Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Arseny, we're ready to go.

Good evening, Planning Policy. It's good to see everybody. Feels a little bit more intimate this evening, but that just could be because last meeting we had so many people, which is a little irregular for us. We're gonna get started, and it currently is 06:31 p. M. Today's meeting is a hybrid meeting. The Planning Policy Commission is in person, but staff or members of the public may be joining us virtually or in person. Kristen, do we have a quorum this evening?

We do have a quorum. We have one unexcused absence, Commissioner Melinda Irwin, and an excused absence with Commissioner Allener.

Okay. So, what that means for our commission this evening is both our alternates will be voting. So, Commissioner Holstrom as well as Commissioner Adair will be voting members this evening. We're gonna begin with the approval of minutes, and we have two sets of minutes for last meeting, which was the twenty third. And we obviously had our special meeting with the EVC, and we'll start with those. Were there any concerns or anything that anyone would like to bring up regarding those minutes? Okay. As far as the PPC's meeting that evening, any concerns? Anything anyone would like to bring up? All right.

Hearing none, both sets of meeting minutes are approved. The next item of business is going to be public comment. So, this meeting, we're holding the general public comment right now. This is for the good of the PPC. Anything in general that you'd like to bring up. We will have a moment a little bit later when the public hearing is open for anyone that would like to speak on tonight's main topic, which is going to be the Title 18 proposed amendments. Again, so right now, it's really just more general if you want to keep your comments on the record, would encourage you to wait. Staff, do we have anyone that would like to speak this evening as far as general public comment?

No, Chair, not for general comments.

Okay, thank you, Amanda. Okay, we're gonna move on to our first item of business this evening, and this is our public hearing regarding the proposed Title 18 land use code amendments. The purpose of this public hearing is to provide a formal opportunity for public comment on these amendments. We'll open the public hearing, which will be followed by a staff presentation, and then we'll open it up for the PPC to ask any questions that they have. After the questions, we'll take public testimony, and then we'll close the public hearing and then the Planning Policy Commission will have an opportunity to debate.

It's hoped that at the end of that debate, we'll make a recommendation and we'll see this thing go upstream. This evening, Kate Keeney, our principal planner, will be starting us off. So Kate, when you are ready with your presentation, please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair. I'm just getting set here. Can everybody see the presentation now? Great. Okay, well thank you very much. I am here tonight to, oh this is the wrong presentation, isn't it? Pardon me, bring up the other one. Sorry, page one, my apologies. Hit the right button again. Okay, there we go, think I have the right presentation, my apologies for that.

Tonight we are here for the public hearing on the Title 18 Land Use Code amendments. Three staff are here to participate in the presentation. I will go ahead and start it off. As the chair mentioned, our purpose here is not only to hold the public hearing but also to take public comment, allow the commission to deliberate and take action if appropriate. The title 18 amendments that are the basis of the hearing tonight are split into two general categories.

The first are the twenty twenty six clarifying or housekeeping amendments the commission has been reviewing since the beginning of the year and then there are two sets of amendments that are part of the Promoting Building Investment in Issaquah initiative. I will go ahead and kick off the presentation on the clarifying amendments and share with you that the Commission did review these seven sets of amendments earlier this year. I'm gonna go ahead and roll right into the First Amendment and then each of us will come up and provide information as appropriate. The First Amendment has to do with the multi family definitions and is literally some cleanup. The proposal repeals the definition called multi family residential and the reason is that last year when the city adopted the middle housing amendment a new definition dwelling multi family was adopted and that really supersedes this older definition multi family residential so that needs to be removed from the code for consistency.

So the next set of amendments I am going to hand over to Senior Planner, Emily Medina.

Good evening commissioners. So the site development permit code amendments clarify when site development permits are necessary and at what level. Again, the reason for this change is to just make sure that we're not having these super small scale projects have to go through unnecessary permitting and get a land use permit when it's not necessary, as well as making sure that the thresholds are simplistic, so not having multiple thresholds for each level, but just one to keep it clear so developers know what to expect, and it's easy for staff to process, as well as using as well as well as making sure that the projects that don't involve structures and are just site work permits don't have to go through the development commission when there is no design review associated with that. So, just to kind of recall back, one of the big changes is changing the word in our threshold right now talks about development, and we are proposing to change that to structure. Development in our code is a very, very broad definition, and it means literally anytime you touch the land versus structure is vertical construction, and that is the original intent of site development permits is to really focus on those large structures on-site.

Following public comments that we received after our first presentation on the site development permit amendments, we added one additional threshold, which is to the level two. Level two, if you'll recall, is administrative approval or administrative decision, but with public notice, versus level four permits, our development commission hearing and decision with public notice as well. So currently, four, if there is a one acre site being touched, even if there's no structure on it, it has to go through a level four, but there was no smaller threshold for that. So there was concern that these larger potentially, these large projects that just involve site work so an example that I've given previously is the changing an asphalt parking lot into a large park or community medispace. There's concerns that that's still a substantial impact to if you live next door, what's happening next door to you, if it's 10,000 square feet to an acre, you know, that that can be a large change of land use, and the public perhaps wants to know about that.

And we agree, public notice is always a good thing, so we added another threshold to Level 2 that if it is a site work project between 10,000 square feet and one acre, it has go through a level two process so that the public will be notified, and then it is an administrative decision. So just some examples about that. This is one of the ones that triggered having that base threshold for small projects. Currently, if you're adding 200 square feet to the front of your commercial building or less, you have to get a level one SDP. Under the proposed amendments, SDP review would not be required, So, they would just get be required to get a building permit, and all those things that we would look for with the site development permit, we would just look for with the building permit.

So, just eliminating that one extra hurdle to jump over. And then, I wanted to bring back this example because I presented this when these amendments first came before the commission, and this was the trigger about the site work permit. So, this is the one that is converting that asphalt parking lot into a community amenity space. Currently, it would have to go through a level four, even though they're not doing any structural changes to the building on-site because of the amount of land they are touching. Under these new proposed revised amendments, it would be a level 2 because it is greater than 10,000 square feet, but less than an acre.

It would have the public notice associated with it before the staff made a decision. And then, the other process amendment that is associated is the plat and construction permit requirements. So, currently, our code just lacks clarity regarding requirements for construction of infrastructure, which is utility sidewalks, that kind of thing, before final approval of the subdivisions and binding site plans, so plats, that kind of thing. So this is essentially just to clarify code and strengthen it to make sure that we have the right permit process in place.

Great, thank you Emily. I will go ahead and finish up the review of the proposals for the clarifying code and this one you may recall is part of the temporary use code that we have and a change that would clarify where and how to allow donation bins on private properties. You can see some photos here of what that might look like, the good and the bad that we would address. The changes that are added are really standards for where donation bins can go. A duration of three sixty five days is proposed and also a prohibition in the standards on accumulating trash or having it be ill kept.

We worked with our code enforcement officer to make sure we had the right standards. These bins are already allowed through the Temporary Use Code, but what these code changes do is add those standards that were reviewed previously by the Commission. So the next proposal has to do with daycare and adult family homes and some clarifications. This is really just adding some language when you are reading through the daycare and adult family home standards and directions to go see the definitions for daycare center, daycare center family and adult family home and it's like way finding. So you can go to the definitions section.

It's important because in the definitions there is information about the number of kids, the number of adults that are allowed in these different facilities and also applicable state regulations. That's what's proposed in that first upper part of the proposals and in the lower half the update to the family daycare center criteria is also pretty simple. It is just updating the term family childcare center and replacing it with family daycare center just to be consistent throughout the codes. There are a couple of others related to daycare and this standard has to do with adding a new provision pertaining to traffic impact fee waivers. These waivers were adopted by city council this March, so as part of the codification process.

In this section of the daycare code we added a provision that describes the need for getting a covenant recorded as part of any property that decides to opt into this waiver program so it can be tracked by the city. And this next amendment also kind of has to do with daycare but it's in the Home Business Code. Daycare operations used to be in our Home Business section of the code. It has this italicized information about play equipment for daycare operations. Since daycare is no longer regulated in that section of the code it is no longer applicable and the proposal is to remove it.

So now we have three more slides all on different sign code provisions that you've reviewed. The first balloon sign provisions and this is a clarification that all balloons and balloon like objects regardless of material would be prohibited for use as signs. The main reason is that these balloons can obscure the vision of people driving by. It's a safety issue. We worked on this language with the code enforcement officer and I believe one of the commissioners in the initial set of code that we had you review noticed that we hadn't been completely holistic in our changes so we swept through the code so that the prohibition is consistent throughout the code, so that was added.

The next amendment has to do with the interior illumination of monument signs. What we were finding is that a lot of the monument signs which you see examples of on screen here are grandfathered or legally non conforming with the existing code. However, they come in and they need their illumination adjusted on their sign So this change would be specific to Central Issaquah, Issaquah Highlands, Thales and the CBD zone. And the idea would be to maintain the signs, the sign face illumination would be allowed to change as long as the other standards were met and this clarification would really streamline the process because these signs apparently do come through regularly. The next and final sign code proposal has to do with temporary window construction signs.

The idea would be to allow these signs that are temporary during the construction process for all development before people have to get the full permanent signs required by the code. This would just make it easier for the new development to install the signs so we thought it would be a good streamlining process. Okay, so with that I am going to go ahead and hand it over to Planning Manager Kristen Leeson to go over the next set of proposals.

Good evening, Kristen Leeson, Planning Manager. All right. So we're going to talk about this time proposed amendments for the Promoting Building Investments in Issaquah. First we are talking about step backs. And step backs, the goal here was to allow for more flexibility in step backs and where they should occur.

And the reason for doing that is because we have been told that they are a little bit excessive and it could potentially make a project infeasible. So first of all, before we talk about it, wanted to talk about the other regulations that are in place as well. So we talk about building modulation and articulation in this section of the code. And other things that are required, we require a distinguishing or differentiation, there you go, between all the different floors, especially once they hit, once they go over three floors. We require divided light windows that are operable or recessed or projecting or that are framed.

They have to provide some kind of surface depth, some kind of modulation back and forth. It's really a vertical modulation where the building is stepped back. Views must be preserved and then building corners have to be accentuated either through architectural details or they could be recessed to allow for say a plaza to go on that corner. So, those are other things that are in place besides the step backs that fall under this section. We also talk about step backs that are adjacent to natural context areas, natural areas and natural context areas.

So here's the map, everything in green is a natural area. The purple are the natural context areas. And other requirements that go there are that the building has to face the natural area. It has to have some balconies or open spaces, windows, things that face the natural area. It has if it's next to a waterway, it has to have a path that goes between the building and the waterway. If you have activities or uses that are adjacent to it, they can't be closed off from the natural area. They have to be open to the natural area. And they have to have all native plants and that sort of thing. So there are other things in place. And we already talked about as well if it's adjacent to, if it's within one of the state shoreline jurisdictions, it can't go higher than 35 feet.

It has to be set back a certain amount of space. So, there are other things in place beside the step backs that are in play here. There we go. So, moving on to the code, when you get to the building orientation to natural areas in Central Issaquah, that's where those are used, we are proposing to just eliminate required step backs on those areas. When you move outside of those natural areas and actually just in the rest of the city, proposing that step backs must occur by the base of the 6th Floor but can occur as low as the base of the 2nd Floor.

And then they should be a minimum of five feet deep. And we took out the piece about there must be usable space in there. This is based on our conversations from last week or two weeks ago. And then the same requirements would apply with the Northwest Contemporary style that they have to begin by the base of the 6th, can begin by the base of the 2nd and then have to be a minimum of five feet deep. Moving on to amenity space, our goal here was to decrease the amount of required private open amenity space and also to add deviations for conversions of commercial uses to multifamily uses.

So, the reason for the first one is because again, our requirements have been deemed excessive and potentially can make a project infeasible. For the second, we don't wanna make it more difficult for project to come through. So we do have one that's starting to convert right now that's having to go through a deviation process or a variance process that's going to be converted to affordable housing and we'd like to make it easier to get affordable housing here. So, again, these are based on our last conversation. We increased in the upper left hand corner, increased the number of units.

It used to be five that had to comply with these regulations and now it's been upped for proposing to increase that to nine units plus. It's 100 square feet per unit. We eliminated, deleted the piece that said plus an additional 48 square feet for any units without the private open space and it's just strictly a minimum of 30 units must provide 48 square feet, plus every unit has to have 100 square feet. And then the same thing would apply for residential 22 plus, but then you have the additional 400 square feet total that you have to add for those. And this is the piece about the deviations, we deleted the piece about because we made it code or a requirement now, we eliminated the deviation for amenity spaces where you can reduce it down to 30 feet but then you have to make all 148.

We just got rid of that because now it's a regulation. And then we added one about the common private outdoor amenity space that if they comply with all the requirements under 18,005 hundred-five 24, which is the conversion to from commercial to multifamily, if they comply with all of that then they can get a deviation from the M and V space required in this section. So for our next steps, this is proposed to go to the Planning and Development and Environment Committee on June 2 to Council on June 29. And that is all I have. We are open to questions.

Excellent. Well, thank you, Emily, Kate, and Kristen. You guys summed it up so well. Thank you. Those were hours of conversations, all consolidated into a nice twenty minute presentation. We wanna open it up right now just for questions. Again, we wanna make this open for the commissioners. The questions are part that's gonna help inform public comment if we have any. So, again, right now, just questions, clarifying and debate a little bit later. But questions?

Do you mind going back two slides before the date slide? It looks like the code still says 01/1948 square feet of amenity space. Is that for should that be one of the things that we're tweaking? Yeah,

I think I got that wrong here but it's right in the amendments. It is, that's the wrong number, should be 148 square Okay,

but it's just in the presentation. Should be 100. It's not.

Okay, just checking. It should be 100. Thank you.

Nice catch. Any other questions? Commissioner Zakarov.

Have we heard anything from the developers on this new proposal, so not yet?

We received a letter just prior to this meeting that I printed out and it is in Otherwise, front of we have not heard anything Okay. Thank you. Since the last meeting.

I think someone made the comment that Kristen was giving us homework. Any other questions? It's all relatively pretty straightforward I think at this point with how many conversations we've had. So, yeah, I think everybody just wants to get down to debating it. Okay. Well, one more time, no more questions? Okay. We're gonna move on and we are going to open the public hearing at 06:54PM. And Amanda, I'm looking at you again, has anyone signed up to speak this evening?

Yes, Chair, they have. His first name is Carl and please forgive me for Short. Thank you. Carl Short.

Alright. Well, thank you, Carl. Yes, you look familiar. Very quickly in case we do have more public speakers, just a few housekeeping rules. Please speak clearly and pause frequently. Please state your name so we make sure not to butcher your last name. And then once you're done, go ahead and mute your microphone. You'll wanna make sure it's on while you speak. And then again, if we have anyone that's online that would like speak, we ask that if you are having technical issues to please try joining us again with a smartphone or tablet. We do ask that everyone try and keep their comments down to five minutes or less. So, Carl, when you are ready, please go ahead.

Terrific. Good evening, commissioners. My name is Carl Charette, and I'm with Avalon Bay Communities. We are the developer of the market rate component of the Trailhead TOD project here in Issaquah. I was here a few weeks ago for your discussion about how to help make housing projects more feasible in the city, and I appreciate the continued focus on that effort.

First, I wanna thank you for your collaboration with the development community to reduce some of the barriers to building housing in Issaquah. That partnership is important, and it's making I also want to thank city staff for their continued work and for maintaining a productive, constructive dialogue with the development community throughout this process. As outlined in the comment letter submitted by AvalonBay and other housing stakeholders, we are supportive of the draft code amendments that are before you tonight. In particular, the proposed changes to step back and amenity space requirements create a more workable framework, one that continues to respect Issaquah's unique character, while also introducing needed flexibility for projects to move forward. While these amendments may seem incremental, they are meaningful.

Changes like these can have a real impact on whether projects pencil, and ultimately whether new housing actually gets built. For those reasons, I respectfully ask that you advance the code amendments as drafted. Thank you again for your leadership and your continued work on this effort. I appreciate your time this evening. Thank you.

Thank you, Carl. Amanda, has anyone signed up online? Okay.

No, they have not.

We did get a great letter that, again, we got right before the meeting, so hopefully everybody had a time to look at that. I believe AvalonBay was represented in that letter as well as other stakeholders, so great. We will close the public hearing at 06:56 p. M. Okay. But there is formal action requested from us, commissioners, so somebody has to make a motion this evening. Vice Chair Patterson. Did the gentleman's pause?

Thank you, Chair. I'd like to make a motion to recommend approval of the Title 18 amendments as presented. Is

there a second? Commissioner Krafts?

I second.

Okay, excellent. Thank you both. I'd like to open it up and begin with Vice Chair Patterson since he did make the motion, and we can begin to debate the merits of what you just saw in the presentation.

Yeah. Obviously, we have discussed and debated these topics pretty well over the last several meetings. I feel like we've gotten to a pretty good point with Appreciate the partnership with city staff. I know we asked for a lot of examples, a lot of clarifications and intent, and I think that was all provided in our packet. Very helpful to have those visuals and diagrams. So thank you for your work on that. But, yeah, at this time, no no other comments.

Great. Thank you, vice chair Patterson. Commissioners, anyone like to speak? I see commissioner Adair reaching for the mic.

Yeah. I mean, obviously we've talked this through a lot and I agree with 99% of everything. I did want to revisit the six story setback versus possibly moving it to a five story setback. And that's because I spent some time this week going and visiting a lot of five and six story buildings and they were throwing considerable amount of shadow on the sidewalk. So I think part of the issue for me is there's such a diversity in height between, you know, you can have a six story building that's like 60 feet or you can have a six story building that's, you know, 75 feet.

And those obviously have a big disparity in the kind of shadow they're going to kind of cast on the sidewalk and community spaces. So I just thought we could revisit that.

Okay, we can, but, and this is where my knowledge of Robert's Rules is a little wanting, but I believe you've got to make an amendment, right? Before we, not yet? Okay. All right. So would anyone like to discuss Commissioner Adair's thought?

Does anyone have any thoughts about 6th To 5th Floor? Yeah, Vice Chair Patterson.

Since we're discussing, that is something that's definitely weighed on me a little bit. I think in terms of representing all the stakeholders in this is a little bit of, you know, what's the right number. I do think that, you know, looking at the intents, we talked there it specifically states things like, you know, solar access or increased passive solar and things like that for reasons why you'd want to be careful of step backs, or why they exist, I should say, as well as some of the other aspects of the code. It's hard, I think, to gauge for Issaquah right now because we don't have a ton of those types of buildings. It would be challenging to kind of determine what the right number is.

So I guess what I'm saying is I understand your concern. I personally don't know the right number. So I'm hesitant to like state one way or the other, and that's why I think I'm kind of supportive of what we have in front of us, given the analysis that's gone into it. But I do understand, you know, I guess, some feelings of concern, if you will, about stating the right number.

Sure. Yeah. No, thank you, Vice Chair Patterson. Vice Commissioner Zakroff.

Thank you. Well, my biggest concern is that we are right now, as a city, we are requesting developers to develop. We want development to happen in Issaquah. And at the very same time with when we kind of when we're limiting what we can as a city provide and I mean what we have too many requests from developers in this case. We end up with the same situation as Trailhead TOD when everything just goes just the way they can do that. No step backs. Okay. No step backs. No like I don't know something else. No. Okay. Fine. Just build the building. So I don't want to I don't want us to get to the very same situation with every building. So just like Vice Chair Patterson I don't know the right number.

5th Floor or 6th Floor or any certain height in feet. I just wanna make sure that the policy we create is both is workable for both the developers and the CTA. And I think to kind of to get that balance, to reach that balance is the most important thing for us right now. So thank you.

Yeah. Great. Thank you, Commissioner Zakarov. Would anyone else like to comment on Commissioner Adair's proposal? Commissioner Holstrom?

I I certainly understand where you're coming from with the shadowing. I guess I look I kind of like where it's at just from I feel like more constraints are going to mean less units built, which means less feasible. It's going to make it more challenging to get these buildings built. So I'm kind of hesitant to constrict things any more than they already are.

Great. I'll get back to Commissioner Dare, but I want to make sure everyone gets an opportunity to speak. Commissioner Matthews? Commissioner Krass? Commissioner Matthews?

Yeah, I also had been thinking a lot about this, and I'm just repeating what everyone else says basically, is I don't know what the magic number is either, but I was thinking about, you know, we have all these different requirements, and it's what are we trying what is the goal that we're trying to achieve? And it's like, I really don't want to open this can of worms, but when you have setbacks, that is to create a human scale, and of course, know, get rid of shadows, but articulation is more of a visual, like, it's visually interesting as you're walking down the street, so are we looking at creating more visual interest, or maybe we want to create a more cozy environment? So I didn't know if there was a trade off if we lower the setbacks, less articulation, but then that would open a can of worms, right? So I which I didn't want to do, but it just occurred to me as I was thinking this earlier this weekend about this whole process.

We're here to open a can of worms. So you're okay. You're fine.

Was just a

thought that I was, you know, wanted to talk about as well.

Yeah, no, that's part of the process. That's great. Commissioner Krafts.

Thanks. I I like the way it is now. I think there's flexibility. You know, you have, you know, second, sixth, and it could be somewhere in between if it makes sense from a design standpoint. I also just came back from Charlotte, North Carolina, where there's a huge amount of building.

And even though we're walking around town, I had to, of course, look at all of the step backs on these because there's a ton of five, six, seven story buildings being built. And they were different, and it was nice. So I could see how a lot of the different buildings, took a slightly different approach, but it felt like it all worked. And some of them were much higher up, and I didn't feel like that was, too cavernous by any means. So I think where we are now or where it lands and all the work that's been done, think is a good spot.

Great. And then I'll just add real quickly, then everyone can have another opportunity at this. I'm real happy with the work that we did, not only as a commission, but also with staff and also our development community. It is an iterative process. There is going to be other opportunities within the next year or two if there's situations that arise and maybe they say, hey, this is still unfeasible and we'd like you guys to look at this again.

So it's not that it's over, but it's pretty rare when you have not only the commission, but also I mean, you can see the stakeholders with the letter they sent. I mean, it's not just one stakeholder, it's multiple. And I feel like, you know, to what Commissioner Matthews said, you know, I don't want to open a can of worms to you know, I don't think that's the hill I want to die on today myself. I'd to see this roll out. It's got great support from the developers who were here and present. And again, it's something that can always be brought back up. I mean, we get an opportunity, I believe, once a year to put these things on the docket and have them looked at and Kristen's kind of given me a no. Get side eye.

Code amendments aren't just them, they're not once a year, you can do those.

Okay.

But it's not something you wanna just any year say, no. Well, I didn't work.

No, but I think to Vice Chair Patterson's point, I don't think anybody truly knows what that number is. And as much as I'd like to say it might be different at six to five, I don't know what the cost is. And I don't want to go off a feeling when we put together a pretty strong packet myself. But I do want to make sure that Commissioner Adair gets the opportunity to rebut all of us here. No. So, please,

Commissioner Adair. Okay. So, I'm just one thing I'd like to bring up though is of the many wonderful points that the developers have made including the costs and the structural issues. I don't know if somebody addressed why six floors specifically was the ideal. And if there would have been, for example, oh, this project is gonna get axed if they don't have the 6th Floor.

If somebody was coming in and they said, we have this amazing project and it's great, oh, but this 6th Floor step back is the make or break. But I think if we're going forward with new projects that are still pending, it is okay for us to say, maybe let's on the side of caution. And to that point, I think when you're going somewhere that's like a sunny state where they have a lot of sun all the time, you're gonna have a different kind of feeling than in a place where we've got rain sixty, seventy, 80% of the year. So I guess I would just say Kim Kristen, this might be a rules of order question but like, would it be a substantial delay if we were to say let's propose to make it a proposed amendment to make it five stories instead of six and I will, would that add another week? Would that

be No, actually I was writing chair voice a note to say now at this time, would Commissioner Adair like to make an amendment and then you just vote on it now. Okay.

Yeah. And can I explain again why, I mean a little more, just I feel like having visited some of these buildings, there is, if you were to get two of them across the street, luckily right now we're not at the point where we do have two of them across street from each other? I do think if we're gonna If we get two of them across the street, it's gonna be a very different vibe and feel than traditional Issaquah, which is a more open welcoming town like feel. And I think we're gonna have a lot more hopefully when the transit, if the transit goes through, developers will understand if it's the fifth story and the sixth, not the, you know, because we're still making a lot of concessions in terms of the step backs with reducing the number of sides that need stepping back and reducing how many step backs they need and the size of it. I think those are all considerable concessions.

So I think what we wanna do now, Commissioner Dare, is let you make the amendment. Yeah. And let's see if we

Yeah. It works further to me. If not, yeah, we wanna do it. Okay. So I'd like to propose that we amend the step back from starting at the base of the 6th Floor, which is what I believe it is, to start at the base of the 5th Floor, 5th Story.

Okay. And I think this is just an informal vote. It does require a second. I need to study up on my Robert's Rules. Is there a second for the amendment on the floor?

Okay, that amendment fails. That was right, right? Okay, we'll have Vice Chair Patterson.

I will say, I struggled with this still, but when looking at our kind of neighboring cities, it seems like no one knows the magic number. Because if you're looking at the Bothells and Bellinghams and Redmonds, there's 2nd Floor, 3rd Floor, 4th Floor, like no one really knows the number. But I think what the 6th Floor does is it honestly kinda puts us right in the middle because it's not too low, it's not no requirement, like, I won't say their name, but another city. So it kinda gets us in that happy medium, which I think we're trying to find because we're trying to encourage development without, you know, sacrificing anything that we've developed or, you know, built in our code as a city. So the more I was thinking about and looking at it, like, I think that's where my mind goes is, like, six is a good number for trying to I think the goal is to try and increase development.

But we're fine we're putting a limit on it that's not, you know, kind of in the middle of where everyone else is. So.

Okay. Thank you, Vice Chair Patterson. Continuing debate just as on the whole packet as a whole. Oh, this is where I shine. Okay, so there is a motion on the floor. We want to go ahead and repeat it. And the motion is to recommend approval of the proposed Title 18 amendment presented. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. And for the recorder that was unanimous.

One, two, three, four, five, six. That was all seven of us. I'm getting a thumbs up from Kristen, so I did something right. Okay. Well, you, everybody. Again, we want to thank the developers. We want to thank the staff. And again, thanks to our commission that worked hard on this. Oh, I don't know. It's been a few months. So again, thank you. We are going to move into our next item of regular business. And let's see. And that is an introduction to the first two comprehensive plan amendments. So Kate, welcome back. Please go ahead when you're ready.

Okay and is everyone able to see the presentation? Great. I think I forgot to introduce myself, Kate Kaney, Principal Planner Back here with Senior Planner, Emily Medina and we are going to present on the twenty twenty six Comprehensive Plan Amendment Proposals starting with the first two amendments. So this is an informational briefing and really we just want to give you a status update and let you review what our findings are so far as we've been doing some analysis and initial drafting on amendment proposals one and two. We'd like your questions and your input and guidance as we move forward.

So just to do a little background, you may recall that every year the city opens up the comprehensive plan to minor amendments. Every ten years is that big resetting of the growth strategies and policies. In 2026 the commission reviewed the initial docket or list of proposals, then provided your recommendation to counsel as to whether you wanted these proposals on the final docket for this additional assessment and drafting process. Council approved that final docket identical to the recommendations you made in early March and since that time we've been working on the amendments. The five amendments proposals that you see here are the entirety of the list and the first two amendments are actually overlapping insofar as they both address land use designations in terms of the first proposal it's to add descriptions of the existing land use designations into the comprehensive plan and also kind of clarify which zones implement those land use designations by formally and officially establishing that there's a connection between the two.

The second amendment talks about clarifying the names of low density and multi family land use designations and zones and specifically deals with changing the names of the single family zones because of the middle housing amendments that were adopted by the city last year which opened up single family zones to not just single family houses but also to the middle housing, to the townhouses, to the duplexes, triplexes, etcetera. Emily, Medina and I have been working together on these proposals and we just want to share that information with you tonight. I'm gonna go ahead and start with the first proposal, we'll focus on that and specifically again that's to add the descriptions of land use designations to the comprehensive plan and to establish which implementing zones implement those designations. So why, why are we doing this? So it's important to clarify the roles and the purposes of the land use designations and which zones they implement for several reasons.

Emily even mentioned that she's had conversations with developers about well your land use designations, the names are a little unclear, I'm not sure what's the intent of this area. So by having really clear designations, really clear descriptions in the policies it makes it easier to understand what the vision for growth is here in Issaquah. Also consistency as we've discussed before between the comprehensive plan and the development regulations is required by the Growth Management Act, by local city codes. There's a little diagram there that kind of lists how we have a comprehensive plan that's influenced and guided by Growth Management Act, other stuff, and that the zoning has to implement and follow all of the above. So that is why we are here today talking about this.

So what land use designations does the city have? There are nine and these colored with designations are directly from our land use map. Currently these designations are established on that map. There aren't other descriptions in the code, they are referenced and we'll kind of go through where those references are. And as I mentioned, some of the names of the designations do not immediately and clearly communicate what their purpose and intent are.

So the first three, Conservancy, Community Facilities, Community Facilities privately owned, you kind of get a sense. So that's green space or parks or parks facilities, whether community facilities is that public or privately owned. We have also low density residential, multi family residential, then retail, commercial, mixed use and urban village. In terms of the names, and I did a little animation here, that we were really scrutinizing when we were looking at both of the proposed amendments. Low density residential is part of amendment proposal number two.

That is the designation where we have single family zones that are located within those areas geographically that are also designated low density residential. It doesn't immediately speak to the fact that middle housing is available there, so we were looking at should we do a renaming of this designation. That was one of our questions. We also looked at retail. Retail is a designation that you would find in Old Town around Front Street for example.

So not only retail uses are allowed there but also residential uses. So we're thinking gosh maybe we should rename that just to be clear about what we're trying to do there. Another of the designations that wasn't completely clear, commercial. Commercial might imply, what is that like, just big box commercial? Or when it's really closer to light industrial uses warehouses that are allowed in terms of the zones.

So our task was to holistically take a look at these land use designations, look at the zoning and see how we could make things clearer in terms of the names of things. Another thing we did was look at the land use map. The map is on screen there and the job of the map is to illustrate the comprehensive plan's twenty year vision for where and how the city should grow. So those land use designations, those colors are on the map and within those designations certain zones make things happen, right? So they should align.

Just to give you an idea of how the legends work, often the designations are kind of lowest intensities to highest. That's sort of the way our legend works. Other way finding I wanted to share with you just so you'd be like, what are we talking about? The land use designation map is now next to the neighborhoods map. So it might be a little easier to see the red mixed use just really pops, right?

That designation is for our highest intensity commercial retail uses, residential uses, and you can see how it aligns with Central Issaquah, right? That is in our comprehensive plan, in our Central Issaquah plan where we want to focus most growth for housing, jobs, etcetera. So that kind of consistency between the name of a designation and the zones that are within it are important when we are trying to convey to the community, to developers where we want growth to happen, what kind of growth we want to happen. I also wanted to show you the land use map with the zoning map because the relationship is very important especially if you want to rezone a property. The land use map in fact underlies the zoning map.

So the land use map establishes the locations where the zones are allowed and then that is also a requirement so that the zones implement the preferred land use pattern that is identified in the comprehensive plan, right? We want the taller buildings and the apartments here and we want the industrial uses over there. Zoning map, sorry, where the land use map is the twenty year future land use growth map, the zoning map implements a land use map today. What kind of zone is it? This is what is allowed today.

Sometimes the zones do not exactly match that land use map and you get people who want to come in for a rezone. If you are looking to rezone your property, say I have a zone that's kind of single family and I want to do an apartment and I come into the city, the first thing we do is check the land use map to say, Okay, what's your land use designation? If it's low density residential and you wanna do a five story apartment, you're not gonna be able to do that because that zoning is inconsistent with that land use designation. So that's why this relationship and this kind of sandwich or pancaking of these two maps is I think an essential one and it's why we want to have clear policies and zoning. So additional analysis just so that you know, we have designations land and zones referenced together in the comprehensive plan now.

If you open up the land use and sustainability element you can find some examples. The housing element appendices, there's this really cool housing inventory if you wanna look at it ever. So this is the example from the land use element. And while it's in the comprehensive plan and it includes information where here's the land use designation and there are zones next to it, it does not currently officially establish that these zones implement the comprehensive Plan. Previous versions of Comprehensive Plan had this information and we'd like to put it back in there just to get that consistency and clarity back.

We also went through the land use code to find out how the zones were represented and how they aligned with Comprehensive plan and implementing that vision. And if you go to eighteen-four hundred-thirty, establishment of zones, you can see there's information and a table. And the information that is on screen is the set of four zone categories that are established. I think you know that a few years ago this really big update of Title 18 was done and these kind of clear statements about what kind of zones we have and what zones are related to these categories. And that's really great work and that really helped us as we were thinking about clarity for the land use designations.

So what we did is go to the comprehensive plan, look at the nine land use designations, which in this table are on the left, and compare those to those four categories of zones. And where you can kind of see that there's alignment, some of the zone categories, even though their names are clear, it's not clear which of the land use designations fits where. We have low density residential and multi family residential. Are they in residential or what? And so actually multi family residential is in the mixed zones category.

Okay, that kind of makes sense. But could we make that clear? Urban village or actually retail, which category are we? Are we commercial or are we mixed zones? That one actually is in mixed zones.

And then, got that little lag in the animation. So urban village is also in mixed zones, but it's not immediately clear. So again, just showing you what we were finding before giving you this recommended set of changes. So we would like to recommend renaming some of the land use designations to clarify their roles and to increase alignment between the comprehensive plan, Title 18, and also we wanted to change something in Title 18. And so we have not only comprehensive plan amendments that we are talking about but also some changes to the land use code.

So what are we proposing in terms of low density residential? For the land use designation we'd like to change it to residential. That is a wider category of zones. It's not just single family and it would allow the middle housing to easily fit within that category. We also looked at multi family residential, retail, mixed use and urban village, all those designations.

And they all allow mixed use. Urban village is a little bit of an outlier because that land use category is for the areas that are regulated through development agreements. So they're kind of their own beasts. Still are related to mixed use, but I'm not going to go into that. We're not going to change that.

But we did think three different types of mixed use land use designations mixed use residential, medium, and high would fit better with the mixed zones in Title 18 and be more obvious to people in terms of understanding what their intent is. We're also proposing to change commercial to industrial because in fact the light industrial warehouse type uses are really what we're talking about as the type of uses allowed there. Also wanting to change again the commercial zone category to industrial zones in Title 18 for consistency. Let's see here. Oh, what are other changes that we would like to make?

This is basically the same table you just saw but we added to the right another column that actually shows you the zones that implement each of those categories. And we just wanted to share that they are all consistent right now, we don't need to make any changes in the zones that implement categories, whether it's in Title 18 or whether it's in the comprehensive plan land use designations. But this next more involved table is what Emily gets to explain to you, and this is our recommendation around the mixed use zones.

All right, so our new recommended mixed use land use designation, so the mixed use residential, mixed use medium, mixed use high, Kate gave me the lovely task of combing through all of our zones and seeing which one they fit with best. So this is the just gnarly table that's in the packet with all my strikeouts and underlines and little notes to try to describe how we went about this. So, cleaner version on your screen, this is just what the end result recommendation is. So, on the left, like I said, the recommended land use designation renames, and then on the second column is how we're recommending the zones align with these land use designations. So, currently, they're kind of all over the map.

I went through each zone and looked at the permitted uses for the zone, the different form and intensity standards, height, density, that sort of thing for each zone. And then categorize them from least intense to most intense, and then split that up into the three different land use designations. So, top mixed use residential, we're recommending MFM and MFH. These are mostly four stories, and they are mostly permitted uses, are heavily residential with some small scale neighborhood uses. Mixed use medium, step above that has medium intensity, small to larger scale retail and service uses, and then four stories, but some of the zones can go a little bit higher as well.

And then mixed use high is those more high intensity commercial uses allowing large, high density residential, and much higher height. So, those were the That's how we are recommending those land use designations be implemented in the zoning code. So, the considerations for the commissions. We have three general questions to get some feedback on. First, do the proposed changes to the names of the land use designations clarify their intent and purpose?

Second, does the proposed organization of implementing zones increase consistency between our comp plan and Title 18 code? And then third would be, should staff move forward with drafting the land use designation descriptions and related policy and code updates in line with the proposals for that, aka we didn't wanna write land use designation descriptions if the commission did not agree with how we were proposing, we named them.

And that's it for everyone.

Okay. Well, thank you, Emily and Kate. Let's open it up to the commission for questions, comments. Again, this is a discussion, so all of it's welcome. Commissioner Krause.

Hi. Can you go back a few slides? Because I think it's super helpful. Especially the one that has go back one more. Go back. That that's a good one.

Oh.

Let's use those who go forward one. So one of the things I'll I'll ask give as an example as a question. So I live I guess it's part of Isco Valley. So I live in a single family house. I have condos on one side, apartments. So I think we're right now multifamily residential. I would think our land use is, if I had to guess. With the new change, it's just gonna be residential, it sounds like. Is that correct?

Correct.

Okay. I'm just curious, does it does it matter to if someone wants to build a single family home or a townhouse, any of these designations, or is it just this doesn't really change what people can and can't do based on just the the new broader, just residential?

No. So we're not proposing to rezone anything at this time, just changing the names.

Okay. So really, there's not really we're just kinda cleaning up to have less names and Alright.

Commissioner O'Deare.

Yeah, I have kind of a question and a follow-up statement. My first question would be something like office space that would be falling under mixed, do I understand that correctly? Like, let's say, REI headquarters or Costco headquarters, those would be under what zone or what designation?

I don't know what REI is zoned off the top of my head, for instance, our one of our zones is it's a little bit hard because offices are permitted in a lot of zones. So but professional office is one of our zoning, PO, and that would be in mixed use medium.

Okay. So yeah. So my follow-up is this is mostly good, but I think I feel like the mixed use medium and high differing from you go mixed use to residential, then you go mixed use medium, mixed use high. I feel like that's a little bit confusing. I get including mixed and I think that's a good idea. I just it feels like to me it should be low, medium, high or residential dash and then the medium should be something else and does that make sense?

It absolutely makes sense. And two plus hours were spent right there on that exact one with our whole planning department. Okay. We went back and forth a lot between low, medium, high. Mhmm.

And I guess I will explain the reason we ended up on this, and then it's commission's decision what we go forward with. We ultimately decided with mixed use residential because the implementing zones for those multifamily medium and multifamily high are heavily residential zones. There's very limited commercial uses that are allowed in those. So, when looking at a land when looking at the land use name, it's much more representative of what that area is by calling it mixed use residential, and a much clearer idea by just reading the name. And that comes from, like Kate referenced, you know, I talk to developers almost every day, and there is multiple times that they come in and they say, you know, what does the city wanna see here?

So, having that clarity where you can just say this is our future land use designation, having that clears, that's why we ended up on that mixed use residential. Did I forget anything?

Okay. I also wanna note that, so Costco is in Central Issaquah, it's in the urban core zone. And, but the urban core also allows for Trailhead. So those are really intense uses and they're both one's residential and one is office. And then mixed use medium where you have the mixed use residential, you've got Target, which is much lower, it's lower story, can't go as high, Vail, Atlas. So those are all, those are again mixed uses, residential and commercial, but they are much lower density than what would be allowed in the urban core and mixed use Central Isoqua, and mixed use.

Commissioner Matthews? Oh, sorry. Casey, do want to follow-up?

I just wanted to say really quickly that, again, we did debate this because it's hard to convey clearly what we're trying to say, the low, medium, high, really the character of mixed use residential is mostly residential, mostly apartment or even middle housing. We did look at other cities and in other cities they also kind of do that kind of mixed use residential, residential mixed use kind of thing before they jump to like kind of mixed one or two, three or whatever. So again, we landed here and the zones are also aligned very carefully. Multifamily medium, multifamily high, I mean those are multifamily medium, old town, multifamily high east sunset, thank you, still learning the zones from my tutor over here. So if it was kind of a question then looking at what the zones allow would be your next step probably as a developer going to permitted uses and form intensity tables and then that would sort out.

But again, appreciate the conversation we had, this aversion of it.

Commissioner Matthews.

Yeah, so I kind of had the same when I first saw this, was like, what does mixed use medium mean? Are you talking about density? Are you talking about height? So I didn't I was very confused by that and I wondered if somebody is a developer, if they would understand they may, because I'm not a developer, what that means. To me it's just like, what? Mixed use high. High what? Height? Density? So it just seems like a little unclear still.

But that's where the descriptions come in, which would be the next step. So if you agree with the zones that are in here, they we were we start writing the descriptions that so that when the developers come in, we it's explained for them.

And I would follow-up on that as being in I used to work as a consultant in many cities. It is a common designation. And the medium, that's why we didn't just go based off building height, or we didn't just go based off permitted uses. It's really medium intensity kind of all around. It's our medium height limits, our medium density. The the examples Kristen gave were great for that.

Yeah. Commissioner Kass.

So can you help dimensionalize the difference between medium and high? Or and and the reason why I'm asking that is, does there need to be two or it's just you have residential and you have mix and then you have everything else, and then it could be zoned by certain height or density. I'm just wondering whether these are distinct enough. So you can give some examples of what would be in each of these That may make me understand a little clearer.

Yeah. It's a great question because that was also something we debated, is if we wanted three categories or two that we went back and forth on as well. Example wise, like, Kristen was talking about if you want specific building examples, or are you talking about specific standards?

Oh, building. Like, this here would fall in this, this here would fall

in that. Just so we understand. Trailhead, that Things that are already exist. Oh, off the top of my head. Urban core and mixed use. Costco is high and mixed use high, and Target is mixed use medium to steal Kristen's examples.

Target and Costco seem kinda similar. That's why I'm wondering whether, like, that's would Costco office building. No. You're talking about the store. I assume

All of it. All of Costco.

I was thinking

the store as well as their corporate headquarters. I just Urban Core.

I just feel like okay. Keep going with examples. I'm trying

Well, I'm I'm running I'm

just having like it kinda seems like one big lump and there's like a Sure. It's like a spectrum of like go ahead.

So I mean there's definitely a difference between, as you were saying, mixed use residential and then the So rest, for the rest, in terms of medium, it is mostly you're gonna be four stories, 40 feet mostly is allowed with the opportunity to do some incentives or bonus programs. You can be in different areas, but I'm gonna go ahead and show you this map again.

I know it's always nice to have things in three as my whole but sometimes do you need that? That's so this will be helpful if you can.

So what I wanted to share is that so for the highest intensity mixed use high, you've got your urban core in red here, and I think you've heard the term wedding cake before. So if you think of land use designations by height alone, the highest buildings are gonna be allowed in your mixed use high, right? With bonuses up to 125 feet maybe in like the urban core. So that's the top of the wedding cake in the red. If you go down a notch to the medium, that's where you're gonna have your front street, your Issaquah Highlands Little Town Center, I'm not sure what it's called, like the purple on the land use designation map.

So that is kind of a different tier, a different scale of development. Now are there some overlaps? Yes there are. And you can choose as a developer to go to four stories or to go up higher. But what you would likely see in full build out if you just went for all the capacity you could is the mixed use high is those tallest buildings with the most number of units, if you're talking about mixed use residential, where medium is gonna be a lot shorter buildings, fewer units, and then the residential is gonna be apartments with just a tiny bit of mixed use or no mixed use at all, or ground floor commercial.

So those three tiers kind of help with that differentiation of just magnitude and scale of development. For development community coming in, where can I put my biggest buildings? I'm gonna start with the high designations and work my way down from that. I don't know if that was helpful, I know Kristen want to share something I as

think it's, I mean, you're talking about the future, which I get, because the examples that you gave made me think they were very similar. So it's really, from what I, the things that we have right now, it's a little harder to peel them apart. Is that what you're saying? But in the future, when I'm 85 years old and we have a train station and all this other stuff, then they'll probably be taller buildings, and those would be mixed use high around there. Is that correct?

Yeah. Okay.

Keep in mind it's a twenty year plan too. So this isn't for what's here, it's for planning for the future.

Thank you, John. Any other feedback? Questions? I think this is probably, as far as being on the commission, this is probably one of the more, I don't know, brain draining parts of it is the zoning and all of it. It takes me a while and then every single time I think I got it, they throw a monkey wrench in it and I started all over.

But I definitely for simplifying, definitely wanna make it simpler for everyone. Definitely would prefer that you guys wordsmith it the way you guys think it's gonna be the most helpful with all the people that Emily alluded to that she talked today. I think that's the point, that's the goal. Anything that moves that way, I think is probably appropriate. Anyone else? Yes. Commissioner Holstroff.

I appreciate the effort on simplifying things. I'd be like what you're saying. I mean, I'm all for that and I think it's great.

In that.

See more

of that. Yeah. We're in like a streamlining kind of year, I suppose. So that's great. Does anyone have anything else to put? Okay. Commissioner Zakarov.

Thank you. Well, I would like to also say thank you for simplifying things around because I'm the one who's been trying to understand zoning since almost twenty years ago when I started doing business and trying to understand why I'm allowed in one zone and not allowed in the other zone. And I've been through a lot of different cities and all of those cities over the years and their rezoning processes. And that's really it's a pain for sure. So I appreciate that.

And I kind of like, well, I understand the multi zoning with high density and with lower density and everything in between. Includes this also includes it's not just a height. It also includes the traffic. It also includes the overall tension in the area. So I was explaining it too many times. But, yeah, thank you so much. To me it's clear. To me it's clear. I wanna see the explanations as well, of course. I'm sure we will go through that. But yeah, I looked at it just briefly and I'm like, well, yeah. That's super fast. Thank you.

Clean up crew. Okay. Anyone else? Sure. Vice Chair Patterson.

Yes. One, I guess, consideration, and again, I'm deferring to the people that use the code more and you as the experts, but is there any risk to removing the term retail at all? And the only reason I say is, like, I feel like a lot of this is simplification and streamlining and, you know, consolidating terms, but retail in particular seems maybe a little bit different. If you were to merge it into, like, mixed use medium, mixed use high, it could potentially get misconstrued as like favoring residential perhaps or, you know, I don't don't know. I don't really have an opinion myself, but I just kind of wanted to throw that out there as like, is that worth considering at all?

Well, and I think you're speaking to kind of the characteristics of some certain zones that implement retail, cultural and business district, I believe CBD on Front Street, I'm still learning, sorry there are 37 zones here and I'm a little new to being here. So there are zone descriptions and establishment of zones in the land use code and development standards associated with that standard that would promote retail use along there and that kind of thing. Retail is allowed as a use in all of those mixed use zones to a certain extent, right? Very few in multi family medium. So residential is also allowed.

That's what we weighed. I hope we can capture what in the land use descriptions, the land use designation descriptions as well as the zone descriptions what the intent of that original intent was from retail. We are drawing from the previous comprehensive plans and their land use designations that really the foundational documents to help us rewrite or write in these new descriptions. So we'll try to preserve that, we'll come to you and get your guidance on that.

Yeah, I appreciate that. I think just having seen this the first time, we're probably all like, what does it mean? And you're like, well, we're gonna tell you the next time. So I think this all makes sense. Am on board with the simplification. You know, just coming out from a like, small, medium, large, low, medium, high thing, like, that all makes sense. So I think we're on the right track. I think once we get the descriptions, you know, tensions will be eased. Thank you.

No, I just wanna say that also there's no longer a retail zone in the city either. That was that was a holdover from 1995, I think. And the uses are just much more blended now than they used to be. I think just by the way we all live, so no, there's no, what was the word you used? Anyway, there's nothing to worry about by removing that description.

Yeah. Police Commissioner Krause. Examples are helpful. So Gilman Village, for example, which only has like little shops and all that, what would that be considered in this land use?

As an actual land use, it's probably retail, but they fall under the mixed use Central Issaquah zone.

It's not in Central Issaquah, go and vote.

It is in Central Issaquah, just barely. Is

it really?

Really? All

right, anything else? We like examples, Kate. Great. Lots of examples. Bring your examples. Pictures, please.

We just have a few slides on the second proposal because we've already taken care of some of the items So, of you may recall, the proposed amendment number two, specifically to clarify the names of the low density and multi family land use and zoning designations to ensure compliance with the state's middle housing requirements. This is really focused on look at all the zones that say single family in it and how they roll up into the land use designations and are they conveying the right message. So why are we doing this? Last year middle housing ordinances came through because the state changed the rules around single family zoning. As one of the many goals of increasing affordable housing supply, increasing the number of housing, the state required all cities to allow middle housing in zones that allow single family uses.

In Issaquah, with the size of city we are, what is allowed in each single family lot is two to four units. You get a middle housing, townhouse, that kind of thing, two units but you could go up to four under certain conditions. Are you close to high capacity transit? Well we don't have any yet in Issaquah. And if one unit is affordable of the four then you can add to a certain income level you can get four units on the lot of middle housing.

The laws also that were passed allowed two ADUs, two accessory dwelling units on each lot with a single family or primary resident resident. So that goes from allowing a single family ADU to two ADUs, so three units per lot. That was the big increase there. So again we were looking at these zones called single family that I'll show you in a minute and doing our analysis by reviewing what's in the code now just to verify, just to share with you. As I mentioned in single family zones we allow middle housing six types, duplex, triplex, fourplex, townhome, single family attached and cottage housing with just a few photos there.

Also wanted to show you this cool map. There's actually a really cool study that was done to support the middle housing code amendments. So there are six single family zones, I remembered that before the presentation, five of which have the name single family in them, right? We have Conservancy Residential, that's one of the largest lots in areas that really are conservation areas that allow just a tiny bit of housing. Then we have single family duplex which is mostly located in Old Town, single family estates, single family suburban which are larger lot, single family probably where critical areas are or maybe lack of utilities.

Also single family small lot and urban village single family. So we have a lot of single family single family when in reality you can do more than single family in these zones. So we took a look at what other cities are doing, tried to get to alignment with what our new proposal for comprehensive plan land use designations were, we came up with this chart and these proposals. So as you'll recall, in terms of land use designation that was low density residential. Since that now allows middle densities we went with just the general residential use or designation.

Of all our existing zones we decided to start with residential in their name and then kind of preserve the existing name in some cases or try to clarify what type of single family it was. So Residential Conservancy, just kind of flip the name a little bit, Residential Estates, Residential Large Lot, those are kind of the, again, larger lot types of areas. And then for the smaller lots we kept basically the small lot but now it's residential small lot. And then we did residential old town instead of residential duplex because of course more than duplexes are allowed in the single family zones. We also were changing urban village single family to residential urban village.

Right now there's these two different zones that are rolled up into one. It's a little bit of a quirk in the code. We had our GIS analyst, who's great, take a look at like where is this zone? Emily didn't know, Kristen didn't know. And we found that we need to remove it because it doesn't exist anymore.

Or no, actually that was a different one. On this one, this one we found was not actually partial but bits of streets in the Highlands where they had a lot and then there's an irregular thing. They just instead of making it a different kind of tract, they created these little zones. So we're gonna come back maybe next year with an idea about how to address this one. But we also found a zone that we're removing which is super exciting.

37, we can get down to 36 and then maybe consolidate a few if they make sense in future years. So that was the last slide on the proposals and the questions, considerations, do you think these new zone names work and should we move forward with drafting policy and code updates in line with the proposals? So go ahead and put that chart back and open the floor.

Excellent, thank you Kate. Would anyone like to comment on comprehensive plan two? Commissioner Holstrom.

Seems logical. Makes sense to me. So, have

to say good work. It's only logical. Okay. Yeah. No, I would agree. Like I said, streamlining is good. Anybody? Commissioner Zakarov.

I would also like to speak in support. Great job and this is super hard to clarify all of this, but yeah. Thank you.

Any further comment? Okay. I think what you have is your commissioner's trust. You guys obviously know your stuff. And again, the idea of just trying to make this streamlined and easier for everybody. Full speed Great.

Cool. Thank you. Just a couple more slides to talk about next steps So, we'll take your comments. We will go ahead and work on drafting specific proposals and we'll be bringing those to you. I will say that in terms of the code amendments and changes to the code, there are a lot of citations that we're gonna have to deal with, so it's gonna take us a while to make sure we cross out single family everywhere where it is in Title 18.

So what's the process looking like? At this point, we'll come back later this spring with those proposals. You will also see other proposed amendments coming through. In the summer for all of the comp plan amendments. We'll have continued review, the public hearing, and then in fall is when we'll go to council for their review and action. Again, you can only amend the conference plan once a year, so we have to these amendments in by the end of the year. So that was it. I didn't know if you had any final questions, but.

Do you guys have everything you need? Yes. Okay, excellent. All right, well thank you, Kate, thank you, Emily, thank you, Kristen. And we're gonna move on to reports and looking at Kristen, do we have any city council or Kate, I'm not sure who's taking this, but city council updates.

I just have one in that next Tuesday, which is May 19, Minnie and I are going to the committee of the whole council and with the goal of taking all of the 17 proposed amendments or our work plan to them, and attached to each one of those, which will help you all, will be a goal for each one of those amendments, and what the council wishes to see the out, you know, what outcomes they wish to see with those. So I think that'll help. We can once those are adopted, we can bring those to you all and remind you each time we go through these amendments, what is the it's kinda like we did with title 18, you may recall that. So what is the goal? What is the outcome? And is this achieving it? So, I think that'll help with our discussions in the future.

Great. May 19? May 19 is when you guys present?

Yes, May 19.

All right. Any other business or announcements?

None. Simple.

Okay. Are there any updates to our calendar? I noticed that our calendar just got, it goes all the way into 2027 now. So, exciting stuff.

Told you it was gonna fill out. We weren't done yet.

Anything to our calendar?

Not right now.

Just busy, busy, which is great. Okay. Anything for the good of the order from our commissioners? All right. Anything from staff? Okay. Well, thank you everyone. And we will adjourn this meeting of the Planning Policy Commission at 07:55PM. Thank you and good night.