Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Uh good evening everyone. Um I'm going to call the uh March 19th, 2026 uh Seamish Planning Commission meeting to order. Uh before calling roll, I want to um wish everyone who's marking the end of Ramadan a joyful celebration and an Eid mu Mubarak. Oh, was I close? Yes. Oh, well, thank you. Um All right. So, first we will do uh roll call. Uh Hisham Alawad, I'm here. Um John Bachmann here and Mike Brrisco obviously I am here. Suda Sakar I'm here.

Say Safian here.

And Aay Shakraani and Mazi Punowala uh have excused absences this evening. Um next we will do agenda. So any changes to this evening's agenda? All right. will consider the agenda approved by common consent and uh the minutes from our February 19th meeting. Any changes to those minutes? Okay, seeing none, we'll consider those uh approved by common consent. Uh and uh so next on the agenda is our public comment of three minutes um or allotted and um we will be having the uh public hearing later. So if there are comments specifically to the impact fees related uh those will be done during the public hearing. So anybody um interested in making comment?

Sure. Okay. Mr. Stikney.

Nice to see a couple council members here. Hello planning commissioners. Paul Stikny Seamish. My comment uh today at this first comment period is about a fairly large topic and then a you know discussion of the first three topics on your first agenda item a tad. The really big topic is to integrate into the city comprehensive plan a housing direction of HST plus. The H is internal housing needs and external regional then services and then transportation to add value across the board. And three quick statements. I believe our community character and our social fabric have been eroding and weakening because of residents who want to stay over stages of life and don't have the opportunity to. What do we do about it? We objectively quantify housing need factors, compare consequences of meeting those needs or not. inform residents based on genuine need and consequences and get their input. Then consider setting market rate housing targets in this comp plan to meet alongside affordable housing regional growth. Two different sources of numbers. And the thing that I've been proposing isn't about changing the character of 96 to 97% of the city. It's about enhancing it. It makes our neighborhoods stay relatively the same. Yet, we can offer different and diverse housing in our centers that isn't based on regional need. It's based on our needs over time in a very small footprint. And this can

be done with less than a third of the traffic and students we've added over the past 25 years in our city. and about the topics on your agenda. I went back and heard that meeting and if I have something wrong, please correct me, but I noticed uh you know Debbie Train and Kent Train raised some topics which are the are the three that you're seeing here and the mayor Josh said they he'd like planning commission to look at it. What I didn't hear was any deliberation or votes or discussion by the council. So my take is that you've got a free reign to look at this without being hemmed in by a predetermined policy direction. Take a look at these topics. What do you think are the pros and cons and have some influence in coming up with a good impartial, you know, uh wellthoughtout approach to the topics. Anyway, I will talk during the public hearing comment on the impact fees. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Paul. Uh, anybody else? Okay, Mary, please. Um, good evening, planning commission. My name is Mary Wter. I've been in this city for 25 years and on March 17th of 2015, 11 years ago, I started doing my first insane public comments. So, here we go. Um, in the agenda packet for tonight, if you search for the word landslide or slopes, um, those slopes and steep slopes are a portion of landslides. Landslides are part of geologic hazards and there was a word erosion in there, I think, before. So, maybe that should get looked at and I won't speak more to that. What I am going to speak to since there is a fiscal imbalance in our city, I've sent in um you know how you rewind your film. So if you search your emails for rewind, you'll find a rewind which wasn't numbered one, a rewind two, and a rewind three from February 12th, 17th, and March 3rd that I sent to the city commission and also the planning commission. It's probably the most succinct stuff on how to get your city so it isn't going to be broke and make it into the black instead of into the red. So um the first one that I had sent and this doesn't do the camera and you guys um on this this is actually done by urban 3. They're like a nationwide consultant and also international and then I did a sprawl thing from Bose and Montana where you can see sprawl and then um fiscally efficient and then a villages and then there's a 10-minute video um that's a YouTube um that if you click on it it's the best stuff that I can't even summarize it. You just need to watch it. So if you'll just do rewind and see those but what I am going to talk about is for um this one they have highraoft here which is a single family

development um R4 which is four dwellings to one and then this is the town homes which are right over there and um then this is Sky Apartments which is up at the top of the hill in town center and then this is a hamburger joint used to be uh Jack in the Box down by Safeway and it's a Habit Grill now I think. Um, but anyway, those single standalone commercials, those tend to be more profitable than like big box stores like when Petco got emptied and stuff like that. And Seamish isn't looking at have having um uh big box stores at all where the small commercial actually pans out pretty well. So, what I wanted to do, I know you can't see these and even if I print them, they're pretty tiny. So, you'll be able to do this online. I wanted to talk a little bit about what you get for your acreage. So, how many of you know what an acre looks like? Well, I'm a farm girl, so it's really easy for me. So, it is 4 43,560 ft. Well, what is that? It's an American football field without the end zones. American football, not soccer. There you go. And um that's about 48,000 square ft. And then um and a/4 acre is about 10 to 11,000 square ft just to give you an idea. And this is just an 11 by7 paper. So, the question is, would you rather have $6,800 per acre in municipal tax, which is single family, or 8,300, which is the hamburger joint, or the town houses, which are almost 19,000 per acre, or 42,000, almost 43,000 dwellings per acre for way less roads. So, I'll try to scan these online, but thank you for the time tonight, and I hope you'll do rewind and watch.

Okay. Thank you, Mary. And okay, I have one more. Right. Good evening. I'm Fred Madison. We've lived in Seamish or what is was Seamish? What is Seamish for 47 years? So, we've been around a little bit. Um, I would be very cautious about raising any taxes right now because the state is not going to lower our taxes, our tax base. And if you're familiar with how assessments work, you know that in 2024, there were a good number of sales between January 1 and December 31. Those are the comparables for the reassessment or calculation in 2025 for taxes in 2026. As commercial real estate right now is having a little bit of a headache and as the values for the commercial comes down, residential will fill in the gap. And so that means it's going to be going up. And then again, dollars, right? Uh when I did these calculations 6 months ago, um we were looking at uh a cost of $65,000 per residential unit for permit and mitigation fees only to build one home. Now it's going to be far higher than that. So the costs are going up up up. And I would hope that you would um limit any increases because I know that there's a lot of owners watching and it's it's becoming um unsustainable for a lot of people who are living here like us seniors. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you for um anybody online.

We have one pre-registered commenter. Mr. Eastman, I'm going to go ahead and promote you James Eastman. Appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight. I saw uh we're going back into these wildlife corridors and I think to myself, you know, we're 95% built out in our town or in our city and like if I'm going to put a corridor in for something, where where am I going to put it? You know, where where am I going to map it? Uh if it's a transmission line or road, you tend to put them where people are already are. So the burden lies on the 5% like me who hasn't built anything to uh put these these things in. And then on top of that, those those types of items the city pays for like you know they're required to pay for. But if we call the wildlife corridor, like the the onus is on me to to pay for these things. And it's usually paid for by uh me giving up my property and losing areas to develop. Uh and I don't even know how we gauge that where you're comparing to somebody that lives within a corridor is forced to give up his land where the guy that owns land and is not in a corridor uh he doesn't have to give up any land. Um, so it's it's inequitable uh in a lot of ways. Um, but it is what it is and we just passed it. And you know, I keep repeatedly asking the question, what is it this city wants? What does it want for their people? You know, let's let's go do it. Uh, but you know, we

continually just come back to what we don't want. And I, you know, I feel like we were just here and here we are talking about bobcats and bears and mountain lions. And I don't I don't know like necessarily if the science says those belong in Seamish. And if they do, then I'm like, well, is what's what's the number one enemy? Like, you know, bears survive no problem in Samish. They know when it's trash day. They'll come get your trash cans. Bobcats will eat your animals if they need to to survive. And I think probably the number one thing or the only thing that really could probably kill one of these animals if it's really in their best interest is a car. So like are we going to put a levey out there to make sure there's road crossings over East Lake Samish Parkway so they get to the lake and eat fish if they need to or cross 202 safely? Uh, so we have connected landscapes and they're not fragmented for these animals. Like no, we that's all we're hearing about right now is, you know, the price of everything is going up. Like we wouldn't dare ask the residents to pay for what these animals really do need if they truly need to live in Samish, which is protection from something that could kill them, which would be a car. But to me, it doesn't feel like that's what this is about. I feel like we want to, you know, that last 5% of land, let's go after and just tie it up all we can and, you know, prevent housing and and uh uh, you know, also drive the cost of housing up even further. So, I really uh am anxious for you guys to look at the science behind this because if we're looking at this for any reason whatsoever, the only thing I could think of would be to make sure they can safely cross a road like they have in Cleveland, which is a great, you know, project and a great

thing to do. But other than that, I I'm not following it. Sorry. Yeah, you passed your time. So, okay, I can't see nothing. Anyways, that's my comments. Thank you.

All right, great. Thank you. and Evan that that covers the uh Okay, great. All right, so we have new business. We have three items that we're going to be covering under new business. They are informational and so our job is to, you know, ask questions, identify additional analysis that's needed. It's not to make decisions, provide direction. We'll be doing some of that when we get to the public hearing a little bit later. And I thought I would just mention two things. one is because sometimes these meetings can get long and and this one with the number of topics could could do that. So uh it is fair game under Robert's rules if anybody thinks that we are repeating points to call the questions. Uh so everybody has permission to do that. Uh and then second thing is uh as I was going through uh the agenda packet, I was thinking that quite often in the commission here, we're faced with making trade-offs or at least thinking about trade-offs. And one of those trade-offs is the rights of a property owner. James Eastman was just talking about that, you know, as a wildlife corridor and that might take some of my ability to use my property away. So kind of property rights of the owner and then what's good for the community and what the community want and making those tradeoffs and I think you know several of these things are dealing with those kinds of tradeoffs and so it might help if we have that kind of a frame and then also um you know a lot of times we're we're looking at one one specific item and I think it's important that we also look more broadly at what are the the broader impacts and we do that pretty often. we try at least um but there are also these you know unintended consequences and so to try to think more holistically. So with that we have a presentation and we agreed that we would go through each of

these three topics in turn. So Evan okay David try not

great no problem. Um thank you David Pile department of community development. Uh I'm here to provide a presentation as was described by the chair and then we will um after each of the topics we'll stop hopefully and have a little dialogue on it and get some feedback. Um the request comes from the city council on three possible code changes. Um the first is to re-evaluate the codified criteria for quasi judicial reszone. The second is to re-evaluate the list of exemptions to the city's inclusionary affordable housing program. And the third is to evaluate the addition of certain terrestrial animals to the list of species of local importance. I want to be clear that no action is proposed at this time. The council is seeking feedback. Um these items will be brought back to the plan the city council at their April 14th meeting um in the coming weeks where the council will have additional dialogue on this and determine uh what to do and how to move forward on these items. The first the quasi judicial reszone. Um this reszone was this this process was added to the city's code as a result of the 2024 comprehensive plan update and implementing development regulations. Uh the 2024 comprehensive plan um integrated a new or created and added a new uh future land use map that created a future land use designation of neighborhood residential. And within the neighborhood residential, there are a range of zoning classifications that are identified as potentially appropriate R1, R4, R six, and R8. Uh, as part of implementation of that, the the comprehensive plan and development regulations identify opportunity for upzoning of properties that that are adjacent to areas of higher intensity. Um, which means basically that if you have a property that is in an R1 that is

next to an R4, if you meet the criteria for reszoning for quasi judicial resone, which is criteria driven, that you are eligible to uh go about uh completing that reszone, which is a hearing examiner process um to complete that that that step to upzone it, if you will. Um, this is a tool um to increase housing diversity. Uh there are other allowances under middle housing. It it is important to note that um zoning is becoming less important over time as we see things like HB110 which the middle housing bill which requires multiple units per per parcel or per lot. um that that ultimately upends some of the traditional or historic zoning that we and many of our fellow cities on the east side have had. The general issue statement is that the existing quasi judicial reszone criteria that was created in in December of 2024 do not effectively consider the impacts on properties encumbered by environmentally critical areas. Um the discussion items are should parcels with critical areas be removed from those eligible for quasi judicial reszones or should properties with critical areas still be allowed to be reszoned but the percentage of area encumbered by critical areas reduced. I do note that this is currently set at 50%. What this means is that if you have a parcel, say you have an R4 parcel that is adjacent to an R six parcel and you meet the criteria except that the property is encumbered at say 80% by a stream, a wetland or a landslide hazard area. Um that or it's or its associated regulatory buffer that you would not be

eligible to reszone. And the concept there is that there are properties in the city that might be adjacent to a zone of higher intensity but that have an identifiable delineatable critical area on them that might deter us from wanting to have that be reszone. There might be it might not be the best site to reszone. Um, at the time we initially proposed the reszone criteria, we identified that any property with a critical area or excuse me, a wetland, stream or landslide hazard area or associated buffer uh was present on a property that it would not be eligible. Um the council based on community feedback in December of 2024 um went about fine-tuning that criteria and decided that because we had just gone through our critical areas update process that we uh should apply our critical areas rules which restrict development in areas where there are critical areas and that we should allow properties that are not encumbered by more than 50% of a wetland, stream or landslide hazard or associated ated buffer to go through the reszone process. So the question at hand really is should we change that percentage? Should we go back to the original criteria which said that a property that is encumbered with a stream, wetland or landslide hazard area or associated buffer not be eligible to be reszoned. Um this is really where the conversation lies. Um example code solutions are to remove the 50% condition or modify the limit of percentage constrained. Um other considerations are that we we do have uh updated critical areas rules that account for best available science which include generation of buffers for wetlands and streams and and landslide hazard areas. Another is that we use a

net density calculation for determining how many units are allowed. What that means is that in order to calculate the total numbers of number of units allowed, you take the net usable area and you multiply it by the R factor and that tells you the number of units. Now in the middle housing overlays, the MH1, which is the R1 uh middle housing overlay, that R1 factor that would be applied changes to three. If you were in the MH2, which is the R4, that R4 factor changes to 12. And if you were in the MH3, which is the R six and the R8, that R factor changes to 18. So you can see that under middle housing, density can go up significantly. However, the units that are allowed under the MH overlay, those R factors are related to middle housing, which includes accessory dwelling units, cottages, duplexes, triplexes, um town homes, stack flats, and courtyard apartments. That is not that is not allowed for the purpose of single family development. So, it's a different form of development that applies. With that, turn it back over to the chair and the commission and see what questions we might have or dialogue we might have.

Okay. Um, who would like to go first? Go ahead, John.

I'll just say first, this stuff is complicated. And as we've seen with many of the things we've done with the 2024 comp plan, there have been unintended consequences that we just didn't figure out at the beginning. This might be one of them. Um I guess so David, thank you for particularly mentioning the overlay stuff. So my question would be you have a large enough lot that you have some wetlands along one edge, you would not be able to upzone an R1 to R4, even though there's plenty of room to build two or three single family homes under our current criteria for um critical areas. So that could have to me that could have an unintended consequence of um restricting that land land use where we didn't intend it or maybe that's what council was intending. I'm not sure. Um, so I think there just on the surface because I really don't have enough knowledge, it seems like the 50% um, the way it is right now um, is a reasonable limit. I mean, staff studied that obviously, but to set it to zero, I think um there just too many unknowns. That's just my first blush

gut feeling. I don't have anything else to back it up. Next. Anybody want to jump into the fray? I'll I'll go next.

Okay, Michelle. I had the same thought as John about why don't we just follow the critical areas rule and make it the same as as everyone else because my mind can be thinking about one lot with one critical area but I'm sure if we start walking around we will find there are many different combinations of these and we don't want to end up like John said restricting someone because there's a stream at the edge of the property and they have a big property that can allow more houses to be built because we applied the rule and it's the intended consequence. Do you want to

may I um I I do want to highlight one thing and I think this is worth noting is that um the way the rule is currently set up, the criteria which is listed here, it's highlighted in yellow is it specifically calls out wetlands, streams, landslide hazard areas and associated buffers. And we do have other critical areas beyond those. We have critical aercharge areas. We have erosion hazard areas. Um we have habitat areas. Um and the challenge is is that those areas the the wetlands, streams and landslide hazard areas specifically do not allow development in those areas. You they are set aside. You you you basically you and and they are easy to delineate. They're easy to identify and they are easy to add buffers to and you can locate those on the ground very easily. Um the other critical areas tend to be more challenging to identify. Um critical aquifer recharge areas. We have a map. They're they're they don't mean you can't develop. It just means that there are certain things you have to do on the surface in order to ensure that the the recharge area is being managed properly. Uh erosion hazard areas that really relates to ground disturbance, seasonality of construction, not wanting the soil to unravel and end up in the lake. um those are that's really the premise behind erosion hazard areas. Habitat areas are I think often really challenging and misunderstood in my experience working with habitat regulations in other cities um where where we had challenges related to development and habitat. it the the science behind habitat is really focused on features in the landscape as opposed to a delineated area like a wetland or a

stream and it looks at relationships in the landscape between aquatic resources forage nesting different life cycle needs of species. So it is inherently hard because of the list of species and the range of vers versatility in the species needs to include habitat in this type of of criteria here. Um so I wanted to highlight that because there is some community conversation that I've heard about this and wanting to make sure that you have the opportunity to hear that and understand that additional layer or wrinkle in this whole thing or challenge I guess. Um, and as you talk about it, understand that we are currently only basing this on wetlands, streams, landslide hazards, and associated buffers. The other critical areas are not included as part of this criteria, just to be clear.

Yep. Thank you. And when I said my comment, my goal is it goes back to we are trying to provide more housing and we are down to the 5% of land and I hate to restrict that leftover area because of a rule because we can go and spend more time out there and study it more. If there's a way to open it to allow more houses, that's the end goal.

Thank you. My understanding is that council um when they discussed this and asked us to look into it, they're looking at potential policy change. So when we looking at the reasoning, I see possibly there are three reasons for that. One is for environmental protection. The second would be growth management and the third would be neighborhood neighborhood compatibility. David, can you elaborate on the do you know about the discussion that you had with the council or your understanding which one of these more kind of council is leaning towards too?

I think it it depends member by member of the council. There's two of them here. You could ask them. Um uh and I I think my understanding is is that this primarily came from environmental concern. Um, however, as was stated, we do have recently updated critical areas rules that are that meet best available science, and as I compare them across jurisdictions on the east side, ours are are fairly robust compared to other cities. We we are doing a good job managing our critical areas. Um, now the the the question is, are there other environmental impacts that that come from that? I I know that the one that stood out that that I've heard about is habitat. And that why is criteria C not including habitat? And my explanation for that is because habitat is highly variable, very hard to delineate. and we would have a really hard time identifying whether or not a property um is encumbered in a way that might diminish developable area on it based on habitat. That is a big challenge for us. Um what we don't want is a criteria that is subjective, variable and really misunders possibly misunderstood. That is what typically results in 2 3 4 day hearings with the hearing examiner where nobody's happy. So we want from my perspective keeping the criteria as objective and as straightforward as possible so that you can very easily understand what is required for that to happen is very desirable. Um now some some might want to do it differently. I understand that. I'm here to implement whatever the city tells me to implement. Um I am merely just trying to outline the different sides to it with regard to the other topics that you raised.

Neighborhood compatibility um residential residential to residential it's there is really not an issue in my for my in my opinion with that we are already told by HB110 the legislature and through implementation of that that middle housing is to be considered the same as single family and that there really is not a difference with regard to neighborhood compatibility. Um and if you're talking about reszoning, it is not a change in use. It is simply a change in density. There is no change in use happening. Um, with regard to the growth management act, I would say that by restricting, similar to comments we heard that by restricting based on critical areas that are already regulated, that we are veering out of direction given by the growth management act to allow for diverse and affordable housing types, to allow for housing density to develop within the urban growth area, and to allow for the city to develop. However, I understand that that community vision and community interest also shapes that and that having a um a keeping that interest in mind might might want you to be maybe a little more restrictive about which properties are allowed to be reszoned and which ones aren't.

Next question. What is the relationship between resoning and middle house um feasibility? Well, I I think when we is it going to be adversely impacted is going to be going parallel side by side or how is they will be forwarding middle housing feasibility. Okay. How many parcels do you think that would be affected by resoning?

Right. So, this question was asked by council members um and we are in the process of working with our our uh mapping consultant, our GIS consultant, Flow Analytics, and we are hopeful to have a map that identifies parcels that are eligible under today's criteria and parcels that are eligible if you were to make it zero and parcels that would be eligible if you were to make it 100%. So, we are looking at that now. Um again, that would be an estimate. We we we cannot map this that precisely due to a lot of unknown and variable factors

as chair indicated in the beginning in introduction and he brought up the issue of tradeoff. Would it be possible to go with the list of the trade-off pluses or minuses for each options? That would be a very useful tool. Yeah, I I don't think that would be be that hard to do, right? So I think we we could look at that and you can see side by side the advantages and a disadvantage of each option. Right. No, that that's great feedback and I appreciate the way you started the meeting with that. So yeah, any others? I do have questions but I'm don't know how to formulate it properly.

You want to just matter? It's a huge uh it's parcel by parcel right because you don't know to say 50% or 0% it's like where's the critical area is it like at the end of the parcel and then like I want to have ADU for my mom and dad and I can't do that but then at the same note it's a critical area you want to protect it so I'm torn

sorry brain's torn coming and talking. So you did mention that those landslide areas, the wetland streams, they cannot reszone those, right? If you have them. Well, today if you have them and not more than 50% of your property is locked down or encumbered by those areas and you're meeting the standard lot size for the district in which you're proposing to zone to which is listed there as well then you

so 50% of the let's say I have a 1 acre and then half acre is critical area right so 50% of one acre that I can reszone or just the 50% that's left 50% of the total lot area. So, if you had an acre in the R1 and you were propo, let's just for example, and you were proposing to reszone to R4 and you you had half of your property that was encumbered, so you know, 21, 500, whatever, right? 44. Yeah. Yeah. Um Yeah. 22. Yeah.

Yeah. Um then you would be able to reszone because you're meeting the standard lot size for the R4 district. and you're not more than 50% encumbered by critical areas. So, you would be eligible to reszone. However, if 75% of your property was encumbered by wetland, stream, slope, or combination thereof, because you could have any of those combinations, you would not be eligible to reszone. So the the trade-offs are here is that on the one hand if you decided that it'd be best to to not restrict it based on critical presence of critical areas then our critical areas rules would be what would what would apply.

Okay?

And even if you reszoned, you still would not be able to build in a wetland or a stream or a slope or its buffer. The habitat rules would still apply as they're written. The um erosion hazard area would apply as written in the critical aquifer recharge area would apply as written. Um however, there would be some additional density that would be allowed in the location that was buildable that so long as it met the the zoning controls and the critical areas rules, you would then be allowed to develop at that density. If you you'd put it to the other side and you said if you had any critical area on your property, excuse me, any wetland, stream, geological hazard area or associated buffer on your property, any at all, 1% of the property, and you were not eligible to reszone, then you would stay at the same density that you have today. The critical areas would still apply. However, the density of the housing that is developed on the property would be limited to what that zoning was today because you're not eligible to move up to the next higher um zoning level. I think that the couple ways to look at this if you're just I'm just talking about pros and cons is on the one hand we have we're just starting this process. We have a new future land use map. We've got this this broader land use allowance within the neighborhood residential and that will allow for a variet you know there are a a bundle of properties that are going to be eligible. We're going to map that. We're going to show you where those are located and how many there are roughly. But understanding that because we're just starting this process, there are some parcels in the city and this is just one way to look at it. There are some parcels that really are ripe for for for reasonzoning. They really should be reszoned. Um, and you know, you you'll know those when you see them. They're they're flat. They're near a sewer. They're near a you know, an

arterial. They're they have the right the right infrastructure. Um, so those might you might consider should be re should be reszoned, right? And I think the one way to look at this is is that we we might want to we could nudge into it gently. We could start resoning using our quasi judicial reszone process gently and we could limit it and we could decide to turn the dial on the percentage over time if we find that we don't have adequate land to meet our our growth targets and to build to meet our housing needs. That's one way to look at it. The other way to look at it is is that most of the city parcels that are buildable are built. Um, and that we might need to reszone some of those parcels or some of the unbuilt parcels to make them really deliver the housing that we think is a community that we need and that if that is our priority, then we shouldn't restrict based on whether they're critical there or not. Critical areas are there or not because we have critical areas rules that apply. It really depends on the policy priority. Um, and I think what the council was trying to do in December of 24 is to split the difference and say, well, we understand that resoning is important and we're going to need some additional, you know, emp oomph behind our housing to get some housing built, but at the same time, we want to be cautious and we don't want to be reszoning a property that is 100% encumbered with critical areas. So, they they tried to set the the balance right in the middle. And that's kind of why they landed there. But it does have an impact though. Like for example, if you have one acre, half of it is landslide hazard area. You're like, okay, you can build whatever like four houses on the other side, right? That will have an impact and it changes the landslide totally. In in India, like they used to just give Yeah, sure. Yeah. Just go

build, you know, we've seen like uh buildings collapsing. So it has an impact on it. So that's why it's but each parcel you have to define. So to to to be sure that you you would be restricted from building in the landslide hazard area plus a 50ft buffer off of that. So if you it'll have an impact, right? Because of drainage because of other things. Yes. And and that is part of the the building design consideration that goes into a project. Okay.

Thank you. So, you captured some of what I was going to talk about. Um, but putting it in far more simplistic terms for my brain is given the scope and scale of our critical areas ordinance. you know a geotech has report has to be done even if you're beyond the 50 50 foot buffer. Um so if a a land owner wants to go through the res rezone process geotech reports biological assessments whatever is needed for them to go through the process and actually build something. Do we really care if a encumbered lot has 50%, 25%, 1% if they want to go to R4, they're restricted by what our code says they can possibly build there. And again reiterating my earlier point or you're at 48%. Well, you only get two houses instead of four, but that's still a benefit in terms of our housing stock, a benefit to the property owner. Um, and it's adjacent to other residential uses. So I just I don't see a great value to the community in going to zero.

Yeah. Two questions. David, you have been long enough with the city. Can you give us history of number of cases that you have to you had to deal with it in the last five years? How many cases how many requests has been made to resing resoning? Right. So, this was just added um in December of 2024 as a result of our comprehensive plan. We have never had any requests.

We have had some. I believe we have three or four in process in the year and a half that we've had these rules on the books. We had one that was just approved by the hearing examiner. Um and there was quite a bit of uh neighbor testimony as part of that hearing related to that site. Um that site is known as the Iide property and it has a stream in the lower corner of it with a stream buffer on it. However, it was not more than 50% of the property. I believe it also has a slope in the general area of the stream and stream buffer. So that kind of double counted as one, right? Um and the challenge there was that that is a forested property that is a beautiful remnant forest tract. Um, and although the balance of the property is not a wetland, stream or landslide hazard or associated buffer, that there was community concern about it serving as a a patch of habitat in a larger habitat connection across the city. And if you look at an aerial photograph, I I can see and understand what they're saying, and I'm not trying to refute or debate that part of it. However, that is something that is very hard to delineate in terms of what exactly does it mean and how it diminishes the capacity to develop. That will be taken up as part of the development proposal following the critical areas rules. And it is possible that if there is habitat there and the habitat professionals do their studies that the the carrying capacity of that site will be significantly diminished as a result of that. It just depends on how how the rules apply to that property. Um, so that's one of them. We have another one that is um

further I think it's down more in the the central east part of the city. Um, that is actually three neighbors side by side are doing it themselves. Most of these are that we see are um the interest comes in the community that we're the inquiries that we've had about this reszone process has come from existing property owners that want to do it themselves. Um we have a couple that are developers that are doing them under contract. We have one just up the hill here on fourth just to the west of Brownstone's West development where there's a whole new road and roundabouts put in and there that is proposed to be reszoned um to R4 um where it currently is zoned as R1. Uh so that one is another example. Um but by and large we have not had a a huge number of proposals or requests or even inquiries about this process. The other question is that uh I'm sure that a lot of cities particularly on the east side they dealing with it and struggling with this. Have have you had any contact with them see how they propose as far as addressing this this issue?

Right. So so every city is different in how its comprehensive plan accounts for future land use map how and how its process what its processes are for reszones. We have two types of processes for reszone. I won't burden you with that out of efficiency for time. Um but other cities do have similar types of reszone processes to what we have. Um and they you know it's not something in my experience that is used so frequently that that it becomes a huge burden in a community. I think where where it is is an issue is where we um we if we didn't have water and sewer infrastructure or if you had difficulty with storm water or if you had difficulty with transportation services and our process is designed so that you go through the reszone you have to show you have water and sewer or that you are one of the other criteria is the subject parcel has sufficient water and sewer capacity for development allowed under the proposed zoning district as demonstrated by service levels specified in water and sewer plans. So if you can show in these in the Spanish plateau water and sewer district water and sewer comprehensive plans that your site is planned to be provided with service adequate to meet the needs of the development then then that is a primary consideration. Um now when you come in with the development you ultimately will be have to do a development extension agreement and get all the the um water and sewer availability sorted out and you would also have to go through the traffic concurrency process with the city and if there was not adequate traffic capacity then your project your proposed development could be denied. Um, so a lot of this really is setting up an allowance for a a a slightly higher density with a similar use, the same use

residential. It just is at a different density. Um, I want to also highlight and I'm I know I'm I'm probably taking too much time here so I apologize. There's a lot of lot of background to this.

No, no, no. We we just I just want I don't want us to go too late. So, um the uh the other thing to keep in mind is that we tried as part of the design of our middle housing rules, our MH1 to mitigate against desire to reszone from R1 to R4 with cottage allowances. So if you look at the MH1 and if you recall when we were working on this and there was a lot of work we were doing in you know the the summer and fall of 24 what we did was we allow for unlimited density of cottages in the R1. Um that doesn't mean you can build unlimited cottages. It just means that other zoning controls ultimately restrict. So you're allowed 40% hardscape and you could build middle housing or you could build single family homes at R1 with 40% hardscape or you could build as many cottages as you could fit in that 40% allowed hardscape. What it does is it promotes efficiency in design for designers. And we think that there is an argument to be made that you could build cottages instead of reszoning to R4. And you could build as many cottages as you could fit in in that 40% of hardscape and it might be an easier um better product in the city than reszoning to R4. Now, it depends on what they're building. They could be building uh duplexes and triplexes. And if they're doing that, you can't do that under the cottage allowance in the R1. And my last question about the can you tell us a little bit about state guidelines mandates that we're supposed to follow. So the the state mandate is regarding uh our well I mean think about it we have a a growth target and we have to show that we have enough capacity for our growth target. We do have enough capacity that's not a question. Um the the next one is our inclusionary or

excuse me our affordable housing allocation which is not a growth target and it's different than our growth target. Remember that. Um and we have to show that we have capacity for our housing allocation in the form of low-rise and mid-rise building types. That's not what's going on here. This is this is middle housing and single family. So that's not really at play here. Um the next uh requirement is is that we are allowing for dup or excuse me we're allowing for under the ADU bill ADUs. We do that. That's not really at issue here. Um that's not not something we're dealing with. The next one is that we are allowing for middle housing um under the middle housing bill HB110 and we allow for middle housing. This doesn't change that. I don't think we would be found to be in compliance or out of compliance regardless of whether we ch change the 50% one way or another. Ultimately, what this has to do with is um financial feasibility, land economics, and trying to find a way to make middle housing and smaller units and those types of things more more feasible in the community. because you're taking a a property that might have only allowed one dwelling unit per acre for single family or three three middle housing units and turning it into a property that would allow for four dwelling units per acre single family or 12 middle housing units. And the economics of that are significantly different. Um, and it might make a developer who has to, and again, I know some people disagree with this, but they have to show that they're um that it's financially feasible for them to build something for them to build it. We're not building housing. We don't build it. The developer builds it. And a developer won't build it if it's not financially feasible. Um, so given land economics as

a big factor, another part of it is is that, and I'm taking too long. I'm sorry. This is so complex. Another factor that's layered into it is the affordable housing requirements. Now, that goes back to our our affordable housing require our our HB1220 affordable housing allocation, but we have what I call and you're going to hear more about this in the next topic. Hopefully, we'll get to it soon. Um, which is what I call our housing ecosystem. All of this is intertwined and all of this is designed to help us get to smaller market rate units that might be more market affordable and it is also designed for a portion of the housing that is being built to be built at a certain AMI and also possibly or that it's there is a financial contribution towards um affordable housing in the city which can then go towards us building low-rise and mid-rise um development to meet that deeper level of affordability that we are required to provide for. It is as I describe it a housing ecosystem and it is entirely intertwined which makes it complicated. I have a couple questions and and some of these are yes or no. Um earlier you'd mentioned um about whether a property could be reszoned or not and if there was the incumbrances um even if there's some issues that with the incumbrances you can go and have a docket request for a reszone. So there's there's at least two approaches for reasonzoning. One would be this quasi judicial and then the other would be through a docket request which has a long time frame associated with it and complexity and costs and all of that. So uh making changes here doesn't necessarily say thou shalt not ever be able to reszone. Right. That is correct. And one of the the approaches we had and the the objectives here was to make this

accessible to the average property owner in the city.

Yeah. Um so then the um other piece that you've mentioned and so I think this might be something we kind of document a little bit more or maybe it's been sufficient what's been mentioned but um the encumbrance includes the buffer so you talk about the 50 ft and all um which can take you know I just have the stream near my property but then there's also the buffer right um and so the question becomes I'd mentioned earlier the property rights, the owner rights versus protecting in this case the environment and the desire of the community to keep the Samish you know strong from an environmental standpoint and um so the counterveailing piece to this I think and it would be helpful maybe to have a little bit more documentation sort of comparison is all of the rules and you mentioned them briefly that would require at the point where I'm starting to put my permitting together and so forth, all of the requirements that would further restrict impact to these encumbered areas, if that makes sense. Uh because as I'm kind of understanding it, there's a few protections that we have. and one is whether we're going to allow the quasi judicial reszone process and obviously the 50% or 0% or whatever, right? U but then there's also all the development regulations and the requirements which my understanding and maybe we could clarify this a little bit more. Seamish is pretty darn strict compared to most communities and having relatives that live in Texas they're like build on you know so it's different. Um, so I think it would be helpful to understand really what the impact will be on the environment and the protection we'd love

to have for the environment when we consider not just that 50% or 0% but also to at least some degree have a kind of a summary of the other protections I'll call it that are built into the development regulations. And then the last thing I'll just mention kind of food for thought because it is that complexity. We actually had two of our public speakers today talk about essentially taxes. And all of us know that the city has some real challenges with fiscal sustainability or stewardship. And if we fully restrict development, we also restrict the capability to have some additional revenue coming in. I know that adds in a whole another layer of complexity. Um, but at least for me, I think it does come down to how we balance out protecting the environment with property rights, property owner rights. And one way to help sort that through in my mind is recognizing all of the other development regulations that will help to protect these encumbered areas. So

one one more thing Mike you brought it up so I want to can ask the questions Mike asked you that if somebody wants to go through this he has two option he or she has two option either go through this resoning or docket if if somebody goes through resoning and get no answer denied can can he or she go through the docket process? Yeah, they could. Okay. I think that that that was part of the point was Yeah. So the follow-up question is that are the different guidelines applies under the docket guidelines that was not at that time was not a a reason for denial.

Absolutely. One is a legislative process and one is a quasi judicial process. So the process right away is fundamentally different. Quasi judicial is typically criteria based. You meet the criteria, you're approved. uh legislative is is more legislative. Um that that there there's more dialogue with the c it's up to the council. It's at the discretion of the council. That is is is it is it is possible.

We reszone the son property in the town center a few years ago where you're familiar with that hopefully. Um that was quite a process. One of the challenges with that is and talk to the San Antonies about their experience is it's not accessible to the typical property owner. So, one one thing we were trying to do here is to and we're starting to see some property owners, not a lot, but a few Seamish longtime Semamish resident, short-term Semamish resident that is a property owner in the city, right? Um, who is able to use this process and they can be an applicant. They can fill out the paperwork. they don't need to hire a, you know, $100,000 worth of consultants to figure it out. So, that was part of it was we wanted it to be accessible to the community.

One other thing that meant to mention, but you I think you were copied on the letter from U. Samuel Ro. I hope I pronounced his name correctly. Very well researched, very thoughtful. Uh and so I think when we come back or maybe when you share with the council that addressing some of the points that uh that you know Samuel made would be helpful as well. You know was he spoton and you know is all this stuff make perfect sense or were some things that might have been missed? And yeah we we work a lot with him. Um he wears multiple different hats. Um keep in mind that that he is also an applicant for a reason. Somehow that didn't surprise me,

but still, you know, they were well researched and Oh, yes. I'm not trying to diminish his comments. I just want to note that, you know, and one of the hats he wears is a resident, one of the hats is property owner. One of the hats is attorney. Um, we we we work really well with him. I really appreciate his clarity in his comments.

Well, that was super helpful. Help me ask a question or two. So, all right, we should move on to the next topic. There's more. Uh the next item is um regarding exemptions or exceptions from the city's inclusionary affordable housing program. Uh the inclusionary affordable housing program was added as part of the comprehensive plan update and implementing development regulations. Uh in December of 2024, it was added to the city's development regulations. Um it requires 10% of all new housing be affordable at 80% AMI. Um it offers alternative methods of compliance there for for fractional units. It it requires that a fee and lube be paid. Um and it ex excludes um units that are under 1500 square ft. So if you design your development and that does not include garages. If you design your development to to build 1500 square, which is also where our cottages are defined as, if you're building a ser development of cottages um at 1500 ft², you're not required to to participate in the inclusionary affordable housing requirement. Again, that's part of that's deliberate. That's part of our housing ecosystem and it's all intertwined. Um the issue is that the fee and loo is creating a barrier for those looking to modify or add to their existing homes to allow them to age in place. Um another issue that we've come across recently is we've had homes that were destroyed by active nature where those homeowners are wanting to rebuild and as part of the rebuild to expand. Um take that opportunity to expand their home. You know, maybe it was a smaller home and they want to add add some area to meet

their needs and they are finding that they will have to pay the fee in lie for the additional square footage that they're adding which in that point in time when they're spending a lot of money rebuilding their house and they've been out of a house and they're really trying to recover from that disaster. That is something that they're they're seeing as really a penalty to them. Um so the the question is whether units being rebuilt, renovated, remodeled or enlarged um should be exempt from the affordable housing fee in Lu um and whether they should be uh exempt in all scenarios or just in certain instances. Um the we we have a a example code solution that clarifies where that exemptions for units being rebuilt, renovated, remodeled or enlarged are exempt. Um just other considerations, the fee is set by the city's fee resolution at $3445 per square foot. Um the fee is calculated on total floor area and does not include garages or other unfinished living space or not non other unfinished non-living space. Um and one that's also important is the fee is paid at occupancy or first sale of property not at the point of permit issuance. Um so that we do allow that deferral. So for builders, they're able to defer it and then typically it's rolled into uh escrow at the point of closing when the home is sold. Um so it's count account accounted for that way. So with that, I'll turn it back over to the chair. See what questions you might have.

Okay. Yeah. And I'll turn it over to the commissioners. Which questions do you have? I can start. Sure.

You know, it's my favorite topic. Again a question I asked from before. Can someone show me using numbers the cities that use this how much they benefited? I think we are penalizing the larger community thinking we're making money that we can use to build affordable houses but actually we're not. And the couple that we exchanged the email about they're being penalized. So is there any anyone who can show me in numbers the benefit that the cities that used this h how were they able to put it in use to make housing affordable? So, this is a fairly new program that many cities are adopting and it comes from our requirement under House Bill 1220 to account for uh our affordable housing allocation. And we are required to plan for, accommodate, remove barriers to, incentivize, and that used to be what we understood the requirements to be. But there's a newer requirement that has come out of some case case law with the growth management hearings board that states that we are required to address the funding gap related to delivering affordable deep affordable housing. So the alternatives that the city has is the city can create a line item in its budget and can allocate funding from its budget towards affordable housing. It's one option. We do that at a very low level right now with our ARCH uh $100,000 or 180 I guess they have to think about the other add added amount there. um towards the Arch Housing Trust

Fund. Um or a city can identify ways to um add an inclusionary housing requirement which will result in deep affordable housing being built and that can include in in Luffy. So the the the as part of the housing ecosystem concept here it's and the way land economics work as we understand it from Arch and if we need Arch to come explain this at a later date we can invite them back as they are largely our advisers on this. um is that the the cost per square foot of luxury single large single family homes drives up the land cost to a point where it is infeasible to build affordable or even market affordable housing. So long as the market is pushing builders to build large luxury homes in order to maximize profit, it will continue to drive up land costs and it will present a barrier to building any moderate or deeper affordable housing. The concept here is that this drives because of where the exemption is set and because of the types of housing and densities that we allow through middle housing is what it does is it it disrupts land economics and it drives builders to building 1500 ft² buildings as more of a market affordable type building. um or it it it requires that a builder pay into an inclusionary affordable housing requirement for fractional units or it requires that builders build 80% AMI 10% of the units at 80 80% AMI. Um the the idea behind all of this is that if they're building

the units then then they're delivering affordable units at at a moderate income. if they're paying the fee, which they could also choose to do instead of building the units. they could pay the fee that they are doing that that they are funding the the the deep affordable units which allows the city to then have a a um housing fund where we can then partner with not for-profit builders with a local share that then makes us attractive as a grant recipient through the Arch Housing Trust Fund and other housing philanthropists and that we then can see how funding is stacked to a point where a project is successful.

Can can we approach this topic in two branches? Can we focus for a moment about individuals building homes for themselves and then we come back and talk about developers because I think the moment we start talking about both of them the same way we are causing unintended consequences. So I I don't disagree. However, most of the construction activity in the city is from builders that are building odd spectacles. Can we resolve the individuals first and we come back to

I so respectfully I don't think you can pry those apart because you cannot apply a different rule to somebody who's building a home for themsel versus somebody who's building a home as speck or as a builder for sale.

Okay. the I I don't want to keep going on but when when I was saying to you can someone show me in using numbers my mind is similar to colleges when they say we offer 95% of our students scholarships but they offer the 95% of them $500 scholarships when they are paying $90,000 in tuition fee. This is similar to that. We are taking the money from individuals and we're thinking we're going to use it to help others, but I don't think it's going to help anyone.

And you know, we this is a a pro a program that we are building from the ground up. We just started it. Um in fact, we didn't actually adopt the fee until the middle of last year. Um and we have a limited amount of funds collected because it is collected at the point of um occupancy or for sale of the property. Um I I would I would say that the challenge is is you've seen articles in the Seattle Times and I'm not trying to you know gloom and doom threat you know this is going to happen but we do have a complete housing program right now. If we were to remove the inclusionary affordable housing requirement, I would not recommend that. That is one of the things that is keeping us out of the crosshairs of the Department of Commerce under the Housing Accountability Act. Fine-tuning it, I think, is is really where the conversation should be. I think if we lost our inclusionary affordable housing requirement, we would very quickly be contacted by Commerce that they would like to audit our housing element and our development regulations. Um so that is the cautionary tale because there are multiple cities around us that are currently being audited. Um so I would say that as much as we could focus on fine-tuning the program and understanding how it might apply to really small actions like units being rebuilt, renovated, remodeled um would be one place to start. If you were to throw out that maybe a vacant lot with a single a new single one unit going up should be exempt. I think that's about the end of the threshold of where that tolerance would be. Um, and that's from my perspective and we could bring in others from ARCH or others to help guide

us on this, but I'm seeing a lot of time and resources being spent by cities trying to address the state HP1220 requirements and commerce's interpretations of those and commerce has free reign under the Housing Accountability Act that was recently passed to call cities to be audited at any time they see fit. I want to follow up with what whatam started talking about and you said absolutely no and's question was that can we separate the developer initiative housing uh proposal versus owner if if there is no change in the ownership why can't we separate them

because there could immediately be tomorrow um we have I have a lot of experience with that here in the city with individuals who I I I don't need to name names, but there are some people in the city who have who buy properties and who always say it's going to be their house they're going to live in and they always go through the process and and sorry I'm going to say it beat us up really badly about the permit process. I just want to live in this house. Why are you treating me like this? I just want to live in it. And then they immediately turn around and sell it the minute they finish it. Yeah, but that is the abuse of a system. But is it illegal?

It's It's not illegal, but what I would say is that it is it makes it very hard to apply for city staff. Can I suggest that we focus a little more closely on the question before us which was should residential home remodels, additions or reconstructions of any type be exempt rather than the broader um

No, this is related. I disagree. No, it is not. It is related. Well, they're they're certainly related, but the question before us as sent down by the council was a narrower question. Um, that's just my suggestion in terms of our conversation. And to be sure, there were different voices on the council. There was not a unanimous direction to do something specifically. There were different voices that seemed to all want a little bit of a different approach to this. This is where we we tried to triangulate between those voices and this is what we heard. If you talk to some council members, they don't they don't think that this was even directed to be sent to this the planning commission. If you listen to the tape and we've watched the tape multiple times, um that we think this is really where the conversation landed in the triangulation of all the different comments and interests. So going to the question that's on the the paper, I guess I do agree that it's probably a good idea to exempt remodels, additions or reconstructions. The the bigger question for me is so that those exemptions are not used to game the system. That a remodel is knocking down three walls, leaving one standing to call it a remodel and increasing the footprint by double or triple. So I don't I don't know how you go about that. But in concept, I think the idea of um single or a remodel addition or particularly reconstruction from fire disaster exemption would be a fine idea.

All right, I have a couple comments here. Um, so I actually uh did an informal poll of residents, very unscientific, and guess what? They were on both sides of the spectrum, right? Because one school of thought was um we have a real affordability crisis everywhere in the city. And um by inhibiting somebody to enlarge a house by exempting them from these fee and loo that makes sense they would be less likely to enlarge and that way you keep smaller housing stock and less expensive housing stock. So there's a couple of steps there and the other was it's their property. Why to your point, why would you tax them for that, right? And it was pretty evenly split and kind of pretty strongly stated on both sides. So that was interesting. Um so one thing that we haven't mentioned and it's these are kinds of things David you pop up all the times and and know because um there are places not that far from here over Lake Gary would be one um where people are buying up you know small homes like we have some of them here and all of a sudden this big old house gets put up and the neighbors hate it but it's allowed. Um, and of course that raises the cost, the price of the housing stock in the future housing stock. Um, for where I get to on this, and I think I'll let go. Uh, even if I want to do an enlargement and I meet all of the requirements of all of the other building regulations

that we have, I'm the property owner. I should not be charged for that. And I get and believe me, I'm very much supportive of wanting to see some lower income housing. I think it that kind of diversity brings richness and longevity, strength to the the community. Um, if we really needed to help fund and close the gap between what can be built and and the funds needed for lower income, then rather than burden the small number of people that are going to do an enlargement, figure out a way to burden everybody a little bit. And I know we we don't want taxes. I really don't. But there's that's the trade-off. I see it. In this case, I come down on the side of the property owners rights to be able to do what they want to. They are not a developer. They don't have the capability of uh building units in lie of the fee in lu. So for what that's worth. Um so and I'm sure there's like I said I pulled people and it's everywhere. But that's kind of how I I sorted through it. back to what we were talking about earlier that there will always be people who will abuse the system that they will choose to do the the wrong thing like whoever you are dealing with I'm not saying they're doing the wrong thing you said they're following the rule but it's there will always be those people but we cannot penalize the entire community because of the few who abuse the system or choose to do the wrong thing. I I I truly do not agree with that logic.

You know, I I'm just thinking about it from complexity on a lot of levels. I I don't agree or disagree. I'm just trying to highlight the the pros and cons. You know, it's been told to me multiple times in my life earlier, you can't control the world. So, you know, I I just it's good advice using that mantra, you know, can't control the world. So David, can you uh bring the AD ADU issue into this? Would that apply if somebody doing remodeling, but then the intention is to create a ADU within these properties?

Yeah, it wouldn't apply because it is less than 1500 ft². So the 1500 foot exemption threshold would kick in. I think another thing to think about is as part of our housing ecosystem, one of the things that we hear from from from residents is that they they can't age in place in their home because it wasn't designed to age in place. That the the kids left, the kids can't move back in. They don't have separate units. They can't rent part of the property. They have a large single family home. One of the intentions behind this when we were designing it was to try to drive designers and builders and property owners to building housing stock that is more adaptable. If you wanted to build a um you know a 4,000 foot home and you wanted to build it in a way that included two 1500 ft² units and 1,000 ft² unit that were built into it that all worked today together as a single unit but that had and we see most of those large homes have two kitchens in them these days anyway. Um, so the the the this rule was also designed to drive homes to be more forward compatible with future life cycle needs. And the idea behind it was is that you could get out of paying the inclusionary affordable housing fee if you were designing your house to be adaptable to your future needs where where and also if you were to sell it there, you know, there you you could later in your life rent out one of the units because it's already built to have that additional unit or two additional units in it. Um, and that was one of the benefits of really trying to drive builders and designers to that. Now, I also understand the other side of it is well, what does the property owner want to do? How do they want to design their

home? It's their home and I understand that. Um, so we were trying to achieve a lot of multiple objectives with our housing ecosystem through all these different tools and how they interplay with each other. One more question, David. Can you uh remind us how many how many cases in a typical year you have people coming for remodeling? Currently we're seeing more remodeling than anything else. It really depends on the economy. Is that 10? Is that 20? Is that 200? I don't know offhand. I could look it up though. That's a good question. Um it's more way more than 20. It's there's hundreds of remodels. Thousands.

Do you see any trend more and more every year? Well, right now because of interest rates, we're in a remodel. We're in just remodels, not additions, the additions tend to cost more and we tend to see more additions when rates go down. Um, when the rates go way down, we tend to see more demolition rebuild. Um, it really just depends on the cost of taking action. All right, so we've got another topic under business. So, why don't we move to that one? So,

all right. Thank you for your patience. Um the third topic this evening is adding species to the habitat list for species of local importance. Um the critical areas regulations were adopted in the fall of 2024. They're updated and adopted. Um we do have fish and wildlife habitat conservation areas included as regulated critical areas um under SMC 21.03.2. Um as I was stating before, habitat is a very complex topic. It's it's often misunderstood and is difficult to readily physically delineate as compared to streams and slopes. We do have a list of species of local importance. You'll see it here. It does include a wide range of of uh species. This list was amended and edited as part of our 2024 critical areas update. And our consultant who has us who includes staff with a specialty in wildlife management did provide feedback on this list and there was an analysis done as part of the best available science study uh related to habitat um as part of this that updated it. Um I did want to add a note that given the comment that we received from Mr. Rataba that this um this update depending on its final scope might not fit within the boundaries of code cleanup as docketed under resolution 2024 1079. It may need to be independently docketed as a standalone code amendment. Again, that really depends on the final scope of the amendments that are that are moved forward. Um the issue is that large terrestrial

actually on that if that's the case spending the money to do to engage the consultants and all that shouldn't that wait until after docketed and then part of a work plan or

absolutely so so we'll get to that here in a minute but yeah we'll be taking this back to the city council in April and they can make that decision is that depending on the range the extent of the scope if it's very limited in its scope it might fit under the uh the the docket but however ever if it's if it's going outside of that, it would likely need to be docketed and then it would be taken up in the beginning of 2027 once it's docketed. We still have plenty of time to add to the docket uh for 2027. The issue statement is that large terrestrial mammals such as bobcats, black bear, and mountain lions are currently not included on the list of species of local importance. Um, and the question was, should we evaluate adding these terrestrial mammals to the habitat list? Um, and our other questions are, do you understand the steps required to amend the city's critical areas regulations and the limitations under the requirement that that best available science present and what other considerations you might have? I do have a hypothetical work plan if this was forwarded as was indicated we would bring to you in the agenda bill. Um if the council was to initiate this in depending on its scope in uh April, we would that would result in us bringing forward a consultant contract for council consideration. That would result in the consultant picking up scientific analysis doing a best available science study. that would result in um a management framework and some management practices that would help inform uh what code updates need to be done, what policy updates might need to be done and how ultimately this would impact um developability of land in the city. Uh we would strongly suggest doing a community advisory group that's a balanced group of community members and other stakeholders. We've done that in the past with code amendments and it's been very helpful. Um we would then bring preliminary findings forward to the planning commission and city council and seek formal authorization from the city council. Uh once we have that

formal authorization that this is the right direction we want to take, we would then finalize code amendments and we would bring those forward to the planning commission and city council for final review and adoption of critical areas ordinance amendments. We estimate that based on this hypothetical work plan, this would take approximately 6 to9 months and because of the best available science requirements and the requirement that we bring on board a qualified consultant that that specializes in habitat science that this would cost approximately $60 to $80,000 primarily due to the complexity of technical analysis and stakeholder engagement and the length of the public process that would go along with it. and um staff time involved and there'd be trade-off between doing this versus some other work plan items. So you might want to include that in terms of how we're deciding if the cost benefit is is worthwhile.

Absolutely. there would be a significant amount of staff time managing um the the public process and reviewing technical analysis and working with the consultant to understand how this how these types of rules might apply in the city. Um just initially we we have talked to consultants about this. We are also in the process of creating a habitat map and a habitat corridor map. It's something we we're really trying to get done to better understand where there might be habitat resources in the city. Um our initial feedback from the consultant is is that if you were to add um black bear as a species of local importance, the entire city would be regulated. um that the entire city would be Black Bear Habitat and that that might result in additional design considerations for new new homes, might result in additional considerations for things like our trash hauler contract with regard to types of trash cans that we have. Um the way in which we we handle waste. Um, and it might require um other considerations for um how the how these animals move around on larger arterials and those types of things with wildlife overpasses or underpasses and additional considerations as part of design for public infrastructure.

Does Redmond and Belle have those does other cities is Redmond and Belleview have those in their habitat plan? So, I am not aware of other cities in Western Washington, including Bear um and Bobcat um and uh mountain lion. Uh the public comment this evening that was received does point out that in fact bear and mountain lion and um and bobcats are actually game animals um that are um where there are authorized um licenses uh game licenses granted to um the hunting community to um balance the population of bear and mountain lion and um and bobcat and that it is a common occurrence for um the state to work with the hunting community to help um depending on how those populations are trending to balance those out through harvesting.

Hey Dave, can can you help me understand what will the community benefit from designating these kinds of animals? Well, we do hear routinely, I wouldn't say regularly, but routinely from community members about how important these species are and knowing that these species are out there. Mountain lions,

people, we we do get comments, you know, some of our photography contests, for example, some of the most prized photos are of bobcats and mountain lions in the community. and that people know that these are out there in their community. It kind of gives them that intrinsic sense of of um being part of, you know, nature as opposed to Are there ones now in Seamish? Yes, there are. Um our city attorney in fact sent me a photo of a mountain lion that was caught on a game camera in her I think it's Timberline. Is that her neighborhood? In her timberline neighborhood not that long ago.

Yeah. I mean, I get the bobcat and I get the bear in my yard, but I've never seen a mountain lion. didn't know that. So, my rhetorical question is, did anybody ask the Bobcats um Yeah, because they certainly use my yard and neighborhood, I just saw one yesterday, as their private

habitat and thankful for them in terms of keeping rodents and other non-desirabs at in check. So, you know, the in in my thought I don't have bears in my yard, but we've had cougars show up. Um, you know, these larger terrestrial animals sort of self-regulate in terms of their their habitat. And thankfully, we've got a lot of open space in our city, both public and private. Um, so as Mike pointed out, adding this to the work plan would be pretty big lift for something we already know is out there and it seems to be hanging around just fine. I mean, as someone pointed out, um, probably their biggest competitor is a car. So, uh, but in my neighborhood, deer and coyotes and all of those things hang out and you watch the bunny population go up and down. So, I I'm not sure we need to go to a great deal expense of adding these animals to our list.

I agree. I agree. Uh David, I'm going to go back to uh the question that I asked before as far as the gold. Is that because of the habitat connectivity, wildlife corridor, or species protection? The goal is which one?

I I think it's all of those. I I think that that there are, like I said, we don't routinely receive it, but we do receive comment during development projects or I've heard it at council meetings. I I've heard it um talking to people in the community about how important these animals are to them um as indicators of their quality of life. So, I'm trying to think about it from that side. Um, I also understand that we have an interest on the part of several council members to better map and identify and provide for the connectivity and continuity of habitat through the city so that there are areas where a wide range of species can migrate freely and account for their different life cycle needs in the city. So, I've heard that as well. Um, and then there was one other one that you had.

The last one was species protection. Species protection. Yeah, I think it's it's part of adding them to the list might be to help protect them and make sure that they have their life cycle needs met.

So, are we going to be able to maybe prepare and document criteria that you want to use as far as adding these species to the list? That is part of this contract is understanding how you might manage these sit these these new species um large mammals in a either an exurban, suburban or urban setting. Um, and that we would need to understand, you know, it's really a a literature review, white paper analysis, and talking to other professionals in this field of where our wildlife professionals can can learn a little more about these species and then bring to us management recommendations. That's what I need to understand is what is a management recommendation? If you were to add these species as a species of local importance in the city, what would they recommend to manage that species and that habitat in the city? And I'm not a wildlife specialist. I have a background in natural resources management. I used to work for the nature conservancy and did a lot of habitat or excuse me watershed management but not habitat. So that's kind of a new thing to me. So, have we tried or this is a part of the pot potentially the the consultants work as far as mapping the sightings and the the corridors or the or the habitat areas?

It's a great question. Um, you know, would it be something that is remote remote sensing where we would use, you know, canopy information and, uh, topography information and existing resources like wetlands and streams and lakes and, you know, when when I think about habitat, you think about what are the life cycle needs of that species, right? And if you want to have adequate habitat, you need to account for all of its life cycle needs, which includes, you know, foraging, refuge, um, for birds, nesting, um, rearing, you know, all of those different things. And the question then becomes, well, what are those? How do you how do you, um, qualitatively address those? And what are the features that those species are looking for? How do you identify those? and how do you protect those?

So could that be a part of the scope of work as far as that? Absolutely is. That's definitely that is number three there. It's uh compile and evaluate best available science on habitat identification and regulation. And then number four, develop best management practices for habitat protection and management.

Do you have no go ahead? Um, wow. We've had a lot of complicated things here. I So, um, if the desire is to protect part of the habitat for corridors and things like that, I guess I wonder if there's other ways to do that versus saying, "Here's some animals that are significant." Just say, "Hey, here's a green area in the city. we're going to restrict development here um because that seems like something we'd like to have as an end state to be able to meet the life cycle requirements of the critters or the bigger critters. So I don't if I don't know if that's a a different approach rather than coming at it and saying there are these terrestrial animals that we want to label as significant and therefore there will be areas of the city that would be encumbered by how we want to protect them if that makes sense.

No I I think I understand that but based on the comment we heard earlier from Mr. Greaseman that would essentially result in us regulating or restricting development on undevelop undeveloped properties. Anything that is forested or has vegetation on it that hasn't been developed would be um restricted in its development and anything that is already developed would be allowed to remain. And so there there's in in you know part of me

well that's why I started with well this is complicated because although that's a little bit different way to approach trying to solve the potential problem um because it gets away from the whole city being a bare habitat. Um it still has those challenges with property rights. Um and so the other consideration, these are just things to think about, not to debate fully, is um we know the city's largely built out. Uh and yet John has a managerie in his backyard. Somehow they're managing. Um I'm concerned that there are so many unintended consequences and challenges with this. and even if we could get like code in place, it will be fine-tuned and fine-tuned and fine-tuned again. So, I've I have concerns. Um, so I wonder if there is a a step like there's an initial I don't know like screening analysis or something like that. Uh, that would say, "Yep, it's worth going through this entire work plan or not." food for thought because that looks like you know you start to commission you know a pretty big study all of these things and so the kind of questions that we've been asking are would be helpful to have okay you know here's the potential impact on how we would be protecting the environment the different approaches for doing that impact on property owners are there potentials for some corridors in the area that wouldn't have like really bad impact on lots of property owners. Do we have enough parkland set aside already? But you know that just those kinds of things that could be done without a full consultant study uh or maybe a quarter of that or

that's a lot of money. Yeah. Yeah. And and and for something that will be really challenging to figure out the best way to implement. So we're just kind of thinking ahead is there is there something that can help us make a smarter more a more informed not smarter more informed decision about making the commitment for that project.

Google AI that's the way to go. So, so our consultant our our critical areas consultant Facet who updated our our helped us update our critical areas rules and who also we have under contract for on call work um will be attending the council meeting in April and will be providing a high level actually kind of more detailed overview of how our habit our existing habitat rules that are new in 2024 work. We already have regulations that require habitat corridors that require um certain features be set aside and they're going to be providing a a detailed overview of how those work and what what resources are already protected. We are also going to have a map available that shows all of the city's known again this is not exact critical areas. So wetlands, streams, th those same critical talked about before. Wetlands, streams, geological hazard areas and buffers on a map plus all of the HOA tracks largely their critical areas tracks or open space tracks plus all of the publicly owned properties in the city and they'll be shown differently. So you could then get an idea about between the um the critical areas and their buffers, the HOA tracks, which there are many of around the city, and the publicly owned properties where the the opportunity might be to manage habitat corridors, if that makes sense.

Well, that's actually that sounds very much like what I was thinking when I said sort of screening. And so if that comes into council meeting, council can make an informed decision whether to initiate the project or not, which would be a great time for us to call the questions on this this evening because we don't have all of that, right? Um so do okay question question and a comment David when we talk about the regulatory guideline that you're looking for would that be buffer or avoidance or mitigation it would for habitat for habitat

it would be features it would be because the the challenge with habitat and I you have worked on a lot of projects over the years in Belleview and in other in in Shoreline. I worked on one too many years ago that habitat you you don't regulate habitat like you do a wetland or a stream or a geological hazard area or its buffer that habitat you'll have a corridor but just because you have a corridor doesn't mean you can't develop in that corridor. It simply means that you have to identify what about that corridor is providing for specific life cycle needs of the species that you are trying to perpetuate. And what are you doing as far as mitigation measures or design requirements with that project that will help perpetuate the species by preserving those features that the species relies upon for its life cycle needs? So it's more or less kind of mitigation, right? And

more or less mitigation, but you know, it it might come in the form of certain types of vegetation being protected, certain trees being protected, certain combinations of vegetation, trees and wetlands and streams being protected. Um it it it is a case-bycase study and an and application in the city. And there are some projects I've seen over the years that have done it really well. There are others that have not. And and it's we think that our current critical areas rules and habitat rules are far better than they used to be. Um the last round of critical areas rules really was inadequate with our with habitat regulations. So we did focus as a big part of our 2024 critical areas updates on habitat. Now, the comment, uh, what is the city's policy on encouraging the citizens to report sightings?

Do we have one? Can we have I I' I'd love them to report them, but I don't know what they'd be reporting them to because we don't have a database that shows them. If that's something that we wanted, that again, that'd be a cost. There'd be a staff person that has to manage that, that has to enter it into that. Um, you know, maybe you could do cclick fix. You could say you saw a bear here and we could add that to a map somewhere. Um but again that does they move um but people they don't know the significance of that that reporting that how important that is to the city.

I have seen other maps that are self-reporting you know maybe there is an open source kind of thing. I don't really know what that means but an open- source kind of thing that that allows uh community members to go in and and log in you know somewhere on a map. This is what they saw. Add a comment thing. Maybe that's something that'd be kind of a fun tool to engage the community on part of the project uh scope. Yep. Less of a cost because once you set it up then there is not staff managing it. All right. Uh next on the agenda is our public hearing and talking about impact fees. Do you want to make a motion to extend?

Well, I was going to suggest that but also because this could be, you know, 45 minutes or something like that. I don't know if you all wanted to actually John had suggested and I think it's a pretty good idea to maybe take a quick stretch break for five minutes let you get some water to so um I have let's see we'll call it 2020 if we come back at 2025 and then we'll extend the meeting. All right.

All right, we should we should reconvene. Five five minutes goes quickly.

I don't know if I have to recall the meeting to order or not. I think we're all we're all gathered back. We're gathered. Um, but we kn we we do need to extend the meeting. So, is there a motion? Make a motion to extend by 1 hour. Sure. We'll finish earlier. Yeah. Second. All right. All in favor say I. I. Any oppose? All right. We're extended to 9:26 and a moment beyond. All right. Evan, have at it.

Thank you. Uh, and who seconded just for the record because I have to make the Okay, J. Thank you. Uh tonight we have our public hearing on the impact fees. I'll go through a presentation and then we have uh some questions for direction from the planning commission we need to get before hopefully you all feel comfortable making a recommendation. Uh just as a note that if we get through tonight and we feel that there would be benefit from from allowing more time for public comment, we could choose to extend the the meeting until the first meeting in April. Um, but uh from staff's perspective, I feel like, you know, we feel comfortable with what we're presenting and and uh are ready to move it on to the city council. So, there are three things to cover tonight. First is uh does the planning commission recommend the new scaling formula and the parks and transportation impact fees as presented in the packet and we'll go through in the presentation. uh is does the commission feel comfortable with moving forward and recommending the new code section developed? And as a reminder, this code, the 20 SMC 21106045 is a new code section. And what we'd be doing is repealing and replacing the existing code section. So, we're consolidating and cleaning up and modernizing our impact fees and putting it all in one uh one section. And then lastly, we have these kind of policy questions that we're looking for recommendation and guidance on before we go to council. And that's uh you know, how should impact fees be assessed? Should they be assessed at 100% of the uh um calculated rate for all unit types or should the council choose to lower that? Um how should impact fees be applied and assessed specifically for affordable housing? And then uh should

we choose to wave impact fees for residential additions and ADUs. So just as a quick reminder of what this this work has the focus of this work has been it's been about developing a legally defensible formula and methodology for calculating scaling impact fees for parks and transportation. Uh to do this, the the consultant provided us with kind of an indust industry standard uh methodology that utilizes local project uh local capital project lists and assumptions from the comp plan as formula inputs to generate fee amounts. What this project hasn't been about and is not about is amending the adopted the adopted capital project lists. This work is uh a separate work item and something that actually the council will be taking up later this year um as part of their their CIP work. But uh just to be clear, this is about the methodology and the inputs to generate fees and not about the project lists. So just going through to to for the record for the public hearing, you've seen all of this before. Nothing has changed. Uh but impact fees are a onetime charge on new development to support expanding uh capital systems to help accommodate that growth. Uh the the idea here is to maintain the levels of service adopted in our comprehensive plan and uh ensure that development helps pay to support the growth that it brings. Currently, our uh parks and transportation impact fees. Our uh parks are for single family are about 6,700 and transportation 14,200. And on the right, you kind of see how we compare to to neighboring and pure cities. But the takeaway here is really that our current fee structure is flat.

So regardless of the unit size, these are the fees you're paying. uh changes in state law now require that we scale our impact fees with the size of development. So smaller units would pay lesser fee, larger p units would pay more. Um and you know we're just also at a moment where not only do we need to update our fees because as you can see this was due uh July 1st of 2025 but it makes sense given our fees haven't been updated since 2015 and we have a new comprehensive plan and we've relooked at our levels of service. We've introduced a multimodal level of service. So, we're modernizing to be uh up to date with our current policy direction. So, we found it helpful to kind of break the impact fee work down into this framework. So, there are really five parts of what we've been talking about. One is the formula or methodology for calculating the fees. Again, this is something that FCS, our consultant, uh provided us with. It's based on uh industry best practices. is it's used at in multiple jurisdictions and really importantly here is that it's legally defensible. This uh the work the consultant done is kind of indemnifying the city from legal challenges around uh the the way these fees are calculated and that's that's a really good thing for us. Um the inputs step number two of the framework are again based on our local uh capital planning uh documents and policy decisions. So it uses the capital facilities lists to give dollar amounts to uh run into the into the uh the formulas and it also uses policy decisions and assumptions around growth and levels of service from the comprehensive plan. So the three number three is the fees which are generated from steps one and two. Number four are those policy decisions which again is how do we choose to assess the fees? We don't have to assess impact fees. It's a

choice. So, and there's a range of how we could choose to do it. The council could choose to adopt 100% or 0% or anywhere in between of impact fees. Uh, it's worth noting though that rate setting best practice as you know uh guidance provided from FCS is that we we should set a consistent rate for all unit types. So, we shouldn't we shouldn't try to step up rates. you know, smaller, you know, smaller units shouldn't pay less and then uh like a tiered system, which is kind of an idea we've talked about before. If we choose to set a rate, we should set it for all market rate units evenly and then consider strictly affordable housing differently. And then uh finally is number five, administration, and it implements the fees and the policy decisions through the code, which is that new code section we're presenting. So again, this is something we've seen before, so I won't belabor it, but this is the transportation impact fee formula. Again, it uses the the project list, the total cost of the eligible uh impact fee eligible projects and divides it by the growth in person trips and I think I just want to note that person trips is a multimodal level uh standard. So it considers modes of travel other than cars along with cars but it looks at other modes of travel like uh walking, biking and transit and those two give us our transportation impact fee. The park formula is is set up on a different different structure. It's based on a historic investment structure. Again, it's not really an applesto apples uh comparison between parks in transportation, but uh long and complicated methodology to uh ultimately determine our our park's impact fee. But it looks at how much we how much uh money we need to support future growth

and then compares that to our our eligible project list um to give us a parks impact fee. So on screen you can see the updated fee amounts. Uh in the box on the boxes in red there you see the impact PE fee per square foot for both parks and transportation. Uh so we have a $3.13 impact fee for parks and $744 for transportation. Uh part of the scaling methodology is determining a minimum and maximum uh fee amount and again this is this is based on occupancy data and uh so we do have set minimum and maximum fees for both parks and transportation. Here's how both of these fees uh stack up. Uh parks is on the left, transportation is on the right. So you can see we've kind of maintained our our you know relative positions to our neighboring and peer cities. Uh and our our fees have stayed relatively the same. So we got really helpful feedback both from the commission and from the city council uh in trying to provide examples or ways to to look at uh to quantify what the impacts of reducing fees for affordable housing would be. So, I'm going to try to walk through this and hopefully this will make some sense. But for this first example, this is looking at 100 market rate units across the city. So, I created a a spreadsheet where I generated 100 random projects ranging in size from 500 to 5,000 square ft and then applied the impact fees for those projects. And it generated a total impact fee revenue for those those 100 random projects of $2.3 million. Then to think about what would what would the the

impact be of reducing that fee for affordable housing. Remember we have a 10% inclusion area requirement in the city right now through our uh our inclusionary program. So if you take 10% of that total revenue, we'd be talking about adjustments to about $230,000 of revenue. So on the table below, if we were to reduce the impact fee by 20%. That's we would then instead of collecting $230,000 for the those 10% units, we'd be collecting $185,000ish. And then over on the right, you can see the total revenue uh with the impact fee reductions calculated. So if you were to reduce it by 50%, it's lower and so on and so forth. So hopefully this helps give some numbers of what reducing impact fees would be. And I think this would really apply to the 80% AMI range because citywide like most likely what we would see being developed would be 80%. We do have a we do have an example here. The second example looks at a strictly affordable housing project. But thinking about uh oops I've jumped a couple slides there. But thinking about you know what would the impact of revenue be for 100 market rate units with 10% affordability most likely developed at the 80% AMI range. This is hopefully kind of a helpful way to think about it. And I don't chair I don't know if you'd like to stop now and talk about the this or let me maybe I'll just finish and then we can circle back. So the second example is thinking about and looking at the impact of reducing uh impact fees for deeper levels of affordability. So this is the same

scenario. I've come up with a sample project of a 100 unit affordable housing development and this could be something like we are you know we're hearing interest on the bonus parcels church properties or say building 120 part of the feasibility study said hey if you gave it to Arch and they opened a commun community center on the ground floor and built 100 units over top uh this is the type of project we'd be looking at which would also tying into what we talked about earlier uh use the funds from our affordable housing program. But uh let's say you have 100 units, 20 of them are developed at 30% AMI. 50 or 30 are at 50, 50 are at 80%. And you can see the square footage assumptions there. But when you apply the fee amounts, you would generate about a million dollars in impact fees for parks and transportation for this project. So, we've created a couple scenarios here of what impact fee reductions would look like. So, on the left there is that same table, but in the middle and off to the right, you can see the impact fee reduction amount. So, the top is saying one thing that we've talked about as a commission is we we might choose to fully wave impact fees for 30% AMI units and below because at that point they're largely subsidized anyway. So uh the sec so actually the second example kind of looks at that if we just waved 30% AMI that would be the the um impact on our revenues. If we stepped down the levels of reduction for 50% and 80% you can see the impacts there. And over on the right, we've also provided a per unit um across, you know, if you spread those fees across a project, kind of a per unit cost. Lastly, uh this is I the last presentation we did on this, we went

through each section of the code and described it. But uh just to summarize again, we have created a new code section um and uh are repealing and replacing the old code section and we do have a specific question for you on that. But uh I think this is an appropriate spot to stop and go for questions before we dig into the recommendations. And uh yeah, chair, turn it back to you.

Okay. Um yeah, and what I was thinking about, let's just test this just partly in the interest of time, but also in the interest of being efficient for the public as well, is typically we've at this point presentation, we'll have dialogue for a while, public hearing, dialogue, motions, and so forth. So I was thinking at this point maybe to keep that dialogue for a while shorter by primarily you know questions for clarification not like opinions or recommendations or things like that because we'll get to that once the public hearing is completed and we deliberate. Does that make sense?

Of course if I don't want to limit too much but if we just like I didn't understand that. Sure. Or could you define that kind of comments would be helpful here? Well, and just to reiterate also, nothing has changed. Nothing has changed since the last couple presentations. And um so really, yeah, anything for clarity be great, but I I just wanted to make sure that everyone's aware. It's like we haven't switched anything up. There's nothing new, nothing new here. Okay, just for clarity, why are there cities with no impact fee? Cities with no impact fee.

Yeah, the parks, there are two of them in that slide, Belleview and I think Snow Call me, they have no impact fee. I think it, you know, it's a it's a matter of local policy decision. They might have other funding mechanisms for their park services. They might have a metropolitan park district where they generate revenue so they don't need to collect impact fees to help fund it. Uh they might have different levels of service where might choose. They just might choose to not. Um all those all those are are viable options which does make it hard for us to compare ourselves to other cities because we don't know any of those circumstances. Um, but any of the above could be could be reasonable.

Other questions like that? Evan, can you can you go back to the slide shows the formula, please? This one, right? Yep. So, I know probably you don't have the answer, but I'm going to ask that question anyway. What is the definition of capacity when it comes to the non-motorized What is the capacity? I guess I'm not sure what you mean. Capacity current capacity would be it refers to the capacity. Well, capacity current capacity would cost of capacity eligible cost of the capacity as applies because we're supposed to have this form is supposed to be for non-motorized as well because we have a policy of

multimotal. Correct. What is the capacity of nonmotorized system?

Yep. I got it. Uh current capacity would be the existing systems all all of the existing bike lanes uh pathways sidewalks that we currently have. New capacity would be anything adding to that system. So eligible el projects that are eligible for incap uh impact fee funding are those that would be adding new bike lanes, road road miles, uh turn pockets, uh sidewalks to the existing capacity. So if you have a a gravel shoulder or a paved shoulder or a sidewalk that all have the same capacity that your definition

they would be evaluated differently depending on the the use type but uh for the purposes of what we're doing that if the the analysis the consultant does based on the project list is looking at does the the project listed on the capital facilities project list add capacity and if it does add capacity then it would be eligible for impact fee funding. And a second question, the consultant report repeatedly makes reference to the eligible traffic impact fee of a project. Do you know what is definition and how they determine that eligibility of the project?

Yeah. in well again goes to that that um analysis of looking at is it bringing new systems and capacity online or is it repairing existing systems. So in ineligible pro projects are ones that are just m like maintenance of existing systems because you're not bringing on extra bandwidth for more users. Eligible projects are ones that bring on extra bandwidth. So some projects on the list if it there are maybe like a like a a resurfacing project but they could also be adding sidewalks as part of that effort. The sidewalk portion would be the percent that would be eligible but maintaining the existing resurfacing would not be eligible. So that's how you that's kind of the analysis and determination the consultant does when they look at each project in determining how much would be eligible for impact fee funding because I looked at the list most of the projects that they show some eligibility there is a magic number 6.33 repeatedly showing up. It looks like that they they using a standard formula and apply no matter what project is.

Yeah. So, so again, we we appreciate that you're interested in the list and just want to highlight that we're not here to debate the list or the engineers findings about the eligibility of that project on the list that that is given. And I want to remind my fellow commissioners that at this point the only item that we should be looking at it at least from my point of view is uh taking position on a formula but not the list and not list of individual projects because I have a lot of concerns about those items.

Uh that's fair and we understand that that's been stated in the past. Um, and I think our planning or excuse me, our our our city engineer, our public works director are very aware of that and that will be factored into the process to update the list which is coming soon, right? Okay. Thank you. Yep. Should we move on? Okay. All right. Did you have more? You had a little bit more. Well, I think now we could dive into the the kind of questions for the commission and maybe do it in chunks. because we have I think the the toughest questions are here.

Okay. So, what I think what I was proposing is then to do the public hearing now. Oh, yeah. My apologies and then dive deep into these so that we hear you know. Okay. Yep. So, with that, we'll consider the public hearing. Go to my other table for a second. Put your other hat on, Evan. All right. We'll now open the public hearing and uh anybody here who would like to make comment to draw straws

before starting the clock. I came across a question that that needs to be addressed that I just caught tonight. On prior scaling slides, there was a maximum size of a unit to be charged impact fees at 2653 ft. And that was shown tonight on the slide. And this is not a gotcha. It's about getting it right. In the packet I caught today, that fees been that size has been changed to 3500 ft. Is that right? So on page 40 of 61 in your packet, which is why I wanted the opportunity to not have this be a part of my comment cuz I had to rewrite some of my comment when I saw that. Uh on page 40 of 61, the maximum proportionate impact size is now 3500. Now that's a huge chunk of increase from 19,000 to 26,000. That needs to be talked about. So, so, uh, um, I just wanted to call attention to that change because I went back and looked in the April, no, February uh, city council meeting. The last time it went there, it still said the 2653 and that was on the line. So, I appreciate, David, and I've heard you talk about it. It's it's not a gotcha, but this is a point that is a significant number.

Okay. All right. You want to make your

Well, then I'll go back and and and I'll go back and read my comment as if it was 2653 ft. Okay. Um Paul Stiknamish. Um, tonight I can't get everything in the time allotted, but if anybody wants to meet and talk, I've got three statements. I don't like the fact that a 2700 ft condominium or town home pays the same thing as a 4,000 ft single family home. Park impact fees are overstated because they're based on projecting past needs into the future. we're already at a point that we don't need that same pace. And third, transportation impact fees on single family homes are getting a break at the expense of uh multifamily homes. And I'll explain that in just a minute. In my opinion, there are serious foundational approach errors in the formula. There's a fee for single family or there's a fee for exc I'm I'm not going to get off script having one number for transportation and one for the multifamily I think there should be six what are transportation and multifamily excuse me what are single family in all the neighborhoods I I I guess there's only five and in centers like town center. What is the multifamily for parks and transportation with internalization of lower rates? And if we have multifamily outside of town center, those traffic rates are all different rates. They can't be one fee. Another issue I caught 2.75 people for

multifamily. No way, Jose. When you get into the newest King County data, they show that the county, which is what was used, have um uh 2.37 average for single family and or no, I'm sorry, the average in King County is 2.37 people per household, 2.85 for single family, and 1.75 multifamily. I think 275 way overcharges on the multifamily housing. So I got problems with trip generation, internalization, the number of people that that live there. And my biggest heartburn is to is to uh blend the rates. 85% single family and 15% multifamily blends brings the multifamily rates way up. And if we're if we need those multif family units, I don't want them to pay less than their fair share, but it seems like they're get getting paid way more. And I've got other stuff to talk about. Don't have time, but it's population and growth is not what is stated in the in this report. So, there's a whole lot of foundational elements that are inaccurate.

Thank you, Paul. Okay, Paul and I didn't talk. So, this is u um as I'm sitting here, I'm seeing your all of your numbers, which are fabulous. Why are they flat fees at all? Why aren't they percentage? These are for all new construction, right? Everything's new construction. If you have a 3,000 ft house that sells for $2 million, they paid the same as a 3,000 foot house that sells for $4 million. Why are why don't we just throw all this stuff out and go percentage wise like the excise tax? If it's a condo, you can give them a little bit of a break, but all single family, all condos, multif family, and everything else. Why isn't a is it a isn't it a graduated rate like the excise tax a percentage of the sales cost paid at the paid at the time of sale because they're all new. They're not resales. I think you'd do a lot better because right now you've got a real estate that can sell for a 3,000t house can easily sell for uh 1.8 8 or 1.9 or if it's a view home that's 3,000 square ft, it might sell for three and a half$4 million in Seamish. The flat I've seen the flat fees for 30ome years in all of the cities here. Maybe it's time to rethink and make it simple. Thank you. Um, Mary Wter here. Um, I think the most important thing is when you're trying to

build affordable things, the more fees and the more complexity you have, it makes it harder to do. And we are never going to build affordable unless we're building something. And when we do try to build the affordable, we have to be able to give them a break. So I think that we need in order to get affordability like the 80% AMI or 50% M AMI but the 30% MMI really really needs help. You just don't get those built without huge subsidy. And um the two people before me have much realtor background. I don't have any. But there I mean when you have a really large house where you can pay the fees and you're paying the same as the smaller one that just tells you it's out of scope. So, um, I liked the, uh, totaling that, uh, Evan Fischer had showed with the tom so you could see the impacts of things, but I really think where things need to be affordable, you really need to think about what that size needs to be. And I think the percentages and all the corrections that Paul said sound great. I yield the remainder of my time.

Okay, Evan. Nobody else. All right. So, thank you everybody. We'll close the public hearing as Evan wanders back. All right. So, now it's time for the commissioners to deliberate and to decide if we will adopt, deny, or continue discussion in April. So, who wants to go first? I thought you were smiling. So, you looked at me and smiled. So, go for it. That's an indication, right? Yeah. Well, it's okay. You could keep smiling. That's Don't don't make that stop. She does all the time.

I'll just give my opinion. I think it's the same as last time. So, I do agree with u the public comments like it shouldn't be the same for all sizes, right? Because if it's a big house and they're paying $4 million, it should be appropriately I don't know how much it is, but it should be less for 1500 square ft house. It's my opinion. And we should wave the residential additions and accessory dwelling units the the fee

just to help maybe clarify a little bit. Um in in first is that 1500 square foot I mean it's on this fee is on a per foot square basis. So a,500 foot unit would pay less than a 3500 ft². The the dollar, excuse me, the dollar amount, the per square foot dollar amount would be the same for that smaller unit or larger unit, but inherently because they're now scaling fees, the smaller unit would pay less than the larger unit. Is that to the table?

Mhm. So, every new development now would pay $13 and or $3.13 per square foot for parks transportation fee and $744 per square foot uh for the transportation impact fee. Those do have a minimum and maximum amount set. Thank you, Mr. Stney, for pointing that out. I'm not sure what happens with the 3500 foot, but we'll have we'll make sure that gets corrected. Um, so it's per square foot. It is per square foot. Yep.

And then the um affordable housings are excluded from this, right? Well, that's part of the conversation we're having tonight. Uh, and that's a local policy decision. And we are uh under the RCW allowed to choose to uh reduce or wave impact fees for affordable housing. Okay. On that just real quick in the code draft and I think David you talked a little bit to council about this. I thought that I thought when you talked to council you said that there was a discount or reduction and I couldn't I didn't see that in the code.

Well, I'm glad you brought that up and I should have included that in the presentation. We have not yet included so our current the existing code does have reductions for affordable housing at different levels. The code draft we have not yet put it in there because we're waiting for policy direction. So whatever you recommend tonight, we'll include for the council to consider in the code draft that they see.

Great clarification. And actually while we're at it about the 3500 and interestingly because the reason I caught that was when I was looking back at the graph of occupancy per square footage and remembering conversations with council and here that there was a flattening out. that graph, it flattens out at 3500, not like 25 or 2600. So then what I saw about the 3500, oh that that makes sense because if you take a look at that one graph that's in the report, that's about where things flatten. So is it 26 something or 3500 or what was

2653 is what the previous was? I'm sorry. 2653 is what it what it was as we understood it. We we've had some different versions of this draft going around. So wanting to make sure you know what that is actually recommended as um and you know there there's there's two different approaches here. One is we could if if you got to the point of making a recommendation we could have that corrected for the purpose of councel or if you wanted us to bring it back and for the sole purpose of explaining that discrepancy there we'd be happy to do that. Also,

if I could just I don't want to jump too much in front, but because that makes a big difference in the total fees that we you'd do another calculation cuz what that does is that we had concerns about the and I heard council also like you know lot there's a lot of houses 2600 and then you know shouldn't somebody who's affording a 3500 ft house pay more and the flattening out in the 26 whatever it has always felt too low for for the the impact that those larger houses have. And and that chart about occupancy per square footage, which does flatten out starting around 25 thereabouts, but really gets flat at 35,

it makes a pretty big difference in our assumptions. So to to Paul's point, so some things that we need to clarify here. Sure. Okay. Go ahead. U David, I um I heard Mr. Stikney was talking about something. I wrote it down. Zonebased impact fee. Can you elaborate on that? What is a zone zone based impact fee? Do you know of any city that has used that? So I I'm not sure exactly what was meant although you cities do have a practice whereby they set different um what's the right the term the area service

service areas and you can set service areas for different parts of the city um we have one service area the whole city um you could do it through transportation assessment zones for example you could cluster TAZ's together and create a service area for transportation. Um, you know, some cities are able to do that when they're leveraging public transportation like light rail or or you know, bus rapid transit where they could do that. We don't have that. Um, we're not complex enough, I think, for an argument for us to have different zones um or different service areas.

So, we stick with one service area is what we currently have and what our recommendation is. And the other gentleman was talking about graduated rate base or flat fee. Can you elaborate on that?

Yeah, I think from what I understood the commenter to be was using an example of basing the impact fee based on the market rate of sale versus the scale of the development. And that's not allowed by state law. the state law is pretty clear in in how it's determining the methodologies we can use to assess the impact fee. And really, I think it comes down to an issue of of uh nexus and proportionality in in saying, you know, a a a four bed a 3,000 ft 4bedroom unit will house, let's say, three people. It will add three people to the system. the infrastructure needed to to support those three people uh doesn't change whether the house sells for 1.5 or 2.5 million. It's it's servicing three people. Yeah,

actually that just to build on that sorry uh the purpose of the impact fees is to pay for growth basically the infrastructure for growth and it's separate from anything we're really doing around affordable housing. Now it has an impact on affordability because it's a fee right obviously um but because I was thinking through this actually similar that well you can drive more affordability of a house if you just put in plywood floors and cheap carpet versus nice tile and upgrade you know and still have the same square footage of a house but just I guess elaborating or restating the point Evan that you're making the impact on the infrastructure need for roads, trails, whatever is the same whether you've got all these fancy upgraded kitchen appliances or bare bone stuff. Right. Right. So,

and that's not what we're trying to accomplish here is we have a we have an impact on affordability because of the amount of the fees, but we're not trying to drive affordable housing in the way that Fee and Lou does. I think I understand that. It's clear in my mind. Yeah. Makes sense. I think you're right. Yep. Go ahead. No, no, go ahead. He wants to hear what I say. Okay, I'll go first.

So, the really, you know, we've discussed this ad nauseium, the scalability, the square footage calculations makes sense. It also makes sense what Mike was saying about um the maximum going up to 3500 and possibly you can explain that offline in an email so we don't have to meet about it again. Well, I'm sorry. I don't want to interrupt. Go ahead.

Okay. I I want to just take a moment to apologize for the 3500 foot because from my perspective that's a typo from the last round the consultant when they did their updates and I didn't catch it. And so I think best of my knowledge I had no conversation with the consultant where they said hey by the way we we relooked at things and it should be 3500 ft. Best of my knowledge is still that 2653 and it's it's an issue of typo and honestly it's just an issue of of capacity. We're we're stretched thin.

We're doing a lot and I I'd sort of just assume that they gave us the correct version. So, that one's on me. If it turns out to be 3500, I I will follow up in an email to help clarify that. But to the best of my knowledge, that has not changed. Okay. Thank you. Yep.

Second is exemptions. Um, Suda mentioned ADUs um and additions, I think. Um, so I can go back and forth on the on the ADUs. Definitely would want um an exemption for additions. Um, but the one I think we missed was reconstruction and that came up in a different topic. But you know, if you're rebuilding your house because it burned down, there's no net.

Yeah. And the I can't quote the stipulations. Those are already exempt. You don't pay impact fees for rebuilds as long as it's permitted within a certain time span. Um but you don't pay good.

And then lastly, my comment on affordability. Um you had a slide up there where you showed um waving what the 30% level and then reduced amounts 450 and 80 and I'd be supportive of those. I was trying to to make my comment as a question more than an opinion, but I just couldn't I couldn't help myself. I I I can't help myself

because I I I have a a complete disagreement about the methodology that's used to come up with the value especially for the parks and the fact that we are including the value of all the parks that the city owns today I think that's inflating the rate significantly. I I don't think we don't have enough parks here. I know I asked from before how many parks do we need per person and how do we compare to national or regional but again we we can sit here and say there's no traffic but when I drive out there and I see traffic you can't argue with me that there's no traffic. Similarly, if I go to any park today in Seamish, there are barely people there. And we have plenty of parks and to continue adding the value of the parks to come up with the estimate, I think that's inflating it. I think we need to improve how our current parks are, add more functions in the parks to make it maybe more attractive, do make them different, improve them somehow. You have the list of capital improvements. That's all good. I'm not sure how you came up with the estimates, but I'm I'm assuming that someone who knows how to do construction put those estimates for you and those numbers are reliable and are true. If I go back to the estimates and it's a question I asked from before. If I give you today 100 acres, if I donate 100 acres today, next year what I just donated, it will hurt the person that is about to build a new house. Because you're going to take my 100 acres, you're going to add them

to the value of your inventory. your inventory now instead of 400 million, it's going to become 500 million. If you divide that by the 65,000 residents of Seamish, you just increased it up by $1,500. So, what I donated, instead of helping you have a backlog or an inventory for future parks, it actually increased the the the contribution that you need from from new residents. So I went back and watched the meeting from November 6th when the consultant was here and as far as I understand any donated land was not the the the total investment that the impact fee is based off is cash. It's it's what the city has paid for donation donated land is not included. So that they don't take the value of that donated 100 acres in your example and then add it to the pile. If the city went and paid for the 100 acres, we would then add it to the pile. So donated land isn't included in that cash investment methodology. It it's based on historical investments of the city. That's that's good because when I was looking at the list and I don't I don't I know I don't have enough time now to just go back to the list line by line, but I think you had a section that's called acquisitions or donations that included. So, I'm I'm reading here, Big Rock Central donation, 20 acres. It cost the city $6 million. So, for the city to accept those 20 acres, the city paid $6 million. That that's what this list says. Well, there would be values of the improvements. Again, we're getting I think ultimately the we're getting into the pretty detailed level. I think the thing to remember is that the consultant has looked at this.

this is an indust ind industry standard way the sort of the experts have looked at this and provided this methodology is kind of the best response I have that that's why I started by saying I have a disagreement sure about the methodology and I think it's inc it's increasing the value in a way that's not helpful again what's my end goal affordable homes to try to make them less expensive if I can drive this down. I will help make them more affordable.

Sure. And you can drive them down. And that would be part of what your um one of your recommendations would be here is to the city council. Should they choose to assess the full max value of the impact fees or should they assess something less? Because they can again assess from zero to 100%. So if it's the commission's concern that the impact fees are too high based on the methodology, you could recommend that they assess 50% of the fee amount. And it's a solution without debating the the way it was constructed.

I have actually a clarification that just building on Sean what you were saying that table there were two things that I was looking at. one was basically the value of the parkland all what you were saying and that was used to come up with the right based on the square footage and that's that's what used for the calculation impact fees then they looked at I guess the reasonleness was the way I would state it uh of the that fee and by doing that they were looking at that table of the projects that are anticipated like improving ball fields uh improving the area around the new whatever it's called big rock area that's I forget the across from big rock anyways and that was like $31 million

and what they said in the report if I'm paraphrasing a little bit was that the amount based on the impact fees the the value of the land and the impact fees associated with that was less than significantly less than the amount of all of those various projects. So in some sense you could say we're underfunding what we'd like to do but then they didn't look at all those projects and say well this one is going to be needed because of this amount of growth like they did with the

transportation side. I can't my my head would explode if we tried to figure that one out. So I came away with looking at that thinking, okay, I understand what you I thought the same thing exactly and I have the same concern, but looking at it based on the projects that we would like to accomplish to improve the park systems over time, it didn't seem unreasonable from that standpoint. So given that the consultant has all this expertise and all, I thought, well, probably okay. I wasn't like tilt like I think you are. I was like kind of okay for what that's worth. Um so I I don't know if that helped. You could still you could say no I disagree and that would be fine.

No no use using the improvements. I'm completely okay with that where I'm just having the hard time is to accept using the value of the park itself plus the improvements. Yeah. No, you need to use the improvements to figure out how much to to improve them. So to me the methodology I'm just agreeing with you here would be much it' make much more sense and I don't know why it doesn't like they have very complicated formula that you know it's like all those lines it's like whoa read carefully um to not look at just like in transportation here's the projects we have what do we need to you know gather through impact fees to be able to help defay some of the cost of these improvements and that's not at all what was done.

Sure. And apparently not what's done elsewhere, I guess. Yeah. I think from my understanding with FCS is that this methodology, this historic methodology is commonly used with park systems, whereas yeah, it it's just a different way to slice the That's where I get to, well, okay, they're the experts. Maybe we trust the experts here. But for what that's worth, we could you all have to decide if that makes sense and if we want to move this forward or see this again in a couple weeks. So other comments, I can tell you I kind of cut you off a little bit. So I'm good. Thank you. Okay. I can tell you anecdotally from the parks commission meetings that I go to that they don't think they have enough money.

So So their wish list is far bigger than that. But they don't have enough money to buy new parks or to improve what they have. Both. Both. But why do they need to buy new? Well, I also if you look at the project list, there's zero dollars in land acquisition. That's not really from my understanding that's not really a goal and a focus of the park system right now is that I think some of the parks commissions I meetings I did with the comp plan update is they've shifted away from an acquisition mindset to an improving our existing because we do have a lot of acreage. It's how do we make the existing systems better. So those project list on the list right now are improving our existing adding adding capacity or improving our existing park system.

But if you go back to where they started and I'm sorry John to jump in the methodology they use to come up with the value it depends on the value of the overall park system not just the capital improvements. Right.

I think I can address that to some degree. The majority of the value of any park system is the land itself. And we're somewhat fortunate or budget constrained, however you want to look at it, in that our park system is primarily focused at open space, natural areas, unscheduled. We don't have a giant recreation program. you know, things are contracted out to the Y or the Boys and Girls Club. So, so the basis of our park system is mostly land. The ball fields be the biggest ex exception. I think those ball fields are often developed on school property, which isn't counted in this formula.

It's counted. This the improvements are the value is counted. the value of the land of the of the land in the high schools. It's counted here, right? Again, it's here. I'm deferring to FCS in in the methodology, I guess.

Other comments. I tend to agree with what Rashan was talking about because I think that it just doesn't make a sense looking at looking at the big picture look at a city is that we have so many parks that the the big question and I don't to what extent is relevant to the discussion but I'm going to oppose that question anyway is that do we need more additional park space? Now you may say that that is that's not relevant is a matter of how how the how the formula calculates the park fee but I don't know if we need and you just told us that there is not that much planned for any land acquisition for additional parks but one question that I have I don't know it's not relevant to the discussion is that as you know in parks and John probably can can can elaborate on it. There's some parks called passive and some active. I don't know how many passive park that we have that needs additional equipment and add additional amenities. Do we know that? Do we know how many John? Do you know of

if you look at the parks pro plan the and I wouldn't call a passage park passive where people are playing frisbee walking their dog and hiking on trails. That's pretty active to me. better reference is scheduled versus unscheduled. The ball field is scheduled, swimming dock is not. Um, so those improvements you're seeing for the natural areas and open spaces are primarily parking, restrooms, and trails, which can be quite expensive because they're often crossing sensitive areas. Mhm.

And Evan, are you saying that all these figures as far as the that contributed to calculation of the parts fees is has to do with improvement, not the land acquisition at all? If the city bought the land, then we had it's part of that cash investment. So, or part of our historic investment. So, if the city paid for it, that would have been part of our investment, including then whatever improvements we made to it. If the land was donated, we don't count the value of the land because we didn't pay for it. But if we then went and put uh a barn and swing sets and trails on there, we would count the value of those investments.

But if I recall, Hisham point was early on, I don't know, was it tonight or another conversation that we had is that Isam, your argument was that the land valuation was not based on the time that city purchased that property and they using current valuation. Right? It says 2025 value. See? Well, yeah. So, if if the city bought that property back 10 years ago for $100, the valuation is $100, not the value of the 2025 is $2 million. Well, but you're trying to calculate a fee in today's term. So, you would you'd bring it up to a net present value. I mean, that's like a be fooling ourselves. We paid $100. Why not?

Well, a dollar is different today than it was 10. I mean, that's just how it all works. But to calculate a fee for today, we want to make sure we're using an even playing field, right? So you'd bring up those historic dollars to a net present value. So you can you can calculate a fee amount that would exist in today's dollar terms. If it is legally defensible, that's fine with me. But I don't know. I'm I'm kind of questioning

the the consultant just like they can come up with estimates for the capital improvements. Can they just come up with an estimate for a park based on the current market values instead of using the historical values escalated to today's values? If they make assumptions that we want to go and buy five acres and convert it to a park, how much would that cost? Buy the land and do the improvements and put the turf and everything you need and use that as your metric. I guess I don't know why they would do that. It's not a it's not a methodology used, you know, it's not the way this is done. So, I don't know why they would do it. Um, I'm not trying to be like flippant or dismissive of your question. I I just don't really know how to answer because it's

I mean it it says in the report right consistent with previous practices land value was inflated by the rise in property assessed values and smamish from year of acquisition to the current year improvements were listed as the original cost dollar amount the values of each park as well as additions and acquisitions since 2015 is shown and it does to what you're talking about show if you go down to exhibit to park system inventory. It lists parks and recreation facilities through 2014 and then it gives a sum total at the bottom and then it it lists parks and wreck facilities through 2024 and it adds on a total on top of the 2014 amount and it it goes from 341 um all the way down. So basically it gets down to the bottom and it does include the the Big Rock

Central um donation um and it includes the Big Rock South donation um and it includes the Big Rock Park as part of the 2014 number. So it does include those as part of the baseline and then is divided by per capita

to set the amount. Um, so there's a couple different ways to look at that. One is that we're trying to understand what the ultimate objectives and how we plan for parks in the city. And because our comprehensive plan, which which includes by reference the pros plan uses the Big Rock Park as a foundation for planning for recreation services, regardless of whether it was donated or whether it was acquired, that it is considered as part of the park system. And therefore when planning for delivery of of parks services in the city that is part of the foundation of that service. So therefore it is calculated into the total value of what is what is the foundation for that service. I understand the different ways of looking at that and that that does increase the amount that that that it sites. Um, you could make a recommendation that, you know, to the council, if you were to choose to recommend this, that the council, um, amend the council direct the the staff and the consultant to amend and reformulate how those inputs are put in to not account for donations that have come into the system.

And I'm I'm not just talking about the donations here. Like I started I said I have a complete disagreement about the methodology the whole methodology and I can accept the status quo but I know the city has fiscal issues and if we don't approach things differently we're not going to change them and if we continue accepting it because a consultant told us that this is the practice then might as well not just just not talk about it. But we have to figure out a way to do it differently in a less expensive way. So perhaps a better way to look at this since we're not subject matter experts and I don't even want to think about tearing apart the methodology is we look at the impact fee per square foot at 313 and consider reducing that by some percentage rather than trying to if we think that's too high then you know is reduce it by 50% or 25% or because I don't I don't know that I would feel comfortable in trying to dissect the the um consultants report or methodology. I'm I'm definitely not the expert when it comes to parks, but when it comes to just common sense, I I can say that I can be completely wrong about everything I'm talking about now here. But if you were to go and add parks because the population increased, you're going to go and look for land somewhere around here, buy that land, and convert it to a park. What I'm saying if we are today at 65,000 population we will add parks when we hit 70,000

let's say for those additional 5,000s we're going to go and add five more acres why don't we use that method as how we come up with the value per person and I think Mike do you want to extend the time or do you I I see that you're jumping to the mic so you need to say something I know we We should do that for him right now and then I'll have a couple quick comments and then make a motion to add 15 minutes. So it would be 9:45. 94. Okay. We'll see if that works. Do we have a second? Second. All right. All in favor? I.

No opposed. Okay. Hey, um I hope this doesn't come across as um I don't know what the right word is, flippant or something, but these comments were made at least one other meeting, if not two other meetings. And maybe it's on us as commissioners for not being clear enough about needing answers. Uh but there were no changes to the report from the consultant or no addendum that said we're hearing your concern. Here's why this is what's the common practice. So right now we're we're trusting that the consultant is using common practice without that further explanation I guess and why we're getting stuck. So either we say, you know, we'd really like to see more of a explanation, a justification for the way that calculation was made. We're just talking parks right now. Or we say, you know, we trust that they're they're the professionals, they're experts, and we can move on. And we and there we have two tracks. one is, you know, keep it full up or like John, you were maybe trying to come up with a compromise and say, well, why don't we pick a number and reduce that fee because it seems too high based on how it was calculated. So, those are that's the road in front of us. One says we'll push this through this evening. The other one says we need to hear something more from the consultant. What do you all think? Let me ask you a question.

I go by that we need something more from the consultant because I I don't want to be subjective. I can sit here and say no, I want zero and he's going to say I want 50. And good point. What's the right number zero or 50? But I need data from the consultant. So what do you think, John? I think if the consultant can explain their methodology the hesitation is or that we don't dive into the project list itself that we clarify the the valuation basis methodology and then let the just like with transportation we're not looking to come up with new projects and

again the question about the formula on both were parks as well as transportation so David let me ask question. I know that uh the budget is limited as far as consultant fees and all that. What is the possibility of having them coming to the meeting and explain right and send in an email and ask the question and answer? Is that possibility?

We're getting down on our res on our available resources left on this contract and we we did already go back to the city council once and ask for additional resources to support additional meetings. And so I think we have probably enough to have them support one or two more meetings, public meetings and we have at least one or two meetings that the city council will need to go through on this topic. So my inclination is is I would push I would push a little bit on the idea that we have hired experts to do their job. They have provided us with the data and the methodology. It's legally defensible and we're indemnified by their work. This is part of the reason why it's nice to have consultants is they go out and do it and it provides us cover should we get questions or challenges down the road on the methodology. But what they've said is from the data the data the city provided which is the the historic all these project lists the the um inventory list that's all stuff the city reviewed and provided they took it and have run it through and said this is what the industry standard is. So my mind is I said this a few days ago is like our task is to not have to take this model and reconstruct it ourselves and know each each facet of what goes into it. Our sort of it's it's more of a higher level judgment call of do we trust the work they've done? Do we feel comfortable with the outputs? And remember the outputs of the parks fee are it's it's like $6 off the current the current calculated fee. So the impact is is is not dramatic. Also,

but I know well I know you take issue with how it's calculated. I was going to say to you that on its own it tells me something is wrong because are you telling me that the I building parks today is less expensive than last year? That's what this is saying that the the fee is lesser now that's not what it's not about what it cost to build park parks then verse now. Oh, that's not We are collecting the fee to build parks, right, for the new population, right? But

yeah, let me jump in here. Um, so Evan, you started out in the presentation about the legally defensible all of that expertise. I I certainly get that. I think we get that. Um, and having heard that and having looked at this four times, three times for sure, we've still had that concern. So rather than have them come and the extra expenses of maybe through the zoom zoom meeting.

Well, I was going to just say we're looking for some further explanation. Written explanation would be great. It could be an addendum to the report that says not just this is industry standard. I would suggest and these are other ways that we could have done it uh that are also used in industry or that nobody else does it any other way. Grin and Barrett. So um but that would be not as expensive as bringing them in for a meeting and all of that. Uh so because we've we've gotten stuck on this and

let me give you an example. Of course, this I'm back to the transportation, but to give you an example, uh this item was at the council meeting couple of couple of months ago and one of the council members, I believe that was deputy mayor, she looked at the list and she said that wait a minute, Mr. consultant. I think that you're the one that you made made a presentation that made reference as far as the impact fee for calculation for transportation showing that the total amount of investment in the next uh number of years what is that seven years 10 years based on CIP is 20 oh it's a 20 year list yeah

20 year list the total amount of investment in Sahal drive was $1.2 $2 million and the and the deputy mayor as said how can you justify that and and I believe that a consultant was there well we apologize we looked at 2023 CIP list and we use a calculation based on that so how can we say that it's pretty much standard procedure that they following and and this is an example they they are coming with 2026 impact fee but they using 2023 three list. So that tells me that with do all respect they haven't done that much of homework to make sure that all the data that they showing are correct.

Well, just to clarify these were the adopted list the city provided. So it's not that the consultant has done anything incorrect. It's that these are the list we have adopted to provide the consultant. So it's it's not an issue that they haven't done their research or it's done incorrectly. It's this is the these are these are the project lists we have. We're working to update them and we'll have updated ones coming down the pike for the council to review later this year. But these are the adopted project saying Evan we saying that back in 2023 our projected expenditure projected funding for the Sahali still was 1.2 when we when the council actually had the project approved for the design of $1.5 million just to do the study.

Exact. Well, at the at the point in time when Sahali was being considered back whenever that list was created, it was a much smaller project. I and I understand and since then it is it is a much larger project cuz they're going out to construction phase and build. So now on the updated project list because the short-term six-year list changes every year. Projects are added and taken off as they're completed or through different phases of their project cycle. It is a much more expensive project now. And this is something that was that as that was the response given to that council question of yes at the time it was in a study phase. It was a relatively 1.5 isn't cheap but it was a cheap project then. Now it's in construction.

Yeah. It's a much it's a much more expensive project. That is why we have recommended that the the fees be updated alongside the the CIP process and budget process twice, you know, every two years because then it will reflect the current project lists and the current the current values that go in those. So I think I don't think there's any disagreement about updating the the the the fees frequently based on the formula. So let's get back to the subject. Is is there any possibility that we can have some kind of a zoom meeting with the consultant to be on call? So when we asking this deliberating all these issues, he he would be able to answer or clarify issues. I think we'll have to look budget to do that.

Uh well, it would be a trade-off between meeting with you or meeting with the council. I think in and so that's a conversation we need to to have internally. I I see at this point the benefit of maybe a written response to the commission and saving the limited budget we have left so the council can have the consultant there to ask questions.

We'll let you all decide that. Um I was hoping that we could get to where we can make a motion to accept and it's feeling like we probably wouldn't get a second if somebody even made that motion. Uh and there's a few other topics that we need to at least touch on for deliberation. um and and not even getting to like the um you know injection reduction in fees those percentages um and one is the point that Mr. sticky made. So using the blended rate for single family and multi-family uh does penalize multifamily and from a policy standpoint that feels like not the direction that as a community we've been wanting to go and I I think we touched on this before but not as deeply as we did on some of the the project list and the park fees. Um, so I don't know if you could address that and why the blended is used versus having different impact fees for at least, you know, multifamily versus single.

Can you David can you elaborate on the blended fees and how it's going to work? Well, Evan,

I I mean I I think fundamentally fundamentally the purpose of the bill was that that fees should be scaled not based on whether it's multifamily or single family or duplex or triplex or stack flat or town home or whatever. It it was because we have so many different unit types now and that the legislature saw that that we'd end up with some crazy scale of of you know schedule of fees that really didn't make sense and that instead the impact fee should be reflective of the square footage because the square footage really is a driver of how many people live there and how many people live there is a driver of the transportation

the impact that the impact that that has on our transportation system or our park system. Um

so then let me partly in the interest of time and to save your voice. Um so if you have a multi- family unit, let's say a forplex, u the fees are based on the units, the square footage of each of the units. So from that standpoint, it's clear that using the occupancy by square footage as was fundamental to the formula, right? That the impact and the need to help fund infrastructure based on the multifamily is directly proportional by averages to the number of people in the dwellings. So that's the justification uh for doing that

reject the statement that it's punitive to middle or to multif family. I don't see that. I'm trying to understand that. So I've heard it stated by Mr. Stikney. I've heard it stated again. Yeah. And I'm rejecting that and I'm trying to understand what you mean by that. Well, you look at multifamily there at 6,000 and single family at 17 and then we're now blending it per dwelling unit at 16. So now

I don't think that the top two mean anything. I think that really at the way at the end of the day, we're simply calculating it per square foot. You're not going to be paying a multifamily unit amount there. I I don't quite understand why those are even relevant. Well, it's an assessment of our system, right? So, the blended fee, it's this an assessment of the impacts of single family and multif family units on our system. And what is if if you think about it, our city is mostly single family, what 90 something% single family, and then a a singledigit percentage of multifamily units. And so while the multif family units have a lower transportation impact fee, when you blend the weight of th the impacts of multif family units next to the weight of single family units, that's what gives you that proportional fee. And we just the impacts of the system are less because we have far fewer units of multifamily housing types in our system. And so then you get into the question of proportionality per occupant, right? But it doesn't matter in the end because you get down into the impact fee for fee per square foot which applies across all unit types regardless of whether it's a single family, multifamily, middle housing type, right?

It just is a per square foot. So it doesn't really matter whether and that's where I get into that top box on this chart and I kind of question whether that f those first two rows are even relevant. Then why didn't you show it? Because that was very confusion to me. I agree. I was like if it's just simple impact fee per square foot, it's easy to understand. Just for the for the sake of comparison, I think that does that was the purpose. It's 9:45.

But make it simple. I think it was for the purpose of contrasting against their current system. So what they were trying to do is show that if you if you were to if you were to provide sort of a typical example that that's how it would stack up cuz we needed to contrast that compared to our existing system. But what I would say is that it is um if you look at the single family multifamily it really is applied by square foot going forward and whether it's single family or multif family is completely mood. That's why maybe they just highlighted that saying that that's important and just pay attention to that.

You want another extension? I don't know if we'll get that one passed. Um, real just real quick. So, but those were you I don't want to belabor this. I really don't. um those were used to determine the impact fee per square foot or was the say $744 cents pulled from some other place? I forget now. It's from the blended fees. Yeah. So doing that blending has the net effect of increasing that 744. But again it's it's yeah it but it's again based on the proportionality of our existing system. So I think

but if we'd like more multifamily that's where the penalty comes into multifamily. What penalty and that that's just a that's just more of a policy. This is just this simplifies the again it's like a like we said well earlier it's a tool to uh support expanding the systems for the new people added through growth right it's not a tool used to incentivize different unit types. So I think when you think about it that way, it's saying that's the impact of adding new people to the system, our system. Yeah. And and the amount that we want to charge for that. Yep. Yeah. So we we do fundamentally have a series of questions that we've been trying to get to. I know.

And you might sense some minor frustration with staff because we really need answers to some of these other questions. Uh we continue to want to talk about the the the the project lists and the formula. I get it. That's really foundational to the whole thing. But if we could also make sure to find time if we're not going to do it tonight at the next meeting to get through those fundamental questions, we'd really appreciate it. Yeah. No, understood. Recognize the need. David, quick question. Can you give us an example of a cities that they using per impact fee per square foot? Soon they all will be most of them because it's state law. You know one?

Uh I off hand I don't because it's 1000 p.m. Yeah. It's just I'm I'm blanking honestly. Yeah. I'm losing it. Part of what the law is. The only other option was bedrooms. And the only jurisdiction I'm aware of that's using bedrooms is King County. Yeah. Yet King County does not even define bedroom. So, it's a bit challenging. We we've been we've been studying this for school impact fees and they have a hole in their whole thing because they don't even define bedroom. Fine. if we just hold it just continue to It's been a long meeting.

Um we were we're actually past where we agreed to. Um we've kind of gotten stuck. I hate to say that. I thought we could drive this thing through this evening. Um so would look for you for guidance. we what we would do there there's one or two questions that we did ask if we could have clarified and I know that I understand your frustration. It's come up enough times that we feel like probably should do that really. Um and then we would come back and really as a count commission be very focused on answering the key questions that are required to make the necessary changes to the draft. um it is getting close to 10 and um we haven't really addressed the core questions that you were asking. I'm very sorry about that. Um, so I well I I would just say I um I hear you and I appreciate it and we'll reach out to the consultant and excuse me see if they can help explain in a different way the cash the historic investment methodology and the potentially other consider the other options that could have been considered for calculating parks. I would also ask that as homework for y'all watching the November 6th meeting again when the consultant was there because they talked about that system the donations and I I I may have misheard when I rewatched it today. Um so I I apologize if that's the case but rewatch that section because we talk about it and what I worry a little bit is the consultant providing the same answer they've already provided and we've made no grounds. Yeah. So, I'll I'll ask them to try to reframe frame things in a way that's different than they've said before, but uh I think we both have some homework that can help us move forward.

Well, and if it really was covered in that November meeting, send the link to us and tell us, hey, listen carefully. So, all right. Um, so we should draw this to a close and sorry about that, but that's okay. I we anticipated this is 50/50. So, you know, it's completely within the realm of reasonleness. Um, and for our homework, we should go back and look at the questions that are being posed to us and come prepared to discuss those.

Yeah, we really want to make sure we're also looking at the code, right? The code is a big part of this and and we'd be happy to if if in the inter intervening weeks you have questions, feel free to reach out. We're happy to talk. Great point. Because there were one or two things in the code that I saw that I think like you know how we would charge if somebody enlarges their house right back to the fee and loo conversation that we had and and they would be penalized in here now. So there's one or two things like that that should be considered as a change in the draft or potentially. So okay. Yep. So we've got a meeting coming up. Couple meetings coming up in April. Huh?

April 2nd. April sec. April 2nd. I think currently it's a discussion on title 24A and we might boot that to give this plenty of space to wrap up. We should nail this thing. Yeah. Um and then honestly at this point I can't remember what's the second meeting in April.

Send the agenda packet. So okay. So we've got that and then one super fast quick thing. Um based on the uh actually the message that Mary sent and knowing what council's considering about other public comments um say you and I when we have our uh we should actually do this before our usual prep meeting so that if uh we want to add a second comment period that that be added to the agenda bill for the next for that next meeting. So you could you could also as a matter of opening up and and reviewing the agenda, you could do it then.

We do need to amend the bylaws if you want to add that. The bylaws currently state how public comment is to be handled. So I would suggest that you request staff load that for a future conversation. could bring that back at the second meeting in in in April, but as a matter of opening the meeting in April, on April 2nd, you would amend the agenda and add a second public comment at the end of the meeting. Okay, we got a plan. Sounds good. Does anybody object to adjourning the meeting? Motion to adjourn. Hearing no objections. Second.

Thank you for your endurance. We'll get there. It's a good thing I brought my battery charger. David Evan, thank you so much.