Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

Nicole, does that sound good to you? Let's get started.

Beautiful.

And is Ken our host tonight?

It's me. I'm going to be the... Okay.

Thank you, Nicole. So you'll have us on record?

Correct. We are recording.

All right. Good evening, Mark Scheifemeyer, the City Hearing Examiner. I've been asked to convene a public hearing to consider an application by the Olympia Parks, Arts, and Recreation Department seeking a conditional use permit to establish what is referred to as the Kaiser Woods Park, a proposed public mountain biking park located over 71 acres at 2549 Black Lake Boulevard Southwest. The project proposing to include 3.5 miles of new mountain bike trails and some common use trails, 1.9 miles of existing trails, pump tracks and skill stations, a restroom, parking lot with 25 stalls, stormwater detention facilities, and frontage improvements along Black Lake Boulevard Southwest. In advance of today's hearing, I received a staff report authored by Ms. Mock, who is present tonight and anticipated to give testimony. By the way, this bears the city's hearing number 23-3261. I've reviewed that report and all of the attachments that are associated with it in advance of tonight's hearing. I have received quite a few public comments, many of which arrived today. All those that did arrive, I have reviewed. in advance of the hearing as they've come in today. So I am, I believe, familiar with all public comments that have been received at any time in the lengthy hearing of this report and including all that have been submitted today. So many of you have been participants in other public hearings of this type. Perhaps some of you have not. It's important to understand how this type of public hearing works differently. than say a hearing before the city council or planning commission or something else of that nature. Most notably, this is not a political process. I'm not interested in how many are in favor of a project and how many are not. That's not how I render decisions on conditional use permits. Rather I render them on the basis of the facts that are submitted and whether those facts demonstrate that the applicant has met all requirements. So while I'm certainly interested in those who are interested or in support or in opposition, I am not keeping count. I am instead paying close attention to the testimony that's being provided and utilizing that testimony to render my factual determinations, which then support my legal conclusions, which then render my ultimate decision. And so what I'm most interested in hearing tonight is your testimony and the factual reasons you either support or oppose this application. Not, again, the total number of supporters or opponents, but the basis upon which that support or opposition is being made. So this hearing will have two, or I'm sorry, three components. We will first hear from the city staff, the planning department, as the one receiving the application and making recommendations to me in the form of their staff report. I anticipate that through Ms. Mock, it could be through other city planning staff as well. Once that presentation has been completed, we then turn to the applicant, which also happens to be the city of Olympia. So the city is wearing two hats in this hearing. One is the planning department, and the other as the applicant through the parks department. I believe we'll hear from Ms. Utter on that, perhaps others who may add to or subtract from what the city planning department says. We'll wait and see. In each instance, I may have questions both for the planning staff as well as the parks department. I'll determine that as we go along. Once we have concluded those two presentations, we'll then turn to public comment. A few things about that, and those who wish to testify will do so under oath. Because we have a relatively large crowd that has signed up in advance, I'm going to limit comment to three minutes per individual. That should be enough for most individuals. I'm not necessarily keeping a clock. I'm just keeping general track. But if I see you going beyond three minutes, I'm going to remind you that it's time to wrap up. And that's mostly a courtesy to all the others who have gone to the trouble of participating tonight. We want to give them equal chance, equal opportunity without having to wait appreciable periods for that chance. And so, again, I think three minutes of this type of hearing should provide everyone with that ample opportunity. What I'm looking for? is factual reasons why you may support or oppose this application. It doesn't help me much if you get up and say, Mr. Hearing Examiner, I support this application and so do eight of my friends, and then sit down. That's not helped me in any way. That's not really given me any factual reason that I would utilize your testimony to support my determination. But if you instead said, Mr. Scheidtmeier or Mr. Hearing Examiner, I and six of my friends support this application for the following four reasons. It's those four reasons that I am interested in, not the number of people who are of a like mind as yours. So if you'll keep that in mind when you come to testify, that's really valuable. That again, what I am doing is gathering facts upon which I'll make my ultimate decision. I think that's largely it for suggestions. We will poll the audience when it comes to the public hearing portion. We'll probably proceed with those who are appearing in person first, followed then by an opportunity for those who are appearing remotely. Again, when you're asked to call, asked to testify, you'll be unmuted if you're appearing remotely. That will be your only time in which you will be unmuted. There will be no use of the chat device for this meeting or any use of the hand clapping or thumbs up or anything else. If you're appearing remotely, you are not to use the Zoom platform to engage in a secondary conversation about this hearing. Its only purpose is to give testimony directly to me and not for any other purpose. And if you're appearing in person, there is no demonstration of support or opposition for anyone's testimony. This is like a courtroom treated as such. Respect everybody's testimony, being courteous, be respectful of all those who testify, including those who disagree with your position. We've had great success over the years with Olympia with outstanding public participation. And I expect tonight to be no different than all of those previous hearings. So let's get us underway. We'll begin with the presentation by the City Planning Department. Again, that is Ms. Mock. So Ms. Mock, let's have you sworn, you swear, or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Thank you.

Go ahead.

All right. Good evening, folks. It is nice to see you all. Thank you for taking your evening to be here. My name is Casey Mock and I am the city permitting staff person who has been coordinating this land use application that we're all here tonight to hear about. The project is called Kaiser Woods Mountain Bike Park, project number 233261. With me tonight from the city in the room on her computer is Nicole Floyd, the planning director We also have Zuleika Kim, engineering plans examiner on the screen and Jeff Johnstone, our city engineer who did the stormwater review for the project. Okay. In my presentation tonight, I'll briefly talk about what the project site is and what the proposal is, though the applicant will go into more detail about the project itself. I'll talk about the review process that this permit has gone through. how we looked at the comprehensive plan, city code, and city engineering standards, and end with our recommended conditions of approval. Finally, as Mr. Schadmeier mentioned, this is an interesting application because the city is both the applicant and the reviewer. When I use the term the city, I am referring to the permit team. So the permit team, for the most part, is down on the second floor. It's folks in building, engineering, fire, urban forestry, historic preservation. And the applicant is primarily up on the third floor, and that's City Parks, who is with you tonight in the form of Diane Utter. City projects like this, parks projects, they go through the same review process that a private development permit would go through. They're checked against the same criteria. They pay fees. So All in all, I just wanted to make sure that it's understood there is a division in how this project was applied for and reviewed. Okay, the project site, it's this kind of darkest green where you've got a little red arrow pointing to it. It's about 70 acres and it's down in the southwest corner of the city between Kaiser Road to the north connecting to Black Lake Boulevard to the east. This is the southeast corner of Olympia City limits. You've got Tumwater to the south and Thurston County to the west. The site is densely forested and generally slopes from west to east with three seasonal streams on site. Historically, this property had two single family homes that have been demolished and currently has a detached garage. The site has been used informally as a park for several years for both hikers and bikers. all right so the proposal i know the site plan on the right is pretty hard to read it's difficult when you have a site this big but we can certainly zoom in on the plans if folks want a little bit more detail but what you see here is in light blue the project includes three and a half miles of new mountain bike or hiking trails And these are new trails that are not used in the informal park right now. There's also formalizing about two miles of existing informal trails. Those are in green, and they also go along the outer boundary of the site. There are two new bicycle pump track and skill stations. There is about 0.4 miles of existing informal trail in yellow that will be abandoned. And finally, all the way down in the south, you have a new 25-stall parking lot and restroom. The project also includes bringing in a paved access lane off of Black Lake Boulevard and utility connections and some frontage improvements on Black Lake Boulevard. Okay, so the review process that this application has been in, it first came in as a complete application in June 12, 2023. Many of the folks in the room here tonight may have been a part of the planning process long before that, and that would have been through the parks planning process. But the permit officially started June 2023. It's gone through four rounds of city review. So that means for the initial submittal and three applicant resubmittals when the permitting department asked for changes. And finally, we issued our notice of hearing at the end of May. And again, the regulations that we'll be checking this against are the comprehensive plan, the Olympia Municipal Code, the engineering design and development standards, agency comments from nearby agencies, and public comments. Okay, starting off high level, the comprehensive plan is the guiding document for the city. It's the overarching plan that talks broadly about what we want our city to look like and what our priorities are. When looking at this proposal against the goals and policies in the comprehensive plan, staff found that generally the proposal is supported by the plan. In terms of the natural environment chapter, this proposal protects environmentally sensitive areas, it integrates existing topography and vegetation, and it provides accessible recreation opportunities. Looking at the land use perspective, we are protecting historic resources and supporting neighborhood livability. We are in the transportation section, providing opportunities for bicycle travel and education. And finally, looking at the recreation chapter, this would provide parks and programs to enhance quality of life and affordable and accessible activities for different ages and abilities. The comprehensive plan is then carried out through more specific development standards or development regulations. This is the meat that we start checking proposals against when it first comes in. So is it an allowed use? Yes, this park is allowed as a conditional use, which means it is allowed, but it may have some extra requirements that it needs to meet. In this case, it is allowed as a park in a residential area. The reason it's conditional use is because it includes more than 10 parking stalls. And when that's the case, a proposal can be approved if it doesn't have significant harmful effects on the immediate neighborhood. The zone that this property is in is called RLI, residential low impact. And this is an area that could be developed residentially with a subdivision, but there are significant limitations on developed surface coverage because there are sensitive stormwater drainage concerns in the area. Looking more at critical areas, so one clarification I wanted to make is that my staff report included an incorrect graphic showing the wetlands and streams. This graphic is correct. The incorrect graphic showed that stream one went along the north, the northernmost purple arrow from west to east. And then stream two was the easternmost stream. That's all stream one, actually. And stream two is this tiny little nib about 120 feet long jetting off of the middle of stream one. But getting into the regulations. So this application does propose work in critical areas. Critical areas are areas that the city and state recognize need more protection and need to be regulated when development occurs. These impacts are there is a trail that crosses, that goes into the stream buffer of, sorry, excuse me, stream one includes an informal trail that crosses the stream. And right now it is just a gravel stream crossing. This application proposes to formalize that trail with some monitoring programs to make sure that there are not adverse impacts to the stream. And there was a critical areas report provided that discussed how including this trail was best practice and was an unavoidable impact to developing the park. There's also wetland buffer averaging going on. So the stormwater pond for the drainage is located in the buffer of that wetland A along the bottom. And so what the applicant has proposed is to add new areas of wetland buffer that are higher functioning and substitute those for areas of lower functioning current wetland buffer that they would then locate their stormwater pond in. We also talk about landslide hazard areas when we look at critical areas. These are steep slope areas. So in this map, all of these darker hashed areas would be... Actually, I apologize. All the red areas are potential steep slope areas of 40% or greater. And so it's important to make sure that there's not any development... that could be either impacting these slopes or that these slopes could then impact with destruction of property or people. And so we had to look at the drainage pond in proximity to some nearby landslide hazard areas. And the drainage pond is now located just outside of the hazard area. And while the applicant is not proposing any like, Critical area enhancements, planting or stabilization, anything like that, this was supported by several critical area reports. And the critical areas consultant found that this was adequate, met the code, met state regulations, so long as there is monitoring for three years. And if some of these areas show impacts, we would then pursue a mitigation plan. So that is one of the recommended conditions of approval. So how this all happens, public agencies in Olympia Municipal Code and many other jurisdiction codes, they can get relief from critical area regulations when there's no practical alternatives with less impact and no unreasonable threat to the public or to the critical area itself. So the applicant's report was able to show that all of their intrusions or activity in critical area buffers was did not have practical alternatives, and did not pose a threat to the critical area or to the public. Okay, getting into engineering. Engineering includes the standards that we look at for drinking water, wastewater, stormwater, solid waste, and transportation. This project does meet the regulations of all of these disciplines with a few recommended conditions, one of which relates to the city of Tumwater. So some of the park area, that access lane and parking lot, are in the city of Tumwater city limits. So from the beginning, the applicant has been in contact with the city of Tumwater and permitting staff in Olympia has routed each application resubmittal to Tumwater to get their comments and see if there are any issues. Tumwater has generally signed off, that's in one of the exhibits, but the applicant will need to get an engineering permit from the city of Tumwater before commencing any work there. So that is one of Olympia's recommended conditions of approval that they go through that permitting process before Olympia engineering issuance. We also recommend conditions that an easement or maintenance agreement to use privately owned storm ponds is obtained, and that the restroom has a holding tank that's permitted by Thurston County Environmental Health. Okay, so as we can see in the room and online, we have received a lot of public comment, I think about 20 today. about this project and it's kind of, I would say, condensed into three topic areas. One is a preference or opposition towards hiking trails, biking trails, or mixed-use trails. Some of them have expressed concern about the nearby Ken Lake and that making sure that any drainage from the park in this development would not impact the lake. And finally, concern about development in a heavily forested area. So again, Mr. Scheidmeier did a great job of talking about the approval criteria for the project. While the I love this or I really don't love this comments are probably useful for the Parks Department, they are not that useful for the Permitting Department as we do our review. That said, this is a conditional use and one of the new criterion that this project has to meet that you wouldn't see on just an outright permitted use is that a park is located and screened from neighboring residences to avoid impacts like noise and that it does not harm the immediate neighborhood. So there's kind of a little bit more, I think, weight to public opinion in this project than there may be on others. And in response to these three big topic areas, city staff has considered these comments and come up with the following conclusions. So in terms of the preference of hiking or biking trails, The role of city permitting staff is to make sure that whichever option is pursued, that the land is developed appropriately, that the stormwater is taken care of, that we're not seeing erosion. But we are not, it is not our role to design the project and to state whether it should be hiking or biking trails. That is the responsibility of the Parks Department. In response to the concerns about Ken Lake, the stormwater plan for the project did have to make sure that natural drainage patterns weren't altered and that natural drainage in the area is the same after the project as it was before. And we do have our stormwater engineer here with us tonight and the applicant stormwater engineer to answer questions or concerns about that. And finally, this is a really nice area. I'm sure most of us or maybe all of us on this call have been out to Kaiser Woods and it's gorgeous. It's a heavily forested area. It feels a little bit untouched. It's one of the few places in city limits that you can just walk in and hear no noise. And rightfully so, there are some concerns about what this means to develop this into a full out park. One thing I want to reiterate, though, is that this land is not protected as a conservation area. It is not fully encumbered by critical area buffers. If it was privately owned, a developer could come in today and create a many home subdivision. And so while it is a beautiful area and we should protect it, city staff found that the comprehensive plan and the development regulations did support allowing this use. You look at it and it's about 24,000 tree property. And in order to develop this park, the applicant is proposing removal of 90 trees, over half of which are diseased. So the applicant has really taken into account working with the topography. I mean, the natural slopes are, I believe, how this mountain bike idea works. even started. And that is in line with what the comprehensive plan imagines for a site like this. Also, the applicant has taken taken some time to hear the concerns in the neighborhood and try to address them. So one concern is just making sure that we're not having noise or light or impacts to the neighboring residences. And the Parks Department has thought about this concern and ensured that beyond the existing informal trails, there would be no new trails within 150 feet of all of the park boundaries to make sure that The experience that those residents have now remains pretty much unchanged. The original access point for this park, when the Parks Department was originally designing it, was off of Park Drive, which would more heavily impact the surrounding neighborhood. They would have more of a traffic impact, maybe a parking impact. And so the city took some time, City Parks, and acquired additional land to have a separate entry off of Black Lake Boulevard. So while these concerns are important to hear, city staff do believe that the Parks Department has done an adequate job of designing the project to not have harmful effects on the immediate neighborhood. And just wrapping up my PowerPoint, there are a few other conditions that you'll read in the staff report, recommended conditions that didn't really pertain to larger issues. So for urban forestry, we just need to make sure that the recommendations and protection standards from the tree report are put into civil engineering plans so that everyone involved with the project can see these. Looking at historic preservation, since the project is state-funded, at least partially, the project does have to go through a state historic preservation process that is more in-depth than the one that the city of Olympia does. It engages the tribes on a higher level. It's run by archaeologists. So they'll need to show that they have adequately gone through that process and protected any, followed through with any recommendations that that process ended with. Also, the parking lane, the parking area, and access lane for this project are technically in potential future city right-of-way. There is a goal to eventually connect Black Lake Boulevard to Kaiser Road. It is unlikely that that will happen anytime soon, but we are recommending a condition that if this right-of-way is developed into a road, the parking lot would have to be redeveloped and added elsewhere so that there's not a parking burden on the immediate neighborhoods. And finally, if there are any noxious weeds on site, that those are removed per Thurston County protocol. And that is the end of my slideshow. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bach. Let's get us squared away on exhibits. So what do you show as the last exhibit for public comment? Would that be exhibit 23? You are muted or otherwise I can't hear you. Yes, I was. Thank you. Okay.

Yes, Exhibit 23 is the comments, the last formal exhibit. That's comments received through 3 p.m. There are four comments that have come in since that time. Two of them I sent to you around 5.15. The other two have come in since I started speaking.

All right. So just want to recognize those collectively as Exhibit 23 and then your PowerPoint presentation becomes exhibit 24. And if you'll send that to me at the end of the hearing tonight, that will be appreciated. So I've got a number of questions in no particular order. I'm a little initially unclear as to the final plan for the project and whether that's important for me to know or not. So You have attached to your staff report, and you showed earlier in your PowerPoint presentation, a design of the plan, which is a little hard to read. There is also a design of the plan found in the critical areas report prepared by SOMAS, and that's attachment seven to the critical areas report. Are you able to pull that up?

Yes. Let me pull up.

And is there by chance any way of putting the two side by side?

Yes, I can. It takes me a few extra clicks. But yes, give me one minute.

Okay.

So it's still... That's exhibit 10.

I was looking for exhibit 7. Okay.

Let's see.

Or attachment 7. Okay.

Bit slow to load with Zoom, but we will get there. It's attachment. Do you know what page you're referring to?

Well, you just had it up. It was on the left side. There we go. If you can bring it up.

Okay.

Well done. Okay, because it's a lot easier to read than the one that's attached to the staff report. Do you know if they are effectively the same thing, or is one a later iteration than the other?

The one on the left is the later iteration. The one on the right, it is a bit different, but what was important about the attachment to this report was the work in critical area buffers, and that is unchanged.

Okay. Well, yeah, that's mildly disappointing in that it was the easier one to intuit as to what was taking place on the site. So with that understanding, and with those up, I'm sorry. I'm not doing these questions or framing them well. At first, I'm needing to understand whether I'm being asked to approve a specific layout or am I simply approving a mountain bike park where the parks department will determine its final layout? Where do you see me in that process? And Am I being asked specifically to approve the exhibit that's on the left of our screen?

I will say you are being asked to approve a proposal that is significantly similar to the exhibit on the left. So with any land use approval at engineering permit, there may be slight changes, but not substantial changes. And what That means radical change in the trails would not be accepted. Critical area changes would not be accepted. But in general, what has kicked this project to your authority is the parking lot and the use in general.

OK. Well, the reason I'm asking is that the exhibit on the right, the earlier iteration, and the final one on the left, especially the one on the right, shows what are intended as either hiking only trails, what are intended as mixed use trails, and what are intended as biking only trails. None of that's on the one on the left. None of that distinction is found on this map. And so that's where I'm going with this. Am I being asked to make some decision as to how much is to be one versus the other versus the other, or am I to leave that to the Parks Department for its determination?

I would leave that to the Parks Department. They have shown and they need to show that stormwater is taken care of for the most intensive use. But beyond that, I wouldn't say that it's in the permitting staff or your jurisdiction to set a balance.

Again, these are all over the place. There is mentioned in the cultural, well, the tribe has mentioned, it is mentioned elsewhere that there are cultural trees on site. That's a term that doesn't normally arise in cultural resource discussions. And so I'm uncertain as to what it may refer to in this particular instance. At the same time, I don't want you to give me a lot of detail because, again, that's information that's sought to be restricted to the public to protect those resources. But generally, what's a cultural tree?

So a culturally modified tree is a tree that historically tribal members used for cultural practices. So there's been bark shaving or there could be, yeah.

I assumed it was most likely cedar bark shaving that we're talking about. Okay. All right. Some members of the public have wondered about fencing around the perimeter of this park, specifically on the east side where it adjoins residential neighborhoods. The response has been consistency. I know that we don't intend to provide fencing. Anything you want to add to that response?

Just that I'm from a city permitting staff perspective, we are not necessarily in the belief that fencing is necessary. It's certainly not required by the code and the applicant has created a buffer of no new trails beyond what's existing there within 150 feet, and we found that to adequately satisfy immediate neighbor concerns.

Okay. The reports mention a lot of historic trails, not just within, but entering into the property from various locations. Are Those all going to go away or some go away? What would one expect if I'm living in the Ken Lake neighborhood and I've got a trail that leads in from my property? Will that be kept? If I'm coming off Kaiser, am I going to still use that access, that informal access that may have existed at the northwest corner of the property? How are all those informal entrance points going to be dealt with?

Diane, raise your hand if I'm incorrect, but my understanding is that all of them are remaining. All of those informal and, oh, she's, no, okay.

Okay, I'll come back to her in a more formal, more complete response later on. Okay. What is one to expect in terms of signage, trail markers? What will this look like later? Once it's under if approved and if it's operational what kind of signage either at entrances or along the way way finding what sort of signage should we anticipate.

All that diane expand, but from what I have seen the parks department submit. They are planning to have several kind of wayfinding signs within the park, in addition to signage on the outside that talks about expectations for use. There's also a big emphasis in this park on learning and skill building. And so I would expect there to be some signage about those items.

Will there be a policy or is there one proposed on use of e-bikes?

Not that I know of.

Does it envision any lighting?

I believe so in the pump track and skills areas and the restroom parking lot, but I will let Parks confirm.

And why would there be lighting in the pump track and skills area?

I believe, oh, she's shaking her head. So I think I'm misspeaking.

All right. I'm going to just come back to Ms. Utter on those questions and save you the struggle. I see no discussion of hours of operation. Does the planning department have a recommendation on hours of use?

Not out of the municipal code permitting section, no. However, I would expect that parks will follow their model in other parks, which is usually dawn to dusk, I believe.

Well, when I've been asked to approve any sort of park facility in the past, it's generally a dawn to dusk standard. And if I was to consider imposing that kind of a condition on approval if I were to approve, how would planning react to that suggestion? That sounds appropriate. I'm a little unclear on how these two entrances are envisioned to work. There is the new nice one coming off of Black Lake Boulevard that will be paved, widened, and the parking area. And then there's also the existing one out of Park Lane that isn't being decommissioned, but it's not clear how it will be used. And so I'm a little fuzzy on what's proposed for the Park Lane entrance.

Well, it's not to be used by vehicles. There's not dedicated parking in that area. It is not the main entrance. The goal for that entrance is that neighbors in those areas can use their bikes or they can walk into the park the way that they do now. And that was a request from some of the neighbors. It was important to them to keep that entrance open without making it a vehicle entrance.

So if I'm a motorist with my bike on the back of my car, And coming to the park, how do I know not to take park lane?

Good question. I think Diane has an idea.

All right, I'll come back to her to answer that question. Do you envision locked gates once we've reached dusk? Will the entrances be gated and locked?

I would expect that, yes.

There is the existing informal but highly appreciated trails in the Makey Lumber property to the west. There appears to be, again, I'm looking at that earlier iteration map, which shows those linking to this project at the southwest corner. Is that the intent?

I don't want to misspeak. I will defer to Diane.

All right. I'll come back.

There is some mention, again, it's the wrong map, but potential future hiking trails in addition to ones that are proposed initially. Was that just some conversation on one of the maps or is there some future expansion envisioned of the trail system?

There is no expansion proposal that I'm aware of.

Okay. And I'm looking at that attachment 7 that we had up earlier in the lower right corner in the box. It has existing trails slash roads, and then it has a blue dot, um, which says hiking only potential. Um, and I didn't know what that meant. Do you know what that meant?

I believe that was from earlier in the planning process. Um, and I, I believe it was partially probably taken out when one of these, um, In relation to the wetland buffer, landslide hazard areas, that was later removed.

Okay. There is discussion in your report about the potential or perhaps likelihood of a vehicle road connection between Kaiser Road and Black Lake Boulevard in the future, which would cut across the south boundary of this park. So tell me about that. In terms of the six-year transportation plan or the long-term capital plans for the city, where does that road fit?

Certainly not in the six-year transportation plan. I would have to check to see if it's in the long term transportation master plan. But it is certainly something that with talks with other city staff and engineering, it is not something that we have funding for or is incredibly high on the priority list. I don't from what I've heard, there's no reason to believe that road would go in in the next year. 15 years.

Okay. And if and when it goes in, it would just, what, cut across the south boundary of the site? Is that what is envisioned?

I believe it would go to the south and then up to the north along the east property line as well. Okay. All right. Or excuse me, the west.

Give me a second. Tom Greene, There is proposed abandonment of about a half mile of trails through the system. Tom Greene, How will abandonment take place. Tom Greene, Informal trails are just kind of a curse they They braid, they go all over the place. You take them out, people put them back in. How might we be certain that as part of this program, they actually will go away and not prove to be critical area problems or anything else? So how would you respond to concerns about the elimination of the proposed abandoned trails?

My understanding is that there will be signage indicating that folks should not be using this area. I don't know that there's any vegetation that's being planted, but Ms. Utter could speak about that.

Okay. All right. I'll come back to her on a number of these questions. Let me do one last check. Those are my questions, Ms. Mock. Thank you. Did you anticipate presenting anyone else from the planning or other departments?

Not at this time. They're here for questions.

Okay. And again, I should anticipate hearing from Ms. Utter on behalf of the Parks Department. That's your expectation, Ms. Mock?

Yes.

Okay. So let's turn to the applicant, which in this case is the City's Park Department. And we'll hear first from Ms. Utter. Ms. Utter, let's have you sworn, you swear, or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

I do.

And your position with the department is what?

I'm a Parks Project Engineer, which also includes my professional engineering license.

Are you with the department or its consultant?

I am with the department. I have been for four years and I've been with an employee of the city of Olympia for 30 years.

Well done.

Thank you.

So you have heard the testimony of Ms. Mock. You have heard my questions in response to her testimony, as well as her PowerPoint and staff report. So perhaps those will frame or inform your testimony to some extent, although I certainly do not want to put buffers on it in any way. So let's... Have you? Did I swear you? I'm sorry. You did. I did. I thought so. Yes. So with that in mind, go ahead with what you think would be an appropriate presentation for this audience tonight.

Excellent. Thank you very much. I look forward to speaking with you. I want to thank Ms. Mock for her presentation. It was very comprehensive and that helps me out. I do want to just say one little kind of quibble. With the way the presentation started, which was calling this the Kaiser Woods Mountain Bike Development, I would call this the Kaiser Woods Park Development. It is not a mountain bike park. It's a park that has mountain bike dedicated trails. It also has shared use trails, and it has some trails just for pedestrian use. So anyway, I just wanted to kind of clarify that.

If I use the term is because I was quoting from the staff report.

Yes, I understand. Yeah. I just think it's important for our audience here to hear that. At the same time, our park system at this point does not have any dedicated mountain biking trails. And that is why the parks department purchased this property. It's not very common for us to purchase more than 70 acres. That's a large purchase. And we've been hearing through our public outreach that mountain biking is a rising sport. It's important to our community and we don't have a single dedicated trail right now. And so this purchase is for that reason. We would not have purchased this property just to keep it for pedestrian use. We have a number of large, beautiful wooded parks around the city that that people can walk on. And we don't have anything that has dedicated mountain biking parks. So I just wanted to start by saying that even though it's not being developed solely as a mountain biking park, it is a very important component of this park development. It's a really important part. So while we're very much wanting to make sure pedestrians are still included in our development, It's also very important to us that this meet the needs of our mountain biking community because that's why we purchased it. So just kind of starting there. The next thing I want to share, I don't have a whole presentation, but I do have a map that I think will make things a lot more clear and more readable. So these are the same trails as the... the most recent iteration of trail design, but in a more readable format. So yeah, this, I thought that might help things out a little bit.

Right. And I'm going to identify that as exhibit 25.

Wonderful.

Ms. Utter, if you'll be certain that that's provided to me at the conclusion of the hearing, that'll be great.

Yes, absolutely. Let me make myself a nice big note. So to do the color coding here, what we're looking at right now is these blue lines are the ones that will be available to people walking after the development as proposed. So right now, this is not divided into existing trails and proposed trails. It's divided into where will people be able to walk and where will people only be able to bike, which is what these gray areas are. Okay. So the gray areas and these yellow areas. Okay. So it's a little bit of a weird color coding, but the yellow ones and the yellow ones are existing trails that people will only be able to bike on. The gray ones are proposed new trails where people will only be able to bike on. And the blue ones, people will be able to bike or walk on. They'll be shared use. These dashed white lines are those trails that are informal trails that we're planning to abandon. So there's one here down near the south end of the park that we're planning to abandon. There's a little bit right here There's one that's kind of meandering off into that 150 foot buffer that we talked about. Same thing here, two more. And then there's just a little bit up here in the north end. So that is the half mile that we're planning to abandon. And to go ahead and answer your question about how we abandon those, because I completely agree with you that it's really hard to abandon trails. And we're going to do the best we can to have our contractor do that. One of the ways they do is they scratch it out and then the neighboring vegetation will tend to just grow in. If we don't push the vegetation back, it will tend to grow in. Then we put blockages. We put things like downed logs in, you know, especially at the ends where people would tend to enter the trail. We put, you know, downed logs in. We put, you know, dead vegetation in, that kind of thing. We do put a sign up, at least initially, that says, you know, trail closed, do not enter. But the biggest thing we do is we give people a better trail. So we give people a trail that goes where they want to go, that's more fun, that's more clear, that's more open, that kind of thing. So for example, this one down here in the south end, it just kind of goes straight down the hill. But this trail is going to go down the hill with back and forth and interesting things happening. And this trail is going to go up the hill with a nice back and forth switchback to make it less steep. So our hope is that no one's going to want to use this one anymore because they're going to have better trails. So that hopefully will answer your question about how do we abandon them. It's kind of a fourfold process about how to do that. All right, let me just check my notes here. There's one other piece that I wanted to just give another piece of information. When we talked about the 150 foot buffer, that runs along the north side here with no new trails. And it runs along the buffer here with the Ken Lake neighborhood. But there's one exception to that, which is this little bit of trail here. And that was at the request. My understanding is that was at the request of the Ken Lake neighborhood because they have a trail connection right here to an existing trail along this north side. This is an existing trail. And we were told that they would like to be able to enter the center of the park more directly than going all the way up here to the power line road, which is up here. They would like to be able to enter more directly. So this piece of trail is new, even though it's in that 150-foot buffer. We are absolutely willing to discuss whether that should go in or not, that this is not a finalized design, but we did hear that that's something that a lot of people in the neighborhood there would like. So if we hear from one or two people that they don't want that trail, we wouldn't remove it. But if we hear from the neighborhood as a whole that they do not want this trail, that is something that we could redesign. This trail right here is walking only. And it has a parallel trail that is biking only. So this one, if people walk in from Ken Lake, they will be able to walk on this one without worrying that there's a bike coming along because bikes have a parallel trail just for them. So that's the only one that we're proposing at this time that is bike only. Again, this is not a finalized decision. But that's the one that we're proposing where people would just be able to walk without bikes coming along. The other shared ones that are new designs are this one, this one, and this one. And those are all uphill trails so that bikes will be traveling at a slow rate. We're going to have a speed limit for bicyclists on those three so that people can walk up or down them, but bicyclists can only go up them. And that's so that people walking up can, you know, feel like bikes are not going to be bombing down at them. In addition to that, in each of the spots where you're turning a corner, it's going to be widened so that people have a good chance to pass each other. At each of those turns, there's going to be a widened area. I know I have something else to say about that. Oh. That brings me into signage. It's my expectation this is going to be the most signed park that we're going to have in our system. We're going to have just the signs that Ms. Mock was talking about, which is what are the expectations of people using this park. We're going to have wayfaring signs that let people know if you need to call emergency services, you're in this sector of the park, and this is how they can get to you. We're going to have signed trail names for this is what the name of this trail is. We're going to have signs at the top of the downhill only bike trails, these ones that are really windy and gray on this map. And those are going to say bike only, downhill only. At the bottom end of those, it's going to say do not enter bike only, you know, one way toward you. These ones that are shared use for bikes uphill only at the top are going to say bikes do not enter. There are going to be signs kind of littering this whole park. And that's how we're going to keep people safe in a park that is both mountain biking and pedestrian use. I'm just continuing to check my notes here to make sure I'm gonna cover everything that kind of came up in your questions, but also what else I wanted to cover. E-bikes, you asked about e-bikes. There is a statewide policy for e-bikes on trails that are open to bikes, but not motorcycles. And we're going to follow that. Class one and class two bikes are allowed. where non-motorized bikes are allowed, and we're going to follow that. The link to the Mankey property in this lower corner of the park, right down here, that will be left unchanged. And that is an agreement that the Mankey Timber Company has with the Friends of Capitol Forest. that the Friendsable Capital Forest can develop and maintain trails on the Mankey Timber property. And that's a private agreement between those two entities. We don't have anything to do with it, but we're not going to interfere with it in any way. You asked about gates. We're going to have a gate at the Black Lake entrance to the parking lot. Right down here that will stop people from being able to go up the access lane to the parking lot we're also going to have a gate right after the parking lot to keep people from driving up to the manky parking property. We also already have a gate at the park drive entrance to the park. Actually, I don't think that's a gate. I think that's a bollard. I think this might be a bollard here, but this vehicles are prohibited from going into the park here. But I did want to mention there is room for parking here. I would say there's room for about probably eight or 10 cars there. And that is just, it's within the right of way on both sides of the street past the last couple homes. And we don't have any intention of stopping people from parking there. It's within the right of way. People have a right to park within the right of way. So we're not intending to stop people from parking there. But we expect a lot more people to enter from the new parking lot. In addition, there's a parking lot on the side of Black Lake Boulevard here that a lot of people use. And we also are in conversation with the church that's adjacent to our access lane to try to work out an agreement where we would be able to use their parking for much of the week other than Sunday mornings. And they seem really amenable to that. We don't have an agreement in place yet, but they do seem really amenable to that. Okay. I wanted to address lighting. We are not planning to do any lighting because the property is just open from dawn to dusk, as we talked about. The only possible exception is at the restroom. Because the park will be open in winter, We're considering the idea of putting a solar panel on the top of the restroom for lighting inside, because things do get a little gloomy, even with a window on the restroom. It might be just a little bit dark inside. So if we do any lighting, it would only be that. To answer the question about future expansion, we're not planning any expansion. of this. We're not planning additional trails. If anything, we have a monitoring program that we put into our drainage report and that is a proposed condition. And if there are concerns with runoff that is leaving the site at a higher volume than it was prior to the project, or if we're ending up with erosion that is crossing a trail and kind of washing it out, then we will respond to that by changing the trails or abandoning a trail or putting in some kind of rock armoring or whatever we need to do to take care of that situation. Because we're the parks department, as opposed to a developer that builds something and leaves, we're gonna be taking care of any issue that comes up after the development happens. The last thing I wanted to mention is just that I'm excited about that even though this looks fairly dense with these large kind of wide lines on this exhibit, these trails are three to six feet in width. And this proposal leaves about 93% of the site in forested condition. And that's pretty unheard of with developments. And so, as Ms. Mock mentioned, we're proposing to take down less than 100 trees out of over 24,000. And so the character of the site is going to really be, in my opinion, very similar to what it is now. And it's a beautiful site. I love walking out there. I've been out there many, many, many times since I've been working on it. And so I'm just really excited that about 93% of it is proposed to be left forested. So that's all I have to share. I'm certainly open to questions. And no one else from the Parks Department is planning to do a presentation.

Okay, thanks. You've done a very comprehensive job. Thank you. Last question, the existing garage, the legacy garage, is it going to be kept, used, or demolished as part of this?

Plan to keep it. It's located very close to the Park Drive entrance, right here, basically, and we use it for storage. It's very handy. It's a fenced-off area, and we're planning to keep it.

Okay.

Thank you, Ms. Utter. That was quite useful. Appreciate it. So we have heard from the planning department. Now we've heard from the applicant, the parks department, which brings us to the public hearing. And again, there are a large number of individuals present tonight. Thank you for attending. That is great. And attendance is taking place in a hybrid format with both in-person attendance as well as remote attendance. which creates some traffic management when it comes to providing testimony. So again, those who are attending in person went to a little bit more work. And so I'm giving them the benefit of getting the chance to testify first and perhaps go home if they want to following their testimony or remain their choice. But Ms. Floyd, turning to you to help me with that process, could you or do you have a sign-up sheet? Do you have some way of identifying those who are in attendance in person who would like to be heard?

Yes, Mr. Executive. I believe there are several people in person who would like to be heard. And the way that I might do that is we do have a sign-up sheet, but there's quite a few people. And I think if they raise their hands, we could just call on them and have them Walk up to this lectern here and then speak to the microphone. It picks me up. You can see it. It will pick up it from anywhere in the room. But up there is sort of the official spot.

All right. So Ms. Floyd, I am putting that in your capable hands to manage. So go ahead.

Would you please raise your hands if you want to speak? OK. So the first three would be Hi there.

I live in Westbrook Park.

I'm going to slow you down. Okay. Long enough to just find out who you are and to get you sworn. So your name?

My name is Patricia Bracken.

B-R-A-C-K-N? That's correct. Ms. Bracken, let's have you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Yes. Go ahead. So I'm not going to go into it. I mean, I wrote a letter to you, and a lot of the points in it have been covered by your presentation. I see the Parks Department's done a very thorough job of working out the things that have to be dealt with to make this a mixed-use park. My preference is that it stay intact, but I realize since they bought it for that reason, my feelings on that are sort of irrelevant. Although having enough green space that is not dedicated to anything I think is really, really critical for quality of life in our area and for the future. But my concern is with regard to park drive access to the park, which is now moderate, You know, there's a certain amount of it coming and going. It's manageable as it is. However, we do have more children in the neighborhood who unfortunately are not really great at following rules of the road. And they also have e-bikes and electric things that go a lot faster than a regular bicycle. So I'm a little concerned about any increased traffic. Now, if indeed you have a parking lot, I'm hoping that Any users will go there. Is it possible to have a sign on the road that directs people coming down Black Lake Boulevard to the entrance to the Kaiser Woods Park parking lot so that they go past the park drive entrance? Does that make sense?

Let me... stop you for a second and just explain something. Where a public hearing is a little different than a public meeting. A public meeting is an exchange, a back and forth process of giving and receiving information. A public hearing like this is a one-way path of giving testimony It's not intended as a mechanism for receiving testimony. Now, commonly, it's dealt with in a little bit broader way. That is, to the extent that members of the public do have questions, I do like to have them answered. Now, I'm not an answering party. I don't answer anyone's questions, but I will often take your questions and hold on to them and return to them when all the public testimony has been completed. And that is an excellent question. And so I'm going to return to that question once we've completed all of the other public testimony.

Okay. I really have nothing more to add to that.

All right. Thanks, Ms. Bracken.

Hi, John Rich, 3804 Park Drive in the Westbrook subdivision.

Let me slow you down. John, I didn't catch your last name. Rich, R-I-C-H. Okay. And you're in the Westbrook neighborhood. Yeah. Okay. And before I turn you loose, I'm going to have you sworn. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Yes.

Go ahead. So I echo, well, I agree with the statements that Ms. Bracken made, and those are the same concerns I have. They've been that concern from the beginning. I'm really glad to see that when three years ago, when we expressed our concerns about the ingress and egress, that you've done that, you put the main egress past the church, And evidently, there's going to be 24 spots. I know there's not good data on how many you really need. It's acknowledged in the documents I saw. And we don't maybe really know how many people are going to visit this park, but I'm very concerned about traffic coming through Park Drive. The Westbrook is a 20-unit subdivision. Um, and you were referencing, Ms. Utter was referencing those eight available spots at the top of the hill off of Park Drive and referring to that as an entrance. I'd love to see it as not an entrance emphatically. And I would love to see a sign somewhere in the vicinity of Black Lake and Park Drive that says park entrance, e-bike park entrance ahead. And if the city had the legal authority. to require people to enter through that. I know how can you regulate coming through Park Drive and sticking your car up at the top of the hill? I don't know if you've got the authority to do that or not, but I would love for the city to do anything that it can to keep people from parking at the top of the hill. Maybe that's going to be their favorite entrance. And when that's full, they start parking in front of my house and my neighbor's house. So that's my great concern. My main concern, I have others, but we're not in that kind of a forum right now. So that's the key one for me. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Ridge.

Good evening.

Good evening. My name is Beth. My name is Beth. The last name is Gallatin.

G-A-L-L-A-T-I-N?

Absolutely.

Let's have you sworn, Ms. Gallatin, do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

Yes.

Go ahead.

All right. Well, I also come from the Park Drive neighborhood. And really I'd like to discuss three points. One of them is that there is some significant harm impact that's already happening in the neighborhood. And that my concern is that the project has not, I really appreciate the work. I've seen a lot of work done already. I was at earlier meetings and I just want to say that I can see everybody's really wonderful intentions. I just want to draw some awareness to some critical aspects that I feel like need addressing and that it is, not fully and adequately studied the proper conditions of use for to be safe, responsible, and sustainable within the residential neighborhood and the critically sensitive environmental areas, as there are some compatibility issues when you have fast downhill racing and humans walking in the same space. and also travel through our neighborhood, coming out of the park especially. There's a high rate of speed that is being moved through the neighborhood, and it is not necessarily respecting the same level of traffic flow that we would from cars. There's also a really- Ms. Galton, I-

Let me stop you for a second. I really try not ever to interrupt anybody because it's one, it's rude and it throws you off your game. But sometimes I don't quite understand what's just been said and I want to be sure that I do understand. The last point, I got lost as to whether you were talking about car traffic or bike traffic coming out of

Bike traffic, actually.

I thought maybe, but I wasn't sure. Okay.

Yeah, due to the nature of the hill and understandably the course is rather high speed and high impact. And so exit from the park can also tend to be high speed.

Understood.

Really, one of my main concerns is the lack of operational standards on the park. as far as noise levels, traffic studies, especially with event activity and with occupancy. There are no limits at this point on any of that. And while there's a 25 space on the other end, the reality is that it's going to, as you were saying, and when I was in earlier meetings, when there was a different applicant and now there's some gray areas as far as applicants versus oversight. There's a real trouble of scope versus reality of it, that how many people are actually coming to the park and who is governing the creep of all of these issues that are going to come up, the trail expansion, the creep into the buffer areas, the management of the park itself. I hear I'm being driven off the stage. And so that was my main thing is wanting to address the logistics of how to actually manage and keep all of this feasible for long-term use. And then also the management of the critical areas. Just my last thing I wanted to say is that in looking at all of the assessments, I didn't feel like, I felt like it understates the impacts in the critical areas that some of the critical reports and everything lacked full scope and also were old.

Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Gallatin.

Okay, so I just think we can sort of work this way around really soon.

My name is Michael Goddard. I live right up by the park on Park Drive at the end there.

How do I spell your last name?

G-O-D-A-R.

Okay. Mr. Goddard, let's have you sworn, do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? I do. Go ahead.

I just wanted some perspective on the map. Could you show us where you feel like there's eight to 10 parking spots at the end of the street there for one first point?

Again, this is not interactive. And so I apologize for that. I can come back to that and ask staff to respond. But what I don't let happen is a where I become a spectator to my own hearing and there's a back and forth between the other parties and I'm not really part of it. So I'll come back to a question. I'll ask staff about the, or Ms. Utter about the parking issue, but that's how we'll deal with that.

If we could, yeah, I just wanted for perspective for so that the public could see what this pertains to. And then I also, if you could get back to us on Where the 100 trees is going to be cut and where you see there's 24,000 trees that is contained in what area there?

Well, I'm not the spokesman for the city, but I do note that included in the materials I received is a tree report. And so that is, I think, where that information is taken from. So you may want to review the city's staff report and its attachments, which do include a tree report.

Thank you.

You bet.

Go ahead.

Hi, my name is Dan Auerbach. A-U.

Let's try that again.

Dan Auerbach. A-U. E-R-B-A-C-H.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Auerbach. Let's have you sworn, do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

I do.

Go ahead.

Thanks. I'm a parent and occasional coach with the Capital City Youth Mountain Biking Team here. It's part of the Washington Student Cycling League. Our team has been enthusiastic about riding in this area It's where we often practice. Part of mountain biking for me is the chance to be out in the woods and be part of this place that we care for and steward and conserve. And that's that ethic along with the fitness and exercise benefits of getting out, learning to take risks, learning to recover when you don't accomplish your risk, and building that progression into a healthy life is a big part of what I think this park is going to offer the city. As Ms. Utter pointed out, this is something that is lacking, particularly for people who are new to the sport, younger people who don't have the skills perhaps to manage some of the more challenging trails that are available in the area. So I would just like to express my appreciation for the Parks Department's persistence in working this through. It's clear that they've managed to repeatedly submit this proposal and move it forward. I think that since the first conversation, I think it was in 2018 or 19, when folks first came together to talk about this concept, we've been eager to see it realized. And so I'd just like to state my support for the city, the permitting proposed, what did we say? You recommend approval. I encourage that you will concur with that recommendation. Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is my name is Beth Provo.

And how do I spell the last name?

P-R-O-V-O.

Okay. Ms. Breaux, let's have you swear or if you want to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

I do. Go ahead. I also want to applaud the city and everyone involved in this process. I'm so excited and thrilled that this park is going in. I currently am a property owner just off of Kaiser Road and I regularly access the Kaiser Woods on a daily basis, sometimes two times a day. The forest is absolutely a recreational gem and I have been just really amazed to be part of the community stewardship of the forest that's taken place over, we moved in in 2014 and we've seen how, and been part of trail building informally in the woods that Mankey has been so gracious to help us have access to. And so I just really see this park as really helping elevate the city of Olympia as a recreational destination. It already is attracting, you know, a ridership from Bellingham and Seattle You know, the Facebook groups and social media for the Sublack Hills and Kaiser Woods is phenomenal. There's a lot of engagement. And I just wanted to speak a little bit in terms of living on Kaiser Road and seeing the great way that the mountain bike community, the running community, the dog walking community, the birders. So there is gate access off of Kaiser Road And it's constantly busy there. And so Friends of Capital Forest and other informal networks have been able to really make sure that mountain bikers and user groups that are coming to the woods are parking in a responsible way and are really, you know, there have been times where maybe parking has been, you know, it's a really full day. And so I've seen how the community through social media and through these organized networks have been able to really do a lot of outreach so that the neighbors wishes and the access on Kaiser Road is accessible and not blocked and really respectful of the neighbors. And I'd say, you know, neighbors also on Kaiser Road have that same experience. and are equally excited. And I also am representing a small group of folks that is really excited about seeing potential access to develop or to work with Mankey to continue to make those trails accessible. Again, it's just a recreational gem that is so treasured and so needed. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello. I'm Nathan Hamilton.

Good evening. Let's have you sworn. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? I do. Go ahead.

Thank you. I too am delighted about this proposal. I've had to drive my daughter's up to King County Parks, Duthie Parks to go to a mountain biking skills park before. And so having, it's too late for my kids. The bug didn't sink in just right for them, but maybe it would have if this opportunity were closer. So anyway, I'm delighted that this is coming in. And I'd like to think that the same reason that the folks who live on Park Drive are concerned about the traffic is the same reason why people will stay away from a windy small neighborhood street when there's a marked parking area nearby. That's just my hope that it doesn't fix their traffic problems, but I'm hoping it doesn't hurt it, make it much worse. And that's it. Otherwise, I'm delighted about these trails. And I've seen there are ways of mitigating drainage issues and environmental issues on mountain biking trails if they're built well. And I trust that they will be. That's it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hamilton.

Good evening.

Good evening.

And Lisa Sweet.

S-W-E-E-T?

That's correct.

Okay. So, Ms. Sweet, let's have you swear or tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

I do.

Go ahead.

I am a mountain biker, and I wanted to call your attention to the mountain bike classes that were referred to by the previous speaker. The mountain bike Alliance is an organization that operates throughout the state to train mountain bikers on safe practices etiquette on mixed use trails. The challenge is for us in Thurston County and Olympia is that we have to drive minimum of an hour, sometimes two hours to other locations around the state to get these classes. The reason is, I think, is there is no facility like the one that's being proposed where they can actually teach those classes locally. So I go to Duthie Park in Seattle, I go to an area near Enumclaw to take classes. And that's one of the reasons I welcome this new park. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Rip, R-I-P, Hemingway, H-E-M-I-N-W-A-Y.

Sir Hemingway, let's have you sworn. You swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I do. Go ahead.

I want to address the merits of the proposal. I've been watching and tracking this proposal for a number of years now, and I know that it's gone through several iterations, and I know There have been significant concerns by the neighborhood with respect to noise and parking and traffic, and I can appreciate all of those. I also know that there was concerns with the environmental impact on this beautiful set of woods that is right in our backyard. And I feel like after watching and listening to and tracking the progress that this application has gone through over the past and I'm gonna make a guess here, two to three years at least, that the parks department has done a really formably thorough job on addressing the concerns of the neighborhood with respect to noise, traffic, signage. I know that the parking solution that is now in the proposal was not part of the original plan and now has been negotiated and I think is a really significantly improved strategy for being able to allow the park to operate without impact on the neighborhood. So I just want to commend the Parks Department and Planning Department for all the work that they put into to do the wetland mitigation, the buffer zones, and detailed analysis of the use impacts on the neighborhood so that we have arrived at a place that I think is a really significantly improved plan and I'm very excited to see it move forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Irwin.

Okay. Anybody else over here? Because we're going this way. Anybody over this way?

Okay.

Okay.

I'm seeing Ms. Floyd sort of work as a traffic cop with her arm motions back and forth. It's enjoyable. Good evening. And your name? My name is Chris Song. And the last name spelled? S-O-G-N. Okay. Mr. Song, let's have you sworn. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

I do. Go ahead. I would like to say that I'm really excited that this is coming to fruition and, you know, having watched the progress on this for the past eight years and, you know, seeing it develop has been really exciting. You know, I've been involved with the capital city mountain bike team. I live in the Ken Lake neighborhood. I'm a teacher in the Olympia school district and I brought students to the area, not under the city property, but the adjacent area. I've been involved with work parties and I really see the community that comes together and I've been extremely proud of the group of people that have worked together on the adjacent area and how they communicate with each other. And if Nothing else I want to offer reassurance is also having been involved with the creation of the urban forest trail in the Ken Lake neighborhood that, you know, the unknown is always a scary thing. And having seen our urban forest trail and increased use of mountain biking trails in the area that a lot of the fears that initially are present seem to work out very well. Parking is definitely a concern and it's something that as a continuous member of the Sub Black Hills area, we work to make sure that it doesn't impact parking along Kaiser road and we'll continue to emphasize that in all of our social media. So that doesn't impact your neighborhood as well.

Yeah.

And that's really all I have to say. Thank you, Mr. Trump.

Last call in this room and then we'll move online. Okay. We're going to move online, Mr. Zimmer, and there were several people who asked to be to speak. And so for those of you online, if you can raise your hand, I will, it makes it easier to sort through, but I will be calling on the people who registered first, which includes, and I'm not sure that I can do this exactly what I've said with the screen now, but Tyler, Brian, Chris Kenner, Eddie Espinosa, Robert, Ricardo R, Calvin O, Marion E, and Doug Cox. Okay, of those people, only three rose to their hands. you did, I'm going to promote you to a panelist, which means that you have to accept that invite, and that way your face can show.

So my forward-facing camera is broken. Is that okay?

That's fine. So... Good evening, Mr. Kinnerk. Let's have you sworn, do you swear or affirm and tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? I do. Go ahead.

I would just like to thank the city for all their hard work. And I would like to empathize with the community members around the proposed site plan. I certainly understand your concerns. And one thing I'd like to touch on is just how incredibly precious the mountain bike community and the outdoor community is. holds these places to our heart. And I think one amazing thing that we see is a real sense of ownership and self-policing and preservation. And would just like to offer reassurance that as a community, we hold one another to a higher standard. And I know that there's always bad apples, but it's our expectation that collectively as a whole, we can help to kind of correct that behavior and and keep some of those things at bay. And as with life, there's always gonna be challenges, but when you have something that's so precious and in a community that's so joined together to share this outdoor space, I think it really goes a long way in terms of just having eyes and ears and voices out there in the community. The other thing I'd like to add is about youth mountain biking. I think that there's an incredible opportunity and I would encourage people to look Towards Bellingham and what Whatcom County Mountain Bike Coalition has going on up there with their after school youth programs. What Ducey Mountain Bike Park in Issaquah has with their youth development programs. And it's one thing that we here in Olympia. it's the catalyst that we're missing. It's the piece to the puzzle that we're missing to bring kids into the outdoor space, introduce them to a healthy lifestyle. And then there's plenty of awesome, really progressive trails that they can graduate onto, excuse me, but they don't have that starting place. And it's so important. My kids kind of miss that boat. And so I'm super excited to see this come to fruition. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Okay, so it's going to go Ryan McCord and then Calvin O. Ryan, you can unmute.

There we are. There we are. Good evening, Mr. McCord. Let's have you sworn or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

I do.

Go ahead.

Okay, thank you. I am Ryan McCord. I am the board president of Friends of Capitol Forest, and I don't have a lot to say that other testifiers haven't already said. I've seen this proposal evolve over the years, and I think the Parks Department and the city has done a great job to accommodate concerns of neighbors and to take care of the critical areas and any concerns around stormwater. So we're really eager to see this project happen. And I'll just make two points that others have sort of made, but I'll reiterate. One is that the mountain bike community is a environmentally minded community. And I think maybe there's, if you don't mountain bike, there's could be an association with mountain biking as an extreme sport, but really that hasn't been the case since you know, neon hot pants were in fashion. And these days, it's really a family activity. And the trails that are being proposed are all the way from, you know, simple trails that kids can learn on to more challenging trails. And I think that, yeah, the mountain bike community are real trail stewards. At Friends of Capital Forest, we maintain all the non-motorized trails in Capital Forest as volunteers. And we hope to do the same with this park after it's built. And Chris also said self-policing, that's a big part of the community. But also I'll just say, I don't know if the right word is policing, but we also, in our agreement with Mankey, they have really appreciated our help in reporting antisocial behaviors like illegal dumping or illegal camping. And so I think what you find is that when mountain bike trails are built, it really improves the community and there's more users out there reporting those kinds of behaviors. And yes, I'll stop. I'll keep it there. So I really appreciate it. Thank you for this thorough job and I hope the project moves forward.

Thank you.

Calvin, then Natalie.

Yeah, hi. Can you hear me?

Yes, I can. Let me just, I'm writing down your information first.

And for anyone who's worrying, I'm not driving. My son is.

I wasn't going to ask. So Calvin, let's have you sworn, you swear, or affirm and tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I do. Go ahead.

Well, yeah, I want to say I really appreciate. So for me, I'm also a mountain biker. My son's a mountain biker. We used to be part of the Capital City Mountain Bike Club. And it was always a disappointment not having developed trails when my son was younger. in this area. I mean, we've certainly had a great time biking in Capitol Forest. We've biked in Sub Black Hills, Kaiser Woods. But I think the addition of a skills park is fantastic. I want to echo the statements you've heard about mountain biking being a really family activity. There's a ton of community that's developed. And I also want to say I appreciate the concerns of the park drive residents and I i'd be interested in hearing you know how the city, the parks department plans to to keep tabs. On what actually happens after the park has developed as far as people accessing the route through the park drive neighborhood because if it does become a nuisance, you know I would expect the city. to address those concerns because I think they're totally reasonable. And anyway, but I think this is fantastic and I'm super excited. And yeah, my kid is also one of the ones that's kind of aged out of the doing young skills parks. So it won't be for him, but it'll be for future mountain bikers. So thank you. Thank you.

Okay, we have Natalie and then SSM.

Hi, I'm Natalie Hibbard. I can swear in.

As soon as I've got your name written down, there we go. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

Yes. Go ahead. I am a mountain biker and also I work as a bike educator for the inner city transit walk and roll program. And so I, in my free time, go on lots of group rides and often bike to the sub block hills. park from Tumwater and also will carpool there or to Capitol Forest to ride with friends. Often, the rides are in the evenings when I am off of work. And so those are really good. It's a highlight of my week to be social, and get that exercise. And so I'm really looking forward to the lower level connection, because riding from Tumwater, I often enter from that church side from the way I come. And so having trails closer to there, especially the climbing trail you listed, um is really exciting and um i started mountain biking in other cities but when i lived in tacoma i loved the swan creek park which made use of very little elevation and so i'm excited for the flatter area of the park to have trails because the rest of the park is very steep um but i've uh participated in work parties on the menke lumber side and would look forward to any city park work parties on the new section. Yeah, and I'm just really looking forward to it. And I have a two-year-old who has just started trying out the pump track downtown and loves seeing other kids on it. She loves just running on it and has just tried her balance bike on it. And so having a dirt one that feels safer would be amazing. And yeah, I very much look forward to it. So thank you for getting this done. And I hope more parks around the city can add bike trails like LBA and Grass Lake and all the other ones that are appreciated by bikers.

I hope this process can make it easier across the city.

So thank you for listening and have a good night.

Thanks, Ms. Huber.

Okay, the last person with their hand raised and is already on deck is SSM Ham. And if you are online and would like to provide public input, please, please raise your hand.

Hello. There was a typo in my name. Actually, my name, Casey might remember it because you were very responsive to some earlier emails, Casey. But my name is Sam Ham. It's Dr. Seuss-like, so I go by Sam I am to all my nieces and nephews.

I bet you do.

Thank you. I'll be quick. You know, Mark, when you grow up with a name like mine, you develop a sense of humor early or you die young. Anyway, I did actually have written testimonies submit, but I had an unfortunate, untimely health setback. And so I didn't get it in time. And so I apologize for this. But listen, I am very proud.

I'm going to stop.

Oh, you need to swear me in.

I do need to swear you in.

Say it and I'll say yes.

Do you swear or affirm, tell the truth, all truth and nothing but the truth?

I do.

Go ahead.

Okay. I support virtually any park or recreation development that provides a way, a place, and a means for adults and young people to constructively use their leisure time. That's what my career has been predicated on. So I congratulate and support everyone who's been involved, including you, Casey, and Diane, especially I see. In this concept, I think it's beautiful and it's very near me. I live in Ken Lake. I'm a professor emeritus of natural resource management with a specialization in protected area and park management. I've worked in every US state and about 50 other countries as a consultant and a researcher and advisor. And I would rate this plan right up with the very best in terms of being well-conceived and attentive to really important details. So I can add nothing more than my total unqualified support for what you're doing here. My concern, though, based on much unfortunate experience around the world, is that in areas that are drought-prone, And we are, Washington State just declared, historically unprecedented, the fourth consecutive year of droughts. We all know what happens to the Cascade snowpack every year. It is increasingly diminished. It hasn't changed. It used to be in a seven-year cycle. Now the cycle, the last cycle was maybe 20 years ago, and it's not changing yet. The soil moisture deficit is worse every year. We live in an area, even though we call ourselves the evergreen state, where the soil moisture deficit is increasing every year. We live in a tinderbox. And if you look at the maps that have been shown tonight, and you see if you erase all the beautiful lines where the trails are going to go, you see a contiguous forest. Unbroken, beautiful forest. temperate forest and we have prevailing winds predominantly most of the year including the summers though we all know the winds can change but predominantly it's a northwesterly so it's coming from the northwest southeast toward whatever is below and there is both both the The park drive area and the Ken lake area and worry fire to start it could travel very, very quickly with the wind. And so that is my concern that I hope will be taken into consideration now i'll come back to what I might recommend it's more of a management issue. I already know Casey and others have helped me understand that it's not feasible to, for example, have a fire hydrant in the area. It's not feasible to have water storage in the area, which would be two remedies. The last time we had a fire near us, a helicopter came and took out several tanker loads of food. It was a fire behind Hagen in West Olympia. And so that seems to be the go-to remedy. But depending on how fast that fire traveled, it could make its way with a wind very quickly to both of these adjacent neighborhoods. And so I would just ask if it's possible in the management plan component of the comprehensive plan, where how you're going to manage this part is detailed, that you include a strict and enforced ban on all smoking Fireworks, of course, are already banned, but smoking. What to do about homeless people that, well, with those nice new paths will find their way into the forest, we don't know, and I don't know how your management plan can anticipate or mitigate that, right? But we do know from lots of experience that as popular as this park is going to become. And remember, it's not just this community family oriented mountain bikers, and I agree with your characterization of mountain bikers as a social group, but also pedestrians. And all kinds of people are going to see on social media. They'll be in the new Olympia Trail Guide. This park will be in it. It'll be featured perhaps because it's new and special. There's going to be a pronounced increase in use. And that use is going to go forward as it becomes more and more popular and the population of this part of South Sound increases. And so let's anticipate fire danger to communities and insert a strict ban on smoking. Mountain bikers don't tend to smoke as a social group, but other types of people will. And as you increase the number of users, you will also diversify the sociotypes that are part of that user population. And so my request is simply that. And I thank you for the time.

Thank you, Mr. Hamm.

Okay, and then I, oh, I thought we had one more on the screen. I guess we don't. Does anybody in the online room want to talk? Raise your hand.

And just so you know, there isn't a second round of testimony, but if there is anyone who hasn't spoken yet who would like to, well, then this is the last chance. Do I have any last takers of those who haven't spoken yet? I don't see any. Ms. Floyd, can you confirm that there are none?

I see no one in the room, and I see no one online.

All right. So there were a number of questions posed, and every public hearing of this nature has a final component, which is allowing both the city staff and the applicant the opportunity to respond. And in this case, there were a couple of questions asked that I promised. Can we mute Mr. Hamm? Yes. There we go. We just need to mute you. There we go. Great. Thank you. Let me turn first to Ms. Mock in a two-fold process. One is simply giving you the opportunity to respond generally and then perhaps to respond to a couple of questions. Generally, How might you respond to the public testimony?

I would say the concerns raised tonight mirror those that I've been hearing over the last few weeks and the life of the project. And I just want folks in the room to know that your concerns are heard and that we certainly care about them. You know, ongoing issues with traffic and smoking and things of that nature. They're certainly important to the city. I would say none of the comments that were brought up tonight posed permitting issues and issues that would be addressed by this approval or code condition and code compliance. I think that these are conversations that folks can continue to have with the Parks Department should this proposal be approved. But from a permitting perspective, the project is still staying in compliance.

Okay. Let me go to Ms. Utter, and then I'll decide if I come back to you on a couple of these questions. But I may want to hear from her primarily. Okay. So Ms. Otter, first of all, in a general sense, would the department like to respond to any of the public testimony?

Thank you for the chance to respond. Especially the last couple of comments, I would like to respond to say that smoking is prohibited in all of our parks. So that's an easy one to respond to. It's both on our signs. We also have park rangers. that monitor our parks and they're available if somebody reports a behavior that's not allowed as far as camps of people that are houseless that's monitored very closely in our parks and again by our park rangers and they work seven days a week so That's something that is watched very closely so that camps are not established.

Let's go back to the issue of park drive and its use. Yes. One commenter questioned how you had calculated the number of potential parking spots at the end of the road.

Yeah.

Are you able to answer that question?

Yeah, I'm happy to share my screen. And, you know, my answer was a little bit kind of off the cuff. But at this point, I'm using Google Maps to show the end of Park Drive. So right up here is the bollard. This is the trail into the park, which is an old driveway from when that there used to be a house right here. That's where the garage is now. And then the driveway curves and goes into the second home site inside the park. So then as I turn around. people tend to park here on the side of the right-of-way. There's a sign saying no dumping and refuse. So a few cars can park on this side. This is still right-of-way here with no, there's no sign saying you cannot park here. In fact, there's a truck parked right there. So I would say four or five cars can park on that side. And then all the way down to where this driveway is here, you could park along this side, again, four or five cars probably. So that's where I kind of came up with the eight to 10 car number. It's an estimate just kind of going by that. So again, this is right of way. As the parks department, we do not have the authorization to say that people cannot park along Park Drive or that they cannot use it to access the park or that they can't drive on it. we're not the police department so that we're not the right people to say people are driving too fast in there. We're not the transportation department. So we're not the right ones to say that there should be traffic calming. There are people who can help with that and we want to be good neighbors. And the fact that we purchased two and a half more acres from the Mankey timber company in the city of Tumwater to develop that 25 spot parking area is at great expense, I'll say, not just the purchase, but the development of that parking lot and the stormwater pond that it requires and the buffer averaging of the wetland buffer. And that was a major change to the previous development proposal. The fact that we did all that, I think demonstrates that we are trying really hard to be good neighbors. And so... we don't have the ability or really the inclination to say that our park users cannot park here.

So, yeah. And the one last suggestion made early on was signage at both, perhaps two signs, one at the entrance off of Black Lake advising that this is the entrance to the park, and then perhaps one at the entrance on the park drive saying this is not the entrance. And does the city, if I were to impose a similar condition such as that, does the department have any reason that would arm wrestle with me?

I would like to invite Laura Kehan to unmute and speak to that. She's my manager, so I don't feel ready to address that.

I understand. And I'm looking across the screen.

She's on the attendee list, so I think that Nicole would need to invite her to become a panelist.

My regular computer does, so I have to do this this way. Hey, Laura, will you raise your hand? Oh, here I am.

So, Ms. Kehan, good evening. Let's have you sworn. Do you swear or form to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

I do.

And your role with the Parks Department is what?

I'm the Director of Parks Planning and Maintenance.

Okay. So the question has been raised. If I was to consider an additional condition of project approval in which signage was required alerting people to park at the main entrance, now that doesn't prohibit them from parking elsewhere. It just suggests that they should be parking elsewhere. How would the department react to that kind of a condition?

Yes, we do have around the city, there are typically it's brown and they're in the right of way on the side of the road and they'll say, you know, LBA Park parking and it has an arrow pointing. And so we would be very amenable to having those types of signs on Black Lake Boulevard to direct people to the park's entrance on Black Lake Boulevard. We also would have a park sign, a monument sign, or it would say, actually, this park has been recently renamed by city council as Marge Young Park. So that will be the official name. We've been calling it Kaiser Woods Park through, you know, since we bought it as the unofficial name, but it would have the official name on it.

Okay.

What about the idea, Laura, though, of having one saying not this way to Park Drive? Is that? That's the piece I didn't feel comfortable answering about a sign that says, don't go this way for Marjung.

I'm only suggesting one that directs you to a different location that doesn't say you can't park because that would be improper, but simply encouraging you to go somewhere else. Okay. With that understanding, Ms. Kehan, we have a like mind? Yes. Okay. All right. That was the only question I had back to... Tom Epstein, Ms utter back to you miss mock for two things one any. Tom Epstein, response to all of that from the planning department in terms of signage or conditions anything anything that your department might weigh in about.

Well, I would say if this was a staff-level decision, many of the things that we're discussing today would not be on the table as conditions because we are not necessarily empowered to have the authority to add conditions as we may well please. However, given that this is a conditional use at the hearing examiner level, I do think it might be appropriate to add conditions as you see fit in order to screen and protect adjacent residences and the city's permitting department would not necessarily be opposed to that.

Okay. A long answer that is effectively no, there isn't a problem. And again, with the, the, the, The lead into that question being that the city's ordinance does require me to be certain that I'm not negatively impacting neighborhoods, which I think gives me some heightened authority to find conditions which assure that that does not happen. So, okay. And the last question, which I think is a question to you, Ms. Mock, maybe back to Ms. Utter, but one of the witnesses asked, well, where are the hundred trees that have to be removed being removed? Might you be able to identify that?

I can. If we have further questions, we do have the consultant who wrote this plan available. But let me just get this pulled up. I did want to mention two of the 90 trees that are proposed to be removed, 66 of them are diseased. The vast majority are not being removed for fun. Let's take a look.

All right.

So once this loads, the locations in red are tree removals proposed. The parking area doesn't have specific trees called out but rather a rectangle around that area. The reason that there's a bunch of trees up in the northwest corner, I believe there's laminated root rot up there that poses a risk to a lot of these trees.

So the trees in the northwest are primarily a safety issue of dead or damaged or dying trees or potentially dying trees that are a risk to all individuals who are in the area. Okay. All right. that responds to that question. Thank you. Anything else, Ms. Mock? Any last comments?

All I would say is thank you all for showing up tonight. I know this was a long meeting, and if the proposal is approved and moves forward, I do encourage you to reach out to the Parks Department with ongoing suggestions and concerns, things that come up. I know that they're always amenable to speak with folks.

Thank you. In the great many cases, I do not render a decision at the time of the hearing. I take them under consideration, and I do so later so that I can be certain that my decisions are well thought out, articulate, intelligent. But there are times when a lot of people have gone to the trouble of showing up, and I think they sort of deserve that. my answer if I'm otherwise prepared to provide it. And so in this instance, I am going to go ahead and render my decision. I'm approving the conditional use permit, but I am imposing a couple of additional conditions. I am requiring it that it be dawn to dusk only, although I know I think the park had intended that anyway. It was not an official condition. I'm making it an official condition. And I'm requiring signage at both the entrance as well as on Park Drive entrance to identify where the proper entrance to the park will be. I have no authority to tell people that they can't use Park Drive. I do not have the lawful authority to instruct that. But what I can do is make it as increasingly obvious to go somewhere else as possible. So certainly there will be those who still find their way, I suppose, to the end of the road. They have the lawful right to be there unless city council enacts an ordinance, which changes that. But unless and until that happens, I do not have the authority to tell them they can't be there. But I can certainly make it harder for them to find their way there. And I'll do that in the form of additional signage. I think with that in place, together with all the other things that have been done by the parks department to facilitate the needs of this neighborhood that in fact the requirements found in the city's ordinance for the establishment of parks as a conditional use have been met. This has been quite an effort. As one or two commenters noted, while it's been a three or four year city planning department process, it's been a five to eight year parks department process under which this plan has undergone tremendous consideration and adjustment over time, with massive changes made to facilitate the surrounding neighborhood along the way. Kudos to the Parks Department for listening. And so I want to thank it for being attentive to the needs of surrounding property owners. I do want to thank everyone who's testified. It did not surprise or disappoint me that, as always, the Olympia public commenters are ready, articulate, thoughtful, responsive, and respectful to everybody else. So this has been no different than any other hearing I've conducted with Olympia. I want to thank all of you for taking a wonderful evening, ruining it by listening to this public hearing. Thank you for being part of that process. I'll try to reciprocate to a certain extent by writing a decision that's somewhat or hopefully nearly as articulate as you have been. This decision is not complete until I have rendered it in writing And to do that, I have quite a bit of work left ahead of me. I have to prepare findings of fact, which then support conclusions of law, which then support the decision and the conditions I impose. That's going to be a document that's probably 40 pages long. And so it will take me a little bit of time to prepare. So you will not see a final decision for a little while, certainly within two weeks, but not necessarily the next day or two. If you're interested in receiving a copy, you can ask the city for one, and they will put you on the mailing list for that. Again, I want to thank everybody who took the time to participate. And with that, we are adjourned. Thank you.