Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

We're about to get going. Everyone, take your positions. I call to order this meeting of Planning Commission. Let's start with a roll call. Oh, oh. Okay. No worries. That was a practice.

All

right. This meeting of the Kirkland Planning Commission is called to order. Let's start with a roll call.

Aaron Jacobson.

Here.

Gina Medea. Here. Julia Nolan. Here. Scott Reiser.

Here.

Justin Robbins. Angela Rosman. Here. Rodney Rutherford.

Here. With the majority of commissioners present, we have a quorum and may conduct business. The next item is comments from the audience. This is the portion of the meeting where we hear from the public about items that are not scheduled for public hearing tonight. Tonight's public hearing is for proposed unit lot subdivision amendments to the Kirkland Municipal Code, or zoning code, I think it is, actually. Is that right? Unicode. Oh, alright. Are there any sign ups for public comment? Not part of the plan.

Not part of the If you are interested in speaking and you're online, it looks like there's only one attendee though, you can raise your virtual hand. Click the raise hand button if you'd like to speak now. Otherwise, we can move on to the next item on the agenda. The next item listed is special presentations, of which we have none, followed by, I believe, the following item on the agenda is the critical areas ordinance. We wanted to give a chance if there is anyone who is the time pressed and wants to oh, let's see. I'm trying to remember, like, I'm looking at my notes on the agenda, and I can't remember the official order and what we were

Yeah. Think we can just proceed with the study session.

Okay. Let's go with the study session. Sounds good. Alright. So we will proceed with the study session, and we will conduct the public hearing after the study session. I believe that's what's printed in the agenda as well. All right. So, staff, go ahead and take it from here.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So tonight we have your first briefing on the Critical Area Ordinance update. This is another state requirement, This is our periodic update of the Critical Area Ordinance now Ordinance. We did have this item in your packet a couple meetings ago. We did bump the actual presentation and briefing from that meeting. So this is a bit of a combo of the intro we intended to give you a couple meetings ago and your first deep dive into a specific topic. Leading you through that tonight are two, I think, newer faces to the Commission. We have our Environmental Program coordinator, Anna Heckman, and senior planner, Jen Ander, and I will hand it over to them.

Good evening. I'm Anna Heckman. Jen and I are partners on this, and we both have very different skill sets. So hopefully we're able to elevate what we're able to present to you. My background is in biology. I also manage a lot of the urban forestry work for the city. Jen has been with the city for Nine years. Nine years. Okay. And has a lot of experience with code and implementing code, especially in critical area situations.

So I'm dealing with two mouse mice here. Tonight's agenda, just to be real quick, we are going to go through kind of a 101 class of what critical areas are for you. And then in addition to tonight's agenda, we're going to jump into a little bit of the wetland regulations, a very high overview of what we're doing, and then kind of ask your opinions on how you would like stuff presented in the future. So with the Critical Area Ordinance, why are we doing this? We're doing this because we need to.

It is a state regulation to have this done by the December 2025, a year after passing our I'm going have you jump in on our comp plan, yes, thank you, sorry. It's just me being nervous with my first presentation. So yeah, we're going to go over real quick what critical areas are for you. We're going to talk about some of our anticipated code amendments on this first overview. So some of the things we have to include in this critical area ordinance is we have to review the best available science.

This is a state regulation. The last time we updated our ordinance was back in 2016, and so there's been some things that have been updated and changed since then and that are being implemented by cities around us. We have to include reasonable use expectations. The City Of Kirkland has a great reasonable use code. We don't see any we don't anticipate having to do any updates there.

We have to make sure that this code incorporates with the 2044 comp plan. And we also need to give some special consideration to anadromous fisheries, which are salmon. There are a bunch of others that fall into that category, but for the most part, we can just talk about salmon and the importance of that to our economy. We need to protect waters of the State, and we need to be looking at this on not just a parcel approach but in a landscape scale approach, and so working with our neighbors when we're doing some of these regulation updates. And then we also the state does want everyone to account for their own inherent economic, cultural, ecological and social values, and so what we might put forth might be different than any other city in the state.

And then we also need to balance nonregulatory work as well. So we need to show that the city is doing what we can on both sides, both regulation and nonregulatory. So the 101 class here, and I tried to put a lot of pictures in so that nobody falls asleep, and I'm actually quite happy it's not 11:00 at night like we were going to do last time. So critical areas fall into one of five categories, and any time we're talking about a critical area, it's going to fall into at least one of these, if not more. We have our critical aquifer recharge areas.

Kirkland doesn't really have very many, but as you'll see, Redmond has a lot. We have frequently flooded areas. These are areas that, in some cases, are increasing in their intensity of flooding. We have wetlands. We have fish and wildlife habitat conservation areas, and that's where in Kirkland's code we talk about streams a lot, and that falls into that category.

And then we have our geologically hazardous areas. And in Kirkland, we have Chapter 90, which takes into account all of the first four, and the geologic hazard areas fall into Chapter 85. We have to with critical areas, our job is to protect and preserve the function of these areas and the values that they provide. And this is not only to the natural environment. A lot of people think about critical areas as we're preserving nature, but it's also for human health and public hazards.

And A lot of the components of these critical areas, if you think of wetlands, they take a long time to build. I mean, we're talking centuries to build them up and we can destroy them pretty quickly and you don't just get those values back. And yeah, we talked about the regulatory and non regulatory, but the two things that I'll talk a lot about is no net loss and quality over quantity. Those are two key things that the State really talks a lot about, and this is something that we do a pretty good job of. And how come my slide's not working?

Something turned off. Oh, there it goes again. Okay. It fell asleep. Yeah. It's sticky alright. Okay. So wetlands. We're not going into wetlands, but we're just going to go over some of the critical areas. Some of the things that we define as wetlands are again, it is not working. There we go. Oh, no. Don't click too many times. Okay. So we'll talk about we've got small lakes and ponds.

We have Totem Lake. We have Forbes Lake in Kirkland. Not a lot of places have small lakes in that surrounding area around those lakes. We also have emergent wetlands, and that's where that project site don't click yet. The project site in the upper left hand corner is an old emergent wetland, and I'll address that picture a little later, but it's a large site covered in reed canary grass. Go ahead and click again. We have forested wetlands. Juanita Bay Park is a great example of a forested wetland, and those are designated in different levels. We have old growth forests. We don't really have any of those in Kirkland, but we also have these shrub scrub forested wetlands.

And then go ahead and click again and again. And then we have what we can call mitigation wetlands. Go ahead and click again one more time. And there we go, hold that. And these mitigation sites, if you're documenting mitigation for wetlands, then it counts as a wetland, so as a human made wetland.

But for the most part, if we are doing rain gardens or bioswales or ditches and gullies that are human made that are not intended to be wetlands, they're not wetlands. They're not regulated as a critical area. They might have other regulations, but not in this case. Go ahead and click again. This was so dynamic, and I was gonna have such great flow if the mouse was working. The keyboard is gonna be working. Yeah. Wasn't working either. Yeah. We're just non responsive today.

So our next one is fish and wildlife habitat conservation areas, and this is a huge, huge group of critical areas. Go ahead and do a click. We've got our streams, waters of the state, and surrounding habitat there, and that picture of Juanita Creek is another example of a critical area that is in poor condition. It's got a lot of invasive species around it. It's dug itself its own channel, so it's not a meandering stream. Go ahead and click again. We've got Juanita Bay. These are habitat conservation areas, and these are identified by the state. They're on some maps for threatened and endangered species. So Juanita Bay actually has migratory birds that fly in and out and use that space.

We have it for salmon are using that space to go up Juanita Creek, and so it's considered a habitat conservation area. Go ahead and click again. We've got Yarrow Bay Wetlands, a beautiful place, and if you look above the Yarrow Bay Wetlands, you can see some upland habitat. Upland forests can also be considered critical areas, but they're not regulated on a parcel basis. They're regulated it's expected that the city helps promote the retention of those large spaces.

And then go ahead and click again and click twice. And we've got I put a picture of a backyard habitat conservation area because this again, if you don't have another critical area on your site and you want to create habitat space and you have a beautiful backyard, that's fantastic. It's not regulated. So we want to promote this stuff, but it's not a regulated your backyard doesn't become a critical area just because you created a great space. Go ahead and click again.

And then lastly, we have two real quick ones, frequently flooded areas, which we don't have a lot of private property that has to manage that. We do have public property. This is going along Forbes Creek and a roadway that floods probably fairly frequently there. And then we have the critical aquifer recharge areas, which I haven't been able to find any based on the maps we have in Kirkland. Go ahead and click again.

And then our geologically hazardous areas, and there's a great picture of Goat Hill. These geologic hazard areas consist of landslide hazard sites, which Kirkland does have a lot of. It can also consist of high erosion areas. So if you think of the bluffs out on Camano Island that just erode away, that's an erosion area. And then liquefaction areas.

So you think an area that's going to turn into quicksand during an earthquake. And we do have a lot of those. It doesn't mean we can't build and engineer on them, but we do have to protect those, not just for the person who is using the property, but for the neighbors as well. Go ahead and click again. Alright, this is another one where I had some great clicks.

So this is where our critical areas are at and when we're talking about that regional view. I'm a map person, so I get really excited by this stuff. So you can see on the map there's Kirkland and we've got our neighboring cities, Kenmore, Woodinville, Redmond, and Bellevue to the South, and we're all on Lake Washington in one way or another. And then I have a blow up sectioned area where we have Totem Lake on the very south end. What's the park?

I apologize. There's a park in the Northwest corner. It's in my notes that I can't access because so go ahead and click. So we're adding wetlands to this map, and this is a map that you can access on King County, and you can see in Kirkland we've got Forbes Creek and then down at Yarrow Bay. These are not all the wetlands in Kirkland. These are the ones that are large enough documented by the state. So when we have critical areas on a property, there might be critical areas that aren't necessarily in this map. Go ahead and click again. So these are flood plains. You can see Redmond deals with a lot of flood plains on the Sammamish River or the Slough.

And go ahead and click again. And these are our rivers and creeks. And most of our rivers go straight into Lake Washington. We don't go into Redmond and around. But as you can see, we have a lot of them.

Go ahead and click again. These are habitat areas which, for the most part, as you can see, the red around the creeks, that is documented salmon habitat, and so Juanita Creek is one of the Chinook salmon habitat areas that we have to manage. We do have other creeks and streams that have fish in them, and they're managed very similarly, but the main regulatory requirement is for the Chinook salmon habitat. As you guys can imagine, know, salmon is a billion dollar industry, so it's more than just protecting an endangered species. What we do for Chinook salmon helps all of our salmon species.

So it's more, again, it's more than just protecting endangered species. Go ahead and click again. This is the groundwater, critical area recharge areas. And if you see Redmond, all the pink and red there, there's a lot of restrictions on building there. And if you think of critical area recharge areas, that is the water we drink. That is the water that soaks into the ground and that is pulled up by wells. And all of the little orange dots there are wells. Most of the ones I've only found one in Kirkland that was not closed already. And so, as you can imagine, you wouldn't want to be contaminating the well that you're drinking out of. The same thing goes for community water systems.

Go ahead and click one more time, and then we have our landslide areas. And you can see Kirkland has a lot of them. There's some sloping down towards Redmond. Some of that's in our city. Some of it is in Redmond. But we do have a lot to deal with, especially when you compare, like, going south into Bellevue. So that's one of the differences that we're going to have to manage. Go ahead and click another time. And then it's hard to see the liquefaction seismic hazards, but that's the light green, and there's we have a whole lot up in our north area too. So if you think of Juanita Bay, any lowland area really is prone to that in our region.

So go ahead. I'm going to toss it over to Jen, and she's probably going to get the mouse to work because that's how we roll.

Hello. I'm going to walk us through quickly what a typical permit process would look like in 'eighty five and then also 'ninety because they're a little bit different. And then we'll talk about some of the areas we've identified to update portions of the code. So starting with 85, if someone is proposing to do work within a high or moderate landslide area, the code requires them to submit a geotech report. And there are standards in the chapter, so that's provided by a qualified professional, typically a geotechnical engineer.

And then that is also required the applicant is required to fund a peer review. And that's with one of four city consultants that are geotechnical engineering firms. A piece of that in the code, and I'll talk about it in a minute, that we're going to explore, is depending on the scope of project, let's say you maybe had a short plat and some building permits and maybe a land surface modification permit, An applicant could possibly go through this cycle multiple times as you get more information and build out some of those plans. So we want to look at maybe ways to streamline that a little bit. There's also recording documents that may be required.

We have a dedication that could be a protective easement over the critical area. We have a liability or a hold harmless document and then also a notice of geologic hazards. That gets recorded on the property and the intent is to inform future buyers or potential buyers that there could be a geologic hazard area on the property. For 85, some of the areas we've identified for updates are kind of broken down into those it's an opportunity to do general updates or kind of clarity in our code. For this, we want to look at maybe establishing some thresholds, whether that might be an exemption or should all projects require peer review?

We kind of want to think, is there a scope of work that may be small enough that doesn't necessarily require the full extent since these projects can vary widely in the scope of work. And then also that notice of geologic hazard, that recording document, does it make sense and should it be required for every single project? So we want to explore that a little bit. Requirements for the state and tied to best available science, we're going to review the maps, make sure they're up to date with the latest and greatest. We want to take a look at that protective easement and better define it.

What should be included? Right now, we really rely on those subject matter experts, but it might be nice to incorporate some of that into our code. And then we've started looking at neighboring jurisdictions. A lot of them will address things like setbacks from the landslide area, a structural setback, or they address vegetative requirements a little bit different. So just taking this as an opportunity of is there room for improvement for Kirkland as well?

So permitting for 90, it's obviously a much bigger chapter, a little bit more complex. The normal permit is kind of in three phases. And to not repeat myself three times, each one requires that peer review, right? So it will either be an applicant who has prepared a report and then pays for the peer review funding or they will go directly through a city consultant. And unlike 85, where we have four geotech consultants, for 90 we work with one.

So it will start off with a determination, so that's where will go on-site and then confirm the presence of a critical area and also delineate it, find out exactly where that boundary is and do the work to classify the critical area. So, for example, a wetland would have a habitat score and a category, and that's important because that translates into what the code would require for a buffer. Moving along to no, sorry. My bad, my bad. So the next part, typically when you would apply for a development permit, although you could do it earlier, this is usually what people will do.

They submit a critical area report. So that's longer, it's much more site specific. There's a whole host of things in the code that they have to address. Something that's very typical would be an analysis of the existing vegetation, seeing if that meets our buffer standards. If it doesn't, then including a replanting plan and making sure that it would all comply with the code.

So then at the end of a project, usually before issuance and then also once construction is completed, let's say there was a revegetation required for the code, we have monitoring and maintenance. So again, depending on the scope of project, that can run from three to ten years. So an applicant would install the vegetation, and then they would prepare regular reports. They can either hire someone to do that and then get that peer review that we talked about or work directly with our consultant. We wanted to throw in a photo here of a restoration area for one of the critical areas.

You don't necessarily see them all that often or certainly if you're not looking for it, so it's just kind of a good visual to see what it looks like after a project has been completed and what we would be well, not we, but what the experts would be going out there and looking at and making sure that those plants are thriving and they're healthy and that they're on track to meet our standards for that maintenance. So some of the updates for '90, similar to '85, it's a great chance for some of those general updates, those clarity updates. We're looking at consistency with other chapters, how can we simplify or streamline the process, where are pockets to be able to do that. Required state updates, making sure our definitions and designations are okay, proper emphasis on various areas, making sure that's balanced with minimizing impacts to the critical areas and having that environmental perspective. And then for best available science, a review just to clarify no net loss requirements and stream buffer assessment.

Okay. I'm also going to give you a little bit of update of where we're at with the public outreach and then review our revised schedule, where we're kind of going. And then after that, we'll pause. We can have discussion and questions before Anna goes back into wetlands. So I believe the outreach plan is in your packet, but this is just kind of a slide that shows you were trying to cast a wide net and be really transparent and have continual conversations utilizing things like web page, we'll have a listserv that's available on there, meetings virtual in person with stakeholders, with our consultants, etcetera.

I'm personally very excited about this. We went into this project and we didn't have a permanent webpage for critical areas the city's website. So now we have it and it's live. There's the URL right there. Portions of this will be permanent. Our perspective on this is that it should be a place for education, a place to find resources to get involved in Kirkland. Also, have the question, do I need a permit? If so, how do I do that? So we'll have all of that information right here and that will stay even after the update. And then certainly we have a tab for the update, so it will be all the usual things: When are the meetings happening?

What's our schedule? Material links, deliverables, things like that. Here is a refresher of some of the stakeholders we've identified at this point. We've reached out and are actively engaging with most of them. As we continue on with the project and we start looking at things like that available it will ebb and flow a little bit. It really depends what direction we end up going with some of those code updates. So if more meetings or outreach is needed in one area or another, obviously we will adjust that as needed. Okay. And then lastly, just taking a peek at our updated schedule. We do have that deadline of December 31, which sometimes can feel far off, but it arrives very quickly.

We it's a pretty tight schedule. We do have some buffer built into there. And if it goes relatively smoothly, we should be okay. You can see, obviously, we're here tonight on May 22. After this, we'll be going to counsel for a briefing. And then you'll see us again at the June and running through July, so we're going to do some more of those study sessions. As Anna was mentioning, there's these different buckets of critical areas, so we're breaking it up into more manageable pieces. So we will pause there for discussion, questions, anything that comes to mind. You can see on the slide some of the things staff were thinking on, feedback on kind of what you've heard so far, our approach to the update, outreach, things like that.

Anyone have any questions or discussion? Kristian Nolan?

Yes, I had a question. It mentioned that you kind of have when it's mentioning about the proposed public outreach plan, you've mentioned that you've reached out to a lot of these groups already. Is the proposed outreach plan what these groups themselves are preferring? Or have you heard any feedback from them that would suggest that they're not entirely pleased with the current?

Most of what we've done so far in our getting up to speed in research has been working with the state offices. So as you can imagine, we have the Department of Commerce, we have Department of Ecology, Fish and Wildlife, DNR, so making sure that we are doing what we need to be doing. We'll be reaching out to neighborhoods and Master Builders Association when we really know what we're going to want to be when we have something of substance to review. We did have, with the comp plan, a number of agencies, including the tribes, provide guidance for us and we'll be reaching out to them again along that same lines. But it's one of those things where we want to kind of have something to provide to them in order to comment on first.

Do you have any comments?

Yeah, if I could jump in real quick. I would say that we receive kind of regular feedback on our critical area ordinance through the development review process as well. So it's not like we're not initiating that, but we get it. And which is great, right? So I think in general related to both Chapter 90 for streams and wetlands primarily and then Chapter 85 for geologically hazardous areas, Certainly, want to look for opportunities to make the code easier to use.

So we have gotten feedback from folks that it is just difficult to navigate and it is a complex topic, but that is definitely feedback we have gotten. People don't quite understand maybe all the sections of Chapter 90 that they need to look at for their project. So they get a little lost in it. I would say very specific to geologically hazardous areas. We've heard a lot of feedback from the development community that like suggests do we really need to peer review everything as much as we're reviewing and some concerns about the time it might add to their permit review process and it adds some cost as well.

And so I think we've actually heard some similar feedback from our internal, from our staff that uses the code. I would say we have gotten quite a lot of feedback already that we're working into the consistency and clarity amendments that Anna and Jen both mentioned.

Any further questions, comments? Commissioner Medea?

Thank you. Thank you for this presentation. And you did great. No need to have been nervous despite the mouse not cooperating with you. I do like the idea of streamlining peer review when it makes sense. Are there other high level parameters or criteria you are already considering from that perspective, or is that still TBD?

That might look a little bit different probably for each chapter, but while we also have different backgrounds, I'm kind of doing 85, and then Anna will do 90. So for 85, it really is also what Allison just mentioned. So it's looking at that threshold. It's a smaller chapter, it's pretty concise. So the process in and of itself is really are all projects, do they all require this full big peer review or not? So it's pretty concise there, but I want to talk about 90.

As far as streamlining 90, I think it is to be determined. But my general opinion on this as we've gone through is a lot of it is clarification of the code and that will help with streamlining. So even having on the website, like, what do you need to have for your permit? Who do you contact? How do you know if you have a critical area or if you need to start this process?

Those are some things that I think can help people so that when they come in, they're aware of what's in front of them. But yeah, a lot of it has to do with clarifying within the code, you know, that if this, then this, and rather than trying to figure it out and having every plan reviewer have to figure it out for a new site.

No one else has a question, I'll ask I another like the idea of taking a peek at what other the neighboring jurisdictions have done. Are there any keen insights from them at this point?

What we've found is that we are ahead of the game, as Kirkland is. Redmond did pass theirs, and I believe Kenmore did with their comp plan. Redmond is a very different jurisdiction than we are. There are some things that we already follow suit on that they might have been taking from us. Chapter 90, I have to say, it was well written in 2016.

It took in the best available science, and so it helps with not having to do a lot of very significant updates. There will be some that we'll bring to you, but I was going to go into that on the wetland thing. I think that we were a leader in that back in 2016. So that's something to be proud of.

Commissioner Reiser?

When we figure this out, one of the things you said was, especially in You said some of the restoration, the cost isn't that high. I'd like to know some of these costs, especially how much it affects the building and housing and development. I realize it is on a site by site basis, so it's almost next to impossible. But I think it would be really important to know basics.

We'll take that into account. I just want to make it clear, if I said the cost is not that high, I would correct myself on that, that there are costs to restoration. It is up to and we'll talk about this in the wetland portion a little bit is the cost of retaining a wetland versus trying to restore one is significantly different. Restoring something that's already been degraded can be expensive, but that is one of our obligations is quality over quantity. So that's actually, can jump into that with the wetland stuff if you want.

But we can I'll put that on the list to kind of get some estimates of rest of

the It's just interesting to know. I realize we can't affect it that much, but what are we talking about is really important.

We'll take a look at that.

I'll throw out a question just to, like, get a sense for the extent that we should expect this to be applied. I imagine the intent of these chapters is so that we can use these as a consistent guide for applying these rather than having to articulate accommodations for specific wetlands on specific sites in zoning, for example. So one of the hot topics, of course, is how this applies to the Michaels site, for example. And so I think that as being a practical case study that we're already looking at, it'll be really useful to go through some of this and be able to think through, like, okay, well, how will that affect this? Or what are the things that this covers so we really don't have to worry about it in the context of the zoning?

Yeah. I think that's a a valid point and something I've had every time I'm hearing about the Michael site, exactly the same thing. Yeah. Similar to what Jen made a comment on, with chapter 90, we do rely on the experts. For example, if we take the Michael site into consideration, there is someone who will be delineating the wetland so that we know where that edge is and then assessing that buffer so that we know, you know, the the quality of the wetland so that we know where that buffer edge is. The city doesn't make those decisions. They go off of the consultant's guidance on that. And so that is just something to consider.

At some point, imagine as we're getting our education on this, it might be useful to see what does one of those reports look like and how does that actually impact, what does this look like in application? That would probably be useful.

We'll bring that in on the next one. That's a great idea.

Anything else? Proceed. Go ahead.

Do I have my mouse person? Alright. Okay. So we chose to provide the wetland update, and we're looking at this at a 30,000 foot level. I'm not bringing updates with the thought process of approvals, but I want you to get a feel for what we're looking at and the type of changes that we're making.

And this wetland section specifically has a lot of clarity changes, and there are some things that look like we're doing a change and it looks different, but we're actually not changing the code at all. We're just trying to make it more clear and easier to follow. So we'll be adding some definitions. These are definitions that came in with best available science and just some things that people ask questions of. You know, we have the definition of waters of the state, but it's buried.

I think it's in another one of the critical areas, but when you Google it, it doesn't come out. A couple other definitions that are wetland specific. No net loss would be one of those that we want to define that and put that in the code. We're going to do some clarity updates, and then I'm going to show you here some of the tables that we're updating, and these updates came from Department of Ecology. They're tables that we had in our code already, but they just kind of help bring some clarity to what the expectations are.

But in general, our wetland code, if we were to sign it off now, it meets all of the state requirements. So we don't have to do any of these changes, but hopefully these are improvements for us. Go ahead and click. This quote, it is not by anyone famous, but it is continually pushed through just about every state document I've read, and it keeps hitting home of, you know, critical areas that are not meant to be altered to accommodate development, rather development must be designed to avoid the impacts to the critical areas. And that impact is a huge word.

So just something to kind of keep in mind. One of the ways that we do this, and we have this in the Kirkland code, it's also in the state requirements and in the state codes, and you can apply this to just about everything. You can apply it to a tree impact, but it's a list of minimize how your impacts. And the first one is to just avoid impacting altogether, minimizing that impact to a level where it can repair itself. So if you think about treading on wet soil and compacting it, is it going to be able to repair itself?

Or are you going to have to rectify it? Are you going to have to decompact that soil? Reducing or eliminating the impact over time, so that's something that might be consistent. Then we get down to these bottom ones, and these are the ones that we actually, in the urban environment, really rely on is compensating for an impact. So impact occurred in one area, do you compensate for it somewhere else or do you repair it there and you're compensating.

You're not fixing what was lost, but you're trying to recreate something that has similar function. And then you can monitor an impact. And like if we went back to the tree analogy, you can impact a tree and you can monitor and hope the tree repairs itself or take actions, you know, but often the monitoring is your last resort. So go ahead and click. And this is an example of why it's hard to just not impact a site.

It's because most of our critical areas are already impacted just because we're in an urban environment. We are not in the middle of a national park or in the middle of a forest that has absolutely nothing, pristine forest. We're not on 10 acre plots where people can actually do what they want and retain other areas. Even if we haven't directly impacted our critical areas, they do have impacts to them. And that's one reason why Kirkland really put a focus on trying to rectify, improve the conditions of a site.

And just to explain again that the upper left hand corner, that's a full wetland there, but it covered in reed canary grass. That grass is probably taller than I am now. I took that picture in February. And it's a designated wetland. And then Juanita Creek again.

We have some beautiful parts of Juanita Creek, but in this section in itself, it was apartments built before 1990, before we had critical area regulations, very close, and blackberry and ivy that, you know, it wasn't planted there, but it wasn't maintained over the last couple decades either. And so go ahead and click. So this is one of the tables, wetlands and association buffer standards. This is where you get your information on what kind of buffers you need to put on your wetlands. You have the wetland designated and identified by a professional.

And this table is a table within the table, and so the first thing we did was we're going to clarify this and put it into, you know, more of the code format, and then we're going to change the language in here to reflect the buffer requirements. So the table in there go ahead and click again. Oh, we'll actually go over this. The table that was in there is actually a reduced buffer that Kirkland promotes, and so it's that quality over quantity that we are allowed to reduce a buffer by 25% if we do improvements, and that's where that restoration comes in, where that planting comes in. Otherwise, and in our code, we say, well, if you're not going to do the improvements, you need to increase your buffer by 33%.

Well, the language there is a little bit backwards because the actual buffer is that 33%, and we are allowed to impact the buffer if we do restoration work. So that's one of the language changes. And so when we look at this real wetland and a real stream, green and blue, it's not, but this is a development. And so we have the blue wetland and we have two lines. We have the dark interior wetland buffer and then we have the lighter buffer and that is a 25% reduction.

And so we're changing the language to talk about that outer line as the regulated buffer. That's the one that we actually have to acknowledge. And then we have we used to call it the standard buffer, and so we're going to change the name to the standard reduced buffer. That will help with communicating with the public. We do get people who come in after building, and they don't understand why if they're gonna add a little more to their porch, why they have to do restoration for that.

It's like, well, you're actually still in the buffer. It's just not the reduced buffer that we have talked about for so many years. So it's one of those things that will help with clarity. Go ahead and click. So here's a good example of where we allowed the reduced buffer.

The line that looks like bricks is a building setback, and that red line is the actual wetland and stream buffer. So we are allowing building within that buffer as long as we're abiding by these improvement regulations. Go ahead and click again. So the table that we're adding, we are calling the table that's already in there the standard reduced wetland buffer, and as you can see, we've got the categories of the wetland and the habitat points. This is one of the opportunities that we have to allow for some reduced buffers, category two and category three with low habitat points.

Your buffer might only be 75 feet versus if it was a really high quality wetland, it might be up to two twenty five. So that quality and what the functions those wetlands are providing change that buffer requirement. And that, again, is decided by a professional. We do not make these decisions. We actually have the information in there of what a professional entails.

And then we're going to add this lower the second table, and so instead of saying if you choose not to improve buffers, you have to increase by 33%, we're going to actually call it the regulated buffer width alternative. And this is what the state requires for buffers of these categories and these habitat points. And there's really not a

lot

of discussion available on it. You know, we could you know, there are options. We could if we were to choose to reduce those buffers, there would be we would be an outlier. So just something to consider. And we would have to have many discussions with the state as to why we are not abiding by the best available science.

So we're not changing anything. We're just adapting the language so it's a little easier to understand. So go ahead. So this second table, if you're doing a buffer reduction, you have to do some restoration, so improvement on the buffer, and we call that our vegetative buffer standard in the code. And then there's this second table, which are measures to minimize your impact to your wetland and your associated buffer.

And this is basically a table of what I would call pollutants. There are ways you're disturbing. And so we call noise pollution, light pollution, toxic runoff, stormwater runoff. Stormwater runoff is quantity of water. So because we have all our paved surfaces, water is getting into the streams faster and doing a lot more damage.

Pet and human impacts I probably don't need to go into more on those and then air pollution. And so this table we have the table already. It's a little vague in some places, and the table that was updated by Department of Ecology provided some guidance and some more examples. And this is really helpful for people to understand who are applying for a permit as well as our permit reviewers to know that with light pollution it's not just about shining your light away, it's maybe using yellow lighting instead of bright blue lighting or having lights that have dimmers on them or turn off so that we're not light polluting the wetland in that environment. So that's just one example, but that whole table is in your packet and how we combined it together.

Go ahead and and that's I we kept it short and simple, but with wetlands, it's really the table updates. There's a couple others, and none of them are changes to our current code. So what we're going to do is we're going to continue with the streamlining process. I've got documentation and recommendations by multiple people from different city departments to help streamline. So we're talking about with the CIP group.

Parks department, we've talked to them. We have recommendations from the state. We actually had Department of Ecology and Fish and Wildlife comment on our code and where it may or may not meet. And then we have a lot of general comments that again came in with the comp plan. So we're going to combine all of these together.

Some of them work. Some of them are great wishes that may or may not work, but we're going to see what pulls together. And if you guys have comments on anything, feel free to send them as well, like the question not just on process, but if you have different code experience, do please let me know. And then we'll bring all of those edits to you for a review. And then in the meantime, if this is something that works for you, just taking a piece at a time, I would like to come back with a focus on the streams and the fish and wildlife habitat because there is some best available science changes that we need to address and figure out what fits for our city and go through public commentary and process on that.

I'm doing some research on that now so that we can provide you with educated guidance. And then we want to come back as well for '85 and give a specific update so that you guys can process that specifically. Do you have any questions?

Not a question, just a comment. I like the language updates. I think they really help people that aren't as familiar with the code. I think it is clearer and will make it easier for people. So I like those updates.

Commissioner Reiser?

Okay. This is a little bit off. But you showed the picture of the wetland with the canary grass. How do you deal with that, especially when it comes to code? Or if somebody owns the land and wants to do something, are they required to remove it?

So I would leave that to the expert that will be writing the mitigation plan for the individual. So I can speak off the record that reed canary grass is difficult to control, but there are ways to do it. And depending on what needs to occur to improve the wetland buffer and what is regulated versus what is promoted are two different things. But when it comes to having a permit, for example, that is a site with a permit and that was a designated wetland, they be required to mitigate at the level that they're impacting the wetland, which might not mean mitigating the whole wetland, but the mitigation plan will be provided by the expert.

Thank you. Yeah. Commissioner Nolan?

Do you mind if I just add a little bit to Commissioner Reisser? Sorry to interrupt, Commissioner Nolan. Just anecdotally from my experience here over the years, in most cases, if we're looking at a site that has some amount of buffer on it and they're proposing to redevelop the site completely, they'll be required to completely restore the buffer, meaning they're removing all the invasives, they're planting native vegetation to our vegetated buffer standards, and then they're monitoring and maintaining for some period of time. And like Jen mentioned, that can vary in time. I would say to Anna's point that when it comes to doing something actually in a stream or in a wetland, that's where it does get a little more nuanced and we've seen different advice come in from different subject matter experts about whether the impact of trying to fix it might be more impactful than letting it continue.

But the buffer outside of the actual stream or actual wetland typically, I would say, always gets completely restored when we're redeveloping a site.

Commissioner Nolan, go ahead.

When it comes to developing mitigation plans, how much leeway is there for, I guess, different mitigation options? Is it just sort of, this is the mitigation plan, and if you want to build in the buffer, this is what you do? Or is there some room for debate to say, maybe you can do this or that or that, or we can debate different ways to do this cost effectively or in a way that still accomplishes the purpose of the development.

I think I can answer that. Because the expert is being hired by the permitter, permittee, that is something they can work out together. So, for example, if I was working with someone and I was of course, cost effective, but say there was one area over another that I was wanting to promote, you know, that's between myself and the person I'm hiring. And so whatever is brought into the city, as long as it is meeting the requirements, is everything else can be separate. Like, for example, plant selection.

You know, you can ask for, oh, we want more of this or something, you know, as long as it's meeting the goals, that's between whoever is developing and the person they are hiring.

Commissioner Medea?

Thank you. Regarding compensation, which seems like it's further down on the prioritization, right, because the impact is greater, how does that work if we are impact like, is there a like for like example? So if we are impacting a place that has migratory birds, how do you compensate for that, right?

I think that's part of our job as community leaders to prevent that from happening in the first place. So one of the things that the city is responsible for or that the state holds the city accountable for is protecting some of the areas that they can and then promoting. So the probability of impacting directly migratory bird habitat on your private property is not nearly as high as say Oodini Park or something to that effect. So it is the city's responsibility to help with that. One of the ways we can do that is by, and I hate to say it, but decreasing up zoning in sensitive areas.

There are some cases though where I think that can be a benefit or the benefits outweigh the costs or even the development itself might be less of an impact than doing nothing. You might have that no net loss and a gain, quality over quantity.

Any further questions? I had one. We had received some feedback or concerns at the Michael side about the impact of height and surface materials like window glazing on especially birds. And is that something that is addressed in the best available science within the scope of this study? Or should we expect that that would be addressed within this if it was something that should be a concern to what could be permitted.

Yeah. I would think that taking the Michael site in particular that if there's a concern for birds with windows, there is options out there to stop that or to decrease that. They do it with skyscrapers with certain types of glass. And there are things that you can put on windows, know, coverings that will help out with that. So that would be something that would be specific to that site that would be brought up and then in that mitigation, so for example, if we were doing the buffer, 25% buffer impact, that would be something that we would require.

It might not be on the table, but that table does clearly state that other options and other specific ideas specific to the site should be implemented. That would be one I would definitely consider.

Okay. So that's something that we wouldn't need to reflect in the zoning regulations. That's something that we could count on being addressed within the scope of the environmental assessment recommendation.

Yes. And I think just in our update of that one table that it is in there, so that if that specific situation on that specific site is brought up as a concern, then we should be mitigating to decrease that impact. So now it's on record.

Okay. And then as a follow on to that, are there any like what are the practicalities of there being a general rule about or if your site is limited by this, are there ways that we could write zoning or perhaps even in this about adjustments for allowing more height in exchange for a smaller footprint. If that turns out to be provide similar development capacity but in a way that reduces the environmental impact.

I think that is. We have that in the code.

That's in that's in the Correct. That's in these chapters of code or is that or is that in, like, zoning?

It's already in these chapters of code. We do have some flexibility to do things like reduce the front setback if the wetland or stream is in the back and things like that. So we already have a little bit of flexibility there.

Nice. Thank you. Any further questions? All right. Carry on. That's it from you? Wow, that's amazing. Yeah. Alright. Sounds good.

I guess my one question before leaving is, is this what you'd like to see moving forward, or is there anything you would like more of when we come back with different chapters?

I appreciated the pictures and examples. Okay.

I heard some joking comments about, like, do we get to go on a field trip in such nice weather to see some real life scenarios, you know We for educational purposes.

We have some great staff here who do great work with mitigation and measuring and monitoring like streams. And I'll ask her if she'd be willing to help out.

That could be fun. Thank you. All right. So the next item on the agenda is hold on one moment here. Public hearing. Yeah. We're at the public hearing now. Alright. So, I guess I should go ahead and open the public hearing on let me switch my agenda here the public hearing on proposed unit lot subdivision amendments to the Kirkland Municipal Code is now open. Stafford, would you like to give your presentation?

Please. Yes, that'd be great. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, as the Chair mentioned, this is a public hearing on Kirkland Municipal Code amendments to implement state required unit lot subdivision requirements.

And so, this is kind of a novel public hearing for Planning Commission because typically you do not hold public hearings for the municipal code. However, since this is within the subdivision title, you get to hold the public hearing for City Council. It's very planning related, so that's why we're here in front of you tonight for this public hearing. I have a really brief presentation before you open it up for public testimony, and I want to give credit to our Senior Planner, Janice Swenson, who actually did all the work on this one. She is on vacation and retiring next week, so I am covering this for her but this is her last project for us here at the city.

So thank you, Janice, for getting this ready for us. I'm going to hop right in. As I mentioned, this is a State requirement. As far as how the public hearing goes, I'm going to make a presentation, then you're going to receive public testimony. After public testimony, if you're ready, you can deliberate and make a recommendation to City Council on these Municipal Code amendments. So this is a state requirement. This piece of legislation was passed in last year's session. It was actually already updated in this year's session. So we believe we've crafted a draft code for you that incorporates the recommendations or the guidance in both last year's bill and this year's bill. So we should be up to date after this.

Unit lot subdivisions are really another type of plat or subdivision. We are required by the state to include them in our short plat regulations, which is why we're situating them in KMC 22, and we're required to review a unit lot subdivision through the same process that we would review a short plat or a subdivision. Unit lot subdivisions are really intended to be used in middle housing projects and they're designed and intended to provide more flexible site layouts by applying the underlying development standards to kind of like what we call the parent lot or the bigger lot and then give flexibility for the individual unit lots or, if you want to call them baby lots, within the parent lot. They've got me joking with you tonight, so. And the main point and the really benefit to these is that we're creating more individual sellable lots and they're fee simple lots where someone would own both the unit and the land underneath it.

It's providing another option for home ownership and then for the development community, providing another way that they might be able to sell individual lots. This would be perhaps an alternative to a condo process that would be through the county and not with us. And so I just wanted to walk you through a couple little examples of what these can look like and so here's four different examples of okay, this is working now four different examples of a lot and how it might be divided from a parent lot into unit lots. And so just to give you an example on the left here of what this looks like. So the parent lot would be considered this whole outline that my cursor is tracing here.

This is the parent lot. So this is the lot that has to cumulatively comply with all the underlying zoning standards and that's for setbacks, lot coverage, floor area ratio, where it applies, and all of that type of thing. Tree retention, very important for us to note as well. Okay, the mouse is hanging in there. For example, if this was the street here and we were looking at this little dotted line as the front setback, the parent lot has to comply with that.

But when we look at these smaller kind of dashed lines, these are the unit lots. So there's one, kind of two, three. So these individual lots don't have to also have 20 foot front setbacks. They can be wherever they want on the lot as long as that outer boundary is complying with the setbacks. And then in terms of floor area and lot coverage, we're counting all the floor area on-site or all the lot coverage on-site across the unit lots.

And as long as the parent lot complies, the unit lots can have flexible standards. So, as we've shown, this can be used with kind of a single family home with a detached ADU behind it. It could be used for townhouses. It could be used for cottages or carriage units, so a lot of different options. One of the other things with unit lots, similar to how we've seen a lot of condo projects work as well, oftentimes you'll see that the unit lots might be restricted to the underneath the footprint of the actual dwelling unit and there's likely going to be some commonly owned property on the site within the larger parent lot and that could accommodate things like shared driveway access, shared kind of utility coming into the site, common areas, yard areas, things like that.

And the unit lot subdivision requires that we make note of any common areas on the face of the unit lot and that there is notes on the face of the plat that talk about how that commonly owned area operates. And so, just to go over briefly what we're having to update in the Kirkland Municipal Code in order to implement this, we have to add new definitions for unit lot subdivision, unit lot, and parent lot. We're adding some requirements for the parent lot and that's what I just covered. The requirement is that the parent lot has to meet the standards but also has requirements that the unit lots can be flexible. We have recording requirements in the DraftKMC language in front of you, so what has to be on the face of that unit lot subdivision.

And then also we lay out the review process which follows either the short plat process if we're talking about nine lots or fewer or the subdivision process if it's 10 lots or more. So I won't walk through every step of this process but we just found it to be a helpful exercise, especially when we were speaking with the development community about the unit lot subdivision process, to sort of walk through the phasing that would be allowed for unit lot subdivisions because one of the other advantages to it is that it kind of streamlines the permit review process for folks. And the way that we achieve that is really by allowing people to overlap some of their submittals, meaning we can accommodate reviewing building permits or any required grading permits at the same time that we're reviewing a unit lot subdivision on the face of the property. So we can review them concurrently and the review of the unit lot subdivision itself isn't holding up our review or even our issuance of construction permits since this is mainly going to be happening on lots that already have enough space on them to allow multiple units to be constructed, if that makes sense.

And so, we've heard not a whole lot from the community on this one. As of right before this meeting, when I checked email, we hadn't received any public comment emails on the subject but staff did conduct a focus group with the Master Builders Association prior to finalizing the draft code for this public hearing and we had, I would say, I think it was about almost 15 members of IMBACS joined us and walked through the code with us. So, they did have some good feedback for us that we felt like made sense to include in the code and some was just kind of syncing up on terminology. They brought us a couple examples from other jurisdictions that have already adopted their unit lot subdivision process that they felt was working well and so we borrowed a little bit from those as well. And so, with that, that's the conclusion.

I'm happy to answer any questions that the Commission has and when you're ready, you can open it up for public testimony.

Sounds good. Any questions from the Commission? Commissioner Nolan?

I guess there's just always a question of whether this is in line with what we're seeing other cities doing. I'd assume so, but

Thank you for the question. And I would say yes. We've borrowed pretty heavily from both the State's model code on this one and so have a lot of other cities. So we did look at several other cities' codes, and I think we're pretty aligned.

Commissioner Medea?

Thank you. I love the fee simple ownership component of it, the ability to get housing developed more quickly. I am still confused on the fee simple versus common elements thing specific to utilities. So I would love if we knew that the utilities would be separately metered to each of those units, whatever form they are, cottages or townhomes.

Yeah. Thank you for that question. And I had a chance to touch base with Adam, and he can jump in if I get it wrong. But generally, the city does require separate meters if we know that the units are going to be sold separately. And so to date, we are asking people when we get cottage projects if they intend to sell them separately so that we can make sure we require those separate meters. And in some cases, I believe we require them to sign an agreement if they tell us they are not going to sell them, so that we are kind of getting on the record on that.

Because nobody likes to harangue their neighbor for their share of the water bill. Go ahead.

Yes, just a slight clarification. I was texting earlier with our development review development engineering manager at the Public Works Department that oversees meters. And actually, generally speaking, we don't require separate meters. And it's funny because Alison and I were at a meeting with a group of planning directors and deputy directors and the Department of Commerce today, and we were actually talking about how other cities approach the metering issue. And there's a huge diversity of opinions about the best way to address them, ranging from every ADU should have a meter, every separate unit should have a meter, to sort of the approach that the city of Kirkland has taken, which is much more deferential to developers.

I think historically in Kirkland, we've been really cautious about adding additional cost to housing. And meters are really expensive, right? And so I think, generally speaking, our approach has been to not require separate meters for ADUs, at least. But that said, I think that approach is right because almost in every single case that we can think of when a developer has built ADUs for separate ownership, they have put in a separate meter to deal with the issues that we've mentioned, which is that it's hard sometimes to share a water bill with multiple property owners or multiple housing owners. So I think generally speaking we've been reluctant to insist on separate meters for separate units.

But where it really matters, developers seem to be doing it.

Thank you. Pardon the misinformation there. Adam had the more up

to Yeah, were just, yeah, we just clarified this issue with our Polarworks department tonight, so yeah.

Commissioner Jacobson. Thank you. So I have two questions. The first is on the shared ownership of the common areas. When I read the code, I don't I don't know if we are requiring that the common areas be owned by collectively by all of the property owners on the site or if we potentially allow for them to be commonly owned by just a number of them. In some of the examples that we saw I think there was one with the back alley, I could foresee it being entirely reasonable to let the units that don't use that back alley to not have to not own that back alley. Is that something that we are allowing or requiring one way or the other in our code for the draft?

I would say that the draft assumes that the common area would be owned by all units. When I read the State Code, it's I'm not sure if the State code would prohibit that concept of just two units owning commonly owned area, like adjacent to an alley, that only they abut.

Okay. Thank you. And then second question. Given that I think I know the answer, I just want to double check. So we're applying the development standards to the parent lot, so all the units have to comply.

If the development and I'll take floor area ratio as an example if the development does not max out the FAR, because we do not apply the development standards to each individual lot, if the development doesn't max out the FAR in total, would that potentially create a race situation where an individual property owner could build a would want to build their unit out more before their neighbors could? So let's say hypothetically the way that the FAR works out, there's a thousand square feet for each for six units. They're each built out to 900 square feet. Could I build an extra 600 square feet for my one unit, thus preventing my neighbors from getting an extra 100 square feet?

Such a great question, Commissioner Jacobson. And your it yes is the answer to your question the way that the code is written. So even though this unit lot subdivision process simplifies some things, it doesn't come without some complications down the line. Now, that particular issue is something that could be addressed preventatively through private CCNRs. So the person that's putting the unit lot subdivision together while not required by us could potentially go ahead and allot out any leftover floor area ratio or lot coverage to individual units.

We're we've been talking a little bit internally if we can help with an administrative solution on that front as well such as actually recording or documenting a maximum for each individual unit lot. So we didn't think we needed to codify that in the subdivision title, but we think we might have some administrative solutions that don't require code amendments to help get in front of that too, but we have seen that happen in different instances when we've allowed that cumulative calculation and planned unit developments and things over the years. So, yeah, we will we are working on some ideas to try to get ahead of it.

Awesome. Thank you. Yeah, just really quickly chime in. I think I don't if this is good news or bad news, but generally speaking these days, developers are building to the max as well, right? They're not leaving even an inch of lot coverage or a foot of or an inch of building height on the table, which is not to say that that will continue forever. But generally speaking, yeah, projects are being middle housing projects are being built out really to the max, I would say. So that it's under the current sort of real estate market and how projects are being developed that might not be a huge issue in the future. But again, that's not to say that in the future sites would not be underdeveloped and leaving some of the development allowances for the race to the finish, ultimately.

Any further questions? If not, I'll toss a couple out here. There was a note in 2222.1 that says no dwelling units are stacked on another dwelling unit or use. And I just want to clarify or wonder if there should be clarification in the code to make it clearer if we're intending to allow stacked units on any individual unit lot. Is that something worth clarifying, or is that just something that staff would say, Oh, this is clearly allowed or clearly not allowed?

Yeah, I can take a stab at that and I invite Adam to weigh in. And I appreciate the question and also that you asked it ahead of time a couple days ago so we could make sure to think about it. So I think by including that language in the code, which is directly from the State's model code, what it's really saying is that you can't segregate stacked units through a unit lot subdivision like you can through a condo. But we do feel like the code as written would provide the flexibility. And I don't see anything in the State Code prohibiting that on a unit lot subdivision or on a unit lot, you could have, say, a single family home with an attached ADU. I think the code allows for that, in my opinion.

Okay. And then another question. I'm guessing that existing condominiumized lots could potentially be converted to unit lot subdivisions in order to potentially make the financing of those easier in the future? Or would that is that such a marginal I don't know. Maybe those who have more experience in real estate could tell me, like, would that be something that people would actually be interested in pursuing?

I'm looking at your fellow commissioners.

I don't know if retroactively they would. I know it's not as desirable a product type because it's not fee simple, and I just helped someone, long story, but we had to condominiumize a duplex in order for her

to be able

to purchase the other half. And it was laborious and time consuming and stupid. Retroactively, don't know. But as a general broad appeal from the public, I have clients that choose not to look at those communities because of the condo piece and the shared utility thing.

Well, and I will say, too, that fee simple financing, you tend to get a slightly better rate on your mortgage too. So I would say as far as retroactively if you are getting a new loan, I would say it's mostly around financing is probably the biggest piece to that.

Well, that's kind of why I was thinking that if someone was going to interested in selling their unit, if they would be interested in working with their other you know, to make their make their property more marketable or easier to finance and more competitive, if that might be something that they'd retroactively want to pursue, and if this would accommodate that.

I think the way the code's written, someone could, right, do a unit lot subdivision on a subject property where that's already built out. Commissioner Medea and Vice Chair Rosman sort of jogged my memory and I would just note that working on projects with condo projects, an added complication is that I believe every party to the condo association would have to agree. And so I don't expect that we'd see it happen a whole lot, but maybe for some of these smaller projects that are just a few units. And I think the code accommodates that.

Yeah. Yeah. It would have to get like I imagine, like, you know, we see a lot that's split three ways right now with a primary home and two accessory dwelling units. And they might be able to come to an agreement of like, oh, we could draw some lines here and submit this and make it easier to sell in the future. Okay. Sounds good. That's, I think, all for me. Commissioner Medea?

Thanks. Sorry, I have one more question. Still seeking clarity on, like, when the vesting happens, Does it happen at the unit lot subdivision application or after final permit is issued?

So we would anticipate most of these coming in with a subject development permit. So we are looking at a development permit, which could be a grading permit for a larger project or it could be a group of individual building permits for a smaller project. And the vesting typically happens at the when we deem that building permit or grading permit complete.

Any further questions? If not, I think we're ready to move on to receive public comment. So I will now open the comment on the public hearing. And is there anyone who would like to speak? Is there anyone who signed in? Is there anyone online? Please raise your hand. I see one. So now is the time when I will read my script. Let's see.

All right, so in order to hear as many people as possible tonight, we are allowing any individual wishing to provide comments to speak for a maximum of three minutes. The timer on the lectern will flash a yellow light when thirty seconds remain, and a red light when your time has ended. To be fair to all speakers, we will strictly adhere to the three minute limit. The Commission wants to hear from as many different views and opinions as possible. If you have already heard another speaker state your comment, please consider not repeating the comment and instead provide a comment or perspective that is unique to you.

In making your comments, we ask that you please direct them to the Commission, but this is not a time for give and take with the Commission. Obscene, profane, threatening, harassing, abusive language towards the Commission, city staff, or those in the audience are not allowed. As audience members, please refrain from any demonstrative agreement or disagreement with a speaker, such as clapping, cheering, or booing. These actions are not only disruptive, they also may intimidate or have the effect of excluding others in the community whose views may differ. Now we will begin the public comment with the list of those who signed in to speak, and it sounds like there's none.

Online audience members may indicate they wish to speak by raising your hand in the Zoom meeting now. When it's your turn to speak, we'll admit you to the virtual room as a panelist. And then please remain muted until I call your name. And then you may unmute to address the commission. So I will start by admitting Liz Hunt.

Good evening.

Thank you. Go ahead.

Am I there? Thanks. Good evening, Commissioners and staff. I see the advantages of of these unit lot subdivisions. This was a new construct to me and it seems pretty straightforward. It looks like the code as proposed is well described and also straightforward and aligned with the state law. So that's all great. My concerns would be any possible side effects that have not been predicted. A couple of great questions came up from commissioners. Those identified some potential little items to have to deal with.

So what else might show up that we haven't thought about? And also how would this work in practice in Kirkland? It's something new, so I'm sure in some ways it will slide right in and no one will notice. And in other ways, things may crop up here or there. So those are my concerns. Otherwise, it looks pretty straightforward. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Liz. Is there anyone else who would like to address the Commission for public comment? Kyle, you can go ahead and come on up.

Thank you. I guess I didn't really plan, but I figured I made

the track down. Yourself to start. Okay. I signed in there too.

Kyle Sullivan. Yeah. Wasn't planning to speak, but since I made the track down, I support this. I think it's a good idea. It adds more flexibility. I think more flexibility is a good thing. I can see it could be a little confusing like, oh, is it Do it this way. There there might be a couple different ways to achieve the same sort of outcomes. So that can be, like, a little confusing. But I otherwise, I think more flexibility is good. I think developers will choose to do things that make sense. I so think that makes sense. And congratulations to Janice.

Thank you, Kyle. Any further public comment? Seeing none, I think that at this point I will close the hearing to public comment, and the Commission can start deliberation. Would anyone like to start with deliberation? And I'd recommend holding off on making a motion until everyone's had a chance to speak.

Commissioner Rosman?

I guess I'll speak first then. I do just want to note that I really appreciated the slide and the comments on concurrent review. I would love to see that talked about a whole bunch more, not just here, but just wanted to call that out as something that's really awesome. And this feels like something that as much as we can look as close to sister cities as possible, the better because there are a number, especially with smaller middle housing builders, that build in all of the cities around us. So as much as we can make it simple and the same, whether they're building in Kirkland or Redmond or Woodinville or wherever, that they the rules basically all match.

So checking and making sure as much as we can look like everyone else on this one, especially since it's pretty simple and straightforward, think the better.

Anyone else have further deliberation comments? Commissioner Nolan?

I agree with Commissioner Rosman as far as that it would be nice to be as close to other cities as possible. And really, I I like the flexibility. I think that this is one more way to get middle housing in Kirkland just a bit easier.

All right. If there's no further comments on the first round, would anyone like to make a motion?

A motion to approve the proposed unit lot subdivision amendments as proposed by

staff. Second.

All right. We have our motion. Would anyone like to discuss the motion? Seeing none, I guess I'll call for the vote. All those in favor?

Aye. Any

opposed? Any abstentions? That seems like a unanimous approval. And that, I believe, brings us to the end of this public hearing. So I will close the public hearing, and we are on to the next item in the agenda, which is the reading and approval of minutes. We have none this time. So we're on to Administrative Reports and Planning Commission discussion. Go ahead.

All right. Just a couple things from staff. On your calendar update, we are heading towards your next meeting on June 12, and we that will be the public hearing on the Juanita zoning code amendments. So we've been working away at those since you gave us all that great feedback late into the night last month. So that that's been super duper helpful to us.

So we think that we'll be able to bring something to hearing that is what you're looking for, including some options across for some of the development standards. And staff did brief city council on those zoning code amendments and what Planning Commission had kind of directed on Tuesday. And I would say, in general, I invite invite Adam to add any details. But I would say, generally, that counsel felt like Planning Commission's direction was very sound. I think the things that they had questions about tended to be the areas that Planning Commission asked us to prepare options because you wanted to receive testimony kind of across the range of possibilities.

One of the topics receiving the most discussion was should we allow townhomes or not up at the goodwill site as as one example and wanted to thank vice chair raise pardon me, vice chair Rosman. There's two Rs next to each other now.

Three even.

Oh, my goodness. Okay. I'm going to make eye contact. Vice Chair Rosman, thank you for joining us and providing some more insight into the discussion. So if

you had anything else on that. I guess big picture, they I think are on board with what we made our comments. I want to expand a little bit on the townhomes, explain that that isn't really our first choice for that space, but that we want to at least talk about the potential. And I encourage them, as we talked about in our last meeting, that perhaps having a conversation with the owners of that property to figure out where they really stand on that would be a good idea. But otherwise, I think they appreciated our comments on the inclusionary zoning and otherwise are on board with our recommendations from the other night.

Thank you. And then, sorry, just to finish out your June schedule real quick. Your second meeting in June, Anna and Jen will be back with you for your second kind of deep dive into the critical area ordinance update and then we will likely be briefing you a first briefing on our work to meet another state requirement and that's to implement co living citywide. So we have started work on that project and want to kind of give you an overview of where we are heading on it. So that is coming up towards the June.

And then just one other item from the Council meeting on Tuesday night that I wanted to mention to the Commission because you are gonna end up seeing the results of this one. So back in April, city council requested that staff prepare a legislative review memo. And so if planning commissioners aren't familiar with these, this is generally if council wants to kind of request a small research project. And a lot of times, it's sort of asking staff to do enough work so council can figure out whether they want to direct us to do more in-depth work on any given topic. And so the legislative request or review memo that was requested in April was specifically asking staff to look at how we currently regulated artificial turf towards lot coverage and if we should look at providing more flexibility for the installation of artificial turf.

And some of the commissioners here tonight were involved in 2019, last time that you addressed this question, and at that time we did increase flexibility for artificial turf. So Council asked us to look at it again. We took a few options forward to them. They did end up directing us to work on an option that would increase flexibility, in other words, allowing more artificial turf potentially to be installed on individual lots. And so, as a result, we'll be preparing a zoning code amendment to bring forward to you for hearing.

So they did kind of ask us to do this in an expedited type of manner in a way where we wouldn't likely be doing public outreach for it. And so our thought right now is that we might include that item in a package of miscellaneous code amendments that we're starting work on and we'll probably be visiting you with starting in July. And so just wanted to give you an update on that because that's where that item came from. And it's in the Council packet from this Tuesday night if you have any interest in reading what we sent them.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any further comments, discussion from commissioners? Sure. We we did receive a note from commissioner Robbins that he is will be stepping down as a commissioner. So we just received that a couple of hours ago. So that, I think, will still need to be delivered to to the council for for them to figure out next steps.

Any other discussion on the Commission? Seeing none, we're in our last round of comments from the audience. Would anyone like to address the commission? If you are in the online audience, you can press the raise hand button, and I will call on you. And we have one, I think.

Yeah. Hey, Commissioners. Liz Hunt here. I just would like to pile on to the thanks to Janice Swenson for her work over the years. I worked with her on neighborhood plan update and a couple of other items, so I wish her the very best. Thank you, Janice.

Yes. Thank you, Liz, for recognizing Janice, and I'd like to echo that as well. I remember working with Janice before my time on the Planning Commission when I was on the in the Neighborhood Association for South Rosehill Bridal Trails working on the update of the neighborhood plan there. Right. Seeing we are at the end of our agenda, this meeting of the Planning Commission is adjourned.