Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

e go and now we shouldn't have an echo I don't know why I have to do it twice I mean you saw me do that right mhm yeah okay

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e e just testing really quick if I can be heard in the room yes ma'am can you hear me I can hear you why aren't our cameras on so it says that the host has blocked the ability to do video um I didn't do that on purpose I've never run a a webinar before so I don't know if you get like more settings within the meeting to try to update that um let me Google it hold on I mean I don't mind not being on camera oh we'd love your face w p our video right now oh okay does it still say that Angie oh nope now it'll let me turn it on I guess I'll actually turn some light on so you can maybe see my face I have my living room set up so that it's like a cave because I hate the big light and that's great until I go to

get on a zoom and I'm like oh I guess people might want to be able to see yeah so I have my Nifty little mushroom lamp oh it doesn't show up very well but that's neat that illuminates my face a little bit I love it yeah it does kind of look like you're a gamer on YouTube yeah um I finally have a new webcam at work so I don't have to wear a headset there anymore but I have like a bigger headset and I look like I'm working Air Traffic Control I don't know why our um cameras are not turning on in council chambers that is interesting usually when I click the button it will eventually come on maybe I'm going try to power it off and see if that works yes can you still hear me yes ma'am hello that it yeah oh there you are

okay can you hear me just last time yes ma'am wonderful so another thing that I get to St right so I made myself a script so that I e e e

e e e okay are we ready to get started oh we don't quite have a quorum yet okay I think we'll give it a few more minutes sounds like a plan

e e all right let me start recording and then we'll be ready to go okay let's call to order the 423rd regular Planning Commission meeting um will you do roll call please yes ma'am commission member Ivy present commission member 10 I mean uh commission member santiano commission member I don't see commission member Valeria commission member Peters present commission member stepper and Todd rwi asked for an excused absence commission member tan are you there r and commission member stepper just walked in we do have a quorum perfect and it sounds like we do have a new commissioner to welcome this evening uh Nick Ivy thank

you welcome to the group I don't know do if we do anything special when we add someone or if we're just acknowledging that we have a new commissioner it's just an acknowledgement but um I believe Nick is employed at the Army Corps of Engineers um and he is a a Wala County resident he doesn't live in the city but we won't hold that against him he he does live on the outskirts of the the West end of town so uh thank you Nick for joining the commission and um your willingness to serve your community glad to be here John do you also want to lead the conversation on appearance of fairness Doctrine uh not really uh I canine thank you the appearance of fair Doctrine is a rule of law requiring government decision makers to conduct non-court hearings and proceedings in a way that is fair and unbiased in both appearance and fact the doctrine requires that adjudicatory or quasi judicial public hearings meet two requirements they must be procedurally fair and they must appear to be conducted by impartial decision makers by following the appearance of fairness requirements local governments have a method for disqualifying decision makers from quasi judicial hearings who have prejudged the issue who have a bias in favor of one side in the proceeding who have a conflict of interest or who cannot otherwise be impartial X parte communication between a decision maker and a proponent or opponent of the matter being decided is prohibited per

RCW sorry 42. 36.0 60 and then there are two articles that are helpful sorry one is an article and one is a video um for learning more about the appearance of fairness uh Doctrine which hopefully people had a chance to review ahead of the meeting are there any questions or concerns hearing none um we have public comment on the agenda is there any public in the chamber or online no ma'am okay and that brings us to the consent agenda items so in the consent agenda we have the agenda for this meeting and the minutes from the last meeting and we are we adopting parliamentary procedure again or is that just a standard to be listed there it's just always there okay perfect uh so we have the agenda and the minutes did everyone have a chance to review them if there aren't any questions or concerns I would entertain emo motion you got to turn on your mic was that to me to me I don't know um I move to accept the minutes thank you get a thank you I think the motion would be to uh uh accept the consent agenda because we can do the whole that whole as one piece I'm sorry okay I

remove my motion to accept minutes and move to accept the consent agenda thank you are you still interested in seconding commissioner tan yes second thank you we have a first in a second is there any discussion hearing none all those in favor say I I I any oppose same sign I don't know if you guys are catching it better in there I only heard myself and uh commissioner tan vote hi are we how many do you need we would need a majority of the people present so I think I heard one in the room so we have an even split of three in favor and three not voting I also said I or I don't know did that get okay you're the one in the room I'm counting unless I've missed someone else in there I Brandon okay we've at least got a majority um four votes in favor two abstaining um that brings us to our regular agenda item the comprehensive plan periodic update I've made it so that he can share his screen great thank you uh so what we're going to do tonight is we have Justin barlocker with jub Engineers uh and planning um as they're our consultant uh that's going to work with us throughout the comprehensive Plan

update process and Justin has prepared a short slide it's basically what we're kind of doing is a crash course into the comprehensive plan amendment process and then at the tail end of it we're going to kind of focus on the first efforts that we'll be working towards kind of the heavy lift of of getting going um and feel free to ask questions as Justin goes along um or drw your questions down and we can ask them at the end however it works for you um we want this to be kind of an open dialogue with the only thing on the agenda for the evening so um with that I will turn it over to Justin all right thank you John um would you like me to share my screen and to go through the slides uh yeah that that's probably more efficient okay sounds good so as John said my name is Justin barlocker I'm with JB Engineers um we're the on call planning and engineering firm for uh City of College Place um as we continue forward this year um one of our main tasks will be doing this comprehensive Plan update as required by um the growth management act um there's the growth management act in the state of Washington started in 20 or 1990 um and several cities and counties were required to op or required to plan under the

growth management act and then several cities opted to plan under it and the growth management Act is um is a planning process that cities are required to to plan under and there's rcws um that that regulate the items that need to be planned for and um and reviewed and one of those that we'll be going into further today is the the urban growth boundary and the city limits and the population forecasts um through the um that the for the for the next 20e cycle um the City of College Place is a fully planning City within the growth management act um and so is wwal County and in fact since wal county is every city within the county has to also follow uh the growth management act um for this process this graphic here um shows the cycles that and Which counties are required to update their plans per each cycle um Wala county is in the gray so it's their comprensive Plan update is due on um in 2020 and that the update cycle is from 2024 to 2026 um so we're we're towards you know the first quarter of that is done um and we'll be pushing hard um these next 18 months to to review the comprehensive plan bring it to you um in periodic meetings for updates and and comments um as we go through the process

for this year the there is a lot of new changes through different house bills and Senate bills um that we'll be looking at and incorporating into the comprehensive Plan update a lot of these um new requirements are due to housing um there the state's projected a a housing need especially for um lower and they call it the missing middle housing um so it's the middle to lower income housing um that they're trying to push and trying to make sure that that cities are planning for them and then they're also um updating their their development regulations and Zoning codes to make sure that there's opportunities for this type of housing to happen mandatory elements so the growth management act requires each city and county when they do a comprehensive plan to look at all of these elements um at a comprehensive look at it and then also coordinating with um the cities and counties within their jurisdiction and then coordinating it with the water plan and the sewer plan that the city has and make sure that that the growth um that's projected for population wise is also we're also Meeting those needs within the um other plan elements so uh we need to look at land use housing Capital facilities plan utilities Transportation Economic Development and Parks and Recreation and then in addition to the comprehensive Plan update when that's completed and and we've reviewed all the policies and the elements we'll be coming back and looking through

the development regulations as well and making sure there's consistency between the comprehensive plan and the development regulations and making and the development regulations are are going to be the enforcement tool to to help implement the comprehensive plan goals and policies uh this is a timeline that kind of generally talks about how the steps that will be taken through the process I this is from the Department of of Commerce and we might modify this timeline a little bit as we go forward um but it's a general rule of thumb that we'll be following um first starting off on making a work plan um and then identifying uh there's a checklist that the state has that goes through all of those elements that we had on the previous page and all of the state requirements and mandates that are required um and we go through that checklist and identify areas that um have already been addressed in the previous comp plan um that we just need to review and and um check and make sure that it's still what the what the city wants um and then also identifying areas where new regulations um have been applied and that we need to address in the current comp plan so we'll be doing um that um and coming back to you with um this checklist and identifying okay here's here's where in the plan we're we're meeting the requirements and then these are where we're um need to update and and fill in um a big portion of the compl Plan update will be a community engagement plan and that's meeting with the public

having open houses um meeting with with the council and the commission um going over um any new things that the city wants that um wants to implement also identify what the community wants and needs [Music] um and see how they want their Community to [Music] grow um and then initiate the county City collaboration and public engagement um a big portion of this comp plan update will be collaborating with the county um and and city of w Wala too just to make sure that that the plans are consistent um the County's started this process already um there's some countywide planning policies that have been uh drafted up and and looking to get approved um in the near future um and the ne and the portion that we're working on now is looking at the future growth um population numbers and housing numbers um that are going to be applied to the county and then also distributed to each City so and that's what we'll be getting into uh more tonight um then real quick as we go forward we'll be you know updating the plans and regulations [Music] um looking at the urban growth boundary um see if there's areas that we want to that we're able to grow um or need to grow based on on the the population numbers um update the comp plan then we'll go into development regulations hold hold public meetings and meet with the city um and Community to to get these plans adopted is there any questions at this point I'm kind of quickly going through

this part because um as an overview but if there's any questions please let me know hey Justus in a quick question yeah what is the Govern that uh would overview do the overview and uh refine this uh comprehensive plan I'm sorry you you cut out a little bit did you say who's the governing authority to review and update the comp plan right is the committee I mean is the uh within the city itself yes City the city's the governing authority to review and update the the comp plan um it will need to go uh to the Department of Commerce with the state for review for consistency with the um with the state requirements um and then that will be done at the beginning and end of the process um as well okay very good thank you I have a question this is umia sanano where in the timeline are we now or is this a timeline that we have not started but it will be soon we're at the very beginning of the timeline um we haven't quite started um the work plan effort right now we're doing coordination with the with the county um regarding the land Capacity Analysis and getting started um on the population projection review um but we will be starting this work plan and checklist very shortly um so as we mentioned the the one of the main efforts of the comprehensive plan is looking at your 20-year growth of the

city and defining where um and defining that you have enough land capacity uh to meet the growth um that you're anticipating there is a a kind of a standard process six-step process that's typically used um to do the line Capacity Analysis and I'll go through that here in a minute um but the whole idea is to look at you know how much vacant land the city has how much population growth you're anticipated to have uh within the city um and then apply that to to then determine do you have enough available vacant land for future growth or do we need to identify other areas um for the city to grow um and to get to get additional land so the the current methodology that that we're looking at doing um and this is all very preliminary at this point so please if you guys have suggestions um or comments about this methodology as as um I go through them please let me know um and we can bring that back to the to the table to review um but the first step is to determine the existing land within the urban growth area um so I'm sure everybody's familiar with the between the city limits and the urban growth area the city limits um theoretically is supposed to identify what your 20-year growth is going to be um so the steps to do that is to identify any vacant land so that would be any land within the city that has an improvement value of $500 or less

um and identify any partially used land and that is a parcel that's um maybe has a a Improvement on it but it's a larger parcel and it can be developed into at least three addition lots and and that would be considered a partially used land and then an underutilized land is a is a piece of property that would um let's say a residential um home within a commercial zone so it's a lesser um intense use in a higher intense zone so there's a potential that it could be red redeveloped to a higher utilization so that's the first step identifying all three of those types of of properties within the city um and and see where where that shakes out and what those um what those acreages are uh question yeah so is this a standard way of categorizing line types it seems like it would not catch maybe some types of lots that you know based on Improvement values of $1,000 instead of 500 or and know can only be divided into two instead of three I mean how how much how maybe you could describe how how standard this these categories are over this is a stand right now it's pretty standard um from a guide book that that the states put together there are some other jurisdictions within the within the state that are modifying these numbers a little bit um so for instance Spokan County looks at vacant land is is land that has an improvement value of less than

5,000 um and their partially utilized land is has to be able to be split into eight lots and not three lots um to be a little bit more realistic on on that and then they're underutilized um is similar to this but it also has another caveat that if you're if the the use is has a value on the property that's eight times more than the value of the land then it's not considered an underutilized um property thank you yep I do have question also um these land are they private yeah uh land uh public land or company this would all be well I'll get to that and and then um when we get down to step three but right now at this point it would all be any any property within the city that that meets these requirements um but later on in the process we will deduct out any um public land just Justin this is John yeah um the the like the Improvement value of less than $500 um or the three lots those are these are numbers that are based off of a previous meeting that the jurisdictions had together and this is kind of essentially what the county is proposing isn't that correct that's correct yeah yeah okay so in terms of feedback um I mean I I I'm would be pushing I'm

going to be pushing for for higher numbers like on maybe eight Lots or less or greater um or the $5,000 value um what the Spokane County is using but yeah and those numbers seem a little bit more realistic of you know giving some incentive to a land owner to to develop you know these smaller Lots it's to split into three lots there's not going to be a huge need um and it really doesn't have a big impact either to the city I have a question um those lots so when it says um large enough to split into into however many three or eight or however many those are lots that will be identified within the city limits or are we would we be asking County to um to make part of um I forget what the process is called um to make County Land part of the city so that then we can expand more on that yes correct or would we yeah is it already existing land within city limits or would we be asking the county to um do some kind of annexation so that the city can have more land this would be land with that's within your current Urban growth area so it's it's your current city limits plus the additional Urban growth area that is land that could be annexed into the city right so your step one heading says um determine existing land within the ug but we're also we also look at the lands within this existing

City Limits the vacant Lots or underutilized Lots um to determine what are available spaces for future development or yeah and if it's in the ug Urban growth area then theoretically those properties would Annex in at some point and be developed correct so then once all that land is identified on step one um we start subtracting different elements um to find the buildable area on those properties so the first um step two is to subtract non-developable land and that would be um land that's either [Music] been approved for for a per it for a project or has been pre-planted or final platted um and the date that that the county was looking at is between 2020 and 2025 so if there's been a pre-plate that's been approved at that time time then that wouldn't be um applied to this this review um the other lands that would be removed as and identified as non-developable as any critical area Wetland and steep slope area um then also we there was some talk about some buffers along streams as well that would be non non-developable as well so that land would just come off the top and and we'd remove that from many acreage uh from a parcel other lands that would be removed

is um lands that would be needed for a other purpose or a public purpose and um this was the comment earlier so any as you develop a property you're going to have to account for roads um future Parks future utility um extensions um and future schools and a general rule of thumb is that's usually about 25% um of a property that gets developed so if you had a a 1 acre parcel that's being developed we'd take off 25% so you'd have you know 3/4 of an acre that we would then consider as developable step four is take the developable uh land that's available and identify a market Factor um so this is just identifying lands that would are just putting together a number that um either wouldn't be developed um there's certainly certain um property owners that will never or don't want to develop their property right now so we have to account for that um and then there's just land that's not going to be as easy to develop or doesn't have that need so um the other idea for this is to identify lands that um or to make it not so tight that um it raises inflation and cost of housing because there's not enough developable land so we want to have a a good uh buffer in there to have enough land within the city um for development in the future that

won't raise housing prices either so um what's being identified is that the vacant land would you know straight vacant land would be um have a 15% Market factor and a partially used would have a 55% Market Factor um so that that percent is what wouldn't be developable um there's some this one we'll probably be discussing a little more with the county on that there's other jurisdictions that use a 30% Market factor for all lands um yeah Justin I think the last time we went through this process I I want to say it was like a 25% Market factor and it included vacant and partially used so would this be a a more realistic application do you think if it could be with that partially used being 55% that's I think that might help um you know weed out some of those smaller lots that that are um have a have a structure on it um we would have to look at the num you know start applying the numbers to it and really see what the differences are between those the 15% for vacant land seems a little low I could see that increasing um thank you for the comparison what what is the basis for these numbers is it or choosing from a range based on some some puristic or or just pulling numbers out or what

sorry curious yeah um some of it is these numbers are coming from a state document that was put together on doing a l Capacity Analysis um other numbers are some industry standards that are that are used um we could get you some more detailed information on that as well if you'd like I think that's enough for me for now thanks okay so steps one through four that will identify you know the land buy zone of what's available um to be developed and and that in the end that will give us an acreage number and say let's say there's 20 30 Acres within you know the multif family Zone that that's developable um the next step is then going into um step five determine the population capacity of that zone and that will um will be determining a unit capacity by land use and so that's your housing household size um for each type of unit that would go on that property and then also determining the the density of development within each Zone type and L use type um typically you know each zoning designation will have a a minimum lot size typically don't use the minimum lot size when doing this analysis we'll look at what's what's been built uh realistically built within the last five years or so um so in this instance we would look

at each Zone look at what's been built in that zone what the density was and then that's what would be applied for a realistic future development within that zoning designation and then applying a household size to that um to the amount of units that would be developed within that zone um to determine how what the population future population growth capacity is within each Zone designation I got a question yeah based on these uh Market factor numbers you're looking out for vacant partially used undeveloped what do the numbers look like in an annexation saying you exceed some of those numbers and you're looking for more growth but you can't acquire it based on too low of numbers does that make sense is an annexation considered in the next three years is I guess the other part of the question um so since this is looking at your Urban growth area and your annexation would have to be within your Urban growth boundary and so if if we've identified where the urban growth area is then annexation in with within that Urban growth area wouldn't have to go through this process because it's already been reviewed during this comp plan update did answer that no okay sorry I I came from wallall we were annexed in in a Table Rock subdivision out there uh I didn't know

the guidelines to why we were annexed there's positives and negatives for it for a lot of different angles I'm just trying to understand why we would or would not expand the boundaries if we're looking for more housing options and we do not have them based on vacant 15% um numbers just I'm just in curious no and that's what we'll be doing for this this compound update is looking at these numbers trying to make sure you get enough land um so you can Annex in Future Property um and and that's what we're doing today I have a question has the the area for the urban urban growth area has that been identified or this is just um I guess has that been identified let me pull up I'll bring a I have a city map here that shows um so I we have some areas of interest um so we have our existing Urban growth boundary which is very small almost non-existent um because we've annexed a lot of the areas for instance south of m road we've annexed a couple hundred acres there for future growth yep down there thank you Justin um there's some areas um potentially south of the Martin Airfield property that might be of some interest in in coming into an urban growth area there's areas up near on the north end of town um just west

of the manufactured home park that's up there um used to be a sod farm that a developer owns and is interested in and bringing that into our Urban growth area y um and then I guess jumping back down to the south side of town again for those of you remember the last time we went through this process there's there's property down there both commercial and potentially residential that that there's some interest um for expanded Urban growth area so we we do you can see all the larger Parcels in in yellow um which are our residential zones that look undeveloped um couple of them uh in The Villages of Garrison Creek those larger ones off of Garrison Village Way those are have preliminary one of them has a final plat on it and the and it the homes are in plan review right now but the second half of that um has preliminary plot approval so we'll be able to take those are those numbers that um the uh preliminary final plot numbers in step two we'll be able to pull those out so those will count those as essentially developed lands um but we still have some un large unplanned areas that can accommodate a lot of growth which um uh so it'll just it'll be very interesting to see once we settle on some you know fin numbers and and all these various steps that we have to work through with the county um how that works out for us whether or not um and we haven't talked about this yet but the population allocations and and how those that population will equate to to the need for dwelling

units yeah so in this exhibit here the everything that's um as a zoning designation um so anything that has a color assigned to it is within the city limits right now um and then this red line is the Run growth boundary uh for the city so there's only just a few Pockets um that could be annexed in at this point I understand that the yellow area it's residential what is blue and what is red and what is green uh blue is Public public use so uh the schools um and then city city owned property um the the red is commercial property um the green is that a downtown designation John yeah that's our College Avenue downtown district yeah uh and then the the purple would be also public that's the the university um and then the darker brown is the the multif family is the dark brown is multif family so apartment complexes yeah um are the Red Zone which is was mentioned as commercial um also allows for multif family development within it apartment complexes so the yellow is not necessarily single family but the uh Brown is multif family right the the yellow is primarily single family which could include um duplexes accessory dwelling units Town Homes but not apartment buildings but

not apartment buildings we we have a fairly flexible residential district um that being said there is the ability to do like a master plan development which allows the developer to make a proposal to do apartments and mixed use development within that those yellow districts they just it's a higher level of scrutiny that they have to go through okay thank you I had a question about step five yeah I think it was five maybe it was six sorry my screen oh yeah it's five so you were looking at people per unit using historic and other data and maybe you said this I apologize could you maybe just touch on that again what do you mean by other the state has has through their modeling through the office of financial management they do population projections and housing projections um and they're proposing that or and they've identified um household populations based on the the use type so a single family home may have a higher um population than a apartment unit does um and so applying a different household size to each of those types of of uses um but then State data is is coming out saying that household sizes is shrinking and it has been shrinking um due to a number of factors and so they're projecting that in the future in 20 years that the household size will be slightly lower than what it is today when you say size you're not talking square foot you're talking people per House people per

house yeah so right now it's about 2.4 people per house sure it's going down got it uh how how often are these models updated I guess the reason I'm asking is because uh without going into great detail I think we can all agree that there are some changes a foot in uh demographics immigration if you will potentially affecting the city and wondering if those might affect projected um population over right so the the state does do estimates and updates on an annual basis however for a comprehensive Plan update they issue a um it's called like a growth management act um population forecast and that's the forecast that every jurisdiction has to use for the comp plan updates um okay but they do do um estimates every year on future population growth so and current current housing or current housing and current um population as well so then you know as we go into step six that's just comparing the population and unit capacity uh with the forecast so the capacity that we have within the city um Urban growth area today and then identifying what the difference is with the future forecast and then then that then applies into identifying if future land area is needed um and then then the next process would if if it is um identify where the best place for that future growth is going to

be so the next couple slides will go into the population projections that looking at um that we've been reviewing with the county um starting last week and we'll continue to review with the county in the upcoming uh few weeks and then we'll get into the projected housing needs as well so um as I mentioned that the growth management act um has or the office of financial management issues this growth management act projections for each County within the state um the projections are are specific to a county they're not specific to a city so they'll give it out to the they'll distribute it to the county and then the county and the jurisdictions within the county uh meet and work together to then distribute that population throughout the the jurisdictions within the [Music] county um these projections are also Prov Ed on a on a low medium and high range um so high would be the the highest growth factor um that could be anticipated and the low is um is a low growth City most jurisdictions are in the the mid to high range um so so today that um we're looking at a population of 30 or 63,000 within the county um with a future growth of up to uh 67 334 and that's with the medium range um and then also the housing is projected to go from 24,000 to

28,000 the the County's been reviewing the data and looking at different growth rates of of each jurisdiction within the county so not every jurisdiction is growing at the same rate um we could argue that the college place is is growing faster um than the the county or or the city of walawala um and [Music] so they potentially could be um need to have a higher amount of of the of the percentage of future growth um so that's what we're looking at today um these numbers here is the the City's population in 2010 of 8,767 or 65 um that percent share at that time in 2010 was 14.9% of the County's um total population um in 2020 um the population grew to 9,902 which increased a whole a percentage um of the County population to 15.8 um and this has been a pattern for the last uh 30 40 years is that the City of College places getting a larger percentage of the County's whole population [Music] um question yeah uh hopefully not too difficult to answer but is that because we are taking Land from the county growing in uh acreage or because we have a higher density within uh land available

over uh partial it's a little of both um not so much as is taking land that's already developed within the county but that you're developing at a denser rate as the County and then also um development with the growth management act it's it ideally development should happen within cities that have utilities that can build at a a higher density as well thank you have a question yeah I'm sorry um would you know if um there's been benchmarking that has been done with cities similar to place and size and area like um you know square footage mileage whatever um and has that benchmarking T been taken into consideration to prepare this this proposal uh what like benchmarking of what their rates are and what their future growth is going to be um everything to do so has um that us was a similar City same size looked at in order to um see what how this city could grow and and how this city could benefit in the long run yeah not at this point I don't believe have you done anything like that in the past John well I mean there there are com cities that are comparable to us in size we used to measure up pretty well to like Airway Heights although they've seen a tremendous amount of growth and they' surpassed us um Liberty Lake um is a similar size city um but it you know

there's so many different factors from one Community to another that will affect growth from you know jobs and vicinity to other larger areas and jobs you know um so it's it's hard to compare um ourselves with other communities when you're talking about growth um it's such a regional thing and the amount of land available um you know some cities you when when the growth management act started they were able to get a large you know chunk of land and in within they either annexed into their city or within the urban growth area and so they have that available for for future growth um College places doesn't have that at this point and [Music] so let's take that into account um so for future growth we're looking at it's been proposed to have um that College Place would be 17% of of the of the 20year growth projection um and which would increase the population to to [Music] [Music] you know plan for higher numbers [Music] um or not let me ask you a question so that

growth is projected on everything else staying the same so the number of employers the um opportunities for recreation all of that is that is that right is is it just projected on um birth rates or is it also projected on people coming in from other areas and retiring here or wanting to raise their families here it looks at birth rates and migration rates and yeah question um I believe you had said that these projections come from um the office of Finance Management um I I guess I'm struggling with them a little bit and maybe you can't speak to it but um what I've been hearing prior to this information is that we actually have a a negative growth curve that there are more there are less people being born here than are dying here and any growth in the community is from people moving in which is increasingly hampered as our cost of housing goes higher and higher um and there doesn't seem to be a break coming in that so projecting continued growth seems overly positive yes I have seen those reports as well um and that Tipping Point is out past this 20year time frames from what I understood um really I mean we're we're already over 400,000 for the median for a home and and we think the Tipping Point for homes being unaffordable is more than 20 years away oh no that's not what I meant I meant the what you were saying with the growth

rate I've seen those same numbers too that the growth and um the death rate's going to be larger than the than the birth rate within the state and so uh the population forecast is to grow for the Statewide is going to be from the in migration um most likely okay um that doesn't make sense on a a state level to me my understanding and I'm I'm not an economist so I may have misunderstood the last Economist presentation that I watched but my understanding is that it it's already negative for our County okay okay I don't have a suggestion to make just acknowledging that I think that uh these these numbers even though they came from ofm might be more hopeful than we can expect to actually see come to fruition Angie what where where did you get the information from was that from a presentation that was done yeah it was the last Economic Development Committee presentation that had the state Economist uh that comes in so I think that would have been in November how at the Port okay thank you so I just wanted to share I've lived here for for almost 18 years and when I moved to this area and we uh were looking for a house the real estate agents were telling us that there were approximately 10,000 in waa Wala so roughly 50,000 and that was that was back in 07 but when I'm looking at the numbers that you have here it looks like in 2010 it was less than 9,000 and in 2020 it was still less than 10,000 and so I don't know you having lived here for 18 years

I don't know that there will be a 177% increase in population you know part part of me says not really because even though 17% of 10,000 it's not a whole lot I mean it's not it's reasonable the 17% is our population share within the entire County so that would just be an increase from 2020 of 15.8% in 2020 to 177% share in 2046 but the entire County so including Wala including like old okay gotcha okay that makes more sense so it's not a 17% increase gotcha but it but at this point we still have a crisis in housing availability for housing and especially affordable housing and so to your question Justin is the 17% doeses that seem like it would happen I would think so because it's um it takes account like the whole count not just if it was just College Place I would say no probably not because of the way things work jobs and families and you know uh seasonal numbers that we have here for college and then they go away in the summer and then they graduate and all of that um but as a county potentially I would think that that would be a reasonable number this ISS Nick it's hard to know what'll happen in the future is the um that last number um the 13,000 is that a straight line projection same rate of growth as we've seen recently I believe yeah so this is so this 13,000 is from

the high projection and this um Okay so 11,000 is from the mid from up here okay all right thank you yeah so the new process that that the state is requiring for comp plan updates uh for this cycle is to do is to look at the housing more closely um in the past it was a was a common practice to look at um what your future housing needs are and then just apply that um to your single family rate uh to identify how much additional land you need now the state's requiring you to to look down into um the different types of housing um and and apply housing units in areas within your City to accommodate for future growth in multif family housing and um Apartments Multiplex U duplex type units Triplex and then also single family as well um so there's a formula that's been put together uh that we're under review right now with with the county um this isn't set in stone at all we're still working through these numbers and and figuring it out um but we take that population growth and the housing growth and it determines what the percentage um of the the county is going to be and then it also defines um the different levels of

housing that that's going to be needed and and the housing has broken up into this 0 to 30% range and and that's of your that's the percent of median um income so residents that are 0o to 30% of the median income 30 to 50% 50 to 80 80 to 100 100 to 120 um and then this chart down here identifies what type of housing unit generally those ranges would would be needing in the future um so your single family unit is typically Ty Al um someone who has 120% um or greater median household income um your Multiplex would be between 50 to the 120% and then apartment units would be from that 30 or from zero to 50% of the median income um and so this table identifies the the number of units that would be needed for each of these levels and part of our analysis will then be looking at the available vacant land what zoning and land use designation that's in and and whether or not there's enough [Music] um so so to absorb that if I'm reading this right um this for formula that ofm has come up with or I guess it was Commerce came up with we we don't need any single family homes that's and and we need we basically

need 22 multiplexes and 14 what duplexes over the next 20 years that's ridiculous right yeah so that's and they have based on this formula none of the Cities even balla Wala doesn't have any single family type so there's there's a disconnect that we feel like there might be with this formula that we need to to iron out and work on wait but rural the unincorporated rural area has 304 housing units single family units right interes yes so that and that unincorporated rural would be all of the county land so all of the single family units are being identified as going to the county now this doesn't necessarily mean that the the count the city can't develop single family units it just means that when we look at the um the land Capac capacity and the the land use designations that there's enough options um within the city for different types of [Music] housing so the other um study that we're looking at and we're going to be meeting with Commerce in the city of wala wala and the county to discuss is a few years back um Walla Wala and College Place and several other jurisdictions in the area

uh did a Regional Housing action plan um and it also looked at these similar um income levels and housing needs um that was more so this previous this worksheet is like a Statewide worksheet that was put together um this other plan this action plan is this local analysis of what the local needs are um and we're going to be comparing this study with the other um formula to see if there's a way we can work out a a better better scenario for what the future your housing um needs might be so um in this case it identifies College Place has opportunity for um know 261 standard single family detach lot detach Lots um 205 smaller Lots Cottages type um units 155 town homes and then go up to to multif family units after that so question yeah can you talk just a little bit more about the difference between the state formula and the formula that gave these numbers because I'm I'm feeling a little lost on how we got to these numbers even though I think they look more reasonable yeah I haven't got to that point yet where I've actually dug into how these numbers were were created and and that's what will be we we just got got um these numbers here last week and so they're they're very fresh and new and

we're sorry we're working through them um but we wanted to present them to you guys today to show you where we're at um and as we find out more information about them um and see what type of modifications we can um we can make to them we'll do that we'll be presenting that to you but the regional the wal Regional Housing action plan um that was completed in 2021 and it was funded by the um the Department of Commerce actually um and it was primarily driven because of the the jurisdictions really saw that there we were headed in we were in a housing crisis and um and we wanted to partner together to come up with a this hous and action plan um and so it it's a very in-depth study that um that was adopted by all of the parties involved um and because of the the way the data was analyzed I mean it's com comparable I we're looking at the same uh you know the different income levels um and using similar population uh allocation numbers um but coming up with very different results so um that's where we're gonna there's probably going to be some back and forth with um discussions with the county and the City of waa Wala and most likely Commerce um just because we we're not from our understanding of it we're not

um we're not required to use the this the Statewide formula that um that Commerce came up with um we believe we can we can use more indepth local research that's been done um so it's it's going to be a discussion that we'll have to um work through process we'll have to work through on the projected housing need um under College Place the numbers that are listed here like the 261 205 those are identified to be in the um Urban growth area so not necessarily already in place correct that would be a future future growth future addition to what we already have and what what the city already has do we know how many like properties and how many of those are unoccupied how many of those are abandoned how many of those um do we have a good feel for all of the housing and what the status of that housing is to where we know yes we we we need to build so many more because we need to accommodate this many people we have haven't done that analysis yet and that'll be our next step so some of the the things that we were talking about in those steps one through six is um that's that um methodology that that we're in discussions with the county and the City of w Wala on so that we we all need to agree on you know are we are we pulling out properties that are vacant properties that have a value

of 5,000 or less um uh the you know the market Factor the underutilized lands um once we've settled on that methodology then then Justin can start doing his GIS analysis using the county numbers and and extracting out certain properties so that we'll end up with a total you know 30 Acres of residential 10 of you know the multifam um this is how many acres we have in the urban growth area that's available and and and we'll yeah come up with that and then so a follow-up question is it within this committee's purview to because I I feel like there's two different issues one is the the number of houses available and the other is the actual accessibility like uh the the pricing the you know somebody being able to afford to buy you know a property or to rent or or whatever is is it within this committee's purview to to help with any of that um especially the being able to access uh for our residents to be able to access um properties well that's the tricky part so the the figures that we have up here uh on the slide and then the ones from from you know the slide before that are looking at the various income levels and then and the hypothetical number of units that we need for those income levels and you know we can plan for that in our comp plan and we can say we need this many apartments and we need this many single family homes or this many duplexes but the part that we don't have any control over is who builds those um you know will they act will the developers actually build the apartments if we're saying we need them or will

they just stick to building single family homes um or uh you know does the you know does does the Housing Authority need to build more affordable units you know it that that's the hard part is actually is actually getting the units built that we've planned for we don't have control over that but your purview is land use it's not actions to make housing more accessible or provide brakes of some sort it's it's land use and that's what we'll be going through this process [Music] of is there other land should there be other land use opportunities or you know zones or or changes in development standards requirements that allow for different variety of housing to occur on on different zones and land use typ and do we need to rezone or or change land use designations in areas um to allow for for different development opportunities well thank you Justin I think that's the end of your slides um and great questions from all of you Commissioners I appreciate that are there any um before I turn it back over to Angie are there any other last minute thoughts or questions um be happy to continue the discussion if

needed family why AR we Pro [Music] and like Parks and Recreation saturated people to inte each other a weed have like I don't remember how often every so often they come through they use the public address system an air alarm system make sure that it wasn't always just a warning sometimes just that hey we're have can eat pancake thing Park I mean I coming just Happ have to us aware of our part of all that let us use our public address system I mean we're growing into something that I grew up being BN never to let happen becoming cities instead of um thank you for your comments um this is not an open discussion with the public this is a workshop with the thank you and sure um we we do plan we do plan for public spaces Parks and Recreation um we actually have a park plan that we're working on right now with our Parks and Recreation board but parks and open space are things that um we include in our conference and planning um Angie if you have if you'd like to take control of the meeting and I don't think we have any other agenda items on uh for this evening absolutely um I think we are ready to conclude the meeting our next regularly scheduled meeting will be on

March 18th 2025 um and then I don't know uh if you want to repeat of this I would to repeat it uh I think at the last meeting they asked if we can um try to attend in person moving forward so I'm going to commit to being in person next month when I don't have the flu thank you for uh bringing that up Angie and it's it's just we have a wonderful meeting space here and um but we understand that life is busy and sometimes it's much more convenient to meet from home but if you can uh attend in person I would appreciate it and Justin our consultant most like will be attending remotely just because he's in the Tri Cities area but we will make him come here occasionally in person great all right do we have to have a motion to conclude or do we just conclude yes please a motion okay I would entertain a motion if someone would like to make that yeah I motion to close this thing perfect can I get a second to that please I second awesome we have a first and a second um all those in favor of concluding the meeting please signify by saying I hi hi hi yep any oppose same sign all right it passes unanimously have a good night everybody