Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

You haven't heard from RJ?

All right, good evening. I'm going to call this December 4th Sammamish Planning Commission meeting to order. Happy holidays, everyone. Let's start out with a roll call. John Bachman. Here.

Susan Cara. Here. Mike Bresco.

Here. Hisham El-Khawad. Here. Syed Safavian. Here. Ajay Chakrapani is stuck in traffic but should join us shortly. And I am Mark Boffman. I am here. Next, approval of the agenda. On tonight's agenda is a public hearing and a discussion about SMC Title 21 for some code cleanup stuff. And one other topic that's kind of folded in there that we'll talk about. Anybody have anything to say about the agenda? Anything you want to change?

Nope. Call the agenda approved.

Next is approval of the minutes from our November 20th meeting. Anybody have any corrections or comments from the minutes from the November 20th meeting?

Great.

Okay. Public comment. I do want to mention we're having a public hearing tonight. So if you want to comment on the agenda item, the thing to do would be to do that during the public hearing. And if you wanted to comment on something else, which is kind of different than how we usually do it, now's the time for any other public comment. So if you're commenting on our Title 21, the stuff that Avril is going to talk about, let's do that in the public hearing. And then if it's anything else, now is our regular public comment period. So does anybody have public comment that's not for the public hearing?

My name is Richard Johnson. I live in Sammamish. And this is the last time I'm going to talk about traffic in 2025. So as we all know, occasionally people have said, excuse me, those traffic projections in the EIS seem a little optimistic. excuse me, maybe 2023 was not the best year to base the predictions on. And I know you had an impressive presentation from the traffic team two weeks ago in this meeting. They didn't really answer the question, did they? So I came here to cite some numbers and talk about maybe what will be done to actually resolve this issue. The Environmental impact statement for the town center uses the same traffic numbers that are in the transportation master plan is the no action alternative And I'm sure you've all read that so you'll recall table b3 which actually compares the traffic volume predicted at peak hours in 2044 to the comparable numbers in 2023. Shows a 10% increase. So in 20 years, the prediction is the traffic during rush hour, if you will, will be increasing by 10%. Seems light, but let's go with it. So what's happening today? Well, every year the city goes out and measures traffic volumes. So we have the numbers from 2023. We have the numbers from 2025. How much did the peak hour traffic increase in those two years? Wait for it, 7%. So maybe there's a little problem here. The prediction is over 20 years, 10% After the first two years, we've already seen 7%. This is an issue that was very compelling up until the last election. Now, presumably with our new council, we have a little time to think about that. So clearly this needs to get resolved. We want to have good predictions in terms of the city planning. but it's no longer a crisis. So my suggestion is rather than try to massage this prediction or rather to duck the issue any longer, the city should just use the 2026 data, which will be available in May, run the model, We're all relatively confident that 2026 will be a representative year. We won't have nearly as much work from home. We'll see the return from office, and we should be able to get defensible predictions that the city can really base their budget and planning on. So I did actually make an appendix with some details in terms of... Basically how the train got off the tracks. I think there were a lot of good intentions and in a normal year The process that was described two years ago would have worked great. But unfortunately, these are not normal times Thank you Next Mary

Hello, Mary Wictor Sammamish for 25 years. So I sent in two public comments today. And I'm going to do the first one on the Tamarack example, and then the other one's part of the public hearing. So I've lived in Tamarack. It's a plot from 1964. And I am 60 years old. And my parents hadn't even met yet in 1958 or 59. But that's when the protective covenants from Tamarack are. And I say that because people are always like, oh, are you an HOA or not? No. We're not an HOA. A lot of places are and a lot of places are. But you can have covenants, conditions, and restrictions, which are known as CC&Rs. You can have, as Paul Stickney pointed out when he sat down today, you can have deed restrictions on your title, the plat that your subdivision, if it's done that way, it'll have things written on the face of the plat. So a long time ago when I came into the city, there was one of the city staff from Stormwater who said, well, where is this problem or where is this project occurring? And that was the first question, because depending on where it is, how steep it is, the soils, how busy it is, the traffic, the roads, the easements, it's really going to limit what you can do or support maybe what you want to do or maybe have you change what you want to do. And then the second thing is, what are you can do? And that was a different stormwater person that said that. She said, I can't answer the question until you tell me where. You tell me what and then I know city staff does a lot of work and a lot of permitting They're really great people But if you don't do that homework before you go to the city You end up spending a lot of their time where it really kind of is your responsibility because they don't know all the HOAs They don't know the different codes for your area But they do know this city code and the city code does change over time and that's one of the things they're talking about the public hearing So anyway, in the Tamarack example, it's two pages. It's actually from 8-29 of 2024 when I'd handed it out to you. I just excerpted them. It says they're protective covenants, and it says it's a residential area, so all the plots, excuse me, they're a plot of land, but they're known as lots usually. that they are for residential, which means you're not going to see commercial in there. And then it says you are restricted to having single family homes with single family occupancy, which means you can't build duplexes and triplexes. And the reason I had used it as an example is one of our consultants who was talking was like, oh, we can do middle housing in Tamarack. And I'm like, No, if you look at the covenants. And then sort of the weird little thing is, is it says in Tamarack that the base floor or the base footprint of your house has to be a minimum of 900 square feet or larger. And the reason that is, is because 1889 Inglewood, which is just north of us on the other side of George Davis Creek, They had built little cabins. It was tiny little lots that were 25 feet by 100 feet. So they're 2,500 square feet, and people were building a lot of those. And so the people who were owning and developing in Tamarack wanted to have more livable single-family homes. So anyway, that's the history. It's an example on long. I passed it out before. Thanks.

I'm sorry? Are you going to go on the agenda? Good evening, Planning Commissioners. Paul Stickney, happy holidays. I sent something in today that had a link to parts one and two of a three-part verbal comment about switching the focus from transportation first, large T, small H on housing, into large H on services and transportation plus. And large H covers both internal and external needs. Why? Because we should add housing types on a city-wide scale that are needed and wanted by residents to stay over time. We can create assets to remedy past infrastructure deficiencies inherited from King County, and there's a lot of those. We can ensure sustainable land use to promote environmental betterments richer social fabric and appropriate workforce and market rate housing for needs over life, and secure holistic enrichments, both quantifiable and non-quantifiable. There's been a lot of talk about the council being unrepresentative and maybe not listening, and 2K versus 4K, all inauthentic, unless we get the data to know what the community really needs and wants, the consequences of meeting those needs or not, and enlighten public opinion. That's the only authentic way. We're not on that path. That's what HST calls to do. In order to do that. There's a lot of false premise that needs to be created and I call it false premised squared I'm going to hand out after this comment what I gave City Council which has a list of that So the first false premise and me using that term is a premise in where you live We don't have housing supplies for people to live as needs change over time for cycle of life and for generations and therefore they're false and in my view. The second thing is a lot of policy and numbers had some incorrect, erroneous, and lacking data. In a short word, they were not authentic. We need to correct the growth target process, the comp plans, the town center plans, the housing needs assessment, all had data that was inaccurate that needs to be corrected so we are level set. The comp plan deals with 2,100 affordable housing only, impracticable. It has no language for exceeding or diverging, impracticable squared. I've called for adding 5,000 market rate. 7,000 housing units over 20 years would be less than the transportation and traffic of one-third of the growth we've seen the last 25 years. That's an authentic statement. solution on a citywide basis. So I suggest that we strongly as a community move to plan for internal and external housing, services, transportation, citywide scale, and understand consequences of meeting it or not, because those consequences are radically disparate. And we haven't done that. And therefore, we are inauthentic in our housing policy at this time. But there's a way to correct it to add value across the board. All right. Appreciate the chance to speak.

Thanks, Paul. Anybody else for, let's call it non-agenda comments?

And here's what our city council.

Evan, is there anybody on the phone, on the call, on the meeting? Evan's checking.

No, we're all set.

Great. OK, thanks. So let's move on to our agenda topic for this evening. And Avril is going to give us a presentation on the update of the work that they've done for code updates.

So go ahead, Avril.

Good evening. Let me, I'm sorry, just to try to make sure everybody's make this a little easier. Avril gives her presentation. We ask her questions. then I will open the public hearing, let everybody make their comments, close the public hearing, then somebody makes a motion, we have our discussion, and then vote. And there will be some stuff that goes along there. But that's kind of the order. So just keep that in mind so we can move through it smoothly. Sorry, everyone. Go ahead.

That's okay. Good evening. Happy December. Avril Beatty with the community development department. I am the current planning and permit center manager. And I am before you again to finally have a public hearing on some code cleanups that we've had the pleasure to talk about recently. So I know you all have studied up and are ready to power through this. The only things that were of substantive change from the last time we met was the 3,000 square foot footprint. Everything else, sorry, let me go back, from the plat language, the cottage housing, the ADUs, the rezoning definitions, the unit lot definitions, removing out public comment periods so that we are more consistent for the 21-day comment period, land use approvals being established upon submittal of complete permit applications so we can keep permits moving along, having shoreline suspensional development permits be a type 2 instead of a type 4 land use application, which will be a great relief to mostly the homeowners who live along the lakes. Streamlining of final plat processing with their building permit applications. So all of those have stayed the same. Previous discussions, you have all been in support of these modifications, and so those have been cleaned up. So the one that is of the most interesting discussion is the 3,000-square-foot footprint. So we had a discussion where originally staff was proposing the one-time small exception to the 3,000-square-foot footprint, and the 3,000-square-foot footprint was put into place because all housing development needs to be treated the same, single family, the same as middle housing. So due to the concerns from residents about having massive middle housing developments happening, that all residential buildings would be limited to the 3,000 square foot footprint. You could still have a three story home and you're looking, that's like 9,000 square feet. So felt like that rule should apply across the board. However, we came across a lot of people who had legal nonconforming homes or just very large lots. And then through our discussions, we talked about, does it make sense to limit the ground floor? And overwhelmingly, we're like, well, let's just limit what the concern is, which is the mass, and that's going up. So in addition to exempting schools and other civic uses, we had just talked about, do we allow a one-time exception, or do we just stop regulating the ground floor? And then we thought, why not allow both? Because we do have legal non-conforming homes that are on slopes. We got a lot of slopes in Sammamish. And so lots of homes where you access on an upper level, and then you have a walkout basement below. And so for those homes where most of the floor is... part first floor, part second floor, depending on where it is along that slope, we should also allow some exceptions for those. So that's why we wanted to include the one-time exception for that. And so we've now drafted up language that's in the packet. So why commit to one change? Let's consider both of them. So to go into that in more detail, so here is the Language that we have written up we tried to so I went over all of these Ideas with the current planning staff. They are the ones who explain these to residents So we they're the ones who like they look at the language every day and have to explain it to normal people and trying to make sure that it's understandable So we made it as plain English as possible. And then we realized it would be easier to have a plain English standard if we define what a floor is. So based on all the discussion that we had with Planning Commission, we came up with this definition of floor. And this also aligns with how most jurisdictions within the area define floor as well. So we're not doing anything untoward. So this is all within sort of standard planning land use definition parameters, so this is what we've drafted up and so Just as a recap, this will allow small additions to existing homes that are already, we've got lots of these single-story Ramblers in Sammamish. And so these can do their additions that are single-story, do their deck expansion, do their living room expansion. Whatever it is that they need to do to upgrade, modernize their homes, these proposed regulations would allow it. And so in allowing the changing it so that it's only the second floor, we have this very recent example with a gracious homeowner who has allowed us to present this, where any part of the home that's on the ground, so the blue part. And so we're considering that part as any part of the house that is within three feet of grade for the part in the back. That part was not limited by the 3,000 square feet. And the 3,000 square feet would only be for the floors above the ground floor. And so then that's only the green section that we're looking to have. the regulation apply to. And so with this example, originally under the code as it's written today, a minor modification to the house and a deck expansion weren't going to be allowable under today's code. And so we thought, well, that doesn't really feel like that was the intention. So to let people have their homes be more livable, let people age in place, allow some flexibility, Proposed changes would allow for this these types of projects to move forward So this is what we have before you tonight staff hopes that we captured what the Planning Commission was intending with all of the feedback that we got and now I'd love to answer any questions that you have. Or if you don't have any questions, because staff somehow was able to nail down all the feedback that we've gotten, we would love a recommendation on a motion. Thank you.

I was following you. And when I read it in the agenda, I liked it. And I thank you for that. But when you started explaining the green versus the blue, I lost you. So if this is my house, let's go back to the green versus the blue. So the blue, the small blue section, if I want to expand on that level, is that okay or no?

No, the blue is the unregulated.

Because you said the green cannot increase.

The green could be up to 3,000 square feet.

Okay, so- But the grade level here, the main entrance for this house is where that small blue is. Exactly.

Right. So this is where we had to figure out how do we regulate. So if it's a... There are many houses that are multileveled because they are terraced with the landscape. And so there are some homes that don't have any living space in that bottom blue area. It's just posts or it's just storage and whatever. But you end up with a bulk above that. And the intention of this code was to help have some limitation on that bulk. But here we're saying, you know what? If you are three feet or less above grade, so that's why we have the blue line in the back, that part is ground floor. That part doesn't count. And we picked three feet because that corresponds to floor area regulations that we have elsewhere in the code. So we're just trying to be consistent. So anything that's within three feet of the exterior grade is part of that ground floor, would not be limited by the 3,000 square feet. And if it's only the floor that's above that ground floor, which is the green, that is more than three feet above grade, that would have the 3,000 square foot limitation.

So if this is my house and I want to expand this house, probably my garage is in that small blue area. And if I'm expanding this house, I'm expanding the green. I'm not expanding the blue. Why expand the basement? I prefer to expand the upper floor, which is probably the grade level. And now you're restricting it.

So where it's more than three feet above grade, it's no longer... It's now considered a second floor.

I just don't want to get into three or two and a half because where we live, there are so many slopes. And sometimes it may or may not.

Right. In which case, there needs to be a number. There needs to be an amount in which a floor is a second floor versus a floor is a ground floor. And so we have three feet just for consistency within our code for when we calculate flurry ratio.

The way you wrote it in the agenda, it felt more reasonable, not the one you presented, the agenda that we received earlier this week. Because that was talking about any floor with direct access to A grade.

Right. And so the challenge with that when I took, when that went with the planners and we tried to talk through applications, that is, so any floor that's at grade, how far, what part is at grade and what part is a second story?

I think it, I would take it again. If this is my house, I will be expanding the upper part because that's the main entrance to the house. What you are looking at here, there are more examples that this is the backside of the house. This is the backyard of the house. So why go and add more basement? So just imagine that if I go and increase the blue, if I increase the blue, I'm increasing the blue sideways. So I will end up with a flat surface. next to the green because you are telling me now that the blue is unlimited, right? Correct. So if I want to do a 5,000 square foot, I'm increasing the blue and I'm going sideways. So I'm creating now a flat surface instead of going above it.

So the intent with this is if the goal for all residential development, single family or middle housing is to limit any bulk above grade, then we would need to have something like this but street level and grade is still that smaller blue section right and that would be single story at so so with this sorry um i don't know if it matters with this example this is the back of the house so the front is

The front is the smaller blue section. That's the main road. And that's what I'm calling great. And that's

And so if you have the green part come out further, and you have the blue part also come out further, then you have two floors that are both coming out more. And so if the intention of the code is to minimize the bulk at any level that's at a second floor or a third floor above grade, then then we would have the regulations as proposed. The other option is you could always recommend to city council to just get rid of the footprint limitation.

Oh, that would be my favorite, but I'm trying to compromise here. Right.

So this is why we try to write it this way, and trying to come up with a way to have there needs to be some sort of differentiation between what's a first floor at grade and what is a second floor. And so here, in the back, there are two floors. You do have the ground floor in the blue, and above that is the second floor. Even though you access it, It's still the second floor in that portion.

So if the intention is to eliminate bulky houses, to eliminate volume, what I'm saying that the expansion of this house will not be higher than the top of the green. So I did not go anywhere above the top of the existing green. So I'm not creating any additional volume. I'm creating area.

Well, it is volume.

I know it is, but it's... Because when you say volume, you're talking about a big mass.

It can be. And so we just need to have a number.

I'm still at the same elevation compared to my neighbor. My neighbor will not feel that my house is now any bulkier than how it used to be.

Right. So it... Each property is unique. Each property is going to feel different. And trying to write a regulation that meets all the parameters or to try to satisfy most of those conditions is kind of impossible. And I wish there was a need.

an easier way but there are many homes like this here yeah with their main entrance on the back side over there that's their road and their only way to expand is to expand sideways and it doesn't make any sense for us to tell them go and expand the basement where they go up and these end up being like three no no i'm saying don't go up i'm saying just go sideways

Yeah, I think we should keep going here with other comments because I think we're going to get exactly at what you're talking about, Hisham. So let's just go down the line. Sorry.

What is the point of reference as far as the elevation? You're showing the three feet from the grade level, that's the grade level of the house.

That's the grade level, so the three feet is to the finished floor. Finished floor, okay. To the grade outside.

Okay, how about the grade level of the street? There is a, well, this of course is nothing to scale, but shouldn't be to, point of reference should be the basically the grade level of the street? No. Elevation of the street. So when you're coming to the, you're going from the street to the house, there's a grade there.

Yeah.

Shouldn't be that as a reference point? no i mean my short answer is no because because that affects what the show is talking about right three feet on one side and the lower and the pointing the arrow to down is that that that is slope and on the top you're making reference or the display making reference to the grade level of the house right and the street so so we look at grade when we measure height and whatnot we look at what are all the grade points around the house it's not just from the street you have rigid

Yes, so we do grade averaging when we're looking at the overall height of a house for a house, maximum height measurements. And because we have topography, homes aren't just seen from the street. When you drive along East Lake Sammamish Parkway, you see homes all the way up the hillside. Right. So houses aren't just about their street frontage, houses are how they are within the topography of the city. And so the three feet, this regulation is how we, when we do a floor area ratio calculation, anything that is tucked in beyond the three feet as a basement is not counted towards someone's floor area ratio because it's not part of that volume. And so that's why we picked it. And the idea is if it's not going to count towards your floor ratio, then have it as part of that ground level where you wouldn't be limited by the 3,000 square feet.

Okay, second question. You made a reference, I think that verbally, but I didn't see that reference to it. Let's say that additional square footage that somebody wants to build. What happens if that is a deck? It's not a structure. Would that be included as a part of the 300, or that could be different? I thought that you made reference to it as somebody building, somebody using the 300 square foot expansion to be a deck. What happened if it is a deck?

So part of the reason why we made, we also made the definition of the floor and we changed it from building footprint to maximum floor area so that the deck, an uncovered deck wouldn't count because it's not, bulky, it's not part of that volume.

But as long as it's covered.

So once you have something covered... There are two definitions of a cover.

One is the ceiling, the other one is enclosed.

Right. So if you have a deck, you could have a deck where it's like just the deck surface and the railings and that's it. And then it's uncovered, right? And then you do have decks with a full roof or pergola or whatever on top.

But there's a third one. Not only you have a pergola, you have a ceiling, you have a roof, but also you have enclosed that some people have seen. Right.

They're tucked in. Yeah.

So is that a part of the 300 square foot?

No. So we were just looking at the floor area being the floor where there's walls and the decks wouldn't count.

Even if it is enclosed. Even a deck is enclosed.

Yes, yes.

Because I've seen some houses that they basically cover their deck.

Right, so sometimes you have houses where it's notched in and it's all covered.

It's all covered with the windows and the roof and all that.

So we're trying to loosen this up and make it more generous by having it be floor area to walls. Yes.

So the answer to that question is yes. That would be a part of the 300 square foot. No.

The decks would not count.

Would not. Decks are free space. No matter if it is closed or not. That's what I'm hearing.

Yes. Correct. Sorry. We got there. We got there. Thank you. I probably exceeded my seven minutes. I'm sorry.

I want to go back to the slide with the blue and the green. I'm probably going to belabor what Commissioner Hisham said over here. But let me tell you a personal experience. When I was trying to look at Sammamish to buy a home, I looked in one of the areas where it was exactly like this. The front of the house was where the blue is. You could drive your car in. and then you'd walk into this area, and then the ground was going down, so there was like a... What was sold to me at the time was that, oh, here's where you can have a gaming room, and you can have like a chill-out room, and all of those things that were there. But my living quarters, if you'll call it that, would have been the green area, right? When I want to expand so that I don't have to... I'd like to age in... in place or I'd like to not have this thing, I don't care about the blue area. I would care only about the green area because now I'm not climbing down a flight of stairs to get to that point. What we tried to do through this, when your language was there, when I read this one, it was like, yeah, perfect. That means I can expand. I'm saying green area, but I can expand and live in space. But as we talked right now, and I'm sorry I missed a part of it, when you first started doing this thing, but when I started listening to this, I realized that I cannot expand there. The only place I can expand is one flight down, which, if it becomes a problem for me to come down a flight, has no value to what is my problem.

So if the Planning Commission feels that the green area being allowed to be 3,000 square feet, if that 3,000 square feet is not enough... For the green space, then perhaps you make a motion to just strike the regulation. 3,000 square feet is fairly generous.

I understand that, but it is the living area, right? So I have a tough time regulating that living area if there is a need to. So let us say today I am perfect. I'll run up and down the stairs. And my wife says, I want more steps in the ground. I'll run up and down the stairs. It doesn't have a problem. 10 years from now, I'm going to be very cribby trying to run up and down the stairs. 20 years from now, even less.

Careful now.

But as that happens, right, now I will start to look at the code as a restriction on what I'm trying to do.

And you think you would need more than 3,000 square feet? Sorry? You need more than 3,000 square feet.

I don't know. That's a theoretical discussion. I don't know. But my living area is that 3,000 square feet. And if I want to make it 3,200 for some reason...

So that's why we have both... not regulating floors that are along the ground as well as allowing um a one-time 300 square foot expansion for any upper level floor so if you if you have your green area is already 3 000 square feet and you say you know but i need you know 300 more i need um uh like an updated bathroom um it needs to be more wheelchair accessible it needs to whatever it is and then you still get 300 square feet on an upper floor so you could still end up with 30 300 square feet in the green area and if you don't think that's enough then i would recommend that you recommend and just strike the regulation okay

It's becoming Sophie's choice as it's going, but you can see the I have a tough time. Once this got into my head, I had a very tough time, as you were talking, a very tough time trying to regulate it. It felt like a regulation that I'm trying to say, you can only go this much. If you have 320 because of some restriction, some nook and cranny that did not adjust, tough luck, buddy. You don't have the 320 to go forward on. And I understand that. I'm talking of an exception more than the rule. BUT I THINK WE'RE TRYING TO SOLVE FOR SOMETHING ELSE.

I MEAN, THE CONCERN WAS BULKY MIDDLE HOUSING.

YEAH, I UNDERSTAND THAT.

YEAH. AND SO IF THE COMMISSION FEELS LIKE THAT'S NOT A CONCERN ANYMORE, YOU CAN RECOMMEND IT.

LET'S GO AHEAD. JOHN, WHAT DO YOU GOT?

I feel your pain. As you were just mentioning, going back to the original thought on this, and I have at least two of these in my neighborhood, square houses, flat roof. They're just right up, you know, to the setback. And they just sort of dominate the area. And so the idea was to Initially limit the ground floor and then with a lot of discussion thought well you've got a ranch house and you just sprawl and you got enough room it's not really impactful as we intended it, it was the going up square part that was impactful. So. At this point, I don't have any difficulty with the language as it's written. I'd point out though that to Ajay's comment, If you had a situation that you need a variance or reasonable accommodation, there are provisions in the code to seek those decisions. I think one of our public speakers spoke of the need for accommodation. So there are some... mechanisms, they might be difficult, but there are mechanisms to work towards that level of flexibility. And the illustration is great because it pointed out the difficulties we're having, we're struggling with trying to create those accommodations for our residents. That's colliding with the need to have clear code that you all, the staff, can administer. So if the commission as a general feels that we don't need this and we'll live with the square houses and flat roofs, what is it, 34?

35 feet from average grade around the structure.

And as I said, I've got at least two of those in my neighborhood. They don't look like they fit, but that's

AND ACTUALLY NONE OF WHAT WE'RE DOING WOULD PROBABLY LIMIT MOST OF THAT.

NO, IT'S NOT GOING TO TOUCH THEM. IN FACT, I DON'T THINK THEIR FOOTPRINT IS OVER 3,000 SQUARE FEET. YOU KNOW, IF YOU'VE GOT AN R4 10,000, 9,000, 10,000 SQUARE FEET LOT, CAN YOU EVEN GET A 3,000 SQUARE FEET? So I can't answer that question. I will say if we keep the language, I have two suggestions. Under standards, you struck building footprint, maximum floor area for upper level floors. I would suggest adding the word each upper level floor just to be crystal, crystal clear. And then on the 300 square foot expansion is allowed for any upper level floor, is that for each floor? Or is it total for the project? Just a little bit clarification there so that, you know, if you want to do 150 on one floor, 150 on another floor, are you trying to limit the accumulation to 300 total, or is it for each floor? Wasn't... Oh, so we were thinking 300 cumulative?

Okay, so just... Maybe add the word cumulative?

Yeah, state that. Okay, thank you. But... Yeah, I don't have an easy solution to the box house comments.

Thank you, everyone, for the great presentation. I had the same question on the 300 square feet. Was it, you know, but you clarified it. Thank you. So I was going to ask the other commissioners, would you like to have like a 5000 maximum or if 3000 is bothering or would you like to have a free form?

I have an idea that I'm sure Avril will tell me why I'm wrong. I was going to kind of wait.

Okay. I'll wait then.

Because Mike might have a better idea. But I think I don't. The general theme is I think this is getting overly complicated and it doesn't need to be. So maybe we can simplify. Maybe. Perfect. Until Avril tells me I'm wrong.

I like simple. Thank you. no if we don't have some limit right for square footage then we'll end up like having boxed houses and yeah go ahead mike how often does this come up where there's been complaints about the blockiness of houses um we we get a lot of anecdotal

about the existing housing stock where there's lots of bulky. I don't really understand why someone would want a flat roof in the Pacific Northwest. But that's me. And we're not going to regulate for that. So we do hear it a lot. We also hear from residents that they do feel unduly restricted. And there's no architectural review. Everyone's allowed by right to have an ugly house if they want. Totally up to them. No judgment. To each their own. Sorry. I'm trying to not be. It's a work in progress. Anyways.

So it's kind of gone a little bit both ways.

So it can go a little bit both ways. So people do like to comment on their neighborhood. People also don't like being commented on. So we get both sides.

I was just trying to get a little sense of how big of a problem it is. The other piece of how big a problem it is, part of the concern is around middle housing. We've talked about by regulation we need to allow middle housing. In reality, there's only a handful of places where I've heard here in these meetings where we're going to have middle housing. So again, this may not be as big a problem as we're thinking. So from a simple solution, we just said forget about it. One or two other points, and I don't want to make a recommendation until we hear public comments or public hearing and the simple solution that Mark has, but about the assumption, like Hisham, that you're making is that from the front of the house, street level, you know, if you're adding, it's not going to make that much difference, but the bulkiness in this illustration would be for anybody who's looking at your back of the house. Yeah. And so we should be aware of that if the bulkiness is what we're trying to solve for. And the last comment I'll make before hearing the simple solution is it is tough because we're trying to balance the ability and freedom that homeowners should have to do what they want with their property within like setbacks and fire safety and things like that, obviously, with the look and feel of the community and concerns that some residents would have about it. BIG BULKY STRUCTURES. IT IS TOUGH. BUT IT FEELS LIKE WE TALKED ABOUT THIS A LOT. IT IS ALSO FEELING VERY COMPLICATED. I WILL BE PREPARED WITH WHAT I THINK AFTER WE HEAR FROM MARK AND THE PUBLIC.

THANKS FOR DOING THIS drawing right here because this actually gets at the heart of helping us think through it a couple things about this one is I would say I never in my mind thought that you could divide up a floor and call part of that floor something and another part of an existing floor something else that seems like an over complication that doesn't really help us very much So I'm not sure. I never imagined once you have a floor, an existing floor, that's an existing floor and dividing it up. And by the way, so if somebody wants to mess around, they can start piling dirt up against their house and change the border lines of that division. And that's messy. I don't I don't understand exactly why we would do that. And I don't. see to my way of thinking why that's necessary. My idea would be, and I don't go back and say that, most of the comments about bulk have to do with the view from the street side. I mean, that's just what it is. Now, will somebody downhill of this see a little bit more building? Yeah, but of course they were looking at a hill to begin with and a building that was there already so expanding out Yeah, and the number of times that will actually apply to anybody is probably pretty small I'm guessing that's we can't solve a hundred percent. So how can we get to like 90% or 95? so my idea would be and I'm trying to think of the way to say this as if we wanted to try to get it in here in some version, right and My idea would be what I originally thought this would be was we would not restrict additions to existing houses on the main entry floor, and that being whatever the whole floor is, or below. So in this case, the main entry floor below, you can do that, it's not restricted. But if you wanna do something above the main entry floor, then all of these restrictions apply, 3,000 square feet, you know, which already is kind of, I think, massive. But if you say the main entry floor, now is there gonna be somehow, somewhere where the main entry floor is hard to figure out because there's an entry on the side, I suppose. But I think the main entry like in 98% of cases, we would all look at a house and go, the main entry is right here. And so that entire floor is of an existing house, because we've been talking about additions here too, right? We're not talking about necessarily new houses. Now, whether the code supports that, I don't know, but that's what we've been talking about is additions. So in my mind, I think we should not restrict people that can otherwise comply with setbacks and all that sort of thing, on that main living floor, which is what Ajay is talking about, and anything below. Because from the street, if you're below, mostly you're not going to see that. Now, can we dream up some example that doesn't fit that perfectly? I'm sure, right? There's some place, probably in Tamarack, the way those houses are on the hill, you can probably look up and see the backside additions. There's probably some 5% situation. But for the most part, most people that want to make an addition on their main living floor, which is where the door comes in, then we've not restricted that. And usually if you're gonna do that, you're gonna have to build something below that anyway, because you can't hang the floor out in midair. So structurally, you're gonna have to build down anyway. And I don't think the down part is the problem. I think it's the up part that's the problem. And it's from the street side. Now, not 100%, but like 98%. So if we could figure out how to craft some language that kind of says something like that, then I think that gets at what our original intent was. And of course, everybody that has a ranch, well, then they don't have to worry about this anyway. They can do whatever they want.

So I could chime in awkwardly from the side here. We did have an earlier iteration. We were knocking around his staff is that It would be any floor that gains direct access from the finished grade would be exempt from the 3,000-foot limit. And any floors above those which gain direct access from the finished grade would be limited to that 3,000 square feet. So in the example of the green-blue house, you have access to the finished grade up top on the street side and also on the bottom daylight side. And so those would be the two floors that would be exempt. So that could be a potential option and it would then help us prevent some of that big massing in the worst case scenario of middle housing.

So I will say that the concern I have is that, again, it starts to make things too complicated because there are configurations of split levels that have access to grade at multiple floors. I've got some in my neighborhood. but every house has a main point of entry, a front door. And to me, that, if we can use that, and I don't know how definable that is with code language, but the main point of entry of any house is the front door. We all can look at a house and say, there's the front door. And if that floor, even if that, you know, so you'd say, well, what about a split level house? Well, how many people is this gonna affect to have a split level house? I THINK THE MAIN POINT OF ENTRY STILL LEADS UP TO THE UPPER LEVEL, SO THEN THE SPLIT LEVEL, THAT'S GOING TO BE EXEMPT AS WELL. AND THIS IS ONLY ADDITIONS. THAT'S WHAT WE'VE ALWAYS TALKED ABOUT, TOO. I DON'T THINK AS A COMMISSION WE'VE EVER INTENDED A LOT OF THIS TO APPLY TO NEW HOUSES.

THIS WOULD APPLY EQUALLY TO ANY OF THEM.

OKAY. SO MAYBE THAT'S OKAY. I'm hesitant to just say, well, let's throw it out because that feels like we're throwing the baby out of the bathwater. We're trying to throw out a good idea because we can't quite figure out how to perfectly apply it to every single scenario. And if we can get that something that applies, that we all kind of agree applies, you know, the 80-20 rule, maybe in this case it's the 95-5 rule, but most of the time, then we've accomplished quite a bit.

Would you like to augment the standard to say maximum floor area for upper level floors above floor of primary entrance?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, I was trying to think about saying, you know, instead of saying the ground floor, saying the main entry floor. of a building or something like that. So if you're above the main entry floor, you are limited to 3,000 square feet. If you are at the main entry floor or below, regardless of your relationship to the ground, then you are not limited.

Mark, I have a question about main entry floor, how you define that.

wherever the front door is. Where the living room is? No, wherever the front door is.

Right, but let me tell you, I live in Sahali, and I see quite a number of homes that in order to get to the main entry floor from the street, you have to go 10, 12 steps up. Then you're in the main entry floor. Yeah, my house is like that.

How do you deal with that? Because I live on a hill and I have a steep driveway.

No, it's not on a hill. That house is the one that I'm talking about. They're not on... From the street level, you go until 12 to step out. And then the door is there and the main floor is there. So what happened to that elevation difference between the street level and the main floor that you're talking about?

In that case, if they want to add to that main floor and below, they can do it. Because that's what we would say. Above that, they can't.

But then you add 300 square foot more, then you go further up.

You might be going up at that point. So this is one regulation. We still have our hardscape regulations. We still have Flurry Ratio. There are still other controls that are in place. So I don't know if someone If someone has a split level or has something set up where you have to go up in order to get to the main entrance to that floor, it would have to be a very large lot to meet setbacks and have a 3,000 square foot floor. You're looking at a very large property to accommodate that. And if it's not a very large property, you might get hemmed in by setbacks. So then it may not be an issue. We have not had any middle housing development applications come in. We've only had people coming in for consultations and information. And we haven't been seeing, like so far, we haven't seen any concepts. of 12,000 square foot buildings. We're seeing duplexes, like duets, sometimes three unit town homes, but mostly duets, like the two side by side. So I don't know. how much the anticipation of this bulkiness was realistic, given what we've seen. It's only been a year, granted. So this isn't the last time you'll ever see me. Maybe Mark. Maybe Mark. Don't be so sure. Well, this is the last time that we're going to see you this year. This year. This year. So, you know, if a year from now we realize we're not encountering this problem that we thought we might see, which happens, and then we can adjust. And it's possible in the future the commission will decide, you know what? We don't need this. We're good.

One more question. Have you looked at the other cities, what the other cities, they deal with this situation?

I have not. I don't know. Okay, no.

It would be interesting to see what the other cities do. Well, so others...

The state law requires that all the residential development has the same limitations. So if a city doesn't have this, then it applies the same single family as the middle housing. So given the way other cities in the area approach development, I would be shocked if anybody else had anything like this.

I'D JUST MAKE A SIDE COMMENT THAT ACTUALLY THE WAY THIS IS WRITTEN, NOW THAT I THINK ABOUT IT, THE HOUSE YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT, SAY, OR A SPLIT LEVEL HOUSE WOULD REALLY NOT BE ABLE TO EXPAND BEYOND 3,000 SQUARE FEET BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE TOO FAR ABOVE GRADE TO BE ABLE TO DO IT.

BUT YOUR SUGGESTION WOULD ALLOW FOR THAT. And I think, I've seen, I go through Soholly from time to time, and I have a sense of one of the houses, maybe that would be what you're thinking about. And it's not the vertical bulk that would be a problem. It would still be essentially a sort of a raised ranch. Yep. Which is, I think we're thinking is okay, so.

But visually, when you look at those houses that you have to take to go to the main floor, it looks bulkier, even though the elevation is the same, but it looks bulkier from a street level.

Doesn't Sally have its own set of HOA restrictions? Very much so very much so.

I like the way Mark described it or propose it. I think it it resolves it and it gets us out of the flat roof because the blue will we will end up with a flat roof and we don't want that.

OK. So I hear some support for augmenting to include above floor of primary entrance within the standards box.

Yeah, because going below, like he said, you need the structural support. So regardless, you will have to go below.

Yeah, and I grew up in a country where ground floor was a very common reference, and I knew exactly what you were talking about when you said ground floor. And I can see Commissioner Sudha laughing because I'm pretty sure she also felt the same thing. It's very hard to explain ground floor to my son because he will be like, I don't know what you mean when you say ground floor. So if he can talk about it in more of an entry floor or something like that, that will make it much more simpler.

Was this a place where what we would refer to as the second floor is actually the first floor?

Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

UK standards. So that's this one. So I first saw that and I'm like, oh, I get that. And then I thought, there's no way my son is going to get that.

They got time to learn. Yeah.

I just want to keep in the back of our minds that we go with the 3,000 square foot. We can still get these 9,000 square foot, 35 foot high boxes right next to a ranch. We're not eliminating that option. Mitigating, I guess, would be the best we can do.

Yeah, I totally agree. We shouldn't convince ourselves we're we're only solving like 5% of the problem here, but for those people that fit into that 5%, it's kind of a big deal that they'd be able to, you know, do some reasonable addition, especially on big lots with a ranch. I mean, we should absolutely figure out how to allow that. And then if we have to, you know, accept that there's going to be some occasional times when the code language just doesn't fit perfectly, then we'll have to figure that out. So my main question about this is kind of for you overall. I'm not sure if we can move this on as a recommendation to the city council. I'm not sure if we can craft the language for it ourselves right here tonight that you guys won't then need to think about a little bit, but maybe we could make a suggestion with the caveat that you, before you go to the council with it, review the details of the language to make sure that it's,

think kosher i think that way makes sense i think we understand the intent behind your suggestions and if the commission wanted to recommend tonight that you know we carry forward updated code language that reflects your intention to the council i think that would work pretty well either that or bringing it back once you once you develop the language whatever it is bring it back just to get endorsement from the commission You really want to do this again? No, no, no, no.

No way. No. If you feel comfortable to get it a little bit stronger.

So can I, this is actually a little bit into probably we should wait for public comment. But if we're talking about saying, okay, the main entry floor and any floor below is not limited. Do we really need the one time 300 square foot for upper floors?

The thought behind that was in case you had an upper floor that was already 3000 square feet and you wanted to put in an elevator shaft to be able to age in place, that you would have the ability to do that. Yeah, that's right.

I had forgotten that.

Okay.

Any, any bit of relief that can be granted with this? Like we're, we're for it.

Any other questions for overall?

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

This was great. Thanks a lot.

Okay. I'm going to open the public hearing for public comment on this topic. Who would like to make comment on this topic in the discussion and the presentation?

OK. Mary Wichter here again, Sammamish, 25 years. My house is in Tamarack. The main entry floor, even though it's a custom home, comes into the basement. And the main entry floor on this road comes into the second floor So I wouldn't want to be limited if I was doing stuff. But my whole house is on less than 11,000 square foot lots. So the footprint is 1,500 square feet. And I think stormwater is a really important thing. If you start people giving 300 or whatever, you get these cumulative stormwater. Because in the old days, you could have 5,000 square feet. not have a drainage review and now it's since 2017 it's restricted you can only have 2,000 square feet before you do drainage review. So again back to my public comment, where are you building? What are you doing? Stormwater might be a problem and if stormwater is be a problem please just don't let people build because it's a nightmare when you live next to them or downhill from them and there are examples of Tamarack in there. I will bring up the word for development regulations phase two. David Pyle had been working on a daylight plane thing, which I'd also seen, I think, in Issaquah or something or other. Anyway, you should look up daylight plane and see if that's helpful at all for people to see. As far as affordability, middle housing is only going to occur a few places, and I know what you mean by the boxy houses, and there's also shed roofs, which aren't flat, but they still look pretty boxy, and they have a big thing. There's a giant one down by the lake across from Wally Parade now. In order to get affordability, you want to have it be as boxy as it can because anytime you have a jet out, it costs you literally way more than tens of thousand dollars each jet out. Also, if you have even just a two-floor house, you can have 1,500 square feet, 1,500 square feet, 1,500 square feet, 1,500 square feet. That's for families. can live in that. And if you do a third story, then that's six families that can live in that. So while it looks like a giant house, which a lot of the missing middle housing, they do. They look just like a big family house, and they just have multiple doors either on the side or back or double front doors or whatever. So if we really want middle housing to get built, you have to keep it as simple and streamlined, give this many options as they can, let it be as flat and ugly as it can be, hopefully with a slanted roof so there aren't drainage problems. um and and i think that's very important particularly now because we just don't have middle housing hardly anywhere in this city i've gone around taking photos and visiting the places we have it i think it's very nice but it's just it's we're 85 or more large single-family homes like 15 the other things um So most of the stuff I had emailed in was on what happens with the stormwater, because that's a big, big, big concern. If you've never had a drainage review and you had a 5,000 square foot, you really shouldn't be allowed to add anything that's going to do it. If you've already got your stormwater pond that's shared, I looked up today, they're not really listed by that. But if you just start having everybody build more and put into that same stormwater pond, it's going to fail. And the city owns those. So I think just allowing people to have more and more and more isn't a great idea. And I did listen to other people. And I did break my leg this year. And I have the 31 steps in my house. And I totally get the stairs thing in which injury that you can do. But I'm getting better. And my son got married. And I could do 12 stories to get up to the wedding that was on the rooftop when the elevator was broken. So, and that's the second marriage, so good now. So anyway, just stormwater is a big thing. Cumulative impacts are a big thing. We should let people do what they want, but I think we need to think about middle housing does need to be affordable. It is going to look different. Please allow it.

Thanks, Mary. Who else? Go ahead.

Don't they? I swear, you pay this much for hokas, they shouldn't squeak. First of all, I'd like to thank the Commission for being so gracious when I spoke at the last meeting regarding the newly implemented restrictions for residential density and dimensions and how it's impacted the ability for my husband and I to modify our Sammamish home with 24 years and give us the ability to age in place. As you may recall, because I know you don't have anything else to think about but my stuff, My husband and I are trying to add a 96 square foot deck on our main floor and extend our current roof 59 square feet to partially cover it. But we were stopped by the January 1st limitation, limiting all residential homes to no more than 3,000 square feet and no more than 40% hardscape coverage. So right now, our original unmodified home, 536 square feet over what current code allows, which means our home could not even be built under today's restrictions. And under last year's code, our original unmodified home was 756 square feet under. So we would have been OK if I'd just done this last year. So I know you're voting on this tonight, and I'd just like to thank you for being so supportive and open to listening to the homeowners, as well as your willingness to be flexible and revisit restrictions that unintentionally harmed older residents with older homes like me and my husband. And as a special thank you to David Pyle and to Avril for taking the time to not only just follow up with us, they met with us and explained everything to us, and it was truly amazing and enlightening, and I appreciate it greatly. Thank you all very much. And it's National Cookie Day, and I did bring treats.

My waistline thanks you. Anybody else? Is there anybody online, Evan? Okay, I'm going to close the public hearing. So would someone make a motion? And my suggestion is we just make the motion as written, and then we do a modification. So moved. So the motion is to recommend to the City Council the amendments to SMC Title 21 to correct minor errors, clarify intent, and remove redundant or outdated language as presented in Exhibit 1 by Avril tonight.

I'll second that. Okay, it's been moved and seconded.

Discussion. Would someone like to suggest a modification to that? Or I can suggest one, however you want to do it. And I think that we've got the floor we will not again I don't think we should try to be too clever and get the words exactly right because I'm not a code expert and I think The staff can figure out how to interpret the intent so I would move that we modify item 10 to say that To leave the restrictions on upper floors, but modify it so that any floor that within five feet of the main entry threshold to the house or below is unrestricted. Okay, that's my motion to amend. And let me tell you why I said five feet, because you can have certainly houses with drop living rooms or split level homes, but you can't have a whole floor in five feet. I THINK 5 FEET TYPICALLY WOULD CAPTURE ANY SPLIT LEVEL OR ANYTHING THAT'S KIND OF JUST AN UP DOWN ON THAT MAIN ENTRY FLOOR SO YOU COULDN'T GET INTO INTERPRETING THAT, YOU KNOW, THIS ALCOVE OR THIS THING, RIGHT? IT KIND OF KEEPS YOU CONSISTENT WITH WHAT A MAIN FLOOR IS AND IT'S WITHIN THE MAIN ENTRY THRESHOLD SO WHATEVER THAT DOOR IS, I THINK THAT WOULD KIND OF COVER EVERYTHING. THAT WOULD GET UP TO MAYBE 92% OF THE CASES AND THEN ANYTHING BELOW THAT IN ORDER TO EXPAND, YOU'D HAVE TO EXPAND BELOW. I'M SORRY. AND IN ADDITION, I BELIEVE WE AGREED THAT WE NEEDED TO SAY CUMULATIVE 300 SQUARE FEET FOR THE RESTRICTION TO ANY OF THE UPPER FLOORS. SO THOSE WOULD BE THE TWO MODIFICATIONS TO ITEM 10. OKAY. THAT'S MY MOTION TO AMEND. YOU WANT TO SECOND THAT?

I'LL SECOND THAT. I'LL SECOND YOUR AMENDMENTS.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT SAYING IT THAT WAY AND THEN LETTING STAFF NOODLE AROUND WITH THE LANGUAGE TO MAKE SURE WHEN THEY PRESENT IT TO COUNCIL IT'S DEFENSIBLE?

I think that's a great suggestion. Yes. Sorry. That's a great suggestion. My only addition would be to kind of sanitize the ground floor concept because it's stuck in my head right now.

How is she going to sanitize it?

I think eliminate. Eliminate, yeah. Let's be straightforward. Eliminate, yes.

I'll mention just in support. This feels far simpler. And I think it meets the intent. So I really like the simplification. And one other thing I'll mention, there's been this for sure one time, I think a couple of times in the past where the letter that we have transmitted to council after a public hearing has recognized that there would be some fine tuning of the wording. by our professionals here. And that's worked out fine in the past, so I think we should be doing that here.

Any other comments on the amendment? Okay, so I have to take a vote on the amendment. All those in favor of the amendment, say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Okay, the amendment passes. So now we are on the overall topic of as presented plus those amendments. Any more discussion, comments, questions? Okay, so this is voting on the overall motion as amended. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no.

Okay.

Hopefully we gave you enough to go on, Avril.

I greatly appreciate it, thank you. Did we say which seven minutes?

I think you did OK on the seven minutes. I'm not sure that we did.

I'll take seven minutes if you all take one.

OK. Thanks a lot. Nice. Anything else, Evan?

Two quick things. One, I sent the planning commission an email yesterday about logging your volunteer hours through the Galaxy system that the city uses. I think it's by January 2nd is the date that they're looking for those hours and they'll compile those and hopefully award some. certificates and recognitions to those who have like the commissioners here put in a lot of time and we appreciate that and then the second thing is it is the end of the year so I just want to take a moment to thank the Planning Commission for another great year a lot of fun topics a lot of late nights together but we we get a lot done here so thank you all for the effort and this is our last meeting before the holiday season so everybody relax and take a breather and we'll see you back here January 15th to Talk about impact fees. So that's on the horizon, and that will get you through the holiday season. Looking forward to that. So thank you all. Thanks, Evan.

Thank you, Evan. Quick note. I tallied up the hours for all of the meetings last year in my fancy little spreadsheet. 12 hours and 50 minutes if you attended every meeting.

12 hours?

12 hours, 50 minutes.

Sounds like 13 hours. 13 hours. And it just flew by. All right. I echo Evan's comments about the holidays. I hope you'll enjoy them. And we will be back here in January. So would someone move to adjourn? Second. It's been moved and seconded. We adjourn. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. Okay. Thank you, everyone. Have a nice evening.

Thank you.