Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Elliot, are you there?

Yes. I am.

Okay. K. Good. You can hear us okay?

Yes. I can. Awesome. Perfect.

Okay. I'm gonna call the 12/10/2025 meeting of the Lacey Planning Commission to order. We do have a quorum. We've got a couple of members absent. Okay. So I'm gonna ask Judy to read the land acknowledgment, please.

We, the city of Lacey, are on the ancestral land of the tribal people of the Treaty of Medicine Creek, including the Nisqually Indian tribe and Squaxin Island tribe. We acknowledge and remember those tribal people not recognized today were absorbed or relocated into other tribes for survival. We recognize the ancestors and their descendants who are still here. We recognize and respect the tribal people of the Treaty of Medicine Creek as the traditional stewards of this land since time immemorial and their role today in taking care of these lands in perpetuity. We recognize and have the responsibility to call attention to the histories of dispossession, forced removal, and abridge treaty rights that allowed our nation, state, and city to develop as they have today.

We recommend that community members read the Medicine Creek Treaty of 1854.

Thank you. So the next thing I will look for is a motion on the agenda.

To approve the agenda for tonight.

Second. And that is Spencer. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor? Aye. Aye. K. And then a motion on the November.

I move I move to approve the November as written. Second that.

Hearing was second. Alright. Moved and seconded. All those in favor?

Aye.

Awesome. Okay. We are to the point where we're gonna ask for public comment. This is not part of the public hearing. Does anybody have public comment?

So we didn't get anybody that preregistered, and we don't have anybody in the room. So at this point, it's safe to move on to the next agenda item.

Okay. Do any of the commission members have anything to report? I'm gonna start with Robert and Elliot online.

No report for me. Thank you.

No report, but I wanted to revisit the, accommodations for Yeah. The kitchen and the bathrooms on the, communal living.

That will be our discussion during the, action item for the co living.

Great.

Anybody else? Okay. Department report.

Yeah. I got, two items here tonight. So wanted to fill the planning commission in on where we're at, as far as the status of the comprehensive plan update. So, we've met with the city council. Thanks, Jeff, for being there.

It was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Giving. I believe that was maybe the twenty fifth or thereabouts. And, spent about an hour with the council going over the last kind of touch points with them on the comprehensive plan update, provided them with the the recommendation of planning commission, those things that you did modify slightly with your recommendations, and then also the public feedback that we received as well. And overall, I don't know, Jeff, what your impressions were, but it was a very positive, presentation and and feedback from the council was very positive as well.

Very supportive of the work of the planning commission and the the valuable you know, your the time, the value you provide, and the the re resource you are to them to be able to kinda get down in the weeds and do a lot of the heavy lifting, for the city when it comes to things like the the comprehensive plan. So, they were very complimentary to the staff and others involved. And so I think, you know, from that standpoint, our our take takeaway was that, you know, they're very, supportive of of the the efforts and the plan itself. So the next step will be to take that to them for adoption. If if you'd like to tune in, the the adoption of the comp plan will be next Tuesday.

That'll be, December 16 at the regular meeting at 06:00PM here in this room or available online as well. I will note that it is going to be a bit of a long meeting. The last meeting of the year, they will also be adopting the city budget, so that may also be something that is worth paying attention to and watching. And there's a laundry list of other items that we will be the last ordinance of the night or last two ordinances of the night. But one ordinance will adopt the comprehensive plan, the other will adopt the zoning amendments that have come with the comprehensive plan update.

So, it'll be a long night, but you're more than welcome to either be here in the room or be online and and, you know, kinda witness that. And, yeah, if you're able to, that would be great to have you. So, again, thank you all for, you know, the basically been a two year process to get through the this through planning commission. So thank you all for your participation over the last two years, and and, you know, it's your your efforts are definitely recognized recognized by council. I don't know. Jeff, do you have anything else you wanna add?

Yeah. No. They they were extremely appreciative of the work you all have done. Some of them have been on planning commission before, so they recognize the heavy lift that this is. And, yeah, it was all positive. They had some questions that were answered to their satisfaction, and it went really well.

Great. The the other

item that I had tonight was, we do have a member of the planning commission whose last meeting is tonight, and that's Elliot. Just wanted to recognize Elliot for his service to the planning commission over the last couple of years as well. Elliot, thank you for all of your perspective and and ideas over the last couple of years. Your your your background in in construction and other things has really been valuable to the commission, especially as we move through this comprehensive plan process. So, just wanted to thank you for that.

If you haven't already, check your email. There will be a council recognition for for you here at the council meeting early next year. And then Gail Madden as well will also be recognized. Gail, she had to resign a couple months ago, but she will also be recognized by the council, hopefully, at the same meeting as Elliot in early in the year. So, again, Elliot, just wanted to say thank you.

You know, we do need to get the iPad from you. So Aaron will reach out to you here in the not too distant future and coordinate getting that that back from you. So, yeah, with that, we still, you know, we still have or we currently have will have two vacancies for the planning commission. So if anybody is out in the community and connected to people that live so the the requirements are that, I think, live in Lacey or in the Lacey urban growth area for this these positions. What we still have, I think, Tanya is our our UGA member.

We can have up to two, and so we would like another UGA member if at all possible. So if you if you know of anybody that lives in Lacey or the Lacey UGA, encourage them to apply. Those applications are available on the city's website, and the applications are actually open right now. So I would assume what we'll be doing here in the not not too distant future is, assembling those application packages together and putting those in front of the mayor. They go through a little bit of an interview process. So Jeff will probably get ahold of you as well and involve you in that, and up appoint two new members here probably January or February timeline.

When is the deadline for those submissions?

There's no hard and firm deadline at this point. We will take any and all submissions. I think at this point, last I heard was we only had one. So, we don't wanna close it down until we have a good handful at least of applicants to be able to interview. I think for two positions, we'd probably like to get, I don't know, five or six to interview. So as soon as possible to apply would be would be great. Good.

So I just Elliot, I wanna share my appreciation for you and your perspective. As a former contractor who's had to work in land use and as a small business owner, your perspective has been really important, and, it is just I I've admired you. So I don't know if you have any words you'd like to say to everybody. You're on on mute. Yep. Yep. I

enjoyed working with everybody there, and and I appreciate everybody there with your efforts. Thank you.

Okay. So with that, we've reached the point of the public hearing. I'm gonna close our regular meeting and open the public hearing on the coliving housing draft code amendments. They're gonna turn it over to Jennifer Adams for a little bit here.

Is the presentation queued up at all to be I didn't get anything. Okay.

Oh, it's on that. It's safe work.

We'll take care of that. It's gonna crap. Yes.

Give it a second. Hold on.

Ryan, the master of SharePoint.

Hi. Is

there a flicker for this one, Catherine?

Or You can just check this and advance it with the button there. Okay.

And then this one just you just click it to advance.

Right?

Yes. Oh, yeah. There's one. Well, good evening, everybody. Welcome. It's really nice to see everybody again. Elliot and Robert, hello out there as well. Back this evening, as you know, for, the public hearing, portion of our coliving housing, legislation that needs to be implemented into our code. So we were last here November 12, I believe. So just about a month.

So, hopefully, it's still somewhat fresh in your brain. I know you take in all kinds of stuff with all of the meetings, but, hopefully, some of this will, you know, be recalled fairly quickly. So tonight, what you're really gonna see is you're gonna see really, I'm reusing a lot of the slides from the first time that we debriefed on this so that we can just kinda do kind of a quick review of some of those items. And then we're also going to take a look at some of the language that changed due to your input, which we're very grateful to have. So we're gonna discuss that as well.

One other thing I just wanna bring to your attention quickly is that just before the meeting, I made made a change in my slides. So it's not you know, I don't love the flow of it. I'll point it out. All it was was to bring you a couple of floor plan examples that I I hope that we'll enjoy working at together. I do wanna kinda say I apologize because, really, I should have probably had some of these the first time that we met. Somebody just passed these on to me very recently, and I just thought, let's use these. So do apologize about that. We'll just see how things go after we take a look at those. So co living housing. Alright.

So just as a kinda high level reminder, if we were to look at the RCW definition for this, so that's the thirty six seventy a five thirty five, we're gonna see something like coliving housing is defined as residential development made up of independently rented lockable sleeping units. So the sleeping units is is what we'll talk about a lot. You'll hear a lot with shared kitchen facilities. Now we talked last time, well, what about bathrooms? Well, it's interesting, but the RCW remains silent on bathrooms.

In the findings, though, that kind of accompany that RCW, there is some, you you know, some more references to bathrooms and so forth, but it's not in the language itself of the RCW. So they may or may not contain bathrooms in units, and we would might assume that the coliving would have shared bathrooms as well. So, again, I think we talked last time as well that it's not really a new concept. So maybe just the state's way of sort of rebranding or repackaging or whatever term you wanna use for a concept that's been going on for decades in The United States. Right?

Lots of other names resemble this style of housing option, I guess you would say. So maybe even I I'm not sure about dormitory living, but, congregate living, boarding houses. There's also some research suggesting that these types of developments could even work for, you know, folks that, need some sort of wraparound services, that type of thing. So and then, again, sort of the large theory. And, you know, I know that there are different perspectives on this. But if

we do it here.

If we look I'm still talking.

I love

Imagine that. I'm still going on the same one. I know my notes are so long on this, but thank you. I I do always forget. So I appreciate you, Jeff. That's it. I appreciate you. But, anyway, so if look we to state state guidance and rhetoric, what they're suggesting is smaller and more affordable by design. Right? Is that really true in the market? Possibly. Can we say for sure? Probably not. Right? So I think it it's very dependent on what the market's doing in the area.

So let's go ahead, and now I'm going to advance. So here's where I inserted a couple examples. And so this might be helpful. So if you may have had an image in your mind of kind of a just a, like, a long creepy corridor that, you know, you've gotta travel with your little case to get down and brush your teeth and take a shower? Possibly.

But here's an example. And these were, again, these were passed on by somebody here who has some experience and some really positive feedback living actually in this facility here. Now this is Seattle based, so different market. But what you see here, this is a four unit excuse me. 1234.

This is the five sleeping unit example. And so you can see here that this one has actually provided three full bathrooms as well as a kitchen. And then you've got a bit of a shared living space there as well. So it could be that a project could be set up something like this. And then in that case, maybe something outside.

If this were, like, a pod inside of a larger coliving development, there may be other shared bathrooms, etcetera. But this in itself could fully function as a coliving model if it were a stand alone model as well. So let's take a look at then just one more. This one here just shows four bedrooms. A little bit different.

You can see initially, I thought this was more of a kitchenette compared to the first one that we saw that was seemed like a bigger kitchen with, you know, more preparation space, food prep, and all of that. But this here would also be a full kitchen from what I can see as well. So you've got a stove, four burner stove, and a fridge and so forth. So just wanted to, again, just give you some examples of how these could possibly look. So let's move on.

I just wanted to go ahead and do a quick review of kind of the the highlights of the statutory requirements. So, again, coliving housing can only be in zones that that allow greater than or equal to six multifamily units. So that's that's the important piece of this is is the multifamily. And then sleeping units within the co living development, those when we are talking about density counts, each unit counts only as a quarter of a dwelling unit. So, you know, therefore, four four sleeping units would be equal to one dwelling unit.

There is some language in there about sewer connections. We talked about this last time. I won't go into lots of detail. This is not going to be or isn't currently in the draft we have provided you. This component of the legislation will be handled through the public works development guidelines. So I Ryan, I'm not sure. Maybe you know dates on that, but I know it's coming. After the first of

the year.

After the first of the year. So so this component, we have collaborated. This component won't be lost. It will just be found elsewhere. And then a city may not require any development or design review standards that are more restrictive than those for multifamily. So there, again, is where we see that multifamily comparison. Residential uses in the same zone. And then just a couple more here. So we cannot require coliving cannot require other uses or the excuse me. The city can't require other uses in a coliving building.

I didn't put this here in the slides. Last time, though, we did preface this by saying our interpretation of this is that while we can't require uses in the building, it doesn't appear in the legislation that we are prohibited from requiring other uses on a site. Right? So that may be kind of a case by case case by case basis on that. And then off street parking requirement there, we can only require up to point two five, one quarter parking space for four units.

And then we cannot exclude coliving from participating in any kind of affordable housing incentive program. And then lastly, just to touch upon, the implementation date is technically the end of this month, 12/31/2025. We will have a short period of time where should a co living project be proposed at the city, our planning staff would be directed toward the RCW on this particular item until we have adopted our own local local code and standards for that. Alright. Alright.

So the draft code, what you're gonna see here, some of these things look the same as the first draft that we showed you and then with the exception of one thing different. So, again, we talked about allowing up to 250 square feet per sleeping unit. We we discussed that a bit, and there was, you know, different perspectives. Some saying that's a pretty handsome allowance, and, you know, others maybe maybe would be fine with going a little bit even higher than that. So about two fifty is where we've landed on that.

This one is the one that's gonna look different or looks different in your draft tonight. So shared facilities for kitchens and bathrooms, but then optional private sink and toilet in the sleeping units. Now what we heard from you, and we're gonna I'm gonna get there in a in another slide as well. But what we heard from you was, you know, let's let's require these. And so when we had went back and deliberated our staff a little bit more, we've made some slight changes there, and that's why you're seeing optional.

So we'll touch upon that again here in a moment. And then the how we're handling the kitchen ratios would be and now this would be the the shared kitchen. So imagine one of those examples was a six unit that coliving would be, right, for a minimum. What would that what would what would trigger an additional kitchen? And so how we wanted to handle that was one kitchen for every six sleeping units.

And then going on from there using kind of a rounding approach for fractional kitchens. So, for example, seven and eight units, we wouldn't require another kitchen. But nine, ten, eleven, twelve, etcetera, that would get you into having a a second kitchen and so on with that. And then we also provided some new definitions for coliving. So coliving housing, sleeping unit, standard kitchen applicable for coliving, and then shared facilities as well.

So you may have seen those in your packet as well. And then coming back to our last discussion. So when we came to you, we had two primary sort of questions that we really wanted your input on. And, again, we had great discussions. And so the first one was, you know, should co living units be allowed to include and this was really a discussion around those private versus shared facility facilities, particularly with the bathrooms.

And so, again, that conversation was really relevant. It really helped us make some changes in our draft. And so we changed it initially to requiring a sink and a toilet in each sleeping unit. And then more recently, of came back to it and said, you know, if this were optional, it does provide that flexibility for a developer, particularly if a developer is trying to reach a certain price point because those things, of course, can drive up the cost. So we're hoping that that makes sense to make that an optional.

And then we talked a lot around bicycle storage for this type of living. And you may or may not remember, but because this falls under the multifamily guidelines, we kind of had a discussion about, well, here's what's required for multifamily given that these sleeping units only count as a quarter of a dwelling unit. It's like we would never get to a place where where we'd really have sufficient, you know, bicycle parking if it's following those multifamily standards. So we do feel a need, and I think we all agreed that this is something that we probably like to, you know, see regulated in terms of the amount. The caveat to that was this is one of those items where we've got a lot of parking updates coming down the pipe here pretty soon, next year probably.

And so I think we agreed as a group that it was okay to set those aside and have those addressed with our parking updates. It it kind of made the most sense. We remain compliant by doing that because bicycle parking is not part of the legislation. So that's the second item that will be addressed but to be determined is coming. And then let's go on here.

So language that you're seeing in the draft provided in your packets for this evening looks like this here. I won't read this word for word because we've been covering it. But what you can see in the language there is we turn that shall to a may. So there, again, giving that flexibility an option for a developer as to whether or not they wanna provide that sink and toilet in the sleeping rooms. And then the showers or other, you know, baths or whatever would be provided in some kind of a shared shared facility.

Another thing, though, that we talked about here was, you know, concerns around safety and privacy. And so we did add some language here that down at the bottom, so sixteen fifty six zero two zero d four, showers shower and bathing facilities shall be provided as shared common facilities. Shared shower facilities shall consist of individual fully enclosed lockable rooms or stalls. So we did add some of that language in there as well. Okay.

And then one thing that we did not bring to you as a question but that came out of our discussion, which was which was great, was the need or suggestion for some kind of storage cabinets in the kitchen. And so the conversation took us in a direction that it made sense that each sleeping unit should have its own secured storage some kind of storage cabinet for the kitchen. And so the language indicates that that would either be located in the kitchen or adjacent to and would be a secure place for, you know, folks to have their dry goods and or other kitchen items and so forth. So that's a change in the language as well. And we appreciate that, by the way.

So thank you for thinking of that. And then just quickly touching upon just the process in general, just to let you know, we have followed all of the guidelines with our public notices. And, again, I won't read you the dates. To this point, we have not received any comments on this. It is still under plan review with commerce for sixty days, and there's still around around less than thirty days on that.

I've heard from commerce once with one little question. We got that cleared up. So it's looking looking good on the commerce end of things as well. And so this evening, really, planning staff is coming to the commission with an action request, and a couple of options came to mind. Option one would be to provide a recommendation so that we could then move this on to city council.

And then option two would be maybe you've got something else you'd like us to go deliberate on, in which case, we could we could do that and come back, another time. So those are some options we came up with. And next steps, depending on your decisions this evening, Tonight, the tenth, of course, is our public hearing. And then next steps would be we could possibly take this to city council February 10. And then we'd be looking to adopt an ordinance, I would say, probably most likely more toward the March.

So possibly late February depending on, you know, how quickly we can move. So that's all I have for you this evening. Really appreciate the time and

the review. Stop sharing. Yep.

K. And then anybody we do have people from the public. Right? But they didn't sign up for okay. Alright.

So with that, thank you, Jennifer. I am gonna close the public hearing, reopen our regular meeting, and this is where we, as planning commission, get to make comments on the recommendations. The goal here at the end of our discussion is to, for the initial, make a formal recommendation to city council on the amendments, and for adoption or nonadoption. I will point out the statute states that this has gotta be done by December 31. We're obviously not gonna make that.

The state historically has shown a little bit of tolerance when, you know, schedules and city processes just prevent us from actually meeting those deadlines. Right now, we're looking at a Feb or late February, early March adoption. The state will probably tolerate that. If we try to push this too much beyond that, the state's gonna come in, and they're they're gonna be grumpy. So, with that, I'm gonna open it up for discussion to the commission, and I'm gonna start let's start with Elliot because you said you had one.

Well, I assume I'm rolled out of the planning commission because of my opinion on this that I felt like it was a bad idea. But, seems to me that I don't understand why we can't have a hotel kind of approach to this factor where we can lock people out if we need to lock them out. So how would you control the the six units? And you you can't control how many people are in each unit by state law. So so in other words, what's the key people for putting 12 people in one one of those rooms?

What what kind of controls do we have over the six units? Are the doors by IT lockout, or there's no requirement here. And the pictures that she showed were were awesome. I liked them, but the the statutes don't say that that's what it would look like. Because it says May or Shell, and we changed it from Shell to May.

You know, the of course, the developer is going to go with the cheapest possible way. He really doesn't care about the outcome of how people interact, in this kind of environment. You know, I've been in co living situations many times in my life. And, you know, even amongst friends, you you have conflicts. So you need some sort of way to regulate the interaction between those six units, but I don't see any sort of buffer in there to be able to accommodate this.

You're basically sticking people, six people, not six people, but six families potentially, all within a fairly close density room, you know, 250 times six. So with without those kind of guidelines or, securities for young children, for the elderly, for keeping criminal element out that I really think this is a bad idea. So I'm just saying that we really should be having some sort of controls in there to be able to block people out of a room or have some sort of, like, hotel accommodation, which is awesome, you know, that I'm I'm for a 100 you know, I've been homeless in my in my life. I would have loved to end up. But according to the state statutes, we're setting this up for failure.

So I've had my say now that I'm ruled out. So it doesn't mean that we're on this.

Thank you, Elliot. Spencer.

In response to that a little bit, also, I lived in multiple dorm style setups as well as apartments in college for six years that looked almost identical to what the samples you showed on there. I found them to be incredibly functional and useful and wonderful spaces to cohabit. Of course, there is conflict anywhere you go. And so when I was listening to Elliot, what came to mind is that what you're describing sounds more like a law enforcement issue than a a code enforcement issue or something that needs to be codified at a city level, and it should be handled with if there is malfeasance or inappropriate behavior going on, to me, that's that's a 911 situation. Right?

Somebody is in your in your unit. Somebody is being aggressive. That is when you seek assistance from law enforcement. And I know that may not prevent the incident, but it will allow the system to take its course and deliver an outcome according to the rules that we've established. So I I think from a municipal standpoint, what I've read looks really good, and I'm appreciative of the fact that you've given options because plumbing stacks are expensive.

They are also difficult to engineer, and it comes with many other knock on effects that we may not be thinking about or that may significantly limit what we can and can't do with a property. So I think that the changes I've seen tonight are quite good, and I'm pleased with them. And to to your specific request so a broader question is, is there a management component in these properties built into this? And I know it's not in our code here, but what is there any context you could give me around that? Is there gonna be any sort of, like, specific unit ratio to a manager? So, you know, what what what I'll say to

that is that the same standards apply to coliving that would apply to a standard apartment unit. So Yeah. So and and, you know, so there are there are difficulties in the city regulating the number of people per room or regulating what a family is. That we'll just start with that. Then that's a very kind of gray area, not something that we necessarily wanna get into.

What what people what residents are, you know, covered under is once they sign a lease, they're under that. The states you know, the state has a number of rules and regulations and laws under the the state's landlord tenant act that have protections for both the landlord and the the tenant as well, when occupying those things, which means that, you know, individual complexes can set forth their own rules and standards of conduct and, you know, those kinds of things that, like, if you're being noisy, then you can be evicted. Right? Or if you're being if you're damaging property, yes, you can be evicted. And so those standard things that all apply to everybody living in a, you know, quote, unquote, standard apartment also would apply to this kind of cohousing living arrangement as well. So,

Elliot, I do see your hand, but I'm gonna give everybody else a chance to speak first. Robert?

Yeah. I just wanted to echo that I appreciate the flexibility with, like, the desires versus, like, what I think was our number one concern, which was just safety and security. And I think I feel heard from from our last meeting. I think it's always a a hard balance to find, over management versus, like, right free will. Like, we wanna set up ground rules and expectations, but at the end of the day, like, you're right, to talk about, like, there's just management aspects in place where we are not in a space where we can govern the individual amount of people that are in a bedroom.

Right? Like, we can set up good good guidance, and, hopefully, with the guidance that we put in with some of the regulations that are kind of nonnegotiable as far as security features, it creates a minimum viable product, and then, hopefully, investors will respond accordingly to the market and what they want. And if it is, you know, we they build one without private bathrooms and it flops, like, that hopefully would indicate that they need to invest in in more, I guess, exciting or better opportunity for for individuals seeking those those kind of accommodations.

Thank you. And then Judy?

Yes. I appreciate that things were built in as far as, secure food storage, right, for protecting that that aspect. I think that's terrific. Taking it to another health and wellness consideration with these close quarters, is there an allowance or provision to protect these disparate groups of people that are living in close quarters to have, like, no smoking and no, smoking marijuana, you know, that would kinda fill that whole space for everybody even though you had your own unit. Is there a provision to protect you're protecting the food from being tampered or stolen from one another. Is there protection for, like, not smoking and not having people subjected to?

I would guess so that falls in us. That's gonna fall into the multifamily housing rules, and it's gonna be up to each property developer, manager, owner. To set those rules. Yep.

I would assume. Is it okay for me to interject

Yeah. As well?

I I was just gonna say I would assume those things would be found maybe in a lease agreement Mhmm. Is where I would anticipate those to live. Mhmm. But not so much coming back to Spencer's Point, not so much under the purview of local code, city code.

Yep. And and I just you guys have been doing the Google searches tonight to figure some of this stuff out. This is one I didn't know the answer to, so I had to look up, is that Washington state law does not mandate smoke free apartments. That's something that is a landlord, regulated issue. It does say, however, though, that for, common areas so if you think back to, like, that, you know, that site plan or the floor plan that Jennifer provided, those the bathrooms, the kitchens, the the the living areas, those are required to be smoke free. And then within twenty five feet of the exterior of every every building. But the individual, like, room, it it's, you know, it's not an illegal activity, and so it's not regulated.

It would be so unfortunate. We're we're we're being mindful enough to protect their dry goods from tampering or theft. But subjecting someone not protecting, breathing in, and you're not gonna keep marijuana smoke as bad as it smells now in any

But I don't think a potential tenant walking into a situation, they're not forced to live.

Okay.

If if that activity is allowed, they're they can choose to go to the next property. Yeah. Sherri?

Yeah. I appreciate the fact that that was, an added option for, creating coliving housing. But I was curious about two things. In the image, it's completely different from the Victorian flat I lived in with six bedrooms and one bathroom. So seeing the options where there are three restrooms, and it was interesting to see that one of the bedrooms had, like, a a full bathroom in it.

And I didn't even know if adding a three quarter restroom option might be something that would be a consideration. And I was also curious when I was looking through the updated definitions, I didn't see the 16 o 6.235, the co living housing. It said explicitly in there each sleeping unit includes a private toilet and sink, and I just wanted to see if that part had also been updated with the option.

Wait. I can check on that, right now.

Was that, it was provided in your packet.

Yeah. It's on page 14 of 46 in the packet of the draft.

Let's see.

Yeah. A good that's a good catch. I think that last sentence, it says each sleeping unit includes a private toilet and sink while other household functions are provided in shared facilities. I think

So that needs to be an update.

You know, we would recommend hope and then the planning commission's recommendation in your motion, you could probably state each sleeping unit may include a private toilet and sink. I think that's the important distinction, and that would make it consistent with the rest of the the section. Good

catch. Elliot.

Again,

we're we're not talking college kids with all the same goals. We're not talking we're talking full on families with extremely varied backgrounds and no limit on how many people are in each room. Mhmm. You know, with young kids screaming, there there's no and that there is no moving to another unit, you know, to to throw the dice with your average family. Know this this sounds politically incorrect, but it's the the truth.

You know? I don't understand why we're taking this huge step to communal living over just a bathroom because, you know, there are ways to make bathrooms and hotels do it all the time. You know? And even taking over hotels is a good plan, you know, which we've done over at Hux Prairie. You know?

And each one of those rooms has their own bathroom. Each one is lockable, fully lockable with a key. Each person has their own space, so it makes it much easier to control the input and the output. You know, if someone wants to get a feel for what that kind of environment, it's like just go to the host those hotels, you know, that are now for the homeless. But, you know, now you're you're putting that whole system on steroids by slapping people together in six rooms, which may or may not have that design.

You know, the design that they showed is pretty great. You know? You got one unit with its full controlled bathroom, you know, its own bathroom. You got basically a bathroom on each end of the room to be shared with four other rooms. Great.

But, again, you know, you you're not really controlling how many people are in that room. And, you know, if one person's in there smoking, sets the whole place on fire, now you've got massive casualties from just even one family completely gone. You know? So it's a safety issue on several different levels. And as far as leases, I I gather nobody else has rented homes because I have, and I've had a very hard time getting deadbeat renters out.

And that's why we got out of the rental in the first place is because Washington state is extremely hard to get people out that don't wanna pay their rent. You know, I assume that most of these units, they won't be paying their rent. You know? So because the state is paying it. The I'm I'm just saying that without the security motions in place and, you know, even the communal lockers I mean, I I know how to prick a lock easily.

I mean, I can I can get in your average Joe lock cabinet lock in about thirty seconds? Well, five seconds if I'm used to it. You know, it's it's not something that is a particularly good talent that takes, you know, a long time to learn. It's very easy to learn. So with without each one of these units having their own little kitchenette and their own little bathroom and their ability to lock people up by IT.

I'm just saying and, again, I I realize I'm rolled out because of this opinion. This is really we shouldn't be making this huge jump from, you know, multi multi units to communal, and it's a social experiment that's doomed to fail. And I would rather see low cost housing be a a success and not a failure. That's all I'm saying.

Thank you, Elliot. So here's my take on this. So first of all, it's not I don't think this is a social experiment. Humans have been cohabitating, colliving with each other for tens of thousands of years. For whatever reason, the legislature decided to step in and try to well, they're requiring cities and municipalities to codify this.

And so, Elliot, to your point, we don't have a choice. And in any multifamily, multi living environment, every so often, you are gonna get a bad act. It's just not possible to regulate everything to the point where everything is secure and safe. They we've had we have apartment complexes in this county that are similar to this, where there is a living unit, may or may not have a private bath, and then there are communal areas where everybody mingles. And right now, those are not regulated to where every unit gets its own lockable cabinet in the communal kitchen.

It's kind of an honor system, right, where where this this cabinet belongs to me and this cabinet belongs to Joe and this cabinet belongs to Jill. And we're just kind of on an honor system that none of us are gonna get into each other's stuff. We all know how that works. We're all human. Right? So I think what we're trying to do here is our best effort to answer what the state is requiring us to do.

I understand. But why make it easy?

Well, I don't think there's a perfect answer here because I think everybody has their own idea of what coliving is. Right? And and for the most part, people have been coliving without individual lockable units. Right? It's just a bedroom off of a hallway.

And so this is an attempt to try and make that situation a little bit more secure. My opinion, those situations where you've got three different families living in a single family house outside of these regulations is still gonna happen. That's just the way humans behave. But here's is is our attempt to answer what the state is requiring us to do, and I think what we've put together is pretty good. So what I would ask is is, first, if anybody has any suggested amendments to what is being put forth.

And then at the end of that, we actually need a motion for a recommendation to counsel. Period.

The only amendment would be to the 16 o 6.235, to change the each sleeping unit includes to each sleeping unit may include

include. Okay. We

need a motion over there, or is

that No. I would I would say whoever's gonna make the motion make the motion with Curian's amendment.

K. I

move that we pass as written with Curian's amendment.

Is there a second?

I'll second.

Judy. Okay. Thank you. Further discussion?

Make centerpiece.

Alright. All those in favor?

Move aye.

Post? K. Motion passes. Thank you all very, very much. Elliot, I do thank you for your well thought out comments. And, unfortunately, we're required to do this by the state. I think it's a step in the right direction. I don't think this is a perfect answer.

Well, why didn't if you don't think it's a perfect answer? Just follow the state guidelines, but don't go beyond the state guidelines. You know? That's a hotel room is very efficient construction wise. You know, you go back to back on bathrooms. That's the reason. Every other room has a reverse. You know, the bathrooms are back to back. That's how you save money. And there's a reason they have lockable rooms so you can lock out the bad elements.

Yeah. I think these also are required to be lockable units. Right. Another thing, Elliot, I it, you know, maybe isn't is irrelevant at this point, but you did comment that the state was paying for these. I did wanna just actually throw out to you and and the RCW, the findings, with the RCW do, explicitly state that co living is not supported by any type of housing subsidy.

So I don't know if that helps. And then additionally, I was just going to add, you've put it very well, Jeff. And for me, it's helpful just to think of this as just another option. Right? And I think that's really the higher objective here is that on the housing landscape, that's really what what we're seeing, whether it's middle housing, ADUs. All of these are options. So that's kind of the name of the game here. Right? And, certainly, most of us enjoy walking into a store and having a variety. Right?

And if this aisle doesn't meet our needs, maybe it's in the next aisle. So, you know, just to kinda simplify things a bit. If we if we look at it that way, certainly, we don't ever have to take a certain option if there's a different one that we like.

And there's certain certainly nothing to stop a developer from developing a project that is in with the style of a hotel.

Correct.

Well, I agree. But unless you codify it, which is exactly what we're talking about, and I think it's misleading to show the diagram that we did in this presentation because that's not what a developer is going to propose, like, especially according to what we're writing here.

And I think Jennifer said that was a real drawing from a place in King County in Seattle. Yeah.

Which was codified to have that. Right. But according to the codes that we're writing now for what they can do is this communal bathroom, a communal kitchen. Now that can mean a lot of things. You go down the hall and you use the communal bathroom. There's nothing in here that says it must be within six units. Is that correct?

That's correct. And and I'll point out one of the drawings that Jennifer showed was six units with three bathrooms. So there's gotta be some sharing.

Well, that's what I'm saying. It's misleading because the codes don't say six units, three bathroom. It doesn't say anything about how many bathrooms per unit. I I think that we should at least put in there how many bathrooms per unit, at least, at a minimum. That would at least keep your communal, wouldn't it?

So we've already taken the vote. The paid on this one is over. I understand. I'm gonna move on to the

next Stay quiet. Thank you.

Alright.

Ryan, thank you, Jennifer, very, very much for being here, presenting.

Thank you very much. Everybody.

Okay. The draft docket review for 2026. Ryan?

Alright. So the other agenda item tonight is to begin to go through our docket of plan and code amendments over the next year. And so I hope you all had a chance to look at it. I also pulled it up on the screen. Vicious.

Uh-huh. Well, this is this is a laundry list of everything. And so, you know, the the purpose of tonight is that we're gonna be preparing for, the joint meeting with the city council, which is scheduled for, I believe, February 10. And in that, we will put forward what is the the kind of our departments and also the planning commission's work program for the next year, those things that we believe we can accomplish in that time. And so, you'll see and then it's broken out into various categories, and so we'll just start at the first one, which is do have a question?

Yeah. I ask a clarifying question? There's quite a few of these that have no estimate of of time Yeah. Intentional because we haven't got that far along.

Exactly. So we wanna include the planning commission in this as early as possible. So the staff has kind of, you know, developed this and said, hey. These are some of the things that we think, you know, are on the to do list, but some of them need to be prioritized and or the amount of resources that we need needs to be analyzed to kind of figure that out. What we've started with is the first table are those that are state mandated.

So we just got done check with number one, which was co living housing. It will bleed into 2026, especially with the council, and so we do need to have it on here. And so, you know, you'll what you'll notice is these that are either required or high priority have been better flushed out than others because these are the ones that we anticipate to do. There will be others that aren't prioritized and or don't have the staff time associated with them. The idea for the planning commission is to talk about those and help us figure out whether or not they should be elevated to, like, a higher priority or not so that then we can go back, figure out how many hours need to be associated with that, and whether or not we can add it to the work plan or not.

So with that, asking you to kinda review what we've got in terms of our list, but then also potentially even adding to that if there's anything that we might have overlooked or or missed along the way. So we'll we'll start first with those state mandated requirements. So you'll see in that kind of a description oops. Scroll too fast. So a description of the request.

In this case, where we have a state mandated code amendment, we've also got the bill, reference to that requires, that that we do it. We've got couple other columns there, carryover from the previous year and recommended for work plan. Those, especially in this mandated item, will be checked of recommended for work plan. The staff time and who's associated with that, so that say, in the last column, and then the priority column at the end is is high, especially for these ones that are mandated. So, coliving, we won't talk about that one.

The next one on the list is childcare centers. And so there was a bill passed within the not too distant past, where child care centers and conversion of existing building in buildings into child care centers are an outright permitted use in all zones throughout the city except industrial, light industrial, and open space zones. So this includes residential areas as well. So we'll need to go through and update our code to make sure that we allow child care centers, which are different than child care, like, home day cares, that they are allowed in, all zones. So that's number two.

Number three are parking updates. The state has passed a variety of different parking code updates that I think you remember in Jennifer's presentation, she talked specifically about bicycle parking and said, you know, how we could wrap that into a future update related to parking overall. This is included here. There's especially when you get into there's parking requirements for multifamily housing, I think. There will be parking updates for ADUs and middle housing and those kinds of things that'll all be wrapped into this parking update, requirement.

And so, basically, the state is saying, that, you know, they're they're inserting themselves into the parking discussion and basically saying that there's really you know, especially for minimum parking, there's they're they're mandating that that we can only do certain things. So we need to do those code updates. Number four, accessory dwelling unit updates. So these would allow up to two accessory dwelling units per lot, allowing them to be sold independently, using a condominium, form of ownership or other land division, including a unit subdivision. This will be something I think we've already started talking about this with you, especially related to middle housing.

So they should be somewhat familiar. Our hope is to be done with this one by, early to mid twenty twenty six. So very similar related to number five, which is middle housing. So this is allowing up between two and up to four units of middle housing on each lot. So we just had a middle housing briefing, at the last meeting, and then also we'll, start looking at middle housing code starting in January.

Number six is permanent supportive housing, transitional, and emergency housing. So we need to update our code to allow these types of uses in all zones where hotels are permitted. This is currently state law. We, we already allow this. So, for example, Maple Court is a perfect example of where, like, emergency shelter is allowed, where hotels are permitted.

In fact, it's a hotel that was converted. We just need to make this clear within our code. Number seven is a limitation by the state legislature around how much the city can regulate homeless encampments on, religious properties. So, they they've required that there's you know, basically, the, you know, the mission of an individual church, they're allowed more latitude host an encampment on, religious properties. I'll I'll say our current, homeless encampment regulations are quite old at this point, need to be updated to make sure that we're meeting that requirement.

And then number eight is something that is a bit of an unknown for us at this point. It is a few bills that are were related to conversion of existing buildings, like taking commercial buildings and converting them to residential uses that basically says that there are some, things that we can or can't require from a code perspective, when those are, reconstructed as a residential use. So this is something we need to scope out. This is something that probably would not be necessarily handled by our planning staffs, probably actually our building staff. And this may actually not even be something that comes to the planning commission because this would update our kinda local building code to recognize this.

We're also in discussions because this is something that would apply to all the jurisdictions statewide. So we're also having discussions at a state level with the state building code council as far as maybe these are, codes that we enact at the state level, not individual jurisdiction level. Any questions? So, again, those were all mandated items. Not much we can do as far as our we don't have a lot of discretion in those, but any questions on those before we move forward?

Robert has a question.

Robert.

You know, I'm still relatively new, to the planning commission. Is this an exponential uptick, or is this kind of steady for the course for the last decade or two? Like, just kind of understanding, like, how responsive you all are having to be and how much time and resources are being utilized. I know that our role as, planning commissioners aren't necessarily to, like, push back on this because it's, again, not our scope right now. But just just for con context, is this kind of on par, above average, below average, an increase study, you know, just to kinda help me contextualize if this is normal?

This is a lot. It it's, very aggressive, work plan, and I think what is changing things is that we are losing a little bit of our local control over how much we can have influence in local codes and regulations. So for example, if this was a previous work plan, like, the state is inserting themselves in all these different things, whether it's accessory dwelling units or parking or middle housing or homeless encampments, they are saying the city must do the following. Those things were relatively few and far between as recently as a a few years ago. And so all these things that are showing up in this work plan as being required, maybe we had one or two that we deal with in a given year, and now we've got, I think what was it?

Eight. Yeah. And so, you know, the number of state mandates is increasing voluminously at this point, and we expect more to come. And so that is going to limit our ability when we look at these other work plan items to have those things that are really important for Lacey, whether that be the council or the planning commission or the residents or the staff, to to add much more to this because we have such limited resources to be able to do the other work that we need to get done that are the priority of the community.

Yeah. And I I would agree with that. The legislature, honestly, they've just been hammered the last five years over housing availability and affordable housing. And the legislature just grew frustrated with the pace that local governments were dealing with it. And so they decided to take matters into their own hands. So here we are.

One one more question, and then I'll I'll stop, pestering you. What just for educational purposes, what mechanisms do does the city have to, like, voice concerns? I mean, I I know that, again, this is not our scope, but just from an educational standpoint, if someone's watching this video, thank you three viewers that watch this as you fall asleep. You know, like, what is that, like, the association of cities that give that feedback? Or, like, what is the feedback mechanism for us if there is any?

Just, you know, so people understand the the the feedback cycle? Because I think a lot of times, not to pick on Elliot, but I think Elliot always brings up good points. But the problem is is, like, we're not the group that actually does that. So, like, what is the feedback mechanism that could facilitate a discussion or that level of things? That

makes sense. It's it's paying attention to the bills going through the legislature and showing up for the committee hearings because they do listen.

I I'll say that, you know, there there's two ways specifically that we, as city staff, have influence into that process. And and one, as you mentioned, Robert, was is through our lobbying groups. We do have a state lobbyist that is contracted with the city. And then we also, obviously, have a lot of lobbying power through AWC who does a great job of being our advocate at the legislature. And then the other is we make comments directly to the legislature when the the time comes, when they're looking for that feedback.

I I think especially on the housing related items right now, I think those things are starting to are falling on deaf deaf ears at the state level. And I think it's unfortunate because I think, my impression is is that some of the the people at the state level, the state legislators are feel that the cities are part of the problem and standing in the way of improving our, you know, housing supply and those kinds of things through our onerous regulations and our, you know, our our the fees that we charge and those kinds of things. I think, generally, we are, thought of as one of the the groups that's kinda standing in the way from all these things that the state wants to do. And and I feel like too, I think we're relatively easy to to pick on because, you know, you're not gonna go to a contractor and tell them that they're expect too expensive because their materials and labor costs are too high. You would never do that.

Right? But the city is easy to pick on because you could say, hey. Your fees are too high. You know? And so there's there the whole system of housing is not just the city doesn't build housing. You know, it's it's bigger than the city, but the the focus of the legislature continues to be on local jurisdictions when it comes to this issue.

Thank you. Sorry. Just trying to be informed.

No. That's all good. Yeah.

Anybody else on this one? I had

a quick question. So where did

you come up

with the staff time assessments? How much time you expected?

Discussions, experience. I'm just curious if you had

a rubric or something because that's all. Just curiosity.

Yeah. Unfortunately, it's it's a best guess, educated educated guess, high level, kind of broken down into forty hour increments. Mhmm. So Makes sense. Yeah. No no magic formula, unfortunately. And and and with any good planning process, sometimes, projects take longer. Sometimes they don't take as long as you thought they would. And so, you know, it's highly variable. So moving on to the the second of, I think, our four tables.

This one is optional code amendment. So these are, things that would modify our municipal code. The next item I'll talk about are, like, plan updates. This is not that. This is stuff that will actually modify our our city code.

Some of these things have been on our to do list for some time, especially those things that are are marked as high priorities. The first one on the list is a home energy score model ordinance. So, this is a model ordinance developed by the Thurston Climate Mitigation Collaborative. There's the other c. In 2025, this was a, basically, a ordinance that requires the seller of a home to pay for and have a contractor complete a audit when they sell their house, that's included in the disclosure forms for, for sale.

So it would actually be something in addition to, like, doing a home inspection. You would also have a, energy audit done as a part of this. You'll notice that this is only forty hours. This is a relatively low amount of time because at this point, we just at this point, plan to ask the question to counsel whether this is something they would like to move forward with or not, not knowing the answer to that question. And once we do, then we may need to, assos assign more staff time to it.

It is something that has been somewhat, I won't say controversial, but something that isn't doesn't have a 100% alignment because it is something that is putting more of a burden on somebody that wants to sell a house and could potentially have costs associated with that. And that maybe is can be a you know, not as politically tolerable.

Are you intending for us to go down the list and vote individually on each? Or

This is informational. Feel free if you think something should go from low to high. Let us know. Ten, eleven,

and 12, I think, are important because they speak directly to that site plan review committee, master plan review, and tree standards. These are all things that expedite the planning and development process. And so I think that fits into the state's vision of providing more housing through that. It also frees up staff time by removing ambiguity, by getting people on board, giving developers very clear standards. So I think it feels like a win across the board. I can't see why that wouldn't be a priority.

So I I wanna change things up just a little bit here Sure. Rather than going through each page. First thing I would do is ask if anybody has any issues with anything that's on this list. And then if there's any recommendation to Ryan and staff, you know, we obviously have to deal with the legislative mandates. Mhmm.

We have to do that. Beyond that, is there anything that people hear would so so there's a few items that have been tagged as high priority. Would anybody change any of those? And is there anything on the rest of the list that people would like to see be high priority? Correct. Okay? So I'm gonna start with Kieran, and then we'll just go around.

I was just thinking about, you know, with solar and all the advancements, the battery energy storage systems, seeing the wildfires and how those impacted houses that caught on fire that had these batteries, systems within them. I don't know if I mean, we don't tend to have a lot of fires locally, but if that is a concern based on

Especially at scale like that. That feels sorry to hijack you.

Yeah. With with yeah. And

So I I could provide a little bit more detail on these items. So you talked about number four, the rooftop solar. Is that correct?

And the bat I guess, the battery systems that would maybe possibly So they're with those.

They're okay. They're these are two different topics. So let me maybe just kind of let you know what these are. So first of all, the rooftop solar one number four is for, large rooftops to be built solar ready. So that would be, like, large warehouses. So you can think of of that, like, the the and it's not necessarily installing itself. It's being solar ready so that at some point, the the solar could be installed. And and that would be a code amendment that we would need to do. So that would be you know, think of of large buildings out in Hawkes Prairie that potentially could have, you know, the the solar installed. That would that's what would apply there.

The battery energy storage systems, number eight, is different. The that what that is is this is a product. This is basically a battery system, and it's they're enclosed in a large in a building of some sort where they are actually siphoning power off of the power grid, putting them into batteries, and that there's a product that's I think Tesla is is the big part of this market is that when in times of peak demand, they push that bad that stuff the energy that's stored in those batteries back out onto the grid and charging people for it, charging utilities for it. And so they are the the the reason to have regulations is that they are, large. They are fire hazards.

They are something that you do not want to have necessarily in, sensitive areas that have homes or or those kinds of things. And so right now, this is an emergence merging technology that we don't currently have any codes for. And so the the reason I have this here is, again, to make sure that we have them cited properly in, you know, a location in the city that would have the minimal, impact in in terms of, you know, fire and aesthetics and, know, you those kinds of things. So those are those what those two topics are related to.

And there is a facility that is going to be built in South Thurston County. So they are

Battery or a data center?

The battery.

And that's what precipitated this. This is so you'll notice the last sentence says Thurston County has developed a model ordinance to consider. We worked regionally. The whole county has worked together to develop kind of a one size fits all code that we could potentially take and move forward on our own with.

K. Judy? Yes.

There were three kind of things that jumped out at me here. I'll just try to be really quick. I think anything with trees in it should be higher priority. Mhmm. Because every time we were listening to people in the community, it was save our trees. We're the tree city. Protect our trees. Why are knocking down trees? That came back over and over, right, every time we had engagement with the community. So I think those should be moved up to be higher. I think that we heard a presentation either this year or last year about going now to the mobile home part.

Yeah.

We learned a lot from that intern that you had that did that survey under city supervision that people really need protection there. They are probably that one step away from being homeless and having a different terrible quality of life consequence and then a burden to resources and that, I think that should really be protected Mhmm. To to keep that priority.

Yep.

This I remember the presentation that Lindsay gave about now moving to the energy score story. Mhmm. I really think that should be pushed down because I think there is already tremendous burden on people that are selling their homes. It's not always under good circumstances that people have to sell their homes. And there's already so many fixed costs that you have to pay out when you're, selling in in the state, in the county, and all that.

I don't think we should add another burden or requirement to, lacy homeowners, when they're already losing a lot and maybe not moving by choice. So, if a new buyer wants to embrace all sorts of climate friendly things, congratulations. You're the new owner. You do the survey. You pay for all of that, but so that's mine.

I I I like that last comment, especially. But, yes, the trees because that's what we constantly hear about. But, yeah, you're right. I mean, you know, we just had to sell my mom's house, and, I mean, the fees that we ended up paying as sellers amounted to about 10%.

Mhmm.

If you're already selling because things have changed in your circumstance,

Right.

You don't need to then set up the new buyer with all sorts of climate friendly everything or reveal that your windows maybe aren't as, are something protective. Sorry, Elliot. I don't know the numbers. But, you know, I don't think you need to force a seller to expose those kind of vulnerabilities, and then you're losing more money in some other way. So

So, you know, getting back to that. So those all those topics are all identified as high priorities already.

So The tree things are?

The tree. So that is under number two. That is an urban forest management plan update, which will also include an evaluation of our tree, canopy coverage within the urban growth area. While not explicit in this document, there are a bunch of items within the code updates Thanks. That are related to trees, and I will point them out along the way as they come.

You don't see it. Right, Spencer?

Oh, I mean None of the events. Section table two's 12, the one I suggested tree standards.

It's under table six.

Table four.

Table four. Alright. We skipped the the different

I think we're talking about everything off the kind

of all over

the board. So Oh, alright. So table four

is urban forest management plan number two. So that's that's where that is covered. And then there are code updates under section two that are, that include a bunch of different tree related items. So class four forest practice, there is, getting to it here, Woodland District tree code requirements, tree standards under number 12. So that that would all be covered under that urban forest management plan update.

So we're we're I think we got it covered there. And then the, the manufactured home, community, protection's number three under table two. That's that's a high priority item there. So I I think all of those are already identified as high, and and we seared, you know, kind of eye to eye on that one for sure.

Spencer.

There's a lot to be said here. I I generally agree. I I think that we should focus on streamlining the permitting process, protection of the trees, and as well as moving towards a green future where we can. And I think I see most of that already pretty highly prioritized. So aside from the ten, eleven, 12 that I spoke about and Okay. Adding their feedback, I think we're I think I'm on board.

Great. Robert? Yeah.

I would agree that most things are in in align with with some of the the major pieces of work that we've been kind of working towards in this last year as well as the feedback that we've received from the community. I would agree with Judy, on on maybe the lowering of the priority of that green score, and I and I think it goes back to just balancing being environmentally conscious and affordability. And I think that we often have those things, kind of working against each other. Right? We are a we are an we are a state that values environmental stewardship, and we're also facing a housing crisis.

And so, like, I just think it's it's one of those things where, like, it is a good goal. I don't know mandating another fee on top of everything is is the right thing to do at this moment, if if there would be, like, a fee or some sort of report that would be associated with it. So I just I don't know if it's, a good thing at this very moment even though it's a good idea. Right? Like, the concept of being energy efficient is something that we all, most of the time, get behind.

It's just the matter of when we're talking about, you know, an increasing individuals facing homelessness, like, do we want one more barrier, for someone to get into their first home or to sell their first home? And and it just it makes me pause. I don't think the intention is bad. I just think the execution could cause some unintentional consequences.

Thank you. Elliot?

Kind of a mock point for me. Right?

I'm sorry. What?

It's a it's a mock point for me. I'm dismissed from the planning commission. Yeah. Right? Am I not?

Well, you are a part of the planning commission, so you certainly have a valid voice here.

I see. No. As proposed, and I agree with all the points made.

Thank you. So what I would propose you have what you need here?

I I do, wanna point out a couple other high priority items. Just Annexation. Yeah. Annexation. I heard I heard a whisper, and I was actually thinking

about talking about that one. So she threw up to three and replaced the digital print campaign.

So, before we get to annexation, there's a couple of there well, there's one other high priority that I wanna point out, which is so we we talked a little bit about table two. Table three is the rezones and comprehensive plan amendments. So And this is actually changing the zoning and the zoning codes associated with them. And we would have liked to have done more of this work with our comprehensive plan, but we just didn't ran out of time and resources. Right?

So the the highest priority for us at this point is the Martinway Corridor. Coming out of the recommendations of the Martinway Corridor study that was done regionally, there needs to be an update to our land use, especially the land use part of our code, which I think was last touched in about 1993 or 1994. And Martinway has changed a lot since then. And so that is overdue for a a update, and that is actually associated with some of the annexation stuff that I'll bring up here in a second. The other is item nine under the rezone request, which is, advancing the the docket request to the docket, the request that were not done as part of the last comprehensive plan update.

So I don't know if the planning commission remembers or not, but we did a kinda community wide blast that said, hey. If you're interested in doing a rezone, come talk to us, and we can consider putting it into our comp plan update. And about, I don't know, 12 or 15 of those made the cut. It's okay. Yeah.

The rest didn't. And so what we're gonna do is we're going to send out an email probably early January to those that didn't make the cut that said, hey. If you still wanna do a rezone, you can do those, but they need to be as part of a private applicant initiated rezone. So they actually need to pay the fees and lead that process. And so that's another thing I wanted to point out is in addition to, like, you know, the Martinway corridor, which will be probably a pretty big zoning code change, we may also have some rezone requests that would come in and be applicant led as well for next the year.

And then the final table is, the what we call the long range planning work pro work plan, which these things are not items that are easily fit into, the overall like, they're they're not a code amendment. They're not a comp plan amendment. These are other kind of programs that we have. And so the one I wanted to point out that is the high priority number six is annexation. And so what we're expecting is this probably this is gonna be a, most likely, a multiyear process, maybe a two year process to, annex a good portion of the urban growth area, through an interlocal agreement with Thurston County Okay.

Which would include probably the at least the the gap in the Martinway Corridor, between, like, Carpenter Road and Galaxy Drive and then some of the surrounding area there. The idea is is that we wanna take advantage of an a tax credit. It's a a sales tax credit that we get for annexing more than 10,000 residents. And so that's kind of the qualifying criteria is that it will be big enough, to have more than 10,000 residents. And so in in doing that, that's that's gotta be a pretty big area.

And, with annexing 10,000 people, you know, including commercial area, there also needs to be a lot of, fiscal analysis as a part of that, see what the impacts of the city and what the impacts of the county would be. Outreach because it's not only the residents, you know, property owners, and people that live there, but there's quite a number of businesses in that corridor that would be affected as well. And then finally, doing for every census, we have to do a door to door census. Or every annexation, we have to do a door to door census. And so literally means that we have to go knock on every single person's door in that area.

We don't. We're gonna hire somebody to do it. But it's a it's a lengthy and very involved process to do that. And so that that annexation one, even though it falls down to the last table under number six, is gonna be a pretty big lift for our department over the next couple years. So it sound like there may be some others that are maybe suggestions for moving around that work plan item, but those are the the ones that I just kinda, point out to you as far as the highlights, at least from my perspective perspective that I wanted to, let you up fill you on.

That Martin Way corridor should have been annexed fifteen years ago. Probably longer

than that.

I mean, I when I was on city council, every time I walked into one of those businesses, if the owner was there, when are we gonna be lazy? And it it's the only way to get lazy control or design elements, and there's still a lot of that that is ready for redevelopment.

Oh, you can tell when you cross the line.

Yes. You can tell. Yeah. And and if we ever want the residents of Hawks Prairie to feel a cohesiveness to the residents that are in the older portions of Lacey and vice versa, we've got to get that control. Mhmm. Yeah. Kyrian?

Yeah. There was just one other thing on section four that I was I would say it was a more high priority for me was the actual bottom one, the 15, the saved fruits to school. And especially, like, I was thinking about Silicon and and Nisqually Middle. When kids are walking there and it's 04:00 and it's dark outside and they're all in black and it's raining, I am scared to death for some of those little little kiddos walking on on the side of those streets. And in other places in the city without sidewalks, I think it really is a community safety issue that that we're prioritizing protecting our children as they're going to school.

Great. And I think somewhere in here as well, we also have an update to our city's pedestrian and bicycle plan as well, which is also an important part. That's broader than schools. And, obviously, that's you know, the school thing is much more targeted, but, we definitely wanna, you know, update our update our plans around those types of of issues. Our our pedestrian bicycle plan was adopted in, I think, 2018. So at this point, I mean, we had started that project maybe in, like, 2016. So it's almost ten years old and, you know, is needing an update. So

Well, the safe safe routes to school was part of the was it preserving places? Sustainable

thirst time. That was in 2013.

Yeah. Yeah. I was part

of that. Yep.

Okay. So what I'm hearing, if you've got some suggestions for things, We also know that legislature can change our priorities on a dime. Yep. So we're gonna be ready for that. But what I would like is to have for the commission an update on this, like, quarterly

Okay. From staff.

How are we doing? You know? Yeah. Do we need to move things around? Perfect.

Is that So, yeah, so what we'll do is this will so it'll actually kinda transition into two documents, and one will be the docket, which will keep kind of a run running parking lot of if you will, of of topics and items that, like, if we run out of stuff to do, we can also always bring stuff up. Oh my. And then that second document will it will kinda, like, work program, and those that'll be adopted by the council in February. And that'll be, you know, probably what we will review on a quarterly basis is that work plan. Where are we at?

Right? And and kinda update you on that overall work plan. And then, you know, if we need to, maybe that quarterly review can be like, well, do we need to move something up into this plan? Do we have all of a sudden additional capacity or, you know, something to adjust these things? Then that's when we can take a look at it. The the thing is is that because the the council is adopting the work plan, if they are going to if we are going to amend the work plan at all, we need to make sure that that goes back through the council. So, you know, planning commission couldn't just unilaterally, like, add something to it without the the council's okay.

Part of it part

of this exercise is to kind of lock in our work plan, especially for the next year so that council understands what we will be delivering to them and understanding that if we make any changes, they will need to go through a process to change that. It's not just like, oh, it'd be nice to work on this now, and and then, you know, we go over there and work on it. It's to be a little bit more rigid than we've been in the past because we have such limited resources. We have so many things to do. We really have to, you know, establish here is the the work plan and stick to it.

And so, I guess, what I'm asking for a quarterly update is just a report. Here's how we're doing. We feel comfortable that we're gonna be able to get these things done. It's not necessarily for the planning commission to redirect. Mhmm. It's just an update for us. Yeah. So that, you know, we're handing you this huge bucket of work. Right. And it's just so that we get a report that, okay, we're we're getting through it. We're getting through it. We can't see the bottom yet, but we're getting through it.

Yeah. Yep. Happy to do it. Okay.

For sure. Alright. Our next meeting is the January 14. Elliot, thank you again for your service. It's been a pleasure to serve with you. And, everybody, I hope you have a safe and happy holiday, and I hope your family stay healthy.

Thanks, Arun. Thank you. Happy holidays. Have a good one.

Yep. I got this on free.

If you wanna

Is that official closing of our meeting?

That's it. We're done.

Upper. Upper.

Upper. Got you. X

No. I don't have