review District. It covers most of the older neighborhoods within the city. So, like, a lot of the Northeast area, the Southeast area, some of the area, obviously, the South Capitol neighborhood and kinda down by parts of Olympia High School, parts of the basically, between Division Street down to the water on both sides of Harrison. The there's there's a lot of the the the infill design District is bigger than than where just the historic neighborhoods are, but I think all of the historic neighborhoods are in that.

So you'll there will be more protections there. What we don't do is we do and in those districts, if you were building a single family home on the lot, you would still go through design review. Outside of those districts, you can apply for a single family home, and and, basically, sometimes there's a couple of other provisions that apply around garages. But for the most part, you can build any kind of house that you want. And so in those areas, we would not be applying design review unless the city council decides to apply design review standards everywhere in the city. That obviously has staffing implications as well. So

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think you answered it partly because I live over on the West Side, and the area, I think you said, like, East Of Division going down towards the waters, that wonderful bungalow neighborhoods.

Oh, some of my favorite houses are over there. Yeah. I'm trying to show you the map, but, unfortunately, the way they did the the infill the the way they did the infill design guidelines is this blue hatched mark.

There you go.

It's a little bit harder to see, and I can't I can't fade out the background photo. Let me try something else, actually.

Oh, I can see it.

Okay. So, hopefully, you can see that. And so, like Yeah. Over on the right side, it's, you know, division down to the water, this area over here by Walnut. It stops at Walnut. I'm not even sure what this kind of over there by, Bush Park, but I can't remember the street name, like, 12th maybe. Then here's, like, the South Capitol neighborhood, and it even comes over here by O'Farrell and Eskridge. And I think the high school might be, like, right here.

Yeah.

And then some of the Southeast area and the Northeast. And that's, that's what what you kind of think of off the top of your head when you think about Olympia neighborhoods. But where we don't require design review is in some of these areas that are more well, like, down here, this is in the, the urban growth area. But where we have permitting authority, like, you know, out by LBA Woods, kind of out between Kane Road and Boulevard, you know, some of those areas. And then, like, you know, out towards Road 65 and some of you know, we just don't require design review everywhere.

So in those areas, we will have design review for single family homes, ADUs, and middle housing. I believe as proposed, we'll still do design review on ADUs, but not middle housing if you're outside of those areas.

I guess I had a couple questions.

Sure.

How would they manage if they do, like, these infill lot, or unit subdivisions, How would they manage utilities? Like, would they all have to get their water meter?

Yeah. So the this that's a great question and one that I keep asking the state because, they encourage us to be flexible. Right now, we allow a single family home and an ADU to share utilities, utility connections so they can share, they have to meet building code requirements and have it cleaned out and stuff like that, but they can they get one bill. What we're trying to do now oh, go ahead.

Let's say, well, I guess the fault to that would be are they required to meet, like, fire suppression?

Yeah. So any if right now, if you have an existing home and you want to add an ADU, If your home is sprinkled, the ADU has to be sprinkled. If the home is not sprinkled, we would certainly let you sprinkle the ADU, but we won't require it. And I believe that provision will remain in place with two ADUs. But the shared utilities piece, it's obviously a cost sharing if you can share utilities.

It could potentially become a headache if you subdivide the land later and have separate owners. So we're still trying to work out whether or not we would require them to separate the utilities at that point, which would be expensive, or if we would require some sort of a maintenance agreement. It puts the city in a bit of an awkward position if we need to go shut off someone's water and we're shutting off more than just the one person's residence. So there's a lot to think about there that I'm in conversations with our utility staff. They are looking at potential revisions to both the municipal code in regards to how we calculate equivalent residential units for utility billing purposes and then also on how we might potentially modify our utilities.

I believe, currently, if you were to build a duplex, you would have to have a separate water and sewer connection for each unit. So that might not be as challenging, but I think the ADU one is perhaps the trickiest to deal with at the moment.

For, like, sewer, a lot of times the connection points are only set up for a house in the front. Would you'd be allowed to have, like, a pump in the back?

To be determined. I mean, every time someone would have to propose this, they would have to get approval through the utilities department for meeting their the requirements. So they do have some provisions for when you can have a sewer connection that serves more than one unit, but, typically, it's very rare. So I would I could see like, in the past, we have talked about if someone were going to do a courtyard apartment or courtyard housing development where they had three or four units, well, it would have to be at least four, but no more than 12 units around a a garden green area, shared open space area. Could there be, like, a a sewer lateral that would come in that could feed each of the units from that instead of having a connection go to the road for every single unit?

Right now, the code would require a separate connection to the road for every unit.

Okay. Would the structures be required to meet energy code standards?

Yes. So, basically, they're gonna they're gonna be reviewed for compliance with whatever codes are in place at the time their application is deemed to be complete. So if they if they have to meet the the whatever the building codes are, the fire codes, the engineering standards, the energy

code codes. Right? Because the existing unit doesn't they don't have to. Right?

That's a provision in our code that says if the existing home is not and that's new. We've only been doing that for maybe Garner may remember when that happened. I wanna say it was, like, four years ago maybe.

Did I come in with the first day to do rules?

I think so. Well, not the first one, not '95 or '97 whenever we started allowing them. Okay. But somewhere in the early two early twenty twenties, we made that change so that it because what was happening is if someone wanted to create an ADU in their basement but they didn't have the ceiling height to and it was like I think we had some that were block construction and there wasn't adequate ceiling height to really be able to add the plumbing infrastructure. And so they were essentially denied the opportunity to build an ADU without incurring incredible expense.

And so there are there I believe the trade off is that there are other things that are required, like in the wall type of wall construction and in the types of

Double one hour and stuff like that.

Yeah. Yeah. I I know just enough about that to be a little bit dangerous. I can't answer specific questions about that. But, yeah, I think they they came up with, we would allow you to do this instead of sprinkling the ADU. But then they extended it to all ADUs, not just if it was an interior conversion.

Okay. That was all I

had. You

guys ask good questions.

It's company. Okay. Anything else? Thanks, Joyce. Really appreciate taking the time to do that.

Thank you. Thanks

for the invitation. Happy to be back. I haven't talked to the commission in a few years now. Oh, and thank you for letting me participate remotely. I I I'm having some mobility challenges at the moment, but I appreciate not having to walk into the building. Thank you.

You feel just that curiosity, like, are are you is Olivia kinda out ahead of most of the cities, and do you kinda

feel like a guinea pig in a lot

of this stuff as you're dealing with the state?

I I have a new appreciation for the term bleeding edge. We we We took a beating the first time we did middle housing, the second time well this one we're calling middle housing two point only because it's kind of the second time we're going through, but it feels like the third time because we also did the housing option code amendments which were under some different permissive sections of the growth management act, but not required. Now these are all required. So and it's required, but it's just different enough that we have to amend our code to make it work. So yeah.

K. Thank you.

Thanks, guys. And thank you for volunteering. I really appreciate everybody who takes the time to serve their community.

Okay, Joyce. Thank you.

Alright. Interesting stuff. Okay. Next item is upcoming events, and I believe there's special section written in here for upcoming events.

Yes. Okay. Let's see. This we have staff report for middle housing section is Long. Yes.

I think it's the last two. Okay.

So this is some time to talk about arts walk and the volunteer shifts, activity, and then feeling out the commission's hopes and interests for heritage month and the heritage awards. So Well,

let's start with Arts Walk. This morning, Yes.

Sign ups. We are tabling at ArtsWalk as part of our commitment to do a little more outreach into our community. There's been a sheet that's gone out asking for sign ups. We did basic shifts that are, like, two hours, two and a half hours, but whatever people can give to be there. I think Brittany, Melissa, and I will be there for setup and teardown.

Did that go out in the city emails?

It did go out in the city

why I haven't checked the city emails.

That's why we need to check the email because all the contacts I have for other commission members here too. Artswalk is let me look at my calendar here. Obviously, on Friday.

Thanks, Eleanor, for signing up. I just opened the document to see who, like, what there's there's some slots available.

I'll get in there too.

Yeah. It runs from five to ten on Friday night. Luminary processions at 08:30. And then on Saturday, it runs from twelve to six with procession at 04:30. So whatever you can give. If you wanna drop by for an hour or two, that would be great.

Brittany, I wanted to ask too for setup. Is somebody gonna be setting up the table and the awning, or, like, is

that gonna magically appear? I'm making an assumption that it's a yes Okay. Because our booth is the extension of the city Okay. But I will also be working on Friday, and so I'm gonna go down early to make sure it looks good.

Okay. Mhmm.

And Melissa has devised a wonderful art project to go ahead online, Eleanor. Sorry.

Sorry. Please ignore me if it's in

the email, and I just forgot. But is there, like, a map of where our booth will be so I can come find you guys?

By Captain Little.

By Captain Little? Oh, okay. Love that place.

Yes. Look for the Blue City tents. We're with, City of Olympia tents in front of Captain Little. What is that? I don't if you've been upside. Live here and not remember street names. That's what 5th In 5th in Washington. Okay. So we'll be right in that area.

Sounds good. Thank you.

It's been a long day too. I'm sorry. And we are doing an activity that Melissa has.

Did were you able did you get the email of the directions? Can you pull it up maybe? So Yes. Let me It's one page. It's not a lot of directions. We we got this.

Yeah. We made it very, very simple and fun. I'm the one who's helping for Arts Walk too to celebrate Heritage Commission, and we gotta do an art project for Arts Walk.

I brought some pieces to show you guys, but if we could pull up that

Give me a second. I'm going to join from my laptop to share my screen so that everyone can just see the whole thing. And no audio. No video.

So while you're at Artswalk, you'll be sharing information about the Heritage Commission. We'll have some flyers and some information for that, and then we'll be doing this project. And you'll just, you know, hope that was you know, point out the glue and the scissors, and let people be creative. And please create one too to add to it. So

So I'm gonna share goodness. There's a lot of things happening with the screen inside the screen. And

No worries.

Okay. It

worked. Here we go. So we are gonna have there's gonna be some doors and windows that are already colored for little itty bitty kids that don't really wanna do all that. There's gonna be doors and windows that are not colored, and we have markers so people can color whatever colors they want. So that's the first step is color the doors and windows.

The markers are washable. We have two sets of them. The second step is with the bag laying flat, you place the windows and doors where you want them, and then you glue them down with this washable glue stick. Then the next step is to draw or do whatever you want on there. And then I got some little stickers.

Two brand stickers.

These are plants, and then I have, like, little dogs and little cats. Okay. So maybe don't let people go too crazy with them because this I didn't buy a ton of them. But okay. So then if you can scroll a little bit. Okay. The optional thing is I have several sets of these decorative doofers, and you can cut the edge of the roof to to make it look kinda like, I don't know, a shingle edge or something.

Yeah. Like

a Victorian

something. So I have I have several sets of those that I'll bring. And then the next part is there was there's a couple different ways to do this, and there's there's always more than one way to eat a Reese's. So I show them here. There's gonna be a line already drawn on the bags of where to fold it at, And I'm gonna have the bags already cut to the right height so we don't have to do too much cutting on-site. And then the house the the roofs will already be folded in half. And then you take the glue, and you just put it kind of towards the middle. It doesn't need to be all over. And then you just put it on the folded part. Mhmm.

You can still open up the bag and use it for stuff, and then you have your little house.

Okay. Great. Nice.

And they can take them with them, or we can keep them. And if we keep them, we can either use a clothespin. I have a bunch of clothespins, and we can hang it on the bun thing that we'll have or whatever we have. We could just hang them all up.

And along with the awesome craft, I'm gonna print a bunch of stuff about windows. Oh, god. And so we're gonna have some historic resources for the things that we already have related to architecture on the table. And then I am I'm working on it. It's really been a long week. I know. I haven't. But on the back of the bags, we'll have labels that will be printed with verification, the website information, so that folks Yeah. It won't be they got the bag. They crossed. Yeah. Yeah. And they're yellow stickers.

Yeah. I I had for a while. I I was stapling them, just stapling the roofs on, but I kinda like that you can still use it this way. Anything And then nobody accidentally staples their finger to their back. That would be not cute.

And we can bring teeth too. Like, woah. We can see. Nearly did in your house.

Pretty cut it in

half and do an ADU on

the Yeah. I actually

Melissa went there and everything. Know?

I I thought that's all the same. I I'll show you some pictures of that.

Time on this.

I I didn't bring the whole kit and caboodle with me this time, but Britney told me that they were interested in, missing middle housing. So I I made this whole

Oh, wow.

Whole this is cottage cluster housing, and I made trees. And then this is a single family with Nice. An ADU here. And then this is an ADU up front with the four family.

You should tell by your voice.

Might give the user out.

Out. They're on, like,

bunch of different types of a cottage closet. Family, ADU, ADU single family.

Are you gonna bring that to the That's a duplex.

What? Are you gonna bring that to the Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna I'm gonna have but they're not gonna have the new windows because this like, they're just gonna have the the plain windows. No. They're they're

Thank you, Melissa, for all your work on that too. They worked so hard on putting out all these windows and doors, imagining the project. I'm just following in their wake. So thank you so much for pulling that together.

I also have some coloring pages that I'm gonna print out just in case A little little ones. Yes. Or if they're like you know how kids are acting up and they wanna go. They don't wanna they don't wanna stand around and play this game. So there's, some insides and then some outsides. I didn't want them to be too hard. I wanted it to look fun.

That's great.

So well,

that should be fun.

Yeah. If we do a project like this in the future, the hope would be to working with community partners to display it potentially too in the downtown windows or something. We do have some lines on that. I it's being so late in the season. We'd probably be able to get in there, but I have some connections that we're working on right now. So maybe not this round, but if we do it again in the fall or do a different project, then hopefully, we can have the team members leave it with us, and then we'll put it up some kind of celebration of our homes in our community. That'd be funny. Get them color and get messy at our spot. It'd be blessed. So

While we're all here, why don't we just look at the scheduling? Because I would love to get more names on this list.

You put it up on the big screen.

Yeah. I'm gonna put it up on the big screen. We can take a look at it together.

You said we have one folding table. Right? Yes. Because I have another one in my garage if we need it.

I don't know if we'll need an extra table. Well But if we do, we'll figure it out early on Friday, and then I'll Okay. I'll let you know. Okay. Yay. So now after we've seen the cool crafts that we'll be doing at

the booth Yeah. This is fun. If you guys get bored, you can make houses too.

And we can have more than three people. Like I said, these were just suggested outlines for it too. So if you're able to come in between times, three or four people would be enough for the shift. So Oh,

also, does anybody have any questions about making these things? Did I were my directions pretty good, pretty clear?

Wonderful. We've also got extra we got a bunch of glue sticks too.

Well, let's let's chat after this.

Okay. If anybody has batches of paper bags or other material they want to bring with stickers and whatnot, we won't pay no additional either. We as as we all discover too, we don't have much of a budget for the Heritage Commission right now. So a lot of you know, Melissa's donating a lot of things and a lot of work we're doing. So yeah. So we're we're working on it. There are some. Okay. Thank you, Eleanor, Garner. You have your hand up. What's up?

Well, listen. No. It was.

Okay. But

Oh, we're okay. I don't know.

I already signed up. No. Thank you. Yeah.

I can do the 11:30 to two Saturday.

Yay.

Well, I

can No. There's there's more than one spot. Yeah. Oh, we can always That way if somebody has to go find a bathroom, the it won't be unmanned.

Is also the first time we're tabling at Bart's Walk, so we don't know how busy it'll be. Yeah. Bart's Walk tends to be busy, so we're not sure how many people.

Yeah. I only made enough stuff for, like, 60 or so of those houses. I think

you can also not make more because while we're sitting there, we're not gonna be making our own houses. So I can cut stuff as we're sitting.

That's why I brought you the paper to prep more windows and doors out, and you like, you guys can color them too if you feel like it while you're there. They're easier to color them before you cut them out. But

I'm on the evening shift on Saturday, by the way. Sorry.

I was just trying to not have little kids using scissors.

I'll do that. So

I'll I'll do the late shift with Stacy on Friday.

Thank you, Connor.

It should be a great

busy time.

And then you said evening on Saturday also? Yeah. Since you two are opening, like, closing. Oh. I'm going to leave town at two. So when my shift is over, I have to drive down to Portland.

I'm gonna go wander around after two.

I know. I'm sad. The procession of the species is

I know.

I'm gonna miss it. I went for the

first time last year. It was amazing. It was really cool. Yeah. We took our dog. The the luminary. I haven't got to see that one yet.

It's on Friday night. Yes. And so I know that I'm going to go watch it and wait. If I'm the only one there, I'm gonna say, be back in five. Mhmm.

Well, I think our shift gets done right before because it doesn't start until eight. Oh, you're you're signed up for two of them. You are such a go getter.

I'll be there earlier on

Friday too, actually. So Do you want me to put your name in the slot? Go for it. Okay. Stacy. Okay.

I like it.

Oops. Yeah. Let's get go.

I picked my time space on when I could see the procession.

I don't know if can get their screen.

Plus, I figured since I created this thing that I would be there to set it up and get it rolling.

Yeah. That's good.

Do we have one person? I mean, I think everyone at this meeting is there there's only one commissioner not present, and so this is us. Can we have one person sign up for Saturday, the middle shift, just so that we at least have the

You can just take me off of the beginning one, and I can go to the middle one if you wanna do that. Because I was just doing the setup to help get things moving, but I think we'll be moving by Saturday. And I'll just change my time on my calendar to two to four.

If you're not sure right now, let us know within the next no. Not just you, but just, Steven or, Bill, if you're available or, Mark. Just let us know.

I wouldn't check and make sure. Yeah.

My wife manages our calendar much better than

I did. You got lots of littles. I'm like, no worries. It's we we I think we got at least one person on each.

I know. So I will send back into the procession. That's all I care about. Two to 04:30.

And there's a link to this in email. Right? So anyone can pop in tonight.

Yes. There's lots of emails about it.

Can, should, will. Show up, surprise us. Great. Cool.

And, yeah, even if you're not

volunteering, even if you're just stopping by, you should still come by and say hi because it'll be fun to just people that's out there. Yeah. I have a fun, exciting sort of mini announcement as part of the presence we'll be having at Artswell. I, even though we don't have a budget, was able to get a school name tag. It's

Thank you.

So We're so official. I know. I

guess as people are showing up or when we know what shift you're gonna be at or if you're gonna come to Arts Walk and you wanna stop

by the booth, you can pick up a name tag. And I just ask that you wear it

when you're doing commission stuff. Right.

Don't wear it to the bar.

And then don't don't wear it to the bar. My

husband works for the bank, and we do volunteer stuff all the time. And, like, we have to, like, take the shirts off and bring a different shirt because we can't be seen doing anything. Yeah.

No. That's that's fair. Please represent the commission responsibly.

And as you go through the work plan, new commissioners and stuff too, you'll see that part of our work plan and part of our goal is to do more outreach and education opportunities and stuff too. So this is one of our first kind of easy tie ins that was Yeah. Are we tabling that

hard spot?

It's right there. So

It's literally two of us. So you seem like we might be Ready. Ready.

Education component. Yes. So

We have a we're working on developing a series, an informational series about taking care of historic properties. And our first tentative guest speaker that we're working with right now is a woodworking company that does windows and takes care of historic windows.

And Melissa said wonderful ideas for the series, and this gentleman just popped out of nowhere and said, hey. I wanna do this with you. And they're like, hey. Better. I mean, I'm gonna come to us.

So we're we're setting all that up. What the the farmers' right market right now is doing a really cool thing called lunch and learn series. Mhmm. And they have, like, a little guest speaker and a little presentation they do every Thursday. And I'm kinda hoping that maybe it'll evolve into something like that where we can Okay.

And the other event that we offer

you Awards. Yeah. Jade, do you wanna I'll let you go for it.

If you want.

So

I'm very brain dead. I've spent all week looking at Well,

maybe you and I together will have a full Okay. Because I'm kind of brain dead. Not sure where I'm at either. So but the other thing that we've done historically for the Heritage Commission is May is heritage month, and we used to do

a big

awards gathering for that. Words vary, I think.

It's varied.

It's varied. Yeah. We not big. Yeah. So there's some knowledge about that and things out there about that. And, obviously, Heritage Month is just a couple weeks away. We didn't have time to plan anything because it takes a little while if you're gonna do big awards to do. So we're trying to reimagine what that looks like for us as a commission. I think some other things that we've talked about too is there'll probably be a proclamation from the city there. I think you're working on one for that as well. So that's I'm sure Brittany will let us know when that's gonna be so we can

show up to support that.

Oh, picture a with city council. Exactly. Cool.

Have some fun moments with that. There's also other historical commissions, heritage groups, like the Big Little House that do awards and other things too. Even the State Arts Commission does awards. How are ours different from that? How are we gonna celebrate our community? What kind of awards do we wanna give out? Do we wanna do awards? There's a lot of questions around that. But we do wanna recognize, at least with the proclamation, we talked about potentially maybe doing one award for next month in us. Oh, I think we were talking about doing two awards. Potentially, awards. One. This

is top secret, but it actually worked out well today because one of the awards we're thinking about giving is an internal award, and we were thinking about recognizing Gary for his service to the commission. And so he's not here today, but so surprise. No. But and then the other would

be something external. So And and tying that in with we had talked about potentially doing something in the summer, some kind of a picnic or maybe a meet and greet at the Percival House down there. And with the focus of, like, the past, present, and future, because that ties into heritage and everything else too and recognize invite everybody that's won in the past, show where we're at in the present and look where we're going in the future as well. So having some kind of event that can tie that in as well later in the year, and then getting ready for something else in next year. So those were all things in progress.

I think we also talked briefly. Garner and Brittany and I went to the Arts Commission and did a little thing like, hey, we're the Heritage Commission. This is what we're doing. And as we were talking to, potentially, Arch is the city focus right now, arts, culture, and heritage. So maybe we just do an award for one for arts, one for culture, and one for heritage and work with the arts commission to recognize that at some point. There's there's a lot of ideas.

I've also uploaded the idea with the Olympic Historical Society to see the commission in future years would partner with their awards because we've worked so closely already, and they're, like, our main historic organization presence outside of the city. So there could be a partnership in the future. I think for this year, big question mark will be because what we are learning, as we're all learning together, we can go as big or small as you all want to. And so if anyone has any interest in recognizing a certain category or thing and you want to advocate for the awards, having more of a presence, please reach out to the MORE committee. But for preservation month, we've got the proclamation going.

I think the walking tours will be a nice way that we can celebrate and put some things on social media and then cross pollinate there. And I guess it's difficult to gauge interest as we're all sort of, it would be nice to know who's got interests and what categories and how big to pursue.

I guess my personal telling is is that I think it's it's busy time right now. I mean, we're already jumping into a lot of stuff, and I don't wanna overload everybody for sure. I think if we had unfortunately, we lost March, and I think we could have done some good work on on awards in preparation for May for that. I think we might be a little pressed to try to do awards in May. Give it up. Yeah. We don't have a. And in the past, we I mean, we've done it in May. We've done it at other times during the year. There's no magic necessarily to doing it in May.

It's just kinda nice to tie in the proclamation. And there's something to say that we don't just regroup and potentially really think about how we wanna do words

Yeah.

And and have enough time to actually think

Yeah.

I think I think this year, maybe we do something low key or, I don't know, move it further down in the year. But I really I think people always need a good excuse to get dressed up. So I kinda like the idea. I mean, like, the the historic society has already had they had the event in I think it was in February, and then tomorrow night, they're having a gala. So, like, come on. Like, what are we? Like Yeah.

I really like the idea of pursuing. Yeah. Pretty easy words. We've never done that in the past, and it just makes sense.

I Yeah.

Because we would probably get close to the same people and just do it potentially, and just trying to figure out what those categories would be like. And just if I'm I'm always all about partnering too, especially when we have budget, being able to partner with other people in the community that are doing really significant work too. Yeah.

We just have to think of, like, events we can wear our fancy name tags too. Right?

Okay. So I think we're good with the proclamation. We can hear, sorry, Bill, Steven, Eleanor, if you've got comments, then, we'd love to hear from you as well.

Steven looks like he's gotta say something.

Working on the mute thing.

I don't know if

I'm unmuted.

Well, I actually had an idea for a heritage award nominee, but I don't know if we have enough time to pull it all together. There is a nonprofit in town that does a lot of fun stuff. It's KBRD Radio. Anybody ever listen to it? They have nostalgic music. They transmit out of Lacey. They serve Olympia, and, they just do old timey stuff. They do twenties music. And since they're a nonprofit, I thought it was kind of appropriate.

That's cute. Okay.

Listen to them and see what you think.

Okay. A

b r d, K bird. K

bird. I

mean, what would be, like, the most low key way that we could distribute an award? Like, what do we we have to get some sort of plaque made. Right? No. We need to

There's paper. Need for

A piece of paper.

A piece of paper and a frame.

There you go.

Okay. So that, like, takes

And I saw some days? Fancy paper in the supply closet that's got the nice border when you give people There you go. Still.

Think that

LM had a comment. Yeah.

Okay. So then could we, like, invite the people to the city hall and give it to them?

Or city hall. Or I think

We could. I just

Rushing it to tie into

the proclamation? Probably not because it's No. No. But, I mean, May is, like, a longer longish month. Like Why

don't so here's the thought. Why don't we think about it before the main meeting? And then

I don't know. The main meeting's at the end, though.

Well, I know. So

I think Eleanor had a comment too.

Alright. It wasn't it wasn't a super boring comment. I was gonna agree with Garner that it it may be a little bit rushed, but now I'm excited, and I think we should try our best.

Basically,

my comment is no comment.

Just wanna make sure you're heard as well.

So How does everybody feel about recognizing Gary for because Gary's been on the commission for as long as you? How

long? No. That's nice to be a bit.

It's pretty

close. Kinda goes good with the old timey radio.

I I think staff recommendation to you all, it might be more feasible to plan the awards, maybe have a subcommittee, and work on how that works out to discuss more fully at the May meeting and then to have them given out and at the picnic and invite folks. And then have the difficult thing.

I like that idea.

I think that makes sense. And then there's also the excuse to invite external groups to the meetings and, like, network and see what they're up to.

Like, pay for it.

Yeah. Yeah. So as far as people interested in heritage awards, like, is there a group of folks that who wants to opt out of doing heritage award work?

I mean, traditionally, though, I've been

to. Yes. So I guess you'll coordinate. And then we can also share the date of the more meeting. Mhmm. So folks who are interested in participating can join in that way.

Cool. And if we yeah. And if we wanna stay in the work business, let's look at partnership in the future. But Yeah. Yeah. There's room too with the arts digest too. Maybe we can put something in there this month too that just says heritage preservation month. We'll get was supposed to pass the warranties or something too. So we might be able to do some recognition for some of the social media or some of the news releases from the city as well. Just a a reminder and stay tuned for future events

from there.

Or reimagining the Heritage Commission, we can reimagine it at all.

As long as we're within CLG bounds. Yeah. Yeah. Everything on top is extra. Yeah. Right.

That's it.

That were those are

the two main events that were on this business item. Okay. And I think do you have anything else for the committee report? No. I don't

think so at this time. I'm just asking along,

but I'm sure we can let you run the committee.

Yeah. I think. Just in the interest.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. We have another more committee scheduled in May. We have a recurring one that we do, so we'll let you know when that meeting's happening, whoever would like to join us, and then we'll

start working on the summer plans and stuff. K. We'll need schedules for that. So these were

our two big ones for the spring and the workshop series too. So we'll have something up on that because I saw you had emailed that person too. So, yeah, we'll have we got a couple more things to move to now.

These two are launched. So Okay. Cool. Gotcha.

Well, that's it. And what's the drink?

We all good? Everyone's so excited. Are are we awake? Are we alive? We need more sugar. I'm ready for dinner. Good. Yeah.

This sweet that has, like, a jelly on it or, like, something really sugary.

Y'all are missing out. Make sure you come in first or two. So Yeah. Least we can. Yeah.

It's your day here.

Well, probably.

Taking home. Do we know what's in the I don't know.

I'm gonna probably yeah. And then I guess for the folks online, see you at Arts Walk. Thank you for being here today.

Yeah. Take a look at your schedule, see if anyone else can squeeze it. Timing.

Yep. Even if it's an hour, it'll help out. Give us a bathroom break. It'd be great. Thank you, folks.

And then Bye, everyone. Bye. Oh my gosh.